Trumpism
PART V
Donald Trump’s Disruption Is Back
By Massimo Calabresi | Jan. 19, 2025
January 20, 2025
FULL INTERVIEW: Donald Trumpâs nephew tells all ahead of White House return and reveals a darker side of his famous uncle.
Synopsis | Uncle Donald (2024) If political ruthlessness and cunning were Olympic events, Donald Trump would surely be glistening in gold. Such is his will to regain the worldâs top job, he has become even more proficient at belittling and slandering anyone who stands in his way. This time around, Trumpâs campaign for the presidency is setting records for spitefulness, and with 11 weeks still until polling day, thereâs bound to be plenty more vitriol.
On 60 MINUTES, Amelia Adams reveals a counter-attack from an unexpected quarter: a member of Trumpâs own family. Fred Trump has released a damning memoir, which reveals his Uncle Donald is capable of a whole new level of cruelty and nastiness.
January 21, 2025
Trumpâs Comeback (full documentary)
FRONTLINE examines defining moments over Donald Trumpâs life and career, his 2020 election loss, felony convictions and his historic comeback. âTrumpâs Comebackâ tells the story of Trumpâs return to the presidency, overcoming obstacles and opposition.
January 22, 2025
How Saudi Arabia Bought Trump – And What They Want
Saudi Arabia is buying their way into American politics, tech, and sports. Theyâve sent billions to the Trumps and are the largest backers of U.S. startups â including running a spy ring through Twitter. What do they want in return? U.S. silence on human rights abuses.
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More Perfect Unionâs mission is to build power for working people. Hereâs what that means: We report on the real struggles and challenges of the working class from a working-class perspective, and we attempt to connect those problems to potential solutions.
We report on the abuses and wrongdoing of corporate power, and we seek to hold accountable the ultra-rich who have too much power over Americaâs political and economic systems.
Jan. 22, 2025
WATCH: With Capitol officers from Jan. 6 attack,
House Democrats rebuke Trumpâs clemency
Jan. 22, 2025
Constitutional Expert: Jan. 6 Pardons
âMost Shamefulâ in Presidential History
Among those included in President Trumpâs January 6th pardons is the founder of the dark web criminal marketplace Silk Road, who was serving a life sentence. Conservative lawyer Paul Rosenzweig calls this âone of the most shameful actsâ ever committed by a U.S. President. Rosenzweig explains to Michel Martin how Trumpâs action differs from Bidenâs 11th-hour preemptive pardons.
January 25, 2025
Power
Mad
A weekly accounting of the rogues and scoundrels of America
The Washington Post Commits an Unpardonable January 6 Sin
Jeff Bezosâs increasingly meretricious newspaper stooped to publish a pathetic âboth-sidesâ defense of the violent mob that stormed the Capitol.
Trump supporters clash with police and security forces as people try to storm the U.S. Capital Building on January 6, 2021.
By Jason Linkins, deputy editor
Well, I hate to say I told you so. Back in December, I warned that Donald Trumpâs plan to pardon the January 6 insurrectionists was going to be greeted by the media with prewritten takes about how President Bidenâs own use of the pardon power justified a decision to free a violent mob. Today, The Washington Postâs editorial board, tasked with the mission of obtaining 200 million paying users while simultaneously following owner Jeff Bezosâs directive to make the venerable newspaper substantially more mendacious, made me look prescient.
âThe outgoing and incoming presidents both abused their pardon powers on Monday, undermining the rule of law and setting dangerous precedents that perpetuate Americaâs divisions,â they wrote. According to the pundit logic here, Biden âstarted the troubleâ after he preemptively issued pardons to immunize members of his family, administration, and Congress from future prosecution related to their activities during his term in office. Then Trump âended the day by giving clemencyâ to the aforementioned insurrectionists. Just a bad day all around, and everyoneâs to blame!
To put it charitably, this is a bungle from the editorial board. In the first place, the editors demonstrate a real inability to follow cause and effect chains; here asserting that the âthe troubleâ began with Bidenâs preemptive pardons, when the use of the term âpreemptiveâ clearly suggests a precipitating event. In this case, somebody forgot the well-documented history of Donald Trump publicly announcing his plans to persecute members of Bidenâs family and administration, over and over again. Just this week, Trump intimated in an interview that he might go after Biden specifically because he wasnât corrupt enough to pardon himself on the way out the door.
Then, once âthe trouble began,â the editors suggest that Trumpâs decision to pardon the January 6ers naturally followed from Bidenâs actionsâleading the reader to make the logical leap that the pardons handed out in the morning forced Trumpâs hand later that day. But again, a reminder: Effect follows cause, and it was actually Bidenâs hand that was forced when Trump repeatedly made the wanton persecution of his family and colleagues one of his big campaign promises. Meanwhile, Trumpâs plan to pardon the insurrectionists has been a done deal for some time; it was another one of his oft-repeated campaign promises.
But the larger problem here is the way the Post editors senselessly flatten two wildly different actions by two wildly different presidents. Their main concern with Bidenâs pardon is that it âopens the door for future presidents to likewise immunize their families and staffs from merely theoretical prosecution by their successors.â Meanwhile, they say that Trumpâs decision to loose the January 6ers onto the world ârisks emboldening militias and others to commit future acts of barbarity in support of political aims.â
Maybe these two things arenât the same? It sounds to me like Iâd grade the Biden pardons as a 3 out of 10 on the âIâm Worrying About the Precedent This Sets Whilst Stroking My Chin Thoughtfullyâ scale, whereas itâs safe to say Iâd give the potential for âfuture acts of barbarityâ a substantially higher rating. What ifâand Iâm just spitballing here!âone of these theoretical consequences is a lot graver than the other? And honestly, what if one of these theoretical consequences is a lot less theoretical than the other, given that an attempt to unlawfully overturn a legitimate election result actually happened?
January 23, 2025
Heather Cox Richardson
Last night, in an interview with host Sean Hannity on the Fox News Channel, President Donald Trump tried to explain away his blanket pardons for the January 6 rioters, calling the instances of violence against police officers âvery minor incidents.â
In fact, as Brett Samuels of The Hill reported, about 600 of the rioters were accused of assaulting, resisting, or impeding police officers, and ten were convicted of sedition.
Ryan J. Reilly of NBC News explained that rioters wounded more than 140 officers with âfirearms, stun guns, flagpoles, fire extinguishers, bike racks, batons, a metal whip, office furniture, pepper spray, bear spray, a tomahawk ax, a hatchet, a hockey stick, knuckle gloves, a baseball bat, a massive âTrumpâ billboard, âTrumpâ flags, a pitchfork, pieces of lumber, crutches and even an explosive device.â
Jan. 23, 2025
Capitol Rioter Turns Down Trump Pardon
Jan. 23, 2025
Trump taps conservative media critic
to lead global news agency
By David Folkenflik
President Trump has named a fierce conservative critic of the mainstream media, L. Brent Bozell III, as his pick to run the U.S. Agency for Global Media, the parent agency of the Voice of America and other federally owned international broadcasters.
In a posting on Truth Social, Trump said that Bozell would bring much needed change to the agency, which was led by a veteran news editor, Amanda Bennett, herself a former director of the Voice of America.
She resigned along with other Biden appointees across government as Trump took office.
âFew understand the Global Media landscape in print, television, and online better than Brent,â Trump wrote. âHe and his family have fought for the American principles of Liberty, Freedom, Equality, and Justice for generations, and he will ensure that message is heard by Freedom-loving people around the World.â
Bozell, 69, is the founder of the conservative nonprofit Media Research Center. For decades, it has critiqued the news media and pop culture from a strong right-of-center outlook.
âThese are not dispassionate observers of the national scene,â he wrote of journalists, in a characteristic commentary in 2018. âThese are leftist partisans.â (In later years, his syndicated column was written with Tim Graham, a colleague at the center who is also executive editor of its offshoot, NewsBusters.)
Bozell comes from a family with strong links to conservative media. He is the nephew of National Review founder William F. Buckley Jr., who collaborated in writing with his father.
In addition, Bozellâs son, Leo Brent Bozell IV, was convicted of assaulting law enforcement officials during the January 2021 siege of the U.S. Capitol and sentenced to 45 months in prison. Trumpâs blanket pardon of almost all convicted January 6 rioters encompassed the younger Bozell.
Before taking office, Trump announced he wanted to name Kari Lake, a former local newscaster in Arizona who unsuccessfully ran for governor and U.S. Senate on a strong pro-Trump platform, as director of Voice of America. Like Trump, Lake has attacked journalists as âfake news.â
Jan. 23, 2025
WATCH: Trump nominee and Project 2025 author
Russ Vought âdangerousâ to working people, Schumer says
Jan. 24, 2025
Evangelicals Made a Bad Trade
Hitching the evangelical wagon to Donald Trump has
meant unhitching it from the life and teachings of Jesus.
