One of the best things about Trump is that he presents the state as it ought to be presented. When he speaks, he sounds like a mafia boss ordering a hit, which is exactly how the state ought to be portrayed. The chattering class/wine and cheese crowd crapola about Trump bringing a lack of dignity to the presidency is dead wrong. The state is the mafia writ large. The Trump administration somewhat resembles what a John Gotti administration might have been like. Refreshing.

By Seung Min Kim, Josh Dawsey, and Brady Dennis

President Trump’s inaccurate assertion that he has “total” authority to reopen a nation shuttered by the coronavirus is igniting a fresh challenge from governors scrambling to manage their states and highlighting a Republican Party reluctant to defy a president who has relished pushing the boundaries of executive power.

The president’s claim, first conveyed in a tweet Monday morning and underscored at a White House news conference and subsequent social media posts, caught his aides off guard and prompted them to study whether Trump would have such authority in a time of emergency like the ongoing pandemic.

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