President Donald Trump gave his first address to a joint session of Congress in five years this week. The Surge watched it in full for a very specific reason: Because it was a requirement of our job, which we need for money, without which we could not purchase the goods and services necessary for human survival. Trump broke the record for the longest such speech in history, clocking in at 1 hour and 40 minutes. To be fair, though, it only felt like 15 hours. You can read this for some of our broader thoughts about Trump’s presentation of his early accomplishments versus his administration’s true impact. But let’s run through a few of the other important things he said that, in another world, would be full news cycles of their own. He said that Congress should repeal the CHIPS and Science Act, a major bill from the Biden administration that plenty of Republicans support. He jokingly(?) said that Secretary of State Marco Rubio would be to blame if the U.S. did not take control of the Panama Canal. He blamed the skyrocketing price of eggs on Joe Biden. He said there may be an “adjustment period” for his tariff policy. He said that he and RFK Jr. would look into the connection between vaccines and autism. (They are.) He would create a White House office of shipbuilding. He said the U.S. would “get” Greenland “one way or the other.” He said he would balance the budget. He said … he said … he said …

In the speech, Trump spoke at length about Elon Musk’s efforts at the Department of Government Efficiency, mostly by citing context-free or outright debunked instances of what he believed to be wasteful spending. The presentation seemed on the defensive side, as if DOGE’s public image needed a bit of shoring up. Later in the week, we saw some of the first indications that any sort of leash is being placed on Musk. He met with both House and Senate Republicans on the Hill this week and promised better communication—including giving out his phone number to them—on his cutting efforts, which are getting on members’ nerves. (Not that they’d ever say so in public, as they are scared of him.) More dramatically, though, Trump called a hasty midweek Cabinet meeting to resolve tensions with Musk. As the New York Times reported, Musk and Marco Rubio got into it, with Musk insulting Rubio as merely “good on TV,” and Rubio asking Musk whether he wanted him to rehire people just so Musk could make a show of firing them again. Similar exchanges were had with Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy (Trump insisted he wanted Duffy to hire air traffic controllers from MIT—good luck!) and Secretary of Veterans Affairs Doug Collins. In the end, Trump announced that it was his Cabinet officials who were in charge of staffing at their agencies, and not Musk. And with that, the tensions were solved permanently and will never arise again, and everyone loves each other.

Let us be clear: There was no way in which Democrats would come out of Trump’s address to Congress not looking like nincompoops. That’s not just because the country is predisposed right now to believing that Democrats are terrible losers. The structure of these addresses ensures that the minority party comes across as either spineless or obnoxious. The choice is theirs, and House Democrats had some testy intracaucus disputes about how to approach the evening. While House Democratic leaders implored their members not to make their behavior the story, it only takes one guy with a martyr complex to upend that. Not long after Trump’s speech began, Rep. Al Green stood up, shook his cane at Trump, and repeatedly shouted that Trump had no mandate to cut Medicaid. (He’s not wrong!) Green was escorted from the chamber and censured by the House a couple of days later, an outcome that works for both House Republicans and Al Green. Other Democratic protests involved walking out of the speech, or holding up little protest signs that might have well said “hit me.” While some Democrats were furious with the protests and others thought the protests were not nearly good enough, the Surge has good news for all of them: None of this will be remembered in a few days.

Say what you will about Vance, but it’s undeniable that he’s quickly made an impact as vice president. Second only to his boss, no American leader has done more to shatter the transatlantic alliance than Vance. This began with his scolding of European leaders at the Munich Security Conference in February, where he was most excited to spend time with the leader of the German far right. It continued at last week’s Oval Office blowup with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, where Vance lit the match. And this week, in an interview with Sean Hannity, Vance was describing how the would-be minerals deal between the U.S. and Ukraine was Ukraine’s best guarantee of security. “That is a way better security guarantee,” he said, “than 20,000 troops from some random country that hasn’t fought a war in 30 or 40 years.” And France and Britain, who’ve suggested coordinating a 30,000-troop peacekeeping force for Ukraine, took that personally. The British press, including Rupert Murdoch–owned papers, tore Vance apart. Even Nigel Farage, a right-wing British politician and friend of Trump’s, denounced the comment. Vance called the criticism “absurdly dishonest” and noted that he didn’t even mention Britain or France; he added, however, that “there are many countries who are volunteering (privately or publicly) support who have neither the battlefield experience nor the military equipment to do anything meaningful.” What if—maybe just for a week—maybe this next week?—Vance tried to act a little bit like the No. 2 American statesman and less like the character “J.D. Vance” from social media? Just as an experiment. 