By Peter Wehner
In his inaugural address on Monday, Donald Trump declared himself Godâs chosen instrument to rescue America. He recalled the assassination attempt he survived last year: âI was saved by God to make America great again.â
Just a few minutes earlier, a beaming Franklin Grahamâminister, Trump acolyte, and sometime Vladimir Putin admirerâhad driven home the same point during his prayer. âFather, when Donald Trumpâs enemies thought he was down and out, you and you alone saved his life and raised him up with strength and power by your mighty hand.â
One of the first acts of Godâs newly anointed president was to issue pardons or commute the sentences of the nearly 1,600 people charged in the January 6 attack on the Capitol. Trump issued pardons to most of the defendants and commuted the sentences of 14 members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers militias, most of whom had been convicted of seditious conspiracy.
Axios reported that the pardons were âa last-minute, rip-the-bandage-off decision to try to move past the issue quickly.â As Trumpâs team wrestled with the issue, âTrump just said: âFuck it! Release âem all,ââ an adviser familiar with the discussions told Axiosâs Marc Caputo.
January 24, 2025
âShock and Aweâ: ICE Raids Begin as Judge Halts
Unconstitutional Birthright Citizenship Order
As the Trump administration launches what it touts as the largest mass deportation campaign in U.S. history, we look at how immigrant communities and advocates are fighting back. The administration already faces some setbacks, including in its attempt to end birthright citizenship, which a federal judge halted Thursday from going into effect because it was âblatantly unconstitutional.â
Thursdayâs ruling is the first in whatâs expected to be a long legal battle against Trumpâs anti-immigrant agenda. âWeâre in a moment where thereâs a ton of fear in the community,â says Harold Solis, legal director at Make the Road New York, which has filed its own lawsuit against the government.
We also speak with Columbia University historian Mae Ngai, who says the fight over birthright citizenship is part of the long history of restrictionist immigration policies in the country. âWhat weâre seeing this week is shock and awe. Itâs meant to terrorize,â she says. âWe have to fight on all levels.â
Inside with Jen Psaki
January 26, 2027
Gov. Whitmer condemns Trump pardons:
âEverything thatâs happening continues to normalize violenceâ
Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer reacts to Donald Trumpâs pardoning of over 1,500 Jan. 6 offenders and discusses excerpts from her new book True Gretch: What Iâve Learned About Life, Leadership, and Everything in Between.
âTwoâs a Crowdâ by Barry Blitt
January 27, 2025
Donald Trump 2.0: Inside the first week of
the greatest comeback in US politics
History in the making. A triumphant return. Donald J. Trumpâs in no doubt the razzle dazzleâs well deserved. This is the 45th, now 47th Presidentâs finest moment. The greatest comeback in American politics. But along with the congratulations, caution. So what does âmaking America great againâ really mean? Amelia Adams reports on the Presidentâs whirlwind first few days back in power, and the major changes the world can expect.
Jan. 27, 2025
World leaders tell Fareed Zakaria
what they think of President Trump
President Donald Trump seems to think the US is a patsy. Fareed Zakaria argues the US has been the biggest beneficiary of the world order it built after World War II, but Trumpâs transactionalism could undermine that world.
January 28, 2025
Trumpâs Comeback: Tim OâBrien (interview)
Timothy OâBrien is a senior executive editor at Bloomberg Opinion. He was previously a reporter and editor at The New York Times and is the author of TrumpNation: The Art of Being the Donald. Trump filed a $5 billion defamation lawsuit after the publication of OâBrienâs book. The suit was later dismissed.
This interview was conducted by the Kirk Documentary Groupâs Mike Wiser for FRONTLINE on November 18, 2024. It has been edited for clarity and length.
January 28, 2025
Trump Has Just Cut Off All Cancer Research
& Funding | Prof. David Cay Johnston at RIT
Prof. David Cay Johnston at RIT, Pulitzer Prize winning Author & Investigative Journalist https://x.com/DavidCayJ
Jan. 28, 2025
How much money has Big Tech given to
Donald Trump? | About That
U.S. President Donald Trump raised a record amount of corporate donations for his inauguration, millions of which were donated by CEOs of major tech companies like Google, Apple, Amazon and Meta.
Andrew Chang explains the shift in Trumpâs relationships with these industry leaders since his first term, and the symbolism of their proximity to the president.
January 29, 2025
In a video to Senate, Caroline Kennedy says her cousin
RFK Jr. is âdangerous and willfully misinformed”
As Senate confirmation hearings begin Wednesday for Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, his cousin Caroline Kennedy has published a video slamming him as holding “dangerous and willfully misinformed” views on vaccines and other public health issues. Caroline Kennedy is the former U.S. ambassador to Japan and Australia and daughter of President John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.âs uncle.
The BEAT with Ari Melber
January 30, 2025
He was wrong: Trumpâs own FBI nominee rebukes
pardons for violent MAGA convicts at fiery hearing
Ari Melber reports on the confirmation hearing for Trumpâs controversial FBI nominee, Kash Patel, who walked back previous statements during the proceedings.
February 1, 2025
American Heretics: The Untold Truth About Faith
in Americaâs Most Conservative State
âAmerican Hereticsâ explores the intersection of faith, politics, and social justice in the heart of the Bible Belt. Featuring progressive voices challenging conservative norms, the documentary delves into the struggles of redefining Christianity in Oklahomaâa state marked by deep-rooted traditions and social challenges. From LGBTQ+ rights to addressing historical injustices, it uncovers how faith can inspire change in unexpected places.
February 4, 2025
Donât Believe Him
Look closely at the first two weeks of Donald Trumpâs second term and youâll see something very different than what he wants you to see.
Feb. 5, 2025
Rep. Al Green (D-TX): âThe movement
to impeach the president has begun.â
âI rise to announce that I will bring Articles of Impeachment against the president for dastardly deeds proposed and dastardly deeds done.â
February 5, 2025
THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE
ENGINEER
The right claims to loathe technocracyâbut it has
empowered Elon Musk to remake the government.
By Franklin Foer
In the isolation of a Washington, D.C., office building, with a small team of acolytes, Elon Musk is dismantling the civil service and fulfilling an old dream. Deep within the folds of the Western brain resides a yearning for a savior: a master engineer who imposes reason and efficiency on the messiness of modern life, who can deploy his acumen to usher in a golden age of abundance and harmony. This is a fantasy of submission, where the genius takes charge.
Given American conservativesâ recent rhetoric, their surrender to Muskâs vision of utopia is discordant, to say the least. Ever since the pandemic, the MAGA movement has decried the tyranny of a cabal of self-certain experts, who wield their technical knowledge unaccountably. But even as the right purports to loathe technocracy, it has empowered an engineer to radically remake the American state in the name of efficiency.
Trumpists might be surprised to know that they are fulfilling a dream first conceived by a 19th-century French crank, Henri de Saint-Simon. A utopian polymath who fought in the American Revolution and claimed to be a descendant of Charlemagne, he imagined a society in which engineers and industrial managers usurped the aristocracy at the top of the pecking order. The ruling cadre of engineers, he theorized, wouldnât just solve social and economic problems, but serve as high priests, guiding society to efficiency, progress, and harmony. Technocracy and spirituality were intertwined in his doctrine, which he called the âNew Christianity.â
Feb. 7, 2025
Inside Elon Muskâs War on Washington
Elon Musk departs the Hyatt Regency Capitol Hill where President-elect Donald Trump spoke to House Republicans on Nov. 13, 2024 in Washington, DC. Kent NishimuraâGetty Images
By Simon Shuster and Brian Bennett
The standoff at 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue was not much of a spectacle. On the first day of February, a handful of men working for Elon Musk had come to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), a few blocks from the White House, demanding full access to its headquarters. The agencyâs staff refused. No guns were drawn. No punches thrown. Nobody involved the police. But in these early days of the Trump Administration, perhaps no other scene revealed more clearly the forces reshaping Americaâs government.
On one side stood an institution with a 64-year history, a $35 billion budget, and a mission enshrined in federal law. On the other stood Muskâs political wrecking crew. They identified themselves as members of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a collection of temporary staffers with no charter, no website, and no clear legal authority. Its power derives from Musk, the wealthiest person on the planet, who has been deputized to dismantle vast swaths of the federal bureaucracyâslashing budgets, gutting the civil service, and stripping independent agencies of the ability to impede the Presidentâs objectives.
USAID leadership had allowed Muskâs team, a group of his young and eager followers, to spend several days inside their headquarters at the end of January. âThe DOGE kids,â as some of the staffers called them in private, walked the halls with clipboards in their hands, examining desks and questioning managers, according to several USAID officials who described the events to TIME. But as the weekend arrived, their demandsâincluding access to sensitive facilities designed to store classified informationâwent too far for the agencyâs heads of security. The men from DOGE threatened to call the U.S. Marshals and have them clear the building. They also informed Musk about the problem. âUSAID is a criminal organization,â Musk wrote to his 215 million followers on his socialâŻmedia platform, X, soon after. âTime for it to die.â
February 7, 2025
Itâs Time to Prepare for the Fall of American Democracy
Weâre in the middle of an ongoing constitutional crisis at the moment and may soon find out if The Constitution will remain âin effectâ altogether, as Jamelle Bouie put it in an op-ed for The New York Times.
