What the Heck Happened to the Border Bill, or Why Rage and Anger is a Terrible Governing Strategy
PLUS: A review of "Mr. & Mrs. Smith" starring Donald Glover and Maya Erskine
I know, I know, the average voter is not interested in the inside baseball of American politics. They’re just interested in results: What laws get passed, what problems do or don’t get solved, whether things get better or not. The answers to those questions often leave Americans quite frustrated with Congress.
But sometimes it’s essential to pay attention to that inside baseball game, particularly when it comes to why a law didn’t get passed or why a problem didn’t get solved. The finger pointing and spinning that occurs after government fails to act often obscures the facts behind what really happened and why, making it difficult to hold the right politicians accountable for a failure of government.
For this reason, it is important to understand the extraordinary events that occurred last week in Congress, when Republicans scuttled a border bill based almost exclusively on Republican policy priorities. That bill was designed to address an issue—immigration—many voters identify as one of the most important issues facing the nation. And the reason Republicans (at the urging of Donald Trump) tanked that bill is because they want the problem it aims to fix—the unprecedented number of migrants crossing the United States’ border with Mexico—to fester through the 2024 election so Joe Biden and the Democratic Party get blamed for it.
To repeat: Republicans tanked a conservative bill addressing a popular GOP policy priority because Republicans want to continue expressing outrage about and blaming Biden for the problem said bill was designed to solve.
Republicans don’t want to fix the border crisis.
Republicans want to perpetuate the border crisis for their own political purposes.
Here’s what happened.
This drama begins with the dispute over additional Ukraine funding. Biden and the Democrats want to continue supporting Ukraine’s war against Russia. By most accounts, a fair chunk of congressional Republicans want to as well. Trump, however, has a soft spot for Vladimir Putin and a disdain for NATO, so he’s been critical of plans to provide Ukraine with more aid. That position has seeped into the views of Republican voters, which has made it perilous for Republican legislators to support Ukrainian aid packages.
The way Biden and congressional leaders attempted to solve this problem was by pairing funding for Ukraine with funding for Israel and Taiwan, which is less controversial. In assembling that foreign aid package, however, they made a mistake by sweetening it further with some border provisions. The hope was the border provisions would provide some additional cover for Republican legislators who expected to catch heat for supporting a bill detractors would say did more for the security of other nations than it did for the United States. It’s good politics, right? Biden offers a good will concession to make it easier for his political opponents to get to yes and to let them know he’s not trying to burn them on what could be a tough vote.
Instead, Republicans seized on the inclusion of the border provisions to reopen negotiations over a comprehensive border package. Furthermore, as Republicans are wont to do, they basically took a bill they wanted to pass hostage by demanding Democrats accept their version of a border bill. As Republicans repeated on TV and social media, if Biden and the Democrats wanted to spend billions on the security of other nations, they’d have to accept the GOP’s plan for securing the southern border.
(For the record, this wasn’t a scheme foisted upon Republicans by right-wing agitators like Matt Gaetz or Marjorie Taylor Greene. The whole party got on board with it. As Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, a staunch supporter of Ukraine and Israel, posted on X, “Dems want $106B—GOP wants a closed border. That’s the trade. But clueless Dems want to negotiate the border bill. Not going to happen.” And Romney reminded people this was a mess of Biden’s own making during a December appearance on Meet the Press: “And ultimately, don’t forget the President was the one that put the border and the border security issue as part of this package. This is not a Republican issue. He brought it to the front, and that’s why we’re dealing with it.” This is important to remember because it shows how even “reasonable” Republicans like Romney keep getting drawn into their party’s reckless brand of politics.)
Biden was in a helluva pinch. He clearly believes supporting Ukraine is a vital national security concern and does not want to abandon them. Knowing there were majorities in both houses for the foreign aid package, he could have called Republicans’ bluff and demanded an up-or-down vote on Ukraine-Israel-Taiwan funding, but it would have been easy for increasingly isolationist Republicans to walk away from that vote or for the Republican-led House to not even schedule a vote on it. That would have left Democrats with no Ukraine funding and a border problem they refused to address. So Biden had to go to the negotiating table with a weak hand.