This week, the president went ahead with the 25 percent blanket tariffs on Mexico and Canada that were first supposed to be implemented on Day 1, and then again at the beginning of February, and finally, at the beginning of March. Stock markets tanked, Trump made enemies of the United States’ two neighbors, consumer and business confidence shot down while inflation expectations shot up, and still, no one could explain what purpose Trump was trying to serve. These tariffs lasted all of about a day before Trump began taking them down, piece by piece. We learn about each new change in a peculiar way: Trump’s commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, goes on some TV show (any will do) and starts running his mouth about what he thinks the president will do next. We get a kick of this guy; he has the aura of someone who’s repeatedly been escorted out of the New York Knicks practice facility for giving tips to the players. On Wednesday morning, Lutnick went on Bloomberg to talk about how the Big Three U.S. automakers might get an exemption from the tariffs for a month; that change was announced later in the afternoon. In another interview on Fox, Lutnick said Trump had spoken with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. “I think he’s leaning towards coming up with an idea,” Lutnick said of Trump, that would exempt USMCA-compliant goods from Canada and Mexico from the tariffs until the beginning of April. That was announced on Thursday. We feel a little bit of pity for the Luttster, and anyone else who has to communicate the latest chemical reaction in the president’s brain to the broader global economy. They have to explain that it is both normal and economically good that the president is determining American trade policy on a monthly basis, and then tinkering with it on an hourly basis, as a means of amusing himself.

We hope you all enjoyed the opportunities to speak with your Republican member of Congress in person over the past six weeks, because that’s all over now. After a wave of packed, angry sessions with GOP members went viral, the chair of House Republicans’ campaign arm, Rep. Richard Hudson, has told members to stop holding in-person town halls. He urged them instead to do tele–town halls, where the questions can be moderated and the atmosphere more levelheaded. The argument, which Speaker Mike Johnson agreed with, is that these town halls are being hijacked by Democratic activists organized by pressure groups like Indivisible and MoveOn. No doubt, there is organization from liberal groups behind some of these town hall scenes—but people still need to be angry enough to show up to them. In 2009, when this ritual of mass town hall disruptions really kicked into gear during the Affordable Care Act debate, Democrats would dismiss the protests as “Astroturf” efforts orchestrated by big donors, rather than real grassroots anger. In 2017, Republicans said the same of Democratic protests during the attempted repeal of Obamacare. In both cases, the governing party got its ass handed to it in the next midterm election. So, sure: Take the town halls to Zoom. If you hide the angry people, maybe they’ll disappear. Is that how this works?

The interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, “Eagle” Ed Martin, continues to be out of control as he awaits confirmation to take the job for good. We have two incidents of note this week. First, Martin had pushed the Justice Department to empanel a grand jury to hear evidence against Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer for warning Supreme Court justices that they would “pay the price” in 2020, as if that amounted to criminal threats. The Justice Department refused to do so, and the statute of limitations for Schumer expired on Tuesday, so there’s no need for him to flee to Mexico after all. In a more chilling episode, it was revealed this week that Martin had written the dean of Georgetown Law School—a private institution—telling him that he had opened an “inquiry” into whether DEI was in the school’s curriculum, calling it “unacceptable.” He warned that no Georgetown student would be considered for a job or internship in his office. It was an absurd letter, and potentially one that invites an easy lawsuit. (The dean, for good measure, wrote Martin back and, in a polite clergyman’s tone, instructed Martin to go fuck himself.) While we would never go so far as to predict that the Senate might not confirm Martin—we’ve seen too much—this is setting up to be the most explosive confirmation hearing on the calendar.