At the current pace, Trump could radically transform our entire form of governance in a short period of time. Historian Timothy Ryback explains in a piece for The Atlantic how H*tler was able to dismantle democracy in just 53 days by centering governance around the executive (i.e. rule by decree), purging the government of loyalists, and shutting down public unrest with the military.
The similarities between then and now are utterly chilling. In this video weâll look at all of the warning signs that Trump is becoming a full-blown fascist dictator, and explain what Democrats should do to prepare before itâs too late.
Feb. 7, 2025
5 Reasons Trump Will Fail (and itâs already happening)
Inside with Jen Psaki
Feb. 9, 2025
âConstitutional crisisâ: Sen. Booker reacts to
possibility that Elon Musk will defy court orders
Senator Cory Booker discusses Democratsâ playbook for fighting back against Elon Muskâs government takeover.
Feb. 9, 2025
Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn.: U.S. facing most
serious constitutional crisis âsince Watergateâ
Feb. 10, 2025
David Remnick â 100 Years of The New Yorker & Journalism in the 2nd Trump Era
The New Yorker editor David Remnick sits down with Jon Stewart to discuss the magazineâs 100th Anniversary Issue and journey since its inception in 1925.
They also talk about the importance of long-form journalism, especially under the overwhelming second Trump administration, as well as how the president is overstepping executive power, the danger of the tech oligarchy, and the need for Democratic politicians and citizens alike to finish licking their wounds and take action.
Feb. 10, 2025
Chris Hedges exposes how Americaâs fake Christian Right & billionaires are destroying us.
Marc Lamont Hill sits down with Chris Hedges, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and former New York Times Middle East bureau chief, to break down Americaâs looming future under a toxic mix of corporate greed, religious extremism, and fascist politics.
Hedges calls out the âChristian Rightâ for its deep ties to the billionaire class, claiming theyâre using âmagic Jesusâ to distract the masses from real economic collapse. The conversation goes deep into how the system is rigged against the working class, how âboutique activismâ misses the point, and why the fight for true justice canât be won without confronting economic inequality head-on.
The explosive talk covers the dangerous rise of Christian nationalism, the genocide in Gaza, and why the left is too weak to stop the chaos ahead.
With a long career covering war and global injustice, Hedges brings his deep insights into the collapse of the American empire, economic inequality, and the rise of authoritarianism. Heâs the author of several books, including America: The Farewell Tour and Wages of Rebellion, and a fierce critic of both political parties.
Feb. 11, 2025
Is Calculated Chaos Trumpâs Key Strategy?
Unpredictable, impulsive, arbitrary. These are some of the words that might come to mind to describe President Trumpâs first few weeks in office. But is the chaos the point? Richard Nixon famously wanted the North Vietnamese to believe heâd do anything to end the war, including using nuclear weapons. It was called his âmadman theory.â
Is Trump deploying the same strategy but, to the entire world? And what does his zero-sum approach mean for the post-World War II order?
February 11, 2025
Bernie Sanders Dismantles Elon Musk,
Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos Oligarchy
During remarks on the Senate floor, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) accused President Trump and the billionaire âoligarchsâ of leading the United States to âauthoritarianismâ.
ALL IN with Chris Hayes
February 13, 2025
âHighway robberyâ: Musk, Trump yank $80m
from NYC bank account over migrant lies
âThey are taking money out of other peopleâs bank accounts, calling it a âclawbackâ of taxpayer money. A lot of other people call it stealing $80 million,â says Chris Hayes. NYC Comptroller Brad Lander joins to discuss.
Feb. 13, 2025
Tom Friedman Examines the Beginning of the
Second Trump Term
We talk of many things including the US election, the new Trump administration, executive orders and constitutional challenges, the global economy and tariffs, Elon Musk, JD Vance, cabinet appointments and Democratic resistance, Israel and Palestinians, Europe and NATO, Iran and North Korea, Greenland and Panama, and big tech like artificial intelligence and big ideas like the end of the post-World War II liberal order, and the rise of new imperialism.
Feb. 15, 2025
George Conway on defiance of court orders:
We have basically a criminal regime
The Trump administration is working to discredit the legal system, with Vance suggesting Trump could ignore court rulings all together. George Conway joins The Weekend to discuss what this means for the rule of law in the U.S.
Feb. 16, 2025
Jamie Raskin says DOJ made âdeeply corrupt bargainâ
in move to drop charges against NYC mayor Eric Adams
February 16, 2025
A government workerâs message for Elon Musk
Since taking office, President Trump and his advisor, billionaire business owner Elon Musk, have worked to winnow the ranks of federal workers. At times questioning the contributions of some federal employees, they are also enticing more than two million government employees to quit, and have moved to shutter entire agencies.
But how will the public lose out if government workers lose their jobs? âSunday Morningâ national correspondent Robert Costa talks with Christopher Mark, a Department of Labor engineer who has helped keep coal miners safe and alive; and with Michael Lewis, editor of the new book Who Is Government?, which explores a workforce of individuals dedicated to the public good.
Feb. 16, 2025
Will the US and Israel succeed in ethnic
cleansing of Gaza? | The Bottom Line
Western ideals of morality and international law have been dealt a fatal blow by Israelâs war on Gaza, argues author Pankaj Mishra.
Mishra, whose latest book is The World After Gaza: A History, tells host Steve Clemons that US and Israeli leaders are normalising the idea of mass expulsion of the two million Palestinians who live in the Gaza Strip and may eventually succeed in carrying it out as the world watches.
The author dives into the racist logic behind some Western foreign policies and argues that India has lost âmoral and diplomatic leadershipâ due to its support for Israel.
Feb. 16, 2025
Coup in Jordan: Trumpâs Gaza Plan will
BACKFIRE For Eygpt & Jordan
Feb. 16, 2025
Trump Claims Role of Absolute Monarch
President Trump has just claimed that heâs above the law, trying to quote Napoleon. This is in response to the courts blocking his illegal executive orders. So, what does he plan next? It can only be the neutralisation of the courts. If he succeeds in doing that, America ceases to be a democracy.
Feb. 16, 2025
What Trump, Musk moves on USAID could mean
for other government agencies
A constitutional law professor and a former USAID administrator are raising questions about President Trumpâs actions around USAID and what it could mean about the role of Congress in Washington.
DEADLINE | WHITE HOUSE
February 17, 2025
Protestors chant âNo one voted for
Elon Muskâ as federal layoffs begin
Media Matters President Angelo Carusone, The Bulwark publisher Sarah Longwell, and Washington Post investigative reporter Carol Leonnig discuss the nationwide protests that have sprung up as President Trump and Elon Musk gut federal agencies and lay off employees.
February 17, 2025
Bill Gates on Trump, AI, and a Life of Revolutionizing Tech
In the United States, international aid is also on Trumpâs foreign policy chopping block. For now, a federal judge has paused a funding freeze on USAID.
Tech giant Bill Gates joins Walter Isaacson to explain how the global fight against disease could be affected by the sweeping cuts. Gates also discusses his new memoir, Source Code: My Beginnings.
The LAST WORD with
Lawrence OâDonnell
February 17, 2025
Because of Musk and Trump, for the first time
Social Security payments are not guaranteed
MSNBCâs Lawrence OâDonnell explains how Elon Musk, whose only mission in government is to cut payments, has gained control over Social Security and put those payments in jeopardy for the first time, proving that President Roosevelt was right when he said, âNo damn politician can ever scrap my social security program.â
Feb. 18, 2025
âThe callapse of a generation is here.â | Richard Wolff
Feb. 19, 2025
Exposes Trump & Elonâs Billionaire Giveaway Scheme
ALL IN with Chris Hayes
February 19, 2025
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA): Before Elon Musk
robs the bank, heâs firing all the cops
Inside with Jen Psaki
Feb. 20, 2025
âThis is not a gameâ: Psaki calls out GOP lawmakers
for flip-flopping on Russia
âThis is what Republicans are doing now: going against all of their strongest convictions about Americaâs role in the worldâabout the threat of Russia, the threat of Putinâto bend the knee to Trump,â says Jen Psaki on Republicans like Marco Rubio, Lindsey Graham and Mike Waltz.
Politics
Trump Just Hit a Disgusting New Low for an American President
His embrace of Russiaâs propaganda and strategic goals is appalling even by the standards of his extreme and callous second term.
By Alex Shephard / February 20, 2025
As Donald Trump insisted this week that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was somehow responsible for his own country being invaded by Russia, and accused him of being a âdictatorâ responsible for âmillionsâ of unnecessary deaths, even Vladimir Putin likely couldnât believe what he was hearing. For three years, the Russian leaderâwho, unlike the democratically elected Zelenskiy, is an actual dictatorâhas been spouting similar disinformation to justify his invasion of a sovereign nation. Putin also has held stubbornly to his wild demands, despite the war having long been mired in a stalemate.
