staff writer @TheAtlantic | author of "American Carnage" (2019) and "The Kingdom, The Power, and The Glory" (2023) | perplexed, but not in despair
Michigan, USA
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I've written a book. About Christianity. About being a pastor's kid. About the evangelical church idolizing America at the expense of its witness for Jesus Christ.
Four years of reporting. A lifetime of reflection. I'd be honored if you pre-ordered:
axios.com/2023/06/15/tim-alb…
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The stuff I've heard in the last 72 hours—from members of Congress, law enforcement friends, gun shop owners, MAGA devotees—is absolutely chilling.
We need to brace for a wave of violence in this country. Not just over the next couple of weeks, but over the next couple of years.
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BEN SASSE statement: “There is no right to riot... But there is a fundamental—a Constitutional—right to protest, and I’m against clearing out a peaceful protest for a photo op that treats the Word of God as a political prop."
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This is not a red tsunami. In fact, it might be shaping up as the best midterm cycle for an incumbent president's party since the rally-around-the-flag election of 2002.
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Re: my comments on CNN and MSNBC this evening... yes, there are Trump staffers who no longer much care whether he wins or loses. Not exactly breaking news. Hard to overstate how terrible morale is inside of this campaign—and how much anger/resentment is felt toward the candidate.
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121 House Republicans -- all of whom identify as "conservatives" -- just voted to throw out a state's election result because the president threw a temper tantrum.
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We should also say a prayer for the thousands of families who watched their loved one depart for the local hospital in a sedan or a pickup truck and never saw them again.
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I've seen cowardice in politics. Two U.S. senators calling on their state's top election official to resign—for no cause, citing no specific offense, just throwing him under the bus to score points with Trump & fire up their base ahead of a special election—is singular cowardice.
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Iowa is charming and everything but let’s all admit that if we saw this sloppy, chaotic, slap-dash voting system employed in another country we’d call for UN election monitoring.
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To summarize:
There are multiple jurors who believe the defendant is guilty as charged but disapprove of the sentence that awaits him so they’re voting to acquit the defendant who they believe is guilty as charged.
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I would trade a month’s salary to hear Jim Jordan and Ted Cruz react to Barack Obama suggesting we postpone the election because he’s losing. Not enough popcorn in the world.
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The president in manic denial. 100+ federal officials placating him w/ a publicity stunt. The national party churning out lies and propaganda. One state party calling for secession. Another encouraging martyrdom. Millions of voters buying it. What a shameful moment in US history.
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A man just collapsed at the ATL airport. Unresponsive. Not breathing. Turning blue. All in an instant, strangers raced to his aid—some administering CPR, others grabbing the defibrillators nearby—as several of us stood praying. After a scary minute or so, he kicked a leg and started breathing,
It would be another 5 minutes before paramedics arrived on the scene. Were it not for the immediate action taken by those strangers—people who knew nothing about this man, people who would soon scatter to their own destinations, people this man will never get the opportunity to thank—he would be dead right now, headed to the morgue instead of home to his family.
A vivid reminder of our shared humanity. One I won’t soon forget.
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Poor kid from Flint passes on millions in NBA lottery to come back for soph year and win a title. Mom (allegedly) takes $400 from agent. And the rich kids in Madison call him “cheater.” What a system. What a world.
Miles Bridges knocks down two free throws to chants of "Cheater" to seal a 68-63 win for Michigan State and the program's first outright Big Ten championship since 2009.
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Sanjay Gupta says doctors at Walter Reed are throwing "the kitchen sink" at Trump, feeding him 3 different "serious" medications, one of which is experimental in nature. He suggests this is far more serious than what Conley is letting on.
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End of weekend update:
-Sidney Powell is out
-Tony Blinken is in
-Ted Cruz is still Ted Cruz
-Joe Biden still won Michigan
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9 of 10 Trump voters I’ve talked to believe mass voter fraud occurred.
8 of those 9 cite the protracted counting and Biden’s “comeback” after Trump led Tues night.
Again: Legislatures in MI/WI/PA failed America by not allowing pre-processing. This madness could’ve been avoided.
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I found myself anxious this evening, wondering if in the absence of John McCain any Republican senator would truly rise to meet this moment and say the things that needed to be said -- about Trump, about the truth, about his cowardly colleagues. Mitt Romney did. He said them all.
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President Trump was just offered up, on a silver platter, the chance to emphatically denounce white supremacists in front of tens of millions of voters.
All he could manage to muster: "Stand back and stand by."
