The Daly Weekly (3/7)

Pete Hegseth, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Amy Coney Barrett, and more!

Hi everyone.

Welcome to this week’s Daly Weekly, where I answer whatever questions you throw at me.

Let’s get right to it…

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Someone named Logan Hall put this out on X last [Friday] night: "America is not an idea or a country of immigrants or a melting pot for every culture and religion in the world. We are a nation and a people. And we cannot allow the status quo to continue if we want to survive."

Am I wrong or does that sound like a reimagining of our country's origins? For some reason that really pissed me off. — Rick H.

I checked out Hall’s X account before responding to your question, Rick, and it’s pretty clear he just hates the idea of anyone of a foreign origin being in our country, regardless of legality. I’ll let people draw their own conclusions from that.

Now that President Trump has signed an executive order making English the official language of the USA, How do you see that impacting on your day to day life? What ramifications will it have for those who don't speak it as a first language or even at all? When you next order a quesadilla from Taco Bell, will you need to say "little cheese" in English? — FDM

Basically, the executive order lets individual government agencies decide whether to continue offering documents and services in a non-English language. So, I don’t think there will be much of an impact on my own life, though I suppose it could potentially slow down list-waiting or line-waiting situations — like with the DMV. My guess, though, is that those types of agencies would continue offering their non-English services. For those who don't speak English as a first language, their lives may indeed become more difficult.

Lastly, believe it or not, I’ve never eaten at Taco Bell.

Sir John. It’s being reported that Pete Hegseth is pausing U.S. Cyber Security work against Russia! This sounds treasonous on the surface to me! However I know that sounds like a dream come true for left wingers who have claimed that Trump has been colluding with Putin for years! Is this story about Hegseth’s pause against Russia accurate? Or are there some Murky details that are being omitted? —“WTAF!?” Regards from The Emperor

Hi Emperor. Is the story accurate? According to a number of sources, it is (or at least was), but the Pentagon is now denying it. My guess (I could be wrong) is that it was a legit order that has since been rolled back due to the public backlash. Would such an action be treasonous? No, I don’t think so. It would, however, be moronic. And sadly, it would be just one of several totally reckless (and in some cases, evil) capitulations to Vladmir Putin in recent weeks by the Trump administration.

Have Trump’s first six weeks in office been better or worse than you expected? — Alex D.

Worse. And I say that while acknowledging that he’s done some good things (like on the border). I wrote a piece right after the election stating my biggest concerns with Trump 2.0. In summary, they were:

1. Staffing (putting unqualified or unfit people in his cabinet)

2. Tariffs and spending

3. Ukraine (abandoning it)

4. Character issues, and hostility toward the Constitution (going after our founding principles and institutions, and trouncing the rule of law)

All of those concerns have not only turned out to be legitimate, but did so faster, and on a higher level, than I had anticipated.

John, no comments on Trump poking Zelenskyy several times in the arm? He hit him in the arm multiple times. I was gobsmacked. That, to me, was the ultimate insult. I would had poked him right back, but of course I'm a female. That was provocation. What would Putin do if Trump poked him in the arm in a televised high stakes meeting? — Sharon H.

I guess I was more focused on the language and tone, Sharon, than I was the pointing and touching. As I wrote in my piece on the meeting, I think how Zelenskyy was treated was absolutely disgraceful. And it’s wild listening to some folks act as if he were the aggressor in that meeting. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read online about how Zelenskyy 'flipped out,' and was 'throwing a tantrum.' That’s clearly not what happened. Zelenskyy (quite impressively) kept his composure. Trump and Vance did not, and I should add that it was Vance who blew things up, and goaded Trump (who had mostly been behaving himself up until that point) into an aggressive posture.

What do you think of MAGA now going after Amy Coney Barrett, attacking her as a back-stabber and liberal hack? — Ben G.

It’s just more of the same tribal B.S., Ben. She’s a principled conservative judge, and because Trump nominated her, he and his loyalists incorrectly believe her job is to rule in favor of whatever Trump wants. Sometimes her rulings are to Trump’s liking, and sometimes they aren’t. The latter happened the other day, so she’s now a villain in their eyes.

This stuff is exhausting.

John: I recently read a book and a couple of thoughtful articles looking back on COVID policy decisions, which varied wildly by state and nation. In your opinion, what did we in the U.S. do right (vaccines?) and wrong (lockdowns, school closings)? — Steve R.

Now that’s a loaded question, Steve. Lol. I used to write about this topic all the time, but haven’t in quite a while. I’ll start by saying that when the pandemic first began, I was pretty charitable to health and government officials who were, in many ways, blindsided by Covid. That charity lasted probably until the vaccine roll-out, which really was a game-changer.

I’ll try to keep the rest of this answer short (famous last words), while understanding that it will satisfy very few of you.

What the U.S. got right: the vaccines were a huge success and prevented a ton of deaths worldwide (despite claims from the anti-vaxx crowd). I think social-distancing and mask-wearing made sense in the beginning (though I have nuanced thoughts about masks that I’ll share in a second), as part of an effort to mitigate the spread. Mitigation was important because of hospital capacity, hospital staffing, and medical supply concerns.

What we got wrong: Grossly downplaying the danger in the early weeks and months; terrible public communication, including conflicting messages and juvenile behavior at press conferences, flip-flopping on masks (and not differentiating well between which types worked and which didn’t), entirely too much focus on unlikely surface spread (remember all of that diligent hand-washing, and wiping down mail and groceries?) and not clearly and accurately conveying risk levels (outdoor vs. indoor, age, preexisting conditions, etc.); a needlessly slow rollout of Covid tests; lockdowns (including school lockdowns) that lasted too long and weren’t always guided by science; mask-mandates (in some cases); vaccine-mandates (in some cases), etc. And frankly, I think a lot of everyday Americans (on both sides of various points of contention) acted like jackasses during pandemic, and still do on certain pandemic-related issues.

Like I said, this answer won’t satisfy many of you.

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Thanks everyone! You can send me questions for next week by leaving a comment in the comment section.