Now, improbably, Putin is poised to get everything he wantsâhuge territorial gains, the crippling of Ukrainian democracy, a weakened NATOâfor no reason other than that Trump was elected as part of a global backlash to rising prices. Itâs shocking that any American president would effectively abandon its defense of a former Soviet state in favor of Russia, but itâs also unsurprising that Trump, specifically, would do so. He has long made it obvious that he sees no value in sticking up for a small democracy against a larger dictatorship. And yet his negotiations with Russia over ending the war in Ukraine are still breathtaking in their cynicism and inhumanity. In his haste to end the war and give himself the bogus title of âpeacemaker,â Trump is acceding to every Russian demand and setting Europe, and perhaps the world, up for even more devastation to comeâwithout getting anything in return for the United States.
One of the hallmarks of Trumpâs style of governance is that he cares little about most aspects of foreign policy. But he does appear to have genuinely swallowed the entire Russian propaganda narrative about Ukraine, short of repeating Putinâs nonsensical pretext that Ukraine needed to be âde-nazified.â While Trump is unmoved by the actual stakes of the warâan emboldened Russia that may look to invade other neighbors, particularly Poland and the Baltic states, that belong to NATOâhe does adore strongmen. At the same time, he also is so desperate for a huge, legacy-defining âwinâ that he is eagerly giving Russia everything it wants, even going so far as to make concessions to Putin before negotiations have begun in earnest.
Trumpâs foreign policy is typically described as âisolationist,â but thatâs not quite accurate. Heâs a transactional imperialist. He sees the war in Ukraine as being useless because it costs America billions but only provides ineffable benefits (like checking Russian belligerence). The talks that Secretary of State Marco Rubio is currently engaging in with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, are instructive insofar as they show a different set of priorities. Trump wants the war to end, but he also wants to rob Ukraine of much of its sizable deposits of natural resources and precious metals, ostensibly to pay America back for the money it spent in helping Ukraine defend itself.
What Trump is asking forâfrom a nation that the United States was, until recently, pledged to defendâis so breathtaking it is difficult to comprehend. Ukraine not only would cede a great deal of its sovereign territory to Russia, it would also effectively cede much of its economy to the U.S.âall to âpay it backâ for its support in a war that Trump is now attempting to force it to surrender. Per The Telegraph, the U.S. would take half of Ukraineâs revenues from resource extraction as well as half of the financial value of âall new licenses issued to third partiesâ for the monetization of those resources. The U.S., moreover, would have to be paid before anyone in Ukraine saw a dime. It makes the terms imposed on Germany at the end of World War I seem downright modest. At the same time, it would effectively destroy what remains of Americaâs reputation abroad. Why would any nation accept American support knowing that a future administration could waltz in and demand such onerous terms?
Trump is perfectly happy to be involved abroad, in other words, as long as the U.S. is getting some material benefit from it. Recall his take on the Iraq War, which in his mind was a folly not because it inflamed tensions in the Middle East and accomplished none of its goals in spreading democracy, but because the U.S. didnât âtake the oilâ as part of its invasion. Or his vow, as president in 2019, that the U.S. is â keeping the oilâ in Syria. (To this day, U.S. troops are illegally occupying oil fields there.)
Trumpâs retreat from Ukraine should be seen as part of a larger recalibration of the United Statesâ strategic focus, at least for the next four years. Doing the kind of things that the U.S. did after World War IIâadvancing democracy, investing in alliances, countering dictatorships and adversariesâare all out. Part of this means a retreat from the nationâs European allies, whom Trump consistently denigrates as freeloaders who should provide their own security. âThis War is far more important to Europe than it is to us,â Trump wrote Wednesday on Truth Social. âWe have a big, beautiful Ocean as separation.â
Instead, Trump is reorienting U.S. foreign policy toward antagonizing allies, and even shaking them down. Trump sees all interactions in zero-sum terms, including diplomatic relations; there are only winners and losers, and he believes that the United States is being taken advantage of by capricious, greedy, and weak nations who are allies in name only. Thus, he has taken aim at Canada (which he insists will become the â51st stateâ), Europe (particularly Denmark, from whom he wants to acquire Greenlandâthe â52nd stateâ), and much of Latin America, which his administration is fixated on exerting its influence over.
Trump has initiated trade wars with some of these countries. Relations with Canada, in particular, are perhaps lower than they have been since the War of 1812. The tariffs Trump has levied against Americaâs neighbors always have stated rationales (usually stopping the flow of illegal drugs or migrants), but in every case itâs clear that there is little that any country can do to meet these vague demands. Trumpâs tariffs are partly guided by his increased veneration of William McKinley, who used them over a century agoâin a vastly different worldâto enrich the nation. But they are also textbook examples of bullying: There is no ultimate goal, other than to show oneâs dominance.
This points to what unites Trumpâs foreign policy both in the Americas and in Ukraine. He worships âstrengthâ and wants no part in pitting the United States against another Great Powerâeven a weakened one, like Russia. Instead, heâs prowling around the schoolyard, looking for smaller nations that he can pick on. The result is not just an embarrassment for the entire nation, but a massive exercise in futility. Trumpâs foreign policy will do nothing good for the United States, even as it is already accomplishing a great deal for our adversaries.
Feb. 21, 2025
EXCLUSIVE: DID TRUMP STEAL THE 2024 ELECTION?
Feb. 23, 2025
Rise and Fall of Putin’s Oligarchs | Inside the Russian Elite
Putin and the Oligarchs | 2022 | ENDEVR Documentary
When Vladimir Putin came to power in 2000, Russiaâs super rich saw him as a technocrat they could control, just as they had dominated his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin. They had a rude awakening in 2003, when Putin arrested, caged and exiled the richest man in Russia. Looking on from their yachts, jets and castles, the Oligarchs sent the same message to Putin: âHow do I avoid being caged?â His response: â50 percent.â In one bold stroke Putin spread fear across his land, consolidated his power and likely made himself the richest man on earth. Now, with war raging in Ukraine, the Oligarchs are caught between sanctions in the west and a backlash at home. This is the story of Russiaâs super rich and the man who rules over them.
Feb. 23, 2025
Justice Department purge under Trump administration
President Trump says his administration is cleaning up a Justice Department corrupted by politics. Amid the firings and resignations, one leader described a workplace of âconfusionâ and âfear.â
Feb. 23, 2025
Fareedâs Take: Trumpâs foreign policy yes men
CNNâs Fareed Zakaria discusses President Donald Trumpâs strategy for ending the war in Ukraine, Trumpâs disdain for Ukraine, and more on his show, âGPS.â
Feb. 24, 2025
CFPB, the consumer watchdog agency,
under fire by President Trump, DOGE
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a watchdog agency created to protect consumers, is under fire by President Trump and DOGE. Its new head ordered work to stop and funding to end.
February 24, 2025
ONE WORD DESCRIBES
TRUMP
A century ago, a German sociologist explained precisely
how the president thinks about the world.
By Jonathan Rauch
WHAT EXACTLY is Donald Trump doing?
Since taking office, he has reduced his administrationâs effectiveness by appointing to essential agencies people who lack the skills and temperaments to do their jobs. His mass firings have emptied the civil service of many of its most capable employees. He has defied laws that he could just as easily have followed (for instance, refusing to notify Congress 30 days before firing inspectors general). He has disregarded the plain language of statutes, court rulings, and the Constitution, setting up confrontations with the courts that he is likely to lose. Few of his orders have gone through a policy-development process that helps ensure they wonât fail or backfireâthus ensuring that many will.
In foreign affairs, he has antagonized Denmark, Canada, and Panama; renamed the Gulf of Mexico the âGulf of Americaâ; and unveiled a Gaz-a-Lago plan. For good measure, he named himself chair of the Kennedy Center, as if he didnât have enough to do.
Even those who expected the worst from his reelection (I among them) expected more rationality. Today, it is clear that what has happened since January 20 is not just a change of administration but a change of regimeâa change, that is, in our system of government. But a change to what?
There is an answer, and it is not classic authoritarianismânor is it autocracy, oligarchy, or monarchy. Trump is installing what scholars call patrimonialism. Understanding patrimonialism is essential to defeating it. In particular, it has a fatal weakness that Democrats and Trumpâs other opponents should make their primary and relentless line of attack.
LAST YEAR, two professors published a book that deserves wide attention. In The Assault on the State: How the Global Attack on Modern Government Endangers Our Future, Stephen E. Hanson, a government professor at the College of William & Mary, and Jeffrey S. Kopstein, a political scientist at UC Irvine, resurface a mostly forgotten term whose lineage dates back to Max Weber, the German sociologist best known for his seminal book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.
Weber wondered how the leaders of states derive legitimacy, the claim to rule rightfully. He thought it boiled down to two choices. One is rational legal bureaucracy (or âbureaucratic proceduralismâ), a system in which legitimacy is bestowed by institutions following certain rules and norms. That is the American system we all took for granted until January 20. Presidents, federal officials, and military inductees swear an oath to the Constitution, not to a person.