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Just FYI, after 48 hours of high-level conversations with Michigan Rs & Ds, it's clear the results will stand. Joe Biden will receive the state's 16 electoral votes. There is no alternative under MI statute. This Trump/Michigan GOP meeting is a sideshow on par w/ Rudy's presser.
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Folks. The blocks around 1600 Penn Ave are the most monitored in the world. On top of that, a thousand iPhones are rolling. Don’t you think if rioters were throwing bricks—if the crowd was violent—we’d see footage?
That’s why, instead, we’ve got a semantic debate over “tear gas”
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This isn't just the sharpest criticism Obama has made of Trump. This is the sharpest criticism a former president has *ever made* of a sitting president.
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Barack Obama stands in front of the White House.
With the entire world watching, he declares, “China should start an investigation into the Romneys.”
Republicans wouldn’t just call for impeachment. They would call for charges of treason.
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Republican canvasser AARON VAN LANGEVELDE announces he will vote to certify Michigan's election results.
It's over, folks. Joe Biden officially wins Michigan.
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The mistreatment of this man, the demonization of him on a personal level by opponents in both parties, will be studied for decades to come.
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To recap: The president wants the rest of the votes counted in Arizona, because he's losing, but says he's "won" Pennsylvania and Michigan, where there are hundreds of thousands of votes still outstanding.
The American public must understand that the president is lying to them.
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No one tweet can capture the intellectual decline of the American right, but this one comes close.
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This is why, as I’ve written/said before, Republicans should have asserted themselves and held Trump accountable from Day One. Their silence in the face of his manifest abuses contributed to the formation of a cult that now threatens their lives. Never should have come to this.
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Folks, if you're wondering how Speaker Kevin McCarthy would handle a 6- or 7-seat majority, it's worth considering there may never be a Speaker Kevin McCarthy at all
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There's a nauseating amount of this "too many Americans have doubts about the integrity of our elections" shtick coming from the very Republicans who've been actively sowing doubts about the integrity of our elections.
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To all the special-needs parents who have gone nearly 3 months without school, without therapy, without routine or structure or any kind of break.... you are the chosen ones. God bless each and every one of you.
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I know lots of Trumpers in Michigan. I know lots of gun owners in Michigan. I know lots of people upset w/ the govt in Michigan.
Not one would bring a gun to the statehouse. GOP leaders would be wise to renounce this fringe lest they lose every suburban mom from Oakland to Kent.
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Crow is right. Numerous House Rs have received death threats in the past week, and I know for a fact several members *want* to impeach but fear casting that vote could get them or their families murdered.
Not spinning or covering for anyone. Just stating the chilling reality.
WATCH: Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.) says majority of GOP "paralyzed with fear"
@RepJasonCrow: "I had a lot of conversations with my Republican colleagues. ... A couple of them broke down in tears ... saying that they are afraid for their lives if they vote for this impeachment."
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The Republican Party is carrying out a mass propaganda campaign aimed at deceiving the public and undermining confidence in the legitimacy of our democracy.
If you can't bring yourself to call it that—I see one journalist describing GOP lies as "bad faith"—find a new profession.
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Good morning. A reminder that regardless of what Michigan's board of state canvassers does this afternoon, Joe Biden won the state, he will receive the state's 16 electoral votes, and there is nothing President Trump or his Republican Party can do about it. These are facts.
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Not sure how anyone can crack jokes right now. We cannot begin to fathom how much damage that speech will do to the long-term health and stability of our country.
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in Frank Luntz's focus group, Ruthie from PA (upper right corner) said she was undecided coming into tonight..... but now likes Biden b/c Trump was behaving like a "crackhead" and made the debate impossible to watch
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One way to look at it: ABC moderators fact-checked Trump 2-3 times and Harris zero times
Another way to look at it: ABC moderators fact-checked Trump 2-3 times instead of 500 times
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I can’t understand for the life of me why Lin Wood isn’t being arrested for conspiring to assassinate the Vice President.
1A should not apply here. Having cultivated a massive sect of followers since Nov 3, Wood directed them to murder Mike Pence, and some tried to do just that.
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The Four Seasons episode would be perfectly hilarious under any circumstance. (An adjacent porno shop? C’mon!) What makes this so special is the underlying implication that these same guys are going to execute a sweeping legal strategy to overturn election results in 4 states.
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That's right, America. You too can be medivacked to one the nation's premier hospitals, evaluated & monitored around the clock by a team of elite doctors, treated with an exclusive array of drugs, and come out feeling 20 years younger on the other side. Don't be afraid of Covid.