The resulting bipartisan bill was basically the fulfillment of a Republican wish list. Note that the resulting legislation was not like past comprehensive immigration bills. It did not feature provisions Democrats have long called for like the DREAM Act or pathways to citizenship. No, this bill was a conservative border bill focused almost exclusively on matters of border security. There may not have been funding for Trump’s 1,900-mile border wall, but it was composed almost entirely of items Republicans, including Trump, have long demanded:
Authority for the president to “shut down” the asylum system if border crossings exceed a certain threshold.
A more strict and swifter asylum-processing system that would prevent asylum-seekers from staying in the United States for years as their cases are adjudicated.
Increased border security features.
More than 2,500 more Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
Additional funding for fentanyl detection and other anti-trafficking measures.
Democrats did manage to get a provision that would provide legal counsel to unaccompanied minors seeking asylum into the bill, but that’s about it. It may not be everything Republicans wanted, but it’s a whole awful lot of what Republicans wanted. It’s also probably the best deal Republicans could reasonably get: Even if Trump won in 2024 and Republicans took control of both houses of Congress, Republicans wouldn’t be able to get a similar bill past a Democratic filibuster in the Senate without watering it down or incorporating Democratic priorities. In the year 2024, Biden and the Democrats—worried voters would hold them responsible for the record number of migrants crossing the border—were willing to give Republicans nearly everything they desired.
Amazingly, that turned out to be the problem for Republicans. If the border bill worked as Republicans intended, there would no longer be a crisis at the southern border. That would take the GOP’s most potent campaign issue off the table and deprive Trump of the talking point that has defined his career in electoral politics. It also would have allowed Biden to claim he solved the problem Trump promised but failed to fix.
So what did Republicans do to a border bill that they insisted on including in the foreign aid package, that they basically wrote, that is focused almost exclusively on their long-standing policy demands, that would have achieved one of their long-standing policy goals, that would have met the approval not only a majority of the American people but the vast majority of their own party-members?
They killed it.
For his part, Trump did everything he could to sabotage the bill, and he did so for explicitly political reasons. “This Bill is a great gift to the Democrats,” he posted on X, “and a Death Wish for The Republican Party.” Republican members of Congress took the cue. As Republican Rep. Troy Nehls of Texas said when explaining why he wasn’t inclined to vote for the bill, “Let me tell you, I’m not willing to do too damn much right now to help a Democrat and to help Joe Biden’s approval rating.” When the bill came up for a vote in the Senate this past week, Republicans used the filibuster to shoot it down. (4 Republicans, 43 Democrats, and 2 independents voted for it, while 44 Republicans, 5 Democrats, and 1 independent voted against it.) Speaker Mike Johnson had already declared the bill “dead on arrival” in the House.
Mitt Romney—who would kick any football held by Lucy Van Pelt, who spends $5,000 per week on security to protect himself from people who can only be members of his own party—said, “the fact that [Trump] would communicate to Republican senators and congresspeople that he doesn’t want us to solve the border problem because he wants to blame Biden for it is … really appalling.” After all this time, did Romney expect better from Trump and his fellow Republicans? To quote Taylor, “You play stupid games, you win stupid prizes.”
It's really an amazing turn of events. Polls have shown the American people trust Republicans far more than Democrats when it comes to immigration and border issues. But when Democrats caved and agreed to support the Republican border plan, Republicans chose to reject that plan. It turns out the Democrats are the only party that takes border security seriously. Will the American people see it that way? Biden and the Democrats are determined to make Republicans own the problem heading into the 2024 election.
Republicans have conjured up all sorts of reasons for opposing the bill, none of which hold much water. They’ve lied about its contents by claiming it’s a liberal bill, which it most definitely is not. Some have insisted they can get a better deal under Trump, which no less a legislative authority than Mitch McConnell has said would not happen. A few have said we shouldn’t expect any major legislation in an election year, but even if that sort of timing makes it harder to pass a bill, remember that didn’t keep Bill Clinton, Newt Gingrich, and Bob Dole from figuring out welfare reform in 1996. Others claim a bill isn’t even needed and that Biden can just fix the border through executive action, which is just plain weird since a.) Republicans have long wanted to pass a border bill (see H.R.2) to deal with these issues and have regarded a bill as a way to force Biden to deal with the border; b.) Nearly all of Trump’s executive actions concerning the border were overturned in court, revealing the necessity of legislation to both legislators and Trump himself; and c.) It kind of destroys the logic behind electing Republicans to Congress since they apparently don’t have the power to fix the thing everyone who voted for them wants fixed.