The other source of legitimacy is more ancient, more common, and more intuitiveââthe default form of rule in the premodern world,â Hanson and Kopstein write. âThe state was little more than the extended âhouseholdâ of the ruler; it did not exist as a separate entity.â Weber called this system âpatrimonialismâ because rulers claimed to be the symbolic father of the peopleâthe stateâs personification and protector. Exactly that idea was implied in Trumpâs own chilling declaration: âHe who saves his Country does not violate any Law.â
In his day, Weber thought that patrimonialism was on its way to historyâs scrap heap. Its personalized style of rule was too inexpert and capricious to manage the complex economies and military machines that, after Bismarck, became the hallmarks of modern statehood. Unfortunately, he was wrong.
The LAST WORD
Feb. 24, 2025
Trump humiliated on the world stage as Franceâs
Macron instantly corrects his Ukraine lie
Lawrence OâDonnell details how French President Macron humiliated Donald Trump after the United States, for the first time in history, âvoted with the dictator against freedomâ when it stood with Vladimir Putin in opposing a UN resolution condemning Russiaâs war in Ukraine. For more context and news coverage of the most important stories of our day click here: msnbc.com
Feb. 25, 2025
Adam Kinzinger: Donât Be Afraid
This panel was held at the 2025 Principles First Summit, featuring former Congressman Adam Kinzinger, hosted by former Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer.
Feb. 25, 2025
Did Russia Recruit Trump as a Russian spy in 1987?
For decades, Donald Trump has cozied up to Russia, praised Vladimir Putin, and attacked Americaâs closest allies. But is this just egoâor something far more sinister? From his first Moscow visit in 1987 to his 2024 campaign threats against NATO, this documentary unravels the 40-year connection between Trump and the Kremlin.
Why did Russian intelligence take an interest in Trump decades ago? Why has he repeatedly sided with Putin over Americaâs own allies? And is Russia backing Trumpâs 2024 campaignâagain?
Feb. 26, 2025
US author explains Donald Trumpâs Russia,
KGB connections
Craig Unger is an American journalist and writer who has written two books on Donald Trumpâs connections to Russiaâs security services and the Russian mafia stretching all the way back to the 1980s. Unger says he is âabsolutely certainâ that the U.S. president is a Russian asset whose current actions are benefiting Russian President Vladimir Putin, and destroying relationships with long-time allies.
February 26, 2025
Congressional GOP is âHiding in a Caveâ
February 26, 2025
Donald Trump shares bizarre
AI-generated video of âTrump Gazaâ
The US president posted the clip, which appears to have been published beforehand by accounts unaffiliated with the White House, on the site Truth Social on Wednesday.
It features Trump and the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, sunbathing in a Dubai-style resort while Elon Musk is showered with bank notes while walking on a beach. The clip echoes Trumpâs recent comment on Gaza when he said: âWe have an opportunity to do something that could be phenomenal ⌠the Riviera of the Middle East, it could be so magnificent.â
Trump says US will âtake overâ Gaza Strip in shock announcement âş theguardian.com/world/202âŚ
Trumpâs grotesque Gaza proposal is appalling âş theguardian.com/commentisâŚ
Trumpâs Gaza takeover wonât happen. But it has already changed the face of Israeli politics âş theguardian.com/commentisâŚ
February 27, 2025
The Billionairesâ Government: Branko Marcetic
on Trumpâs âComplete Betrayalâ of His Base
Elon Musk, the worldâs richest man, has been the public face of the Trump administrationâs effort to dismantle many government agencies and slash the size of the federal workforce.
On Wednesday, he attended Trumpâs first Cabinet meeting, although he is not a Cabinet member. Meanwhile, Russell Vought, the Project 2025 mastermind and director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, has been working behind the scenes to enact far-right policies aimed at privatizing public resources like Medicaid and Social Security.
We speak with Jacobin staff writer Branko Marcetic to discuss the radical DOGE agenda. âAs they make these ruthless, ruthless cuts to the programs that people rely on, ⌠they also want to keep in place massive tax cuts for the rich,â he says.
February 28, 2025
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is trying to find
her partyâs path back into power.
The New York Democrat is a more seasoned politician than when she burst onto the national scene during the first Trump administration. Elected by surprise in 2018, Ocasio-Cortez was a progressive insurgent, a democratic socialist, a frequent critic of her own party, and a social media sensation.
She was also a leading character on Fox News, a figure conservatives loved to hate. Seven years later, she remains an outsized public figure, who also has built relationships inside Congress with Democrats and even some Republicans. At 35, she is a veteran lawmaker.
We sat with Ocasio-Cortez this week just after House Democrats managed a show of unity: they all voted against a Republican budget plan, which barely passed. We talked through her partyâs path toward political recovery.
Feb. 28, 2025
The full, on-camera Oval Office CLASH between
Trump, Vance and Zelenskyy
Ukrainian President Zelenskyyâs meeting with Trump and Vance unravels into an extraordinary shouting match on camera inside the Oval Office. The White House meeting was intended to kick off negotiations over a deal over Ukraineâs rare earth minerals.
The tense exchange began after Vance said that the path to peace between Russia and Ukraine is diplomacy. Zelenskyy disagreed and said that Russia had broken agreements with his government in the past, including in 2019 when a ceasefire deal was signed and Zelenskyy said Russia didnât honor the agreement.
In a social media post after the meeting, Trump said the Ukrainian leader âdisrespectedâ the U.S. in its cherished Oval Office and that Zelenskyy âis not ready for Peace if America is involved.â A scheduled press conference with the two leaders was later cancelled.
February 28, 2025
It Was an Ambush
Today marked one of the grimmest days
in the history of American diplomacy.
By Tom Nichols
Leave aside, if only for a moment, the utter boorishness with which President Donald Trump and Vice President J. D. Vance treated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House today. Also leave aside the spectacle of American leaders publicly pummeling a friend as if he were an enemy. All of the ghastliness inflicted on Zelensky today should not obscure the geopolitical reality of what just happened: The president of the United States ambushed a loyal ally, presumably so that he can soon make a deal with the dictator of Russia to sell out a European nation fighting for its very existence.
Trumpâs advisers have already declared the meeting a win for âputting America first,â and his apologists will likely spin and rationalize this shameful moment as just a heated conversationâthe kind of thing that in Washington-speak used to be called a âfrank and candid exchange.â But this meeting reeked of a planned attack, with Trump unloading Russian talking points on Zelensky (such as blaming Ukraine for risking global war), all of it designed to humiliate the Ukrainian leader on national television and give Trump the pretext to do what he has indicated repeatedly he wants to do: side with Russian President Vladimir Putin and bring the war to an end on Russiaâs terms. Trump is now reportedly considering the immediate end of all military aid to Ukraine because of Zelenskyâs supposed intransigence during the meeting.
Vanceâs presence at the White House also suggests that the meeting was a setup. Vance is usually an invisible backbencher in this administration, with few duties other than some occasional trolling of Trumpâs critics. (The actual business of furthering Trumpâs policies is apparently now Elon Muskâs job.) This time, however, he was brought in to troll not other Americans, but a foreign leader. Marco Rubioâin theory, Americaâs top diplomatâwas also there, but he sat glumly and silently while Vance pontificated like an obnoxious graduate student.
Zelensky objected, as he should have, when the vice president castigated the Ukrainian president for not showing enough personal gratitude to Trump. And then in a moment of immense hypocrisy, Vance told Zelensky that it was âdisrespectful for you to come into the Oval Office and try to litigate this in front of the American media.â But baiting Zelensky into fighting in front of the media was likely the plan all along, and Trump and Vance were soon both yelling at Zelensky. (âThis is going to be great television,â Trump said during the meeting.) The president at times sounded like a Mafia bossââYou donât have the cardsâ; âyouâre buried thereââbut in the end, he sounded like no one so much as Putin himself as he hollered about âgambling with World War III,â as if starting the biggest war in Europe in nearly a century was Zelenskyâs idea.
Feb. 28, 2025
Shocked Ukrainians react to bombastic
Trump-Zelenskyy meeting
Ukrainians are waking up to the news of a tense meeting between their president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and President Trump. CBS Newsâ Imtiaz Tyab has more from Kyiv on the claims of lack of gratitude over U.S. support in the war against Russia.
REPORTS
Feb. 28, 2025
âCompletely selling out to the Kremlinâ:
Lawmaker slams âtrue puppet of Putinâ
Trump
What happens now? Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA) joins Katy Tur to react to President Trump and Vice President Vance clashing with Ukrainian President Zelenskyy in the Oval Office and to spell out the consequences of this meeting.
Feb. 28, 2025
Brooks and Capehart on the implications
of Trumpâs altercation with Zelenskyy
New York Times columnist David Brooks and Washington Post associate editor Jonathan Capehart join Amna Nawaz to discuss the week in politics, including President Trumpâs public spat with Ukrainian President Zelenskyy, if Europe can depend on the U.S. and new restrictions on the White House press corps.
March 1, 2025
What The Bullying Of Zelensky Reveals About Trump
Trump and JD Vance revealed something profound about themselves when they treated Zelensky the way they did on February 28th 2025 in the Oval Office. A deep-seated aspect of their psychological makeup was shown to the public for the first time in a shocking way. In this video I break it down.