I will be leaving the great Walter Reed Medical Center today at 6:30 P.M. Feeling really good! Don’t be afraid of Covid. Don’t let it dominate your life. We have developed, under the Trump Administration, some really great drugs & knowledge. I feel better than I did 20 years ago!
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I once waged a successful editorial fight to keep my description of Matt Gaetz as "cartoonish" intact.
In retrospect, it was insulting to a great many cartoon characters.
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Most striking thing I heard from Trump allies yesterday was the second-guessing of JD Vance—a selection, they acknowledged, that was borne of cockiness, meant to run up margins with the base in a blowout rather than persuade swing voters in a nail-biter.
theatlantic.com/politics/arc…
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I can think of one.
Tucker Carlson just now: "It's hard to think of a company that's hurt this country more than Twitter. Maybe there are some. I can't think of one. If you look at the hate & the division & the cruelty that's now common, it wasn't common 10 years ago, Twitter is a huge part of that"
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Let's be clear about something.
We don't yet have any evidence proving voter fraud was committed in this election.
We do have evidence that Republicans—from the president to congressional leaders to the party chair and her aides—are lying to the public.
politico.com/news/magazine/2…
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NEW — and several months in the making — my final look beneath the hood of Trump 2024.
Pour a cup of coffee and find a comfy chair.
“Inside the Ruthless, Restless Final Days of Trump’s Campaign”
theatlantic.com/politics/arc…
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"If you take the blue states out" will be remembered as one of the most callous sentiments ever uttered by an American president.... if it's remembered at all.
Praising his own virus response as deaths near 200,000, Trump says, "if you take the blue states out, we're at a level I don't think anybody in the world would be at."
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Pennsylvania note: Lackawanna County (Scranton), an ancestral Dem stronghold, swung hard toward Trump in 2016. Clinton carried by just 3 points. This year, w/ 99% reporting, Biden carried it by 8 points.
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A thought on Lamar Alexander:
His retirement is less relevant than you might think. Trump’s grip on the GOP has implications far beyond elected office. Lamar is looking forward to a life after politics — and he knows it will be complicated by any break w/ Trump over impeachment.
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My dad died yesterday.
Two weeks ago he was in DC to celebrate my book release.
Today he is gone.
I'm devastated. And yet, I'm so thankful for the life he lived and the lessons he gave: how to throw a baseball, how to treat a woman, how to trust in the Lord.
I love you, Pop.
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I’m standing 10 feet from the stage, in a sea of diehards, and some are getting restless. Checking phones, stealing glances at the teleprompter, whispering about when it will be over.
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We should stop tip-toeing around the obvious. Kevin McCarthy is not fit to lead anyone or anything. This has been apparent for years—to his own friends and staffers.
McConnell worked senators to head off the events of 1/6; McCarthy did nothing to guide or protect his members.
GOP foxhole from @HotlineJosh: "Advisers to several freshman Republicans said that the lawmakers were genuinely torn over how to approach the vote, receiving little guidance from leadership other than a sense that McCarthy wanted them to stick with Trump." tinyurl.com/y3yhx2kp
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With this speech, Mitt Romney cements his legacy as a towering figure in modern American history.
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Biden's comment about transitioning from oil isn't the game-changer some of you believe it is. We've been transitioning from oil for 50 years. Voters see that in their everyday lives w/ industries utilizing new green tech. Biden didn't say anything tonight he hasn't said before.
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This is Betsy DeVos's former chief of staff. He spent years running the Michigan GOP's election day operations. He knows the Detroit election heads personally, has intimate knowledge of the processes there, and is calling bullshit on his party.
politico.com/news/magazine/2…
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This coup at the U.S. Capitol has been unfolding in slow motion for 9 weeks.
If you couldn't see this coming, you're blind.
If you participated in this charade, or enabled it in any way, history is going to judge you with a brutality you cannot begin to fathom.
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I can’t overstate the significance of this. Two red-state Rs, on consecutive days, telling me they’re seeing poll numbers they never thought were possible.
Their shared conclusion: Trump’s standing w/ white college+ women threatens to tank the entire party down-ballot on Nov 3.
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Folks, it's not just Detroit. There are tons of mail votes about to be counted in Grand Rapids, Lansing and the Oakland County burbs.
Trump's lead in Michigan is going to vanish.
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Wow... Chad Sweet, key member of Ted Cruz's inner circle, chaired his 2016 campaign, was at the table for every major decision... announces he's cut ties w/ the Texas senator.
