As a new administration takes shape, we’re gearing up to cover a very different Washington

The Morning Dispatch

Nov 19, 2024

By Mary Trimble, Grayson Logue, and James P. Sutton

Happy Tuesday! Your TMDers are all willing to step up and take one for the team, but we don’t think any of us are capable of the self-sacrifice it took for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to eat McDonald’s on Donald Trump’s private plane this weekend. “Make America Healthy Again” is off to a great start!

As a new administration takes shape, we’re gearing up to cover a very different Washington—and if you’re looking to get even more out of The Dispatch, we encourage you to check out Dispatch Premium. 

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Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories

Masked men stole at gunpoint the contents of more than 100 trucks carrying humanitarian aid into Gaza on Saturday, according to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). The trucks had entered southern Gaza through the Israeli-controlled Kerem Shalom crossing. “We have been warning a long time ago about the total breakdown of civil order” in southern Gaza, said UNRWA commissioner Phillipe Lazzarine. “It has become an impossible environment to operate in.” 

The U.S. State Department announced Monday that it would impose sanctions on the Israeli Amana settler group, as well as associated individuals and entities, for allegedly helping to perpetrate attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank. “We once again call on the Government of Israel to take action and hold accountable those responsible for or complicit in violence, forced displacement, and the dispossession of private land,” Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Petrov said Monday that President Joe Biden’s decision to allow the Ukrainian armed forces to conduct long-range strikes inside of Russia using American-supplied missile systems was “adding fuel to the fire and provoking further escalation of tensions around this conflict.” While military experts largely agree that the weapons will not radically change the conflict, officials have suggested that the U.S. move was prompted by the deployment of North Korean troops to the front lines in support of Russia. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, asked on Monday at the G20 Summit in Rio de Janeiro if his country would now provide cruise missiles to Ukraine, said that his position against it was unchanged. 

President-elect Donald Trump nominated Brendan Carr for the chairmanship of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Sunday night. Carr, who is the ranking Republican on the FCC, has been a fierce critic of social media companies over free speech and censorship issues. In a post on X after the announcement, Carr said, “We must dismantle the censorship cartel and restore free speech rights for everyday Americans.”

The U.S. budget airline Spirit Airlines said Monday it had filed for bankruptcy. The low-cost carrier, which has lost $2.5 billion since 2020 and faces loan payments of more than $1 billion over the next two years, has struggled to compete with larger carriers and failed in its efforts to merge with Frontier Airlines and JetBlue. 

President Joe Biden requested $98 billion from Congress on Monday to fund relief efforts stemming from recent natural disasters, including Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton. The number is nearly five times the amount Congress allocated to the Federal Emergency Management Agency at the start of fiscal year 2024, but $42 billion of the requested funds would go to other agencies, such as the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Department of Agriculture, and the Environmental Protection Agency.

The White House, local politicians, and leaders of Jewish groups on Monday condemned a neo-Nazi march that took place over the weekend in Columbus, Ohio. A small group of masked individuals carrying Nazi flags and chanting racist slogans marched through the city’s downtown on Saturday. “We will not tolerate hate in Ohio,” said Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, on X. “Neo-Nazis — their faces hidden behind red masks — roamed streets in Columbus today, carrying Nazi flags and spewing vile and racist speech against people of color and Jews.” The march comes days after protesters waved Nazi flags outside of a theater production of The Diary of Anne Frank in Michigan. 

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Horseshoe Theory Meets the Intelligence Community

Tulsi Gabbard, President-elect Donald Trump's nominee for Director of National Intelligence, is seen during the UFC 309 event at Madison Square Garden on November 16, 2024, in New York City. (Photo by Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC)

In March 2019, a Democratic congresswoman running in her party’s presidential primary appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert for a standard candidate interview. Colbert asked Tulsi Gabbard a curious question: “You’ve gotten some fans in the Trump supporter world. David Duke, Steve Bannon, and Matt Gaetz,” Colbert said. “What do you make of how much they like you?”  

“You should ask them,” Gabbard replied, going on to denounce Duke by name. But she didn’t reject the support from Bannon or Gaetz. 