For reference, another broader video I made about the mind of Trump is here: ⢠Inside Trumpâs Mind Bullying Of ZelenâŚ
March 1, 2025
Trump-Zelenskyy blowup, Rubio âshould resignâ:
Trumpâs First 100 Days â Day 40 | Highlights
President Trump, Ukrainian President Zelenskyy and Vice President Vance had a tense exchange about the ongoing war with Russia. National security experts join Nicolle Wallace with reaction to the shocking Oval Office meeting and what it means for Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Plus, a judge ruled the OPM cannot directly fire federal workers at other agencies and that they have to rescind their mass firing memo.
Inside with Jen Psaki
March 2, 2025
Fmr. Russia ambassador shreds Vance over Ukraine:
âWhy in Godâs name should Trump get a thank you?â
Former U.S. ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul and David Remnick, editor of the New Yorker and former Moscow correspondent for The Washington Post discuss the potentially disastrous consequences of Trumpâs Oval Office meeting with Zelenskyy.
REPORTS
March 2, 2025
âSick to my stomachâ: Fmr. Gov. Kasich slams
Trump over combative Zelenskyy exchange
Reactions are still flying in over the abrupt end to Ukrainian President Zelenskyyâs visit to the White House last week. Zelenskyy attended a summit of European leaders in London on Sunday.
Former Governor John Kasich (R-OH) and former Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs Chris Meagher share their thoughts on Fridayâs Oval Office meeting and the unexpected support from GOP lawmakers President Trump has received so far.
March 2, 2025
The American Oligarchy: How corrupt is US politics?
In America, lobby groups, corporations, and billionaires invest millions of dollars to ensure that the ârightâ candidate wins elections. It affects everything from the selection of local officials to presidential elections and creates countless conflicts of interest, undermining what used to be a model democracy. And it has a serious impact on peopleâs daily lives. Drug prices are the highest in the world. Tax rates for the wealthy have fallen. Climate change is being denied. The impunity and extent of this are staggering. For many, this is nothing less than âlegal corruptionâ.
Today, America âis just an oligarchy with unlimited political briberyâ, said former president Jimmy Carter himself. Rules seem to have been designed to be bypassed; supposedly impartial judges are elected with the help of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars. We follow candidates on the field during the electoral process and hear from people whose lives have been directly affected.
March 2, 2025
Trumpism Isnât Working
As a checked-out president sits back and lets Elon Musk shred the civil service, the signs of economic calamity are growingâand Americans of all stripes are getting pissed off.
By Jason Linkins
Last November, voters elected a president whoâd largely campaigned on an unrelenting hostility to trans people and a plan to let Silicon Valley oligarchs gut the civil service and turn government into a machine for the presidentâs self-enrichment and political revenge. Much of the political press either ignored this stuff or didnât care enough to inform their readersâsome were too busy trying to polish a mass deportation scheme into a sensible response to the housing crisisâbut some of us, here at The New Republic and elsewhere, went hoarse trying to warn about the consequences.
And now here we are. While itâs early days, Trumpâs second term has been going about the way youâd expect the presidency of an anti-trans, pro-oligarch, corrupt mass deporter to go: not well! Migrants are effectively being thrown into internment camps, a gang of child cybercriminals are heisting our personal data, and whatâs left of the civil service is bogged down wondering whether or not they have to send busy-work emails to gang leader Elon Musk. Meanwhile, Trump has largely checked out, prompting Musk, on multiple occasions, to step in as the presidentâs emotional-support fascist during public appearances.
March 2, 2025
Even US SHOCKED by UK, EU and Turkeyâs
Surprise Bold Move for Ukraine
March 3, 2025
âA disaster for U.S. national securityâ:
Senator reacts to Oval Office meeting
Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., joins Morning Joe to discuss the Oval Office meeting between President Trump and Ukrainian President Zelenskyy.
March 3, 2025
Keir Starmer speech at emergency
summit of European Leaders
Keir Starmer: âIt is time to actâ to defend the West at Defence Summit.
Sir Keir Starmer has set out what was agreed at Sundayâs summit on Ukraine. Speaking at a press conference in Lancaster House, the Prime Minister said that âany deal must be backed by strengthâ.
March 3, 2025
Zelenskyy enacts true diplomacy as the GOP scrambles
As House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senator Lindsey Graham suggested Zelenskyy should resign if he doesnât bend the knee to Trump, Zelenskyy was in Europe trying to negotiate real deals to save his country. The U.S. still needs to back any plan Europe puts forward, but his diplomacy shows that the Trump administration still canât handle having a normal meeting or coming up with a decent foreign policy agenda.
MSNBCâs Ayman Mohyeldin discusses with Rick Wilson, the co-founder of The Lincoln Project and Democratic strategist Ameshia Cross.
March 3, 2025
Trump biographer Michael Wolff: The president
âis a moron and a geniusâ
Itâs been a seismic weekend in global politics with nothing less than the future of European security at stake.
Amid the fallout of Donald Trump and JD Vanceâs shouting match with Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office on Friday, Keir Starmer hosted a summit of international leaders and seemed to pull off a delicate balancing act as a conduit between the American and Ukrainian presidents.
Whether Starmer and French president Emmanuel Macronâs plan for a âcoalition of the willingâ to lead the defence of a post-war Ukraine is feasible very much remains to be seen â especially without American air cover.
Few know Trump better than his biographer Michael Wolff, who is in the Daily T studio to mark the publication of his latest book All or Nothing: How Trump Recaptured America (dismissed as âtotally FAKEâ by Trump). Wolff gives Kamal and Camilla his take on the thinking of a man he describes as âboth a moron and a geniusâ.
March 3, 2025
Matthew Desmond â âPoverty, by Americaâ & What
It Takes to Close the Poverty Gap
âInvesting in American people and stabilizing communities that need it the most is the best way for all of us.â Sociologist at Princeton University and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Evicted, Matthew Desmond sits down with Jon Stewart to discuss his latest book, Poverty, by America.
They talk about Americaâs welfare state, how society benefits from poverty, the opportunity to close the poverty gap if the top one percent paid their taxes, and empowering the poor with better choices like building worker power, and expanding housing choice. They also highlight how Democrats need to get more serious about economic justice to fully commit to poverty abolitionism.
March+April 2025 Issue
Warning to Whistleblowers: âWe Are Back in the
Days of the Red Scareâ
Lessons from the lawyer of the whistleblower
who prompted Trumpâs first impeachment
By Abby Vesoulis
Government employees who report possible malfeasance are almost certain to be targeted by the second Trump administration. Mark Zaid is a lawyer likely to represent some of them; over the past two decades, he has provided legal counsel to a long list of federal employees and intelligence officers, including whistleblowers.
His most high-profile whistleblower case, however, was that of the intelligence officer who reported to an inspector general that then-President Donald Trump pressed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to find political dirt on his presidential rival. While dangling military aid to Ukraine that Congress already had approved, Trump asked Zelenskyy to investigate the family of Joe Biden, a leading Democratic contender to face Trump in 2020. This whistleblowerâs 2019 report led to Trumpâs first impeachment case.
March 3, 2025
WHERE JEFF BEZOS WENT WRONG WITH
THE WASHINGTON POST
The billionaire handled his ownership admirably for more than a decade. But his courage failed him when he needed it most.
By Martin Baron
THE DAY THE WORLD LEARNED that Jeff Bezos would buy The Washington Post, the Amazon founder offered assurances that he would not cower when faced with threats from a vengeful president and his appointees.
He summoned memories of Richard Nixonâs attorney general, John Mitchell, who warned that the legendary publisher Katharine Graham was âgonna get her tit caught in a big fat wringerâ if the Post published one of its Watergate stories. âWhile I hope no one ever threatens to put one of my body parts through a wringer,â Bezos wrote to the paperâs anxious journalists in August 2013, âif they do, thanks to Mrs. Grahamâs example, Iâll be ready.â
I led the newsroom at the time Bezos bought the Post. For a long while, he fulfilled his promise to the paper and its readers, exceeding my expectations. Then he faltered badly.
Now we know that Bezos is no Katharine Graham. It has been sad and unnerving to watch Bezos fall so terribly short of her standard as he confronts the return of Donald Trump to the White House. Itâs been infuriating to observe the damage he has inflicted in recent months on the reputation of a newspaper whose investigative reporting has served as a bulwark against Trumpâs most transgressive impulses.
âYouâre Fired!â by Barry Blitt
March 4, 2025
American Bar Association backs ârule of lawâ
after Musk calls for judges to be impeached
âThere are clear choices facing our profession,â the ABA said in a statement.
By Ryan J. Reilly
The American Bar Association this week rejected attacks on the court system and the legal profession, after billionaire Elon Musk used his X platform to call for the impeachment of judges who have overruled or delayed aspects of President Donald Trumpâs moves to overhaul the federal government.
The ABA said in a statement that it would ânot stay silent in the face of efforts to remake the legal profession into something that rewards those who agree with the government and punishes those who do not,â calling for an end to efforts meant to âcow our countryâs judges, our countryâs courts and our legal professionâ and saying that such attempts at intimidation âcannot be sanctioned or normalized.â
Trump attacked judges whose decisions he disagreed with during his first term in office, as well as some of the judges who oversaw the four criminal cases against him during the intervening four years away from the White House.
