Doing things with words
Indignity Vol. 5, No. 49
DISPLAY COPY DEP'T.
Just Because Trump Said He Fired Someone Doesn't Mean They Got Fired
HERE ARE SOME headlines from major news outlets today:
Two Democratic commissioners fired from FTC (Washington Post)
Trump Fires Democrats on Federal Trade Commission (New York Times)
Trump fires Democratic FTC commissioners (Axios)
Trump fires both Democratic commissioners at FTC (Reuters)
Trump Fires Two Democratic FTC Commissioners (Wall Street Journal)
These all made it sound pretty clear what happened, at a glance: there were two Democratic commissioners on the Federal Trade Commission, and President Donald Trump just fired them. Unfortunately, in a very important way, none of those headlines were true.
At a second glance, the reader might have seen the subheadline on the Times story: "The decision to fire the two Democratic members of the traditionally independent regulatory body is likely to face a legal challenge." That was still not exactly true, but it at least contained useful elements of the truth. The FTC is an independent agency. The president's action is likely to be challenged in court.
What kept it from fully being true was that the Times, in its typical manner, had glossed an unpleasant fact as a story about conflicting points of view. The FTC is not, as timidity compelled the Times to put it, "traditionally independent." It is independent as a settled matter of law. In 1935, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in Humphrey's Executor v. United States that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt did not have the power to fire an FTC commissioner over a policy disagreement. For 90 years, the existence of independent federal agencies has been grounded in, and modeled on, the independence of the FTC.
It is true that Republican-appointed judges have been busily chipping away at Humphrey's Executor lately, and that the Trump-built Supreme Court may very well have planned to overturn the whole system of independent agencies in the near future. But that possibility is a very different proposition from the sitting president declaring that the law currently on the books simply doesn't apply to him.
A constitutional crisis is also a crisis of newswriting, because it is a crisis of knowing. The news assumes a certain set of expectations and understandings between the world and the readers. Within that set of expectations and understandings, on any given day, some particular thing happens: this person who had been an official resigns; a bomb explodes in some previously un-bombed place; a tornado hits a town; Tracy Morgan vomits so much at courtside at Madison Square Garden that the Knicks have to stop the game for 10 minutes.
But if the tornado was possibly not a tornado, and the town may or may not have been a town, and the weather radar showed violent squalls while the anemometer reported still air, what are you going to put in the paper? What if Tracy Morgan was on the opposite coast at the Warriors game? Panic sets in.
Donald Trump did not fire any commissioners from the FTC today. Donald Trump declared that he had fired the commissioners. That is, functionally, he announced a desire that he should have the power to fire FTC commissioners and named the commissioners that he would fire if he were to have that power—a power which he does not, within the bounds of the law and the constitution, possess.
It is hard to fit that into a headline! Yet it is essential for news outlets to find a way. Here is a news story from last week:
Judge orders thousands of federal workers reinstated; slams ‘sham’ government declaration
When the Trump administration sent those workers away from their jobs, the media widely reported that they had been fired. Down in the details, though, what had happened instead was that the workers were told they were fired—told so in an irregular and unpersuasive manner, via generic form letter, accusing them of previously unmentioned performance failures, on the authority of people who had novel and dubious roles, if any, in their chain of command. The actual procedures for how to dismiss federal workers were flatly ignored.
If some stranger shows up at your office and tells you you're fired, have you been fired? If I walk into Trump Tower and throw the security guard a handwritten bill of purchase with a quarter taped to it, have I bought Trump Tower?
This afternoon, a federal judge ruled that Elon Musk's role in shutting down USAID was probably unconstitutional, and that the organization should be returned to its office. Another judge issued an injunction against the Trump administration's declared ban on transgender people in the military, declaring it "highly unlikely that the Military Ban will survive judicial review."
