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One of the key predecessors of the modern Republican Party was the Know Nothing Party, so called because of its secrecy. When asked about the organization, members would reputedly reply, “I know nothing.”
The Donald Trump–era GOP shares some things with its 19th-century ancestor: populist politics, xenophobia, and staunch opposition to immigration. And like their forebears, many current Republican officials profess to know nothing. But whether they are also equivocating or simply unaware is not clear.
Yesterday on Capitol Hill, Senator Dick Durbin quizzed Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on cuts to research on amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, reading off a list of terminated employees and grants.
“I do not know about any cuts to ALS research, and I’m happy to—” Kennedy started.
“I just read them to you!” a frustrated Durbin interrupted.
“I will have to go and talk to Jay Bhattacharya,” Kennedy said, referring to the head of the National Institutes of Health. If Kennedy wasn’t selected for his medical expertise—“I don’t think people should be taking medical advice from me,” he said last week—and he also doesn’t have the administrative capacity to track what’s going on in his department, one wonders why Kennedy is leading HHS.
In a different Senate hearing yesterday, on the confirmation of former Representative Billy Long to lead the IRS, Senator Elizabeth Warren asked the nominee whether it’s legal for the president to direct the IRS to revoke an organization’s nonprofit status. Warren said she’d raised the question with Long during a meeting three weeks ago, at which time Long had said he needed to consult with lawyers. Now Warren wanted to circle back. Yet even with time to check and the statute’s language in front of him, Long deflected: “I’m not able to answer the question.” (Somehow, this was not the most cringe exchange in Long’s hearing.)
Later in the day, in Boston, Justice Department lawyers were struggling to answer questions from federal judge Brian E. Murphy, who hurriedly convened a hearing after claims by lawyers that the administration put several people, including a Vietnamese man, aboard a plane for deportation to war-ravaged South Sudan, in possible defiance of a judicial order.
“Where is the plane?” Murphy asked, according to The New York Times.
“I’m told that that information is classified, and I am told that the final destination is also classified,” a DOJ lawyer said. Murphy wanted to know under what authority the government was classifying the flight’s location. The attorney replied—you guessed it—“I don’t have the answer to that.” (The plane landed in Djibouti this morning, according to the Times. Murphy said today that the flight “unquestionably” violated his order.)
Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, in yet another Senate hearing, might have been better off pleading ignorance. Instead, she confidently and incorrectly told Senator Maggie Hassan that “habeas corpus is a constitutional right that the president has to be able to remove people from this country.” Though she thought she knew, she didn’t know either.
In their unawareness, these officials are taking their lead from the president. Trump once promised, “I alone can fix it,” but now he has a different message: I have no idea.
Is the administration deporting people to Libya? “I don’t know. You’ll have to ask Homeland Security.”
Why did Trump choose Casey Means to be surgeon general, even though she didn’t finish her medical residency? “Bobby [Kennedy] really thought she was great. I don’t know her.”
Why did Trump’s Truth Social account post an image of him dressed as the pope, ahead of the conclave? “That’s not me that did it. I have no idea where it came from—maybe it was AI. But I know nothing about it.”
Had Trump been briefed on U.S. soldiers missing during an exercise in Lithuania? “No, I haven’t.”
Would Trump direct his administration to provide any evidence that the graduate student Rümeysa Öztürk, who was snatched off the street by plainclothes ICE officers, was connected to Hamas? “I’ll look into it, but I’m not aware of the particular event.” (Ultimately, the DOJ failed to produce any convincing evidence, and a judge ordered Öztürk’s release.)
Why did Trump sign a proclamation authorizing his administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelan migrants? “I don’t know when it was signed, because I didn’t sign it. Other people handled it.” (Trump did, in fact, sign it.)
Given this pattern, it’s little surprise that when NBC’s Kristen Welker asked Trump, “Don’t you need to uphold the Constitution of the United States as president?” he had a less-than-reassuring answer: “I don’t know.”
Some of this disengagement stems from Trump’s tendency to approach the presidency not as an executive but rather as a pundit. He’d prefer to watch from the sidelines and comment than actually get into the messy work of governance. Like a witness conspicuously unable to recall things, Trump and his aides may also sometimes find it easier to claim they don’t know what’s happening than to accept responsibility.
Trump’s first administration was dysfunctional and ineffective, in part because of Trump’s detachment and inattention. So far, his second term has been much more effective. Because Trump doesn’t appear to have experienced any radical transformation, that’s more likely a factor of the people who are now working in his administration—though not, apparently, Kennedy or Noem.
Trump and his allies have questioned who was really in charge from 2021 to 2025 if President Joe Biden was struggling to manage the presidency. The president’s professed unawareness of what’s going on inside his administration raises the same question about his White House. Who, exactly, does know what’s going on?
Related:
Here are three new stories from The Atlantic:
- The decline and fall of Elon Musk
- An awkward truth about American work
- The David Frum Show: Trump’s national-security disaster
Today’s News
- President Donald Trump, who met with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in the Oval Office, confronted Ramaphosa about the treatment of white Afrikaners in the country.
- The Trump administration formally accepted a Boeing 747 jet gifted by the government of Qatar.
- The European Union and Britain announced new sanctions on Russia yesterday, a day after Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin had a call to discuss the war in Ukraine.
Evening Read
America’s Johnson & Johnson Problem
By Adam M. Lowenstein
For generations, J&J was best known for Johnson’s Baby Powder, a product that the company promoted as a symbol of its trustworthiness. “The association of the Johnson’s name with both the mother infant bond and mother’s touch as she uses the baby products is known as Johnson & Johnson’s Golden Egg,” a 2008 company presentation asserted. “This association is one of the company’s most precious assets.”
In No More Tears, Harris argues that the “halo” from this “Golden Egg” helped obscure a different side of Johnson & Johnson: a sprawling conglomerate that has acted brazenly, sometimes even illegally, in the pursuit of profit.
More From The Atlantic
- What AI thinks it knows about you
- What Trump got right in the Middle East
- The fraught relationship between a pope and his home
- The egregious reinstatement of Pete Rose
- Modi’s escalation trap
Culture Break
Believe it or not. Manvir Singh’s new book, Shamanism: The Timeless Religion, explores how visionary healers became a fixture of contemporary American culture and politics.
Read. “Skin a Rabbit,” a short story by Honor Jones:
“A whoop and a stampede—the boys were running by. They must have spotted Biddy.”
Stephanie Bai contributed to this newsletter.
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