Now, with Trump back in the Oval Office and Republicans in control of both the House and Senate, the federal judiciary has paused or overturned some of the most aggressive measures implemented by Trump and Musk, who has repeatedly urged the impeachment of judges who held up Trumpâs measures.
âWe are witnessing an attempted coup of American democracy by radical left activists posing as judges!â Musk wrote on Feb. 11.
âThere need to be some repercussions above ZERO for judges who make truly terrible decisions,â Musk added.
âWhen judges egregiously undermine the democratic will of the people, they must be fired or democracy dies!â Musk wrote on Feb. 25.
âThe only way to restore rule of the people in America is to impeach judges,â Musk added.
When a judge blocked a Trump order that paused refugee admissions, Musk posted that the judge was âviolating the will of the people.â
âIf ANY judge ANYWHERE can block EVERY Presidential order EVERYWHERE, we do NOT have democracy, we have TYRANNY of the JUDICIARY,â Musk posted.
The nonpartisan ABA did not explicitly name Musk in its statement, instead broadly noting, âHigh-ranking government officials (appointed and elected) have made repeated calls for the impeachment of judges who issue opinions with which the government does not agree.â The ABA cited two phrases â âcorrupt judgesâ and âcorruptionâ â that were used by or reposted by Musk and noted that those criticisms had been aimed only at judges who ruled against the government.
March 4, 2025
Analysis of President Trumpâs joint address to Congress
After President Donald Trump wrapped up his joint address to Congress, Meet the Press moderator Kristen Welker and NBC Newsâ correspondents analyzed the most memorable moments of the night.
For more context and news coverage of the most important stories of our day, click here: nbcnews.com
March 4, 2025
Bernie Responds to Trumpâs State of the Union Address
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
March 4, 2025
âLetâs Be Clear: Tariffs Are A Taxâ
Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg joins Stephen Colbert LIVE following President Trumpâs address to Congress, and breaks down the real economic consequences of Trumpâs tariffs on foreign goods. Stick around for two more segments with Pete Buttigieg:
2 â On Trumpâs Foreign Policy Flip: âHelping Russia And Fighting Canada. Itâs Upside Down.â
3 â On How Democrats (And Republicans) Can Resist Trumpâs Authoritarianism
March 4, 2025
Watch Trudeau speak directly to Trump during
blistering speech
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau outlined how his country will respond to the blanket 25 percent tariffs President Trump imposed on Canada and Mexico.
Jan. 13, 2025
âYankee, Go Home!â â Canadian Anti-Trump Song
Feb. 14, 2025
âNot Your 51stâ
(U.S. Marinesâ Hymn Parody)
This song is a bold and ironic remake of the U.S. Marine Hymn, turning a patriotic American anthem into a defiant Canadian protest song against Donald Trumpâs tariffs and threats of annexation. Originally repurposed as a pro-Trump campaign song in 2016, weâve flipped the scriptâusing the same tune to reject his trade war tactics and his suggestion that Canada could become the 51st state.
With themes of Canadian independence and sovereignty, the lyrics push back against economic intimidation and political arrogance, making it clear that Canada will never bow to pressure or threats. The song celebrates the strength, resilience, and freedom of the True North, standing firm against those who try to undermine it.
Feb. 28, 2025
âMAGA Manâ
(A Neil Young Parody â Canada Ainât Your 51st State)
Canada has always been a good friend to Americaâbut that doesnât mean weâll roll over. With some in the U.S. floating the idea of annexation, this is a Canadian response to the madness. Inspired by Neil Youngâs âSouthern Man,â this parody, âMAGA Man,â calls out the chaos, corruption, and threats to democracy south of the border.
From culture wars to economic deception, from the Felon in Chief to your failing empire, itâs time to wake up, Americaâand leave Canada out of it.
I am by no means a professional, just an amateur who loves music and a good protest song. I can only hope Neil Young doesnât mindâbecause letâs be real, I could never do it as well as him. Apologies in advance for that! If you love Canada, Neil Young, satire, or just a good protest song, hit like, and share! Letâs keep the true north strong and free.
Jan. 29, 2024
âBattle Hymn Of The Trumpublicâ
Oct. 13, 2024
âSong For Donaldâ
Feb. 6, 2020
âThe Day Democracy Diedâ
Premiered Dec. 5, 2020
âSo Long, Farewell Donald Trumpâ
August 12, 2024
âHow Do You Solve A Problem Like A MAGA?â
July 20, 2024
âVance VPâ
Oct. 28, 2024
âBohemian Trumpsodyâ
March 1, 2025
âPuppets on a Kremlin String?â
March 5, 2025
Rep. Moulton Reacts to Trumpâs Speech to Congress:
âIt Doesnât Make Senseâ
In his address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night, President Trump acknowledged that there will be âa little disturbanceâ ahead. The theme was meant to be âRenewal of the American Dream,â but instead Trump doubled down on his plan to break up the global economic order. America must now deal with a possible trade war as well as Russiaâs war in Ukraine.
While he acknowledged President Zelenskyâs efforts to repair their relationship, Trump made no mention of reversing his suspension of U.S. military aid. One of the attendees at last nightâs address was Democratic Congressman Seth Moulton. He joins the show from Washington, D.C.
March 5, 2025
âBuffoon of a presidentâ: Trump exposes ignorance
of U.S. farming in speech to Congress
Michelle Norris, MSNBC senior contributing editor, joins an MSNBC panel to discuss the effects of Donald Trumpâs trade war and tariffs on American farmers and the degree to which Donald Trump does not appear to understand the necessity of foreign markets for U.S. agriculture.
March 5, 2025
Republicans Slobber Over Trump Address,
He Lies About Transgender Mice &
We Hire a Fired Fed Worker
ALL IN with Chris Hayes
March 5, 2025
Trump is coming for Social Security.
And he has a new âBig Lieâ to justify it.
Trumpâs lies about the 2020 election had a purpose: to destroy faith in the electoral system and overthrow American democracy. Now heâs revamping same lies and false claims of âfraudâ to destroy Social Security.
March 6, 2025
Canadian officialâs interview stuns Amanpour
Canadian Foreign Minister MĂŠlanie Joly talks to CNNâs Christiane Amanpour about Trumpâs ideas on trade, military cooperation, annexation and more.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
March 6, 2025
Jon Stewart & Maria Ressa
on the USâs Authoritarian Slide
Nobel Peace Prize winner and Rappler CEO Maria Ressa joins Jon to discuss the decline of democracy in the U.S. and the Philippines, the misuse of digital platforms, global shifts, ways to protect American democracy, and slicing deli meatâspecifically salami.
March 6, 2025
Six Weeks In, This White House Is On Its Way
To Being The Most Corrupt In U.S. History
WASHINGTONâU.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) on Thursday spoke on the U.S. Senate floor to expose the unprecedented corruption of the Trump administrationâs first six weeks in office. Murphy condemned Trumpâs normalization of pay-to-play politics, where billionaire donors dictate policy and taxpayer money is funneled into the pockets of the president, Elon Musk, and the corporate elite.
March 7, 2025
How Elon Musk Took Over the US Government
Elon Muskâs âDOGEâ follows a playbook familiar to the worldâs richest person: itâs the one he used at Twitter. But the stakes this time are infinitely higher, and his actions will have lasting consequences for America. Whatâs more, Muskâs work on behalf of President Donald Trump has raised unprecedented conflicts of interest that could benefit him and his businesses in innumerable ways.
March 8, 2025
They Were the Original DOGE.
Then Trump Fired Them.
President Trump has sworn to root out corruption within the government, yet one of his first acts as president was to fire over a dozen independent watchdogs who did exactly that. We spoke to seven of them about the abuses they uncovered, what they really think about DOGE and what all this means for the future of American democracy.
March 10, 2025
Is Trump Crashing the Stock Market on Purpose?
March 10, 2025
The Man Who Gets Under Trumpâs Skin: Michael Wolff
How did Michael Wolff manage to penetrate and expose Trumpâs inner circle multiple times? Will the Murdoch empire survive the death of its Patriarch? Whoâs really in charge in the White House?
Rory and Alastair are joined by journalist and author, Michael Wolff, to discuss all this and more.
AYMAN
March 10, 2025
Rep. Mark Pocan: âpeople are pissedâ that
Republicans are fleeing town halls
Republicans have complete control in Washington⌠and yet, theyâre running away from their voters. As angry constituents continue to confront Republicans over Trumpâs policies, GOP leaders are urging lawmakers to stop doing town halls altogether. But while Republicans hide from their constituents, Democrats are reaching out across the country to voters even in GOP-led areas.
MSNBCâs Ayman Mohyeldin spoke with Rep. Mark Pocan on how Democrats are talking to voters impacted by Trump and Elon Muskâs cuts and whether this is the beginning of a new movement.