There are many things that the Trump administration wants to do, or asserts that it can do, or claims that it has done—workers it wants to fire, materials it wants to ban, funding it wants to revoke. It says, for instance, that it has canceled $400 million in funding for Columbia University, and the media says it too. But the administration has not used the legal mechanisms for taking that money. It is simply declaring the thing done and hoping everyone goes along.
Practically, factually, the administration has shown the ability to make health clinics shut down or to declare a random person dead and seize their Social Security money. Plenty of the damage it's doing is irrevocable. But still, what Trump is trying to accomplish is a power grab. He is attempting to take action far beyond what the constitution and the law give him the authority to do. The press needs to make sure it doesn't grant him those powers in advance, by reporting his aspirations as if they're the actions themselves.
At the same time, in the opposite direction, the press needs to make sure it doesn't grant the judges more success at stopping him than they're able to enforce. An injunction against the military trans ban is not a guarantee that the administration will leave trans servicemembers alone. There are no agreed-on rules of government now. All there are—all that it's accurate to report on—are battlegrounds.
WEATHER REVIEWS
New York City to Newark, New Jersey, to New York City, March 17, 2025
★★ The clatter of the downpour in the dark kept people pinned in their beds. After the heaviest part of it had gone, out in a morning with light the color of wet ashes, the surface of a murky puddle sunk into the avenue called attention to how deep a pothole of modest diameter went. The air was chilly on the hands and face but the light rain jacket was enough to keep the body warm in the humidity. The backup camera on the rented SUV was bleary with smeared wet grime. A new drizzle started. The water of the Hudson was lost under a heavy, low blanket of fog. The mist revealed a truck stopped in the right lane, its rear flashing in warning to protect a crew shoveling up wet leaves. The curve up out of the Lincoln Tunnel showed Manhattan wreathed in fog, but not so strongly as to cut apart the towers in any interesting or unreal way. Over New Jersey, the clouds were distinct and varied grays, with even a bit of blue among them. Some sparse cherry blossoms were out in the forecourt of the law school. On the return trip, the river was back in view, the rough water a pale, subtle jade. It was time for a warmer jacket, though the keener air still carried another round of blowing drizzle. When it was time to shut the windows against the cold night draft, the clouds were separating and pearly.
EASY LISTENING DEP'T.
HERE IS TODAY'S Indignity Morning Podcast.
Tom Scocca
Click on this box to find the Indignity Morning Podcast archive.
TOM SCOCCA
ADVICE DEP'T.
GOT SOMETHING YOU need to justify to yourself, or to the world at large? Other columnists are here to judge you, but The Sophist is here to tell you why you’re right. Direct your questions to The Sophist, at indignity@indignity.net, and get the answers you want.
SANDWICH RECIPES DEP'T.
WE PRESENT INSTRUCTIONS in aid of the assembly of a sandwich selected from For Luncheon And Supper Guests; Ten Menus, More Than One Hundred Recipes, Suitable For Company Luncheons, Sunday Night Suppers, Afternoon Parties, Automobile Picnics, Evening Spreads, And For Tea Rooms, Lunch Rooms, Coffee Shops, And Motor Inns, by Alice Bradley, Principal of Miss Farmer's School of Cookery, author of The Candy Cook Book and Cooking For Profit, published in 1922, and available at archive.org for the delectation of all.
HOT HAM SANDWICHES
Put
1 pound cooked ham through food chopper.
Add
4 tablespoons creamed butter,
1 teaspoon mustard and
1 teaspoon paprika, and mix well.
Cut
Bread in sixteen 1/4-inch slices, spread eight slices bread with the ham mixture, cover with remaining bread and press slices firmly together. Cut each sandwich in three strips.
Beat
2 eggs slightly
and add
2 cups milk. Dip sandwiches, one at a time, in this mixture, and saute in butter, cooking on one side until browned, and then turning and browning the other side. Serve very hot.
Other meat, or marmalade or jam may be used in sandwiches in place of ham.
If you decide to prepare and attempt to enjoy a sandwich inspired by this offering, be sure to send a picture to indignity@indignity.net.