More than five years later, President-elect Donald Trump picked the former Democratic rising star to lead the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). The selection follows Gabbard’s formal exit from the Democratic Party in 2022 and embrace of Trump during the 2024 campaign. But the roots of her transformation have been clear for years: She brings an isolationist outlook and a hostility toward the foreign policy establishment that helped her gain popularity among ...

As a non-paying reader, you are receiving a truncated version of The Morning Dispatch. Our 1,431-word item on Tulsi Gabbard's ODNI nomination is available in the members-only version of TMD.

Worth Your Time

Donald Trump is back, and Europeans are rethinking their relationship to the United States—again. The Atlantic’s McKay Coppins reported on how the continent’s leaders are recalibrating the transatlantic alliance. “In the short term, sources told me, the plan is to cozy up to Trump and those close to him and hope for the best,” he wrote. “In the long term, a growing consensus has emerged that Europe will need to prepare for a world in which it no longer counts on America for protection.” But some leaders are less worried by the Americans than they are for them: “Bruno Maçães, a writer and consultant on geopolitics who has served as Portugal’s Europe minister, told me his phone had been ringing constantly since Trump’s election. … Maçães, like others I talked with, was eager not to be seen as hysterical or fatalistic. He said he didn’t think Trump’s foreign-policy appointments so far have been disastrous. But when he looked at the people Trump was naming to key domestic positions, most notably Matt Gaetz as attorney general, he found it hard to see anything other than a profound deterioration of political culture and democratic norms. ‘Americans have more reason to worry than the rest of the world,’ he said.”

The country is facing yet another labor shortage: this time, among the ranks of Revolutionary War re-enactors. Ken Wells reported for the Wall Street Journal on how many historical costume enthusiasts are seeking to fill their ranks. “The U.S. has some 240 Revolutionary War re-enactor groups representing about 4,500 hobbyists, according to the Brigade of the American Revolution, a Pennsylvania-based umbrella group that tracks membership,” Wells wrote. “By comparison, Civil War re-enactors number about 25,000 to 30,000. During the run-up to the 1976 U.S. bicentennial, as many as 20,000 hobbyists signed up to participate in Revolutionary War re-enacting events, according to the Brigade. … The recruiting slump is all the more pressing as the nation prepares to celebrate its 250th birthday—the U.S. semiquincentennial—on July 4, 2026. While Revolutionary War battles are celebrated and re-enacted every year, many in the re-enactor community were expecting a surge in membership as the 250th anniversaries of key battles and other historic events draw nearer. But so far the community has mostly been disappointed, says James McKane, a Brigade board member.”

Presented Without Comment

New York Times: ‘Morning Joe’ Stars Reveal a Mar-a-Lago Reunion With Trump

“For those asking why we would go speak to the president-elect during such fraught times, especially between us, I guess I would ask back, ‘Why wouldn’t we?’” Ms. Brzezinski told viewers on Monday, disclosing the meeting for the first time. “Joe and I realized it’s time to do something different, and that starts with not only talking about Donald Trump but also talking with him.” 

The meeting, at Mar-a-Lago, was their first in-person encounter in seven years.

In the Zeitgeist 

In the crossover you didn’t know you needed, Martin Scorsese and Fox teamed up for a new series on the lives of the saints. As the great director said: “I didn’t believe it could be done.”

Martin Scorsese Presents: The Saints Official Trailer Streaming Nov. 17th | Fox Nation

Fox Nation

Toeing the Company Line

In the newsletters: Kevin argued (🔒) that the national debt is the biggest threat to national security and Nick explored (🔒) how media is already readjusting to the incoming Trump presidency. 

On the podcasts: Sarah and David discuss the Supreme Court nomination process, last week’s Federalist Society Convention, and the Matt Gaetz AG appointment on Advisory Opinions. 

On the site: Bobby Miller unpacks Vivek Ramaswamy’s “national libertarianism” and Mike reports on Sergio Gor, Trump’s pick to run the Presidential Personnel Office.

 

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