At Home And Abroad December 8, 2025December 8, 2025 AT HOME How Trump Destroyed The Economy In 10 Months (6 minutes). ABROAD Charlie Sykes on Trump’s National Security Strategy of the United States of America: We’ll get to [that] in a moment, but let’s catch up first: (Editor’s note: None of these stories are parodies.) Trump’s birthday added to list of free days at national parks; MLK Day, Juneteenth removed ICE launches horrifying ‘you’re going ho-ho-home’ Christmas deportation campaign Mom of Karoline Leavitt’s nephew rejects White House narrative of her ICE arrest “Immigrants kept from Faneuil Hall citizenship ceremony as feds crackdown nationwide” He continues: The new National Security Strategy is a foreign policy disaster. As Anne Applebaum notes, “[It] is a propaganda document, designed to be widely read. It is also a performative suicide. Hard to think of another great power ever abdicating its influence so quickly and so publicly.” The document is not merely a full-throated rejection of the foreign policy vision of GOP presidents like Ronald Reagan; it is a rejection of the policy vision of Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Nixon, Ford, Bush, and actually every president since WWII. Even so, I’m glad they published it. Because now we have a concrete basis for debating and confronting what’s right in front of us. Republicans would prefer to deflect or rationalize what Trump is doing to America’s place in the world. Now they have to defend it. Critics need not speculate or hypothesize. It’s right there in writing. Not surprisingly, the Russians are thrilled. And, why not? It gives them everything they could possibly have dreamed of when they embraced Donald Trump and boosted his candidacy. Support the opposition party. Adequate funding for infrastructure is not sufficient to assure victory — but it is absolutely necessary. This year winter: infrastructure. Next summer: candidates. RECOMMENDATION Last month, I told you about The Running Ground — though I am not a runner. Loved it. Now I’m telling you about It’s Only Drowning — though I have never surfed. So good! BONUS Trump’s own home mortgage fraud. At least as bad as Lisa Cook’s — so should they both be fired?