Lots of 👀 inside Cruz World tonight... and could be more where this came from.
linkedin.com/pulse/rise-abov…
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how are people saying "the Biden coalition is beginning to resemble the Obama coalition" with a straight face when Biden is losing young voters by 60 points?
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Your grandkids are going to read about the last 20 days in Michigan -- the lies, the abuses of trust, the brazen attempt to undermine democracy.
Based on two dozen+ interviews, with tons of new detail, here's my first draft of history:
politico.com/news/magazine/2…
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If I'm a Dem elected official, after everything I've seen/read in past 48 hours, I'm begging all my constituents to vote in-person if able (early or Election Day), and urging everyone else to hand-deliver their absentee ballots to the clerk's office.
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THERE IT IS: Aaron Van Langevelde, the mystery GOP canvasser, says the board has a "duty" to certify the results today, but asks to hear public comments before doing so.
There's some dispute over mechanics now, but the suspense is behind us. Michigan is going to certify results.
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I fear we've grown numb to runs on firearms and don't appreciate what's going on right now.
The post-08 gun rush was b/c conservatives thought Obama was going to ban certain models, mags, etc.
Today's gun rush is b/c people of all ideologies are bracing for mass civil conflict.
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What I'd give to witness the right's reaction to Barack Obama holding a campaign rally inside the WH at 2:30am on Election Night 2012, with nail-biter races unfolding in key states, and declare victory while insisting that no further votes be counted in the states he's winning.
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My goodness. Kevin Williamson this morning. Read every word.
"No one who has participated in this poisonous buffoonery should ever hold office again."
nationalreview.com/the-tuesd…
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MICHIGAN -- approve of #COVIDー19 handling:
Whitmer 57/37
Trump 44/50
detroitnews.com/story/news/l…
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Words matter. It's past time we reformed our political terminology.
We should not—for the rest of their careers—refer to any of these Republican E.C. objectors as "conservatives."
They are radicals. They are extremists. There is nothing conservative about subverting democracy.
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This is one of those lies that'll be lost in the history books b/c there aren't enough pages. But it's menacing in this moment. The president is spreading egregiously false information that will incite his base (already seeing it on my FB feed) and fuel talk of a rigged election.
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The most striking thing about Mike Lee, after studying him and talking with dozens of longtime acquaintances, is his lifelong search for identity.
He dreamed of being a legal giant, like his father—but was crushed when he failed to qualify for the BYU Law Review.
He aspired to be a titan of the conservative movement—but fell into despair when the movement was overtaken by Trumpism.
Now, as a conspiracy-pushing, Benny Johnson-allied, Very Online troll, Lee has the brand and the following he's always craved. All it took was turning his back on everything he once believed in.
theatlantic.com/magazine/arc…
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Pat Toomey, on Fox News, makes clear that it's ridiculous Pennsylvania (and other states) didn't start processing these mail ballots until Election Day.
This is not a close call. If they'd been processed ahead of time, we would have known results by Wed morning latest.
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for posterity:
The American people have spoken.
Congratulations to President Trump on a strong win. Now, it’s time for the American people to come together, pray for our country, and start the process of a peaceful transition.
That begins with Kamala Harris conceding. You can’t just talk about unity in a campaign, you have to show it regardless of the outcome.
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Nikki Haley to me, days after January 6:
“He went down a path he shouldn’t have, and we shouldn’t have followed him, and we shouldn’t have listened to him. And we can’t let that ever happen again.”
politico.com/interactives/20…
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I mean, if you spend all your time around people who won't believe a word of what Trump just said, good for you. But that's not the real world. 70 million people just voted for a man who insists that our elections are rigged. Many of those people will believe him. It's harrowing.
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Mona Charen, who stunned #CPAC by rebuking conservatives for excusing the behavior of Donald Trump and Roy Moore, was just escorted outside by 3 security guards after her speech. More in @POLITICOMag story later.
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President Trump has harsher words for Quinnipiac's "election interference" than he's ever had for Vladimir Putin's election interference
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The most chilling part of this video is the composure of the kids. God help us.
A student from inside Oxford High School captured this footage of the possible shooter trying to get into the classroom by impersonating a sheriff
The students did not open the door and escaped through a window
tiktok.com/@shwifty766/video…
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Exhibit A of how politicians use the media as a straw man to avoid owning what they said.
Your tape...supports what I wrote 100%. So does my longer tape. It's beyond dispute.
Next time, a phone call from your office before the Twitter ambush would be appreciated.
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Donald Trump is a master of forcing opponents to play the game by his rules.