Now I know some will say Democrats are playing politics with the legislation, too. After all, Democrats don’t really want this legislation to pass, do they? (Full disclosure: It’s certainly not a bill I would want to see become law.) Aren’t Democrats just supporting it because they know Republicans will reject it if Democrats support it?
Seriously, people.
Yes, some Democrats would have switched their votes to no if Republicans had come out in support of their own border bill, but Democrats still would have supplied enough votes to get it through the Senate. Biden would have signed it, too, once it passed the House. Plus, if Democrats didn’t want the bill to pass, they could have just had Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer tank it; instead, they put it up for a vote knowing their support for it could alienate their own liberal base. Finally, isn’t the Democrats’ willingness to support a conservative border bill a sign they are open to working with Republicans and listening to the demands of the American people? Since when are compromise and democratic responsiveness undesirable political traits? If Democrats are playing politics here, it’s only because Republicans are letting Democrats dunk on them.
I guess one way you could describe this situation is by saying the Democrats called the Republicans’ bluff. Republicans were only pretending they wanted border security. Democrats sensed what Republicans really wanted was an insecure border Republicans could use to slam Biden and stoke people’s rage and anger. So Democrats gave Republicans the border bill they had been asking for. And what do you know: Republicans chose rage and anger instead.
At what point do the American people finally say enough is enough? The Republican Party isn’t interested in governing. It’s not interested in solving public problems. It’s only interested in power, power they are able to maintain by getting enough people furiously angry about government, about immigration, about taxes, about the deficit, about gun control, about Obamacare, about wokeism, about poor people, about minorities, about schools, about green energy, about vaccines, about masks, about gay marriage, about bathrooms, about election results, about Budweiser, about Taylor Freakin’ Swift. For Christ’s sake, the guy they’re about to nominate for a third consecutive presidential election is a fire-breathing rage machine. They’ve weaponized anger, and it’s completely counter-productive to governing well.
When rage-fueled Republicans acquire power, they use it either to lash out vindictively at those who have infuriated them or to haplessly rampage through the halls of government, pushing the country to the brink of economic or political collapse, even devouring their own for no good reason or because they dared to say their party had lost its cool. Regardless, it’s not productive. It sure may feel good, but it doesn’t solve many problems. In fact, it’s beyond time we acknowledged all this anger actually is the problem. The country could do well by itself if it told the Republican Party to go off to an anger management class and stay there until they had their temper in check.
Anyway, back to this week’s action on Capitol Hill. Having helped kill a bill containing provisions they believed would have gone a long way toward solving the border crisis, House Republicans felt compelled to performatively express their anger over the border. To this end, they held a vote to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alexander Mayorkas even though they could not find a constitutionally-required “high crime or misdemeanor” he committed. Only problem was Speaker Johnson can’t count votes, so the vote failed. Apparently, they’re going to try again soon.
Over in the Senate, Schumer is now advancing a standalone foreign aid package. It managed to clear a critical procedural vote by picking up Republican votes, so it looks like this bill has a decent chance to make its way over to the House. It is lost on no one that standalone bill could have been passed months ago without all the border bill drama and before Ukraine began running out of ammunition. Its chances in the House remain uncertain.
The standalone bill is still unpopular among Republicans in the Senate, as only 17 GOP members voted for it. As for those opposing the bill, well, wait ‘til you hear why some of them don’t like it. Republican Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina—who voted against the border bill—told FOX Business he didn’t support it because “we need to first secure our southern border.” Republican Senator Steve Daines of Montana—who also voted against the border bill—wants his colleagues to block the foreign aid bill because it doesn’t contain border provisions. And Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky—who, you guessed it—is using procedural tactics to delay passage of the foreign aid package to “force [Democrats] to…discuss why they think the border of Ukraine is more important than the US border.”
These guys… 😒
More:
For details on the border bill, check out “Democrats are Trying to Pass a Right-Wing Border Bill, But Republicans Won’s Let Them” by Nicole Narea of Vox.
