The Trouble With Taking Trump Seriously But Not Literally

What works well during a campaign works horribly during a presidency.

Photo by Randy Tarampi on Unsplash

For nine years, the hard-working staff here at Drezner’s World has heard conservative pundits explain that the key to understanding Donald Trump’s political style is to take him seriously but not literally. And to be sure, a lot of Donald Trump’s supporters fall into the “take him seriously but not literally” camp. As I noted during the 2024 campaign, there are real problems with that approach, but I certainly understand how folks might view Trump — particularly campaign-mode Trump — as someone whose words did not need to be parsed all that carefully.

Here’s the thing, though: to paraphrase Mario Cuomo, you can campaign seriously but you have to govern literally. And the first week of Trump 2.0 highlights the problems when an entire administration fails to make this particular pivot.

Consider Monday’s OMB memo announcing a “Temporary Pause of Agency Grant, Loan, and Other Financial Assistance Programs,” which contains the most batshit insane first paragraph I have ever seen on a government document:

The American people elected Donald J. Trump to be President of the United States and gave him a mandate to increase the impact of every federal taxpayer dollar. In Fiscal Year 2024, of the nearly $10 trillion that the Federal Government spent, more than $3 trillion was Federal financial assistance, such as grants and loans. Career and political appointees in the Executive Branch have a duty to align Federal spending and action with the will of the American people as expressed through Presidential priorities. Financial assistance should be dedicated to advancing Administration priorities, focusing taxpayer dollars to advance a stronger and safer America, eliminating the financial burden of inflation for citizens, unleashing American energy and manufacturing, ending “wokeness” and the weaponization of government, promoting efficiency in government, and Making America Healthy Again. The use of Federal resources to advance Marxist equity, transgenderism, and green new deal social engineering policies is a waste of taxpayer dollars that does not improve the day-to-day lives of those we serve.

Needless to say, almost everything after “The American people elected Donald J. Trump to be President of the United States” is either factually or legally incorrect. Taken literally, it is a tsunami of bullshit.

Nonetheless, the OMB memo went on to instruct federal agencies to, “temporarily pause all activities related to obligation or disbursement of all Federal financial assistance, and other relevant agency activities that may be implicated by [Trump’s] executive orders, including, but not limited to, financial assistance for foreign aid, nongovernmental organizations, DEI, woke gender ideology, and the green new deal.”

In a world where bureaucracies could take guidance like this and implement it seriously but not literally, the outcome might have been a suspension of foreign aid, DEI programs, transgender-related disbursements, and green energy initiatives. This would still be catastrophic — freezing PEPFAR, for example, is galactically stupid¹ — but roughly consistent with what Trump ranted about during the campaign.

Of course, government bureaucracies cannot do “seriously but not literally” because bureaucracy is all about the literal. Indeed, I’m pretty sure Republicans are hostile to the idea of bureaucrats interpreting what they can and cannot do! Government agencies need crystal-clear, literal guidance. “Seriously but not literally” does not cut it as a governing mantra. Everything needs to be spelled out in writing. Orders need to be clear; directives need to be detailed and thought out. Otherwise, there is chaos.

Given the piss-poor drafting of this particular OMB memo, of course, all hell broke loose. Here’s Politico’s write-up:

The order could produce particular pain for the states, local governments and companies counting on many billions of dollars in grants and loans already agreed to by federal agencies, while disrupting programs that benefit households throughout the country. Democrats warn that potential targets include the country’s most expensive transportation initiative — the $16 billion Gateway rail and tunnel project connecting New York and New Jersey — as well as myriad programs to prevent fire, combat drought and research the causes of disease.

People in the mortgage, tech, broadband and health industries also sounded the alarm….

Even some Republicans expressed confusion.

“We need to understand what the memo means, and then we’ll know if it’s overbroad or not, but it appears that way,” Sen. John Boozman (R-Ark.) told POLITICO, adding that Republicans are communicating their concerns to the White House.

Boozman said he is hearing from constituents about the uncertainty and need for clarification, because the memo is “pretty broadly written.”

North Dakota Republican Sen. Kevin Cramer predicted the action will surely be challenged in court — which itself would provide a major test for President Donald Trump’s powers. Cramer acknowledged Tuesday that an all-encompassing freeze on grant programs and appropriations “can’t long endure.”

Here’s the New York Times’ writeup:

The Trump administration’s order to freeze trillions of dollars in federal grants and loans prompted confusion across state capitols and local government offices on Tuesday, leaving them at a loss on how to even calculate its impact….

For much of Tuesday, the lack of detail in the brief memo issued by the White House budget office a day earlier had left local budget offices and elected officials unable to even describe what immediate effect it would have. In Oklahoma, a spokesman for the mayor of Oklahoma City declined to comment, citing the need for greater clarity on what the order actually entailed….

Even Gov. Jeff Landry of Louisiana, a hard-line conservative Republican and prominent Trump ally, signaled concern about the abrupt freeze, reflecting the extent of the sudden challenge to states.

In a joint statement with top Louisiana officials, Governor Landry asked the Trump administration “to develop a responsible runway to untangle us from any unnecessary and egregious policies without jeopardizing the financial stability of the state.”….

Even as Governor Abbott applauded the president’s order, other officials in Texas were racing to get a handle on all the ways in which federal dollars flowed into local government services, and which of those dollars would be potentially cut off.

And here’s the Washington Post’s coverage:

Hours after the Trump administration announced a sweeping freeze on federal spending, the U.S. government on Tuesday found itself mired in confusion and chaos, as officials around the country braced for potential interruptions to programs that promote food safety, combat crime, provide housing aid, produce medical research and respond to natural disasters.

Few in Washington appeared to understand the scope and intention of a White House memo that directed agencies to “temporarily pause” the disbursement of key funds, leaving thousands of government services — totaling billions of dollars and dedicated primarily to Americans’ health, safety and well-being — at risk of shutting down, at least temporarily.

The uncertainty forced the White House to clarify its approach by midday: In a new directive, the Office of Management and Budget said it sought only to bring spending in line with the president’s recent executive orders, including those that clamp down on foreign aid and funding for diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, which Trump has called “radical and wasteful.”

But the conflicting and muddled instructions still proved disruptive, imperiling a broad swath of federal services even before the freeze was supposed to take effect at 5 p.m. Tuesday.

It is not surprising that private-sector, nonprofit-sector, and public sector actors filed lawsuits to block this executive order. It is even more unsurprising that a DC district court judge temporarily blocked the order.

The White House and its co-partisans are tried to backfill and claim that everyone overreacted and should have understood what the president really, truly meant. But that dog won’t hunt. As the Manhattan Institute’s Brian Riedl — a pretty conservative dude — concluded, “the blame here lies entirely with the White House for releasing a terribly-written memo that did not include most of the guardrails they are now rushing to add as part of their next-day damage control. Perhaps the White House should try to get it right the first time.”

This is what happens when MAGA tries to govern seriously but not literally. And based on what is coming down the pike, there will be many, many, many more examples of this in the months and years to come.

If the Trump administration isn’t careful, they are going to blow their political inheritance and destroy the confidence of the American people. If they persist with “seriously but not literally” as a mode of governance, things will get real ugly real fast.

1. So stupid that it appears the State Department issued a humanitarian waiver, though it also seems rather unclear. Don’t forget that some conservatives really, really want to kill PEPFAR