Tearing up paper? Staging walkouts?
This stuff 👏does 👏not 👏 work. Just ask Rubio, Cruz, Hillary...
The president’s kryptonite is substance and reason. You cannot beat him at stagecraft and emotion.
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No matter who occupies the White House, this man will earn a fortune by making people angry and afraid.
Time to crack a beer and watch some hoops.
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I've never been surprised by the deceptions, by the instinct toward self-preservation, by the bottomless justifications for what they knew was wrong.
The one thing that continues to surprise me: These people do not care what their children are going to think about them one day.
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Wow -- highly respected Republican clerk in Michigan (sits on national election board) tees off on Ronna Romney McDaniel.
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The Republican Party of 2020: Suppressing the vote, jailing the opposition, firing the scientists, intimidating the dissidents, and making America great again.
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Trump's lead is now down to 70,000 votes statewide.
And Wayne County has only reported 53%. Biden is about to stack up a couple hundred thousand votes there alone.
Folks, it's not just Detroit. There are tons of mail votes about to be counted in Grand Rapids, Lansing and the Oakland County burbs.
Trump's lead in Michigan is going to vanish.
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Facts on Michigan. Biden has pulled ahead, and he's going to stay ahead. The reason?
Wayne County has a couple hundred thousand votes left to count. Because they're Detroit *and* absentee they're ~ 3:1 Biden.
He has 448k votes in Wayne so far. Obama won 660k in 08, 596k in 12.
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One reporter's opinion.... it's malpractice that Bernie Sanders isn't pressed daily about his age, physical fitness, heart health, medical records, etc.
Name another big executive job for which the lead candidate *wouldn't be* grilled about being 78 and fresh off a heart attack.
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What a role reversal. After spending two months in the basement while Trump dominated Covid-19 coverage.... Biden takes center stage amid race protests while POTUS reliqunshes the head-of-state spotlight.
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Did the president just admit to sabotaging the post office for the purpose of supressing voter participation?
Trump saying clearly on Fox why he won’t fund USPS. “Now they need that money in order to make the post office work so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots...But if they don’t get those two items that means you can’t have universal mail-in voting...”
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I can’t stop thinking about how Detroit circa 1940 converted virtually overnight into the world’s greatest manufacturer of war machines but the U.S. circa 2020 can’t produce ventilators or masks or test kits.
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This is pretty straightforward. Looking at MI & WI right now, based on huge # of outstanding mail ballots in urban cores, you'd much rather be Joe Biden than Donald Trump.
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I'm reminded of how, at this time 4 years ago, Meadows was telling friends he wasn't sure he'd go to Cleveland for the GOP convention. He worried that casting his delegate vote for Trump would haunt him for the rest of his life.
WH chief of staff Mark Meadows today on Trump:
“The president is not only well-prepared, but reads so much that it causes me to have to read many times well into the night to catch up with him.”
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Yes. Shout this from the rooftops. If you've got a beef w/ slow counts, take it up w/ Republican lawmakers in these states. We easily could've had full results by now.
REMINDER—Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin election officials were not allowed to begin processing absentee ballots until on or just before Election Day, after Republican-led state legislatures opposed changing laws to allow earlier preparations like other states.
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for once i'm struggling to locate the appropriate sports metaphor.... but we're watching an old ballplayer whose skills have diminished turn in a career-best performance in the biggest game of his life. remarkable to witness.
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So to recap...
rule-of-law voters get an alleged sex trafficker junkie as the country's top cop
pro-life voters get an abortion enthusiast leading HHS
America-First voters get a Kremlin stooge coordinating our intelligence ops
...but sure, go on believing in a "binary choice"
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“I can’t be that single-issue Republican anymore.”
Here are two Oakland County women explaining why — despite being pro-life — they cannot vote for Trump again.
I've now heard some variation of this at least a dozen times in the last couple of weeks.
politico.com/news/magazine/2…
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“If I did a tenth of what she did, I would be in jail today.” - Flynn, GOP convention speech, in what we writers call foreshadowing.
BREAKING: Mueller Has Enough Evidence to Bring Charges in Flynn Investigation - NBC News nbcnews.com/news/us-news/amp…
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I'm serious. Writers and broadcasters need to think critically about how to describe people like Ted Cruz and Jim Jordan without defaulting to "conservative." When in doubt, use "far-right." I'm open to other ideas. But calling any of this "conservative" is profoundly misleading.
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We are less than 36 hours into October. This is gonna be the longest month of our lives.
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