By Michael Tomasky of The New Republic: “The GOP Owns the Border Now. Here’s How Democrats Make Sure of It”
Former Republican David Frum argues there’s another reason Republicans aren’t that interested in shutting down the border: Their counterparts in Republican-led statehouses keep passing laws making it easier for employers to hire teenagers, and forty percent of those crossing the border are under the age of eighteen. Writes Frum, “When state legislatures relax the rules on employing under-18s and under-16s, they’re flashing a giant we’re hiring sign to job-seeking teenagers around the world. The legislators know that. The teenagers know it. American voters should know it too.”
Signals and Noise
Well that was quite the week! Where to start…
Special counsel Robert Hur released his report on President Biden’s retention of classified documents from his time as vice president. Hur’s report exonerated Biden of any crime. The documents Biden kept included some classified reports that were likely retained inadvertently as well as personal notes (kept in a cluttered storage space in his home) containing classified information Biden had taken in 2009 pertaining to President Obama’s decision to send more troops to Afghanistan, a decision Biden disagreed with and that he apparently wanted to document. Biden shared some of that information with his ghost writer. Hur noted Biden cooperated completely with the investigation; that other government officials who have retained personal notes containing classified information have not been prosecuted; and that Biden’s case bears little semblance to the case concerning Trump’s retention of classified documents.
Andrew Weissmann and Ryan Goodman of Just Security write Hur misleadingly claims in his summary (and the press misleading repeats) that Biden “willfully retained” the classified documents, but Hur’s own report and conclusions counter that claim throughout the report.
BUT…a political firestorm erupted over Hur’s characterization of Biden as a well-meaning but forgetful old man who had a difficult time keeping facts and dates straight. Hur made it a point to note Biden struggled to remember what dates he served as vice president and what year his son Beau died. According to Hur, Biden exhibited “diminished faculties in advancing age.”
Biden held an angry press conference shortly after the report’s release denouncing Hur’s characterization of Biden’s mental sharpness, but the event also seemed to highlight the traits Hur identified when Biden erroneously said the president of Egypt was from Mexico and, more generally, conducted the event with a snappish, uneven temperament.
The White House, Vice President Kamala Harris, and other Democrats condemned Hur’s report for including what they regarded as gratuitous, prejudicial details about Biden’s mental acuity. Yet Democrats are increasingly worried the Hur report will cement public perceptions of Biden as too old and not mentally sharp enough to serve as president. A September 2023 article by David Weigel of Semafor notes insider reporting about Biden paints a different picture: That of a mentally sharp, detail-oriented president who knows his talking points but has a tendency to go off-script or lose his focus when he loses his temper.
By the New York Times editorial board: “Regardless of Mr. Hur’s motivation, the details that he presented spoke to worries voters already had. The president has to reassure and build confidence with the public by doing things that he has so far been unwilling to do convincingly. He needs to be out campaigning with voters far more in unrehearsed interactions. He could undertake more town hall meetings in communities and on national television. He should hold regular news conferences to demonstrate his command of and direction for leading the country….[T]he combination of Mr. Biden’s age and his absence from the public stage has eroded the public’s confidence. He looks as if he is hiding, or worse, being hidden. The details in Mr. Hur’s report will only heighten those concerns, which Mr. Trump’s campaign is already exploiting.”
Matt Viser of the Washington Post reports on Biden’s interview with Hur and how Biden’s team initially thought it had gone pretty well.
Lauran Neergaard of AP offers a good reality check for critics of both Biden and Trump on this issue: Is it really a big deal if people mix up names or can’t remember dates? There are more meaningful ways to judge mental acuity than by obsessing over slip-ups people of all ages make.
By former Republican political consultant Stuart Stevens for The New Republic: “Just Say It, Democrats: Biden Has Been a Great President” (“Joe Biden should remain president because of his historic level of achievement here at home while standing on the side of freedom versus tyranny in the largest land war in Europe since World War II, a role no American president has played since the Roosevelt-Truman era. Be bold. Walk into this campaign with swagger and confidence and pride.”)
A federal appeals court ruled Don Trump is not immune to prosecution for alleged crimes he committed concerning the 2020 election. From the ruling: “It would be a striking paradox if the President, who alone is vested with the constitutional duty to ‘take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed,’ were the sole officer capable of defying those laws with impunity.” Also: “[P]ast presidents have understood themselves to be subject to impeachment and criminal liability, at least under certain circumstances, so the possibility of chilling executive action is already in effect.” And: “We cannot accept former President Trump’s claim that a President has unbounded authority to commit crimes that would neutralize the most fundamental check on executive power — the recognition and implementation of election results.”
