Charlie Sykes: “Maybe we missed the exact moment it happened. But last week, it was obvious that we have long since passed the tipping point. We’re not slouching toward it, or waiting for some imaginary redline to be crossed. After years of warning about threats to democracy, the rule of law, norms, corruption, toxic narcissism, it was all right there. Live in the Oval Office…”

“Last week, Trump imposed trillions of dollars in tariffs, suspended them, and exempted companies who paid him tribute, all without any input from a Congress that surrendered its powers to him with barely a whimper.”

“Indeed, that’s the point. There is no process. No strategy. No check. No balance. Just the arbitrary whimsy and malice of the one man, who knows that he can never be held accountable for the shit storm he has unleashed on the markets and the constitutional order.”

Franklin Foer: “Law partners and university presidents like to talk their way out of problems, and they apparently believe that they can ultimately evade the fate that befalls those who resist Trump. They assume that he merely craves gestures of submission—and that once obeisance has been paid, he will move on to his next target.”

“That, however, underestimates the social revolution that the Trump administration is trying to unleash. Its goal isn’t just to shatter a few institutions. It intends to crush the power and authority of whole professions, to severely weaken, if not purge, a social class.”

“The target of the administration’s campaign is a stratum of society that’s sometimes called the professional managerial class, or the PMC, although there’s not one universal moniker that MAGA applies to the group it is now crushing. That group includes society’s knowledge workers, its cognitive elite, the winners of the tournament that is the American meritocracy. It covers not only lawyers, university administrators, and professors, but also consultants, investment bankers, scientists, journalists, and other white-collar workers who have prospered in the information age.”

Wall Street Journal: “Trump’s personal lawyer Boris Epshteyn, who has been indicted in Arizona on charges related to Trump’s 2020 election loss, has emerged as the face of the Trump administration’s campaign against large law firms that it views as hostile to the president and his causes…”

“In a series of meetings and phone calls, Epshteyn has extracted large commitments of pro bono work for Trump-supported causes and changes to the law firms’ hiring practices to Trump’s preferences.”

Epshteyn doesn’t work for the federal government, so it seems he is negotiating for Trump personally.