The appeals court also indicated Trump can only appeal the decision to the Supreme Court rather than the whole appeals court. That increases the likelihood this case goes to trial before the election, which Trump is trying to avoid. Lawfare hypothesizes the Supreme Court will likely let the appeals court ruling stand.
Yet Trump still plans on claiming immunity in the classified documents case. (Worth noting Trump wasn’t president when he retained possession of the documents.)
During oral arguments, the Supreme Court seemed uninterested in allowing Colorado to kick Don Trump off their state’s ballot for engaging in “insurrection,” per the 14th Amendment. The Court considered a wide range of concerns but kept circling back to the idea that ballot eligibility in this case should not be left up to the states.
Richard Hasen writes in Slate that a Supreme Court decision that keeps Trump on the ballot coupled with another ruling that denies Trump immunity from prosecution would be a grand bargain the Court could use to establish its non-partisan credibility, but by refusing to deal with the issue of “insurrection” or failing to address how the 14th Amendment could be enforced, the Court may create a massive problem for the country should Trump win.
Republican Reps. Matt Gaetz and Elise “Crossroads” Stefanik have introduced a resolution in the House that would declare Trump did not engage in insurrection. It’s a non-binding resolution and would certainly not receive play in the Senate. (The 14th Amendment states it takes a 2/3 vote of Congress to clear someone of an insurrection charge.)
Burgess Everett of Politico reports the border bill has GOP senators in open rebellion against Mitch McConnell.
For some inexplicable reason, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson brought up a standalone Israel funding bill that was voted down 250-180 when it needed 2/3 support to pass.
It appears Ronna (Romney) McDaniel is out as chair of the RNC. The New York Times reports pressure from Trump allies for a more Trump-aligned chairperson, concern in the Trump camp about the RNC’s poor financial situation, and McDaniel’s own exhaustion have led her to step aside. McDaniel will reportedly be replaced by election denier Michael Whatley, chair of the North Carolina GOP. Natalie Allison and Meridith McGraw of Politico note McDaniel may not be stepping away from the RNC in triumph, but she did manage to do something rare for those in Trump’s orbit: She hung on to power for a surprising amount of time.
By Jonathan Last of The Bulwark: “If You Came Down From Mars Would You Guess That Trump Was Winning?” (“If you came down from Mars and looked at all of the current and historical data, but did not have access to polling, and had to guess the state of the race, then every reasonable observer would assume that Biden was way ahead….Because we have polling, we know that Biden is not up large. And so we’re trying to invent ex post facto rationalizations to explain a reality that differs from what reasonable observers would predict.”)
Ron Brownstein of The Atlantic writes Don Trump plans to implement the largest deportation plan in American history if re-elected. Trump’s plan calls for deploying National Guard members from Republican-led states in Democratic-led cities and states whose leaders refuse to cooperate with Trump’s round-up. Said David Leopold, a former president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, “What this means is that the communities that are heavily Hispanic or Black, those marginalized communities are going to be living in absolute fear of a knock on the door, whether or not they are themselves undocumented. What he’s describing is a terrifying police state, the pretext of which is immigration.”
Don Trump took to FOX News to spread conspiracy theories about immigration and election interference. He also proposed a 60% tariff on China, which in all likelihood would supercharge inflation and cost Americans jobs.
Trump assured the NRA he would roll back all of the Biden administration’s executive orders concerning gun control.
Nevada’s primary caucus system is messed up: Don Trump contested last Thursday’s delegate-assigning caucuses, while Nikki Haley ran in Tuesday’s delegate-less primaries. As expected, Trump won the caucuses, but then “None of These Candidates” outpolled Haley by a nearly 2-1 margin.
The Trump campaign is working overtime to get Nikki Haley kicked off the ballot for deep-red Indiana’s May 7th Republican primary. Adam Wren of Politico writes observers are worried it’s a test run for how Trump will attempt to undermine confidence in the 2024 election.
In a single interview with George Stephanopoulos of ABC News, sycophantic Republican Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance said he would not have certified the 2020 election had he been vice president, asserted the New York jury case that ruled against Trump was invalid, stated victims of sexual abuse should set aside their concerns about Trump because he wants to bring them “prosperity,” and claimed the president can defy Supreme Court rulings (at which point Stephanopoulos cut off the interview.)
Guess which Republican senator wants to add an amendment to an aviation bill that would provide lawmakers with dedicated security and expedited screening at airports? This one (seen returning from Cancun after he fled Texas in the midst of a statewide weather-related emergency):
Larry Hogan, the former Republican governor of Maryland, is running for Senate in his home state.
And now we’ve entered the book-burning phase: Here’s a Republican candidate running for secretary of state in Missouri using a flamethrower to set fire to a couple library books on LGBTQ subjects. She promises to do so more often if elected. For the record, those books burn at 451 degrees Fahrenheit, as Nazis are well aware of.
Members of the NYC vigilante group the Guardian Angels confronted a man they identified as a migrant and a shoplifter during a live interview between their group’s leader and Sean Hannity of FOX. It turned out the man they assaulted was an American citizen, and the NYPD stated there was no evidence he was a shoplifter.
Moms For Liberty, the conservative group that sprung up in 2021 in opposition to pandemic-era mask mandates and “liberal indoctrination” in schools, appears to be cracking up.
Republican North Carolina Lt. Governor and gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson suggested trans people should “find a corner outside somewhere” if they needed to use a restroom.
By Travis Meier of the Washington Post: “The Trouble With Schools is Too Much Math” (“The need to solve problems is eternal, but many of life’s weightiest problems don’t boil down to numbers. Prioritizing higher-level numeracy over other forms of logical reasoning is not turning us into a nation of engineers and physicists. It’s letting us become a nation that can’t think straight.”)
The FCC has ruled it is illegal to use AI generated voices in robocalls.
Nina Jankowicz writes in Foreign Affairs about the coming flood of disinformation and how Washington gave up the fight against falsehoods.
By Yvonne Wingett Sanchez of the Washington Post: “Election Officials Go on Offense to Prevent Disruptions of 2024 Vote”
Sean Lyngaas of CNN reports White House national security officials have simulated scenarios testing a federal response to potential episodes of election interference in 2024 such as highly-convincing deepfakes and violence at polling sites.
The United States’ trade deficit with China declined to its lowest level since 2010, while Mexico replaced China as the United States’ largest source of imported goods for the first time in over two decades.
Thomas Friedman of the New York Times lays out a hypothetical “Biden Doctrine” for the Middle East based on a more forceful stand against Iran, an initiative to create a Palestinian state (and counter Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu), and a new security alliance with Saudi Arabia.
Jonathan Martin of Politico warns the Biden administration that the war in Gaza risks alienating young voters and throwing the election to Trump.
Biden described Israel’s military operations in Gaza as “over the top.”
Loveday Morris and Shira Rubin of the Washington Post look at how Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is clinging to power in Israel.
Far-right parties appear to be surging ahead of the upcoming EU elections. While they wouldn’t gain control of the EU parliament, they would constitute a large enough bloc to shape policy.
Jason Horowitz of the New York Times profiles Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who has emerged as a pragmatic right-wing leader in Europe.
Former FOX News blowhard and useful idiot Tucker Carlson traveled to Russia to interview Vladimir Putin, who used the opportunity to deliver a very misleading lecture covering 1,000 years of Russian-Ukrainian pseudohistory. Carlson, once known for his tenacity as an interviewer and talking head, couldn’t find it in himself to push back or ask a tough question.
Asif Shahzad and Ariba Shahid explore how former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan is campaigning from jail. One technique: His party is using generative AI to create footage of Khan reading speeches he wrote in his jail cell.
Vincent’s Picks: Mr. & Mrs. Smith
The 2005 Doug Liman film Mr. & Mrs. Smith is about a deathlessly attractive bourgeois married couple (Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie) who, unbeknownst to one another, are secretly assassins. Eventually their superiors order both of them to kill their partner. I’ve seen it, but I only recall three things about the movie: 1.) There’s a fun fight scene that takes place in the characters’ suburban home; 2.) This was the film that gave us “Brangelina,” the real-life coupling of Pitt and Jolie; and 3.) Despite its prominent place in pop cultural lore, it’s not that great of a movie.
Nearly twenty years later, as a piece of IP, Mr. & Mrs. Smith is less valuable as a two-hour motion picture than it is as a cultural concept. (Seriously, the film’s poster is more iconic than the film itself.) It makes sense, then, in our age of spin-offs, sequels, and reboots, that if Amazon Prime wants to market a new show now streaming on its platform about a pair of sexy yet down-to-earth spies masquerading as a married couple, they’d just brand it Mr. & Mrs. Smith and let whatever impressions we have of that film fill in the blanks.
Still, the televised version of Mr. & Mrs. Smith does deviate somewhat from the movie’s premise. Donald Glover (Atlanta) and Maya Erskine (PEN15) star as “John and Jane Smith,” two operatives who have been hired by an unknown agency to carry out dangerous and often deadly covert missions. For unspecified reasons, John and Jane—strangers to one another at the beginning of the series—must live together in a posh New York City brownstone under the guise of a married couple. It’s not clear why their employer demands this sort of cover, why they couldn’t operate independently or with other partners, or why the specific missions assigned to them need to be carried out by people pretending to be married.
I don’t think the show’s creators, Francesca Sloane and Glover, care much about those details, however. Like the film of the same name, this often humorous show is more interested in using the backdrop of spycraft to explore the nature of marriage and relationships. The Smith’s employer is like a dating app that, for whatever reason, thinks these two people would make a good pair. But do they? John and Jane know there must be something there, right, but what is it? And is it what matters? They should probably figure out why someone thinks they’re compatible, but in this clandestine world they inhabit, how much should they share? How honest should they be with each other? How guarded should they be with each other? If they’re a true match, shouldn’t their relationship come naturally to them? Or is it something they need to work on, that develops over time? What happens if the experience begins to change them?
Like the film, Mr. & Mrs. Smith stars two very attractive leads. Glover is suave and charming. Of the two, his character is more likely to lean into the Bondsian secret agent fantasy. Erskine is more reserved but also it seems a little more naughty. If John is more of an open book, Jane lets her feelings as well as her secrets (which she must have, since she claims less experience in special ops than John but conducts missions like a pro) slip out little by little. When they’re together on screen, they’re both probing each other, trying to find out what makes the other tick or how they’re expected to respond to one another. It’s a tricky dance for Glover and Erskine—their characters are supposed to be compatible, but not too compatible—but they pull it off. It helps that Glover and Erskine’s chemistry is off the charts: They slip in and out of each other’s pauses, react to the slightest change in expression, and tease each other along. Their performances are the best reason to watch this show.
Beyond romance, Mr. & Mrs. Smith also has something to say about the modern labor market. When John and Jane begin working together, it’s clear they’re both in shaky financial situations: John has little money in his checking account, while Jane can’t seem to hold a job. Their new gig as secret agents who sometimes kill people pays well, though, and affords them a cushy lifestyle. They’re expected to do the work and not ask questions or heed their consciences. Like the purposes of their missions, which are always shrouded in mystery and sometimes end in surprising ways, it isn’t clear how John and Jane would ever be able to step away from their jobs, or what might happen if they failed. It’s glamorous but dirty work that allows John and Jane to keep up appearances, but this new lifestyle could be taken from them in an instant. As unstable and stressful as that may be, though, the money seems to smooth things over.
Mr. & Mrs. Smith is a handsomely made show with some surprising cinematographic flourishes. Each episode features a different notable guest star and represents a different stage in the main characters’ relationship. (Some viewers will feel that rushes the series too much.) To the show’s credit, there are plenty of action scenes, but they’re often backgrounded. You won’t see John and Jane training or planning operations, and they have a miraculous ability to survive fights and escape danger. The action isn’t the point, though; we just need to know John and Jane are secret agents and that this is the crazy life they’re living through together.
It’s a life they’re creating together, too. “John Smith” and “Jane Smith” are fictions that compose the coupling of the fictitious “Smith’s.” But aren’t all couplings, well, if not fictions, then collaborations, an artificial blend of this and that maintained to accommodate the coexistence of two different people? But “John Smith” and “Jane Smith” are presumably partners because something about them clicks. An algorithm identified something in their backgrounds that suggests they’d make a good pair. If their relationship turns out to be based on the real things that connect them, how artificial can that coupling actually be? That difference between our inner and outward selves and between the real and the artificial in relationships is the tension this show is interested in exploring. Forget the movie; this Mr. & Mrs. Smith is the real deal.