March 11, 2025
Trump Shamelessly Shills for Tesla, Hurls More
Tariffs at Canada & Stock Market Suffers Bigly
Trump announced an additional 25% tariff on all Canadian steel coming into the United States, keeps doubling down on wanting to make Canada our 51st state; the stock market was down again today, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt claims itâs because we are in a period of transition.
The MAGA media is bending over backwards to try and spin the fact that Trump is crashing the economy, Lara Trump provides some âhistorical perspective,â Elon Musk is having a heck of a week as Tesla stock had itâs biggest drop in five years.
Trump announced that he will be buying a Tesla and did a big commercial for them today absolutely free outside of the White House. His quest continues to buy Greenland, and we head out onto the street to see what people think of the viral $19 strawberry that is actually just a regular one we bought at Ralphâs market.
March 11, 2025
WATCH LIVE: Senate Democratic leaders hold
news conference as House considers funding deal
March 12, 2025
âImpeach Trump Againâ: John Bonifaz on Fighting
Trumpâs Lawlessness, Corruption & Attacks on Judges
More than 250,000 have signed a petition to support an impeachment investigation of President Donald Trump, who was twice impeached during his first term. The Impeach Trump Again campaign is being led by the advocacy group Free Speech for People.
âThis president has already committed multiple abuses of power since assuming the presidency, and the framers designed the Constitution to ensure that we would not have a monarch or a tyrant govern this nation,â says the groupâs president, John Bonifaz. âWhen we see these abuses of power, we have to invoke this impeachment clause.â
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
March 12, 2025
Musk And Trump Are Trying To Break
The Government So Billionaires
Can Take It Over â Ezra Klein
Ezra Klein, the bestselling author and host of âThe Ezra Klein Showâ podcast, offers analysis of the DOGE chaos and says President Trump ultimately intends to privatize many government services. Ezrasâs book Abundance is available March 18th.
March 13, 2025
Attacks on universities arenât about antisemitism.
Theyâre about silencing dissent
Protesters in New York City demand the release of Mahmoud Khalil.
By Anita Chabria
Columnist
- The arrest of Mahmoud Khalil is about the Trump administration trying to destroy universities, by any means possible.
- Khalilâs arrest has sparked numerous protests on college campuses, including in California.
Hello and happy Thursday. Today weâre starting with a quiz. Which American political leader said, âThe professors are the enemyâ?
That would be Richard Nixon, speaking to Henry Kissinger in the Oval Office in 1972.
His full quote is even more chilling: âNever forget, the press is the enemy. The establishment is the enemy; the professors are the enemy. Professors are the enemy. Write that on a blackboard 100 times and never forget it.â
That charming list of perceived villains might seem like a blast from the past, except that Vice President JD Vance ended a 2021 speech railing against American universities with that âprofessorsâ portion of the Nixon quote.
And it wasnât just a one-off. For years, Vance, in lockstep with the Project 2025 folks, has been clear and vocal in his desire to destroy U.S. higher education, viewing it as a threat to conservative values â and conservative power.
Vance has said universities âtrainâ people to hate their family and country.
âI actually think that we have to destroy the universities in this country,â the Yale law school graduate said in another interview. âThey get too much money. They have too much power. I donât think they do anything good.â
So while this weekâs news is filled with the frighteningly authoritarian plight of Mahmoud Khalil, the recent Columbia University graduate student and green card holder detained for his role in pro-Palestinian protests, thereâs a bigger picture that we canât lose sight of.
This isnât wholly about fighting antisemitism (a worthy and important fight) or even entirely a free speech issue. This is about the Trump administration trying to destroy universities, by any means possible.
Brian Levin, a professor emeritus at Cal State San Bernardino and an expert on extremism, perhaps put it best: The governmentâs moves to crack down on dissent are âpart of a one-two punch being targeted at some of the nationâs most elite universities, that if they donât toe a government line with respect to viewpoint that they and the students that are most vulnerable to governmental sanction are at risk.â
That, Levin told me, âis something that a free society cannot tolerate.â
The case against Khalil is as thin as it is shocking, from what we know so far. Khalil served a leadership role in last yearâs protests at Columbia, but has since graduated with a masterâs degree. He is a permanent resident of the United States, raised in Syria, who is married to an American citizen (who happens to be pregnant).
On Saturday, Khalil was detained by ICE agents, including one honored personally by President Trump in 2019, and flown to an immigration detention center in Louisiana, according to Khalilâs attorney. Louisiana happens to be in the jurisdiction of the conservative 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, as opposed to the more liberal 2nd Circuit that covers New York. The government has claimed he is âpro-Hamasâ but has offered no evidence.
The case had its first hearing Wednesday in a New York court, though Khalil was not present. His lawyers argued that the case should be moved back to New York, and said they had been unable to have confidential conversations with him. The court ordered that his lawyers be given that access, and gave the government time to file its argument as to why Louisiana is the proper venue.
Trump, for his part, said on social media that the Khalil detention was âthe first arrest of many to come.â
March 16, 2025
The New American Oligarchs: Who Rules The USA?
These are the intricate journeys of the worldâs billionaire tycoonsâindustrialists and entrepreneurs who wield as much influence as elected leaders, if not more. From the steel and oil barons of the past, like Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller, to todayâs tech magnates such as Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and Jack Ma, these figures have shaped industries, redefined economies, and amassed staggering wealth. Their power extends beyond business, influencing politics, society, and even the future of technology and space exploration. These are the superpowersâ super-richâthe modern oligarchs of a globalized world.
Documentary from 2022
Politics
There Is No Method to Trumpâs Madness.
Heâs Simply Insane.
His defenders try to apply reason to his erratic, nonsensical decisions. Thatâs a foolâs errandâbut fools abound in this administration.
Ross Rosenfeld / March 18, 2025
Trump at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on Monday
âThey say an old man is twice a child,â Rosencrantz remarks in Shakespeareâs Hamlet, as he and the prince of Denmark observe Polonius. Itâs a borrowed line, dating back to antiquity: Sophocles wrote, âFor the aged man is once again a child.â We all recognize that old age can cause senility and fragility. And when a person is already inclined toward delusion, that trait can become more entrenched and grandiose over time. The irony in Rosencrantzâs comment is that he is speaking with a character who is both feigning madness and possibly descending into it. Polonius, in fact, is the one to note that Hamletâs act may produce certain benefits, declaring, âThough this be madness, yet there is method in it.â
Weâve seen this strategy throughout modern political history. Khrushchev feigned irrationality to strike fear into the West. Reagan thought it benefited him if Russia viewed him as possibly crazy. After Hiroshima, Truman wanted the Japanese to believe he would bombard them with âa rain of ruin from the air,â even though he only had one more bomb at his disposal (and figured it a bonus if the Soviets thought he might drop one again). Sometimes it can be difficult to discern what is an act and what is true madness, but itâs important to recognize when there is no meaning to be foundâno method to the madness.
That seemed to be CNBC economic analyst Steve Liesmanâs conclusion last week about President Donald Trumpâs tariffs. âIâm going to say this at risk of my job,â Liesman said, âbut what President Trump is doing is insane. It is absolutely insane ⌠and now heâs saying heâs putting 50 percent tariffs on Canada unless they agree to become the fifty-first state. That is insane. Thereâs just no other way of describing it.â Host Kelly Evans countered with an attempt to make sense of Trumpâs actions, suggesting the president might be motivated by Canadaâs threat to tax electricity exports or that he might be employing âinsanity as a strategy.â But Liesman wasnât having it. âInsanity is not a strategy,â he retorted.
Itâs not just Trumpâs unpredictable tariff policy that appears insane. His entire administration is defined by madnessâin both senses. On Friday, he went on another incoherent rant on social media, claiming once again that the 2020 election was stolen from him and rewriting history to blame all of our current problems, including Russiaâs invasion of Ukraine, on Joe Biden. In other Truth Social posts, heâs boasted about being a king and claimed that the âEuropean Union was formed for the sole purpose of taking advantage of the United States.â
If these acts were merely confined to deranged posts, perhaps one could argue thereâs âmethod in his madness.â After his rant on Friday, Trump gave a speech at the Justice Department wherein he kvetched about various imaginary enemies of the United States (which, coincidentally, are his personal enemies) and made clear that he expects the department to serve as an extension of his personal wrath. Similar delusions have led to the dismantling of USAID, a wasteful visit to Fort Knox to check if the gold had been stolen, and continual talk about annexing other countries.
Even his official portrait shows signs of delusion. He seems to have intentionally posed like Winston Churchill because, in his mind, heâs of the same mold and is saving the world. Heâs promoted a book called Trump and Churchill, which might as well be called Trump and Mickey Mouse for all the supposed similarities.
Worse still, his delusions are echoing throughout his administration. His aides, advisers, Cabinet appointees, and other defenders are going to ridiculous lengths to invent methods for Trumpâs madness. Asked last week about Trumpâs tariff threats, his senior trade and manufacturing adviser, Peter Navarro, said, âLooks like the president is negotiating strategically. So stop with the rhetoric. OK? Just stop that crap.â When a reporter replied, âBut he does seem to be changing his mind all the time,â Navarro snapped back, âStop that crap!â Trumpâs press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, went even further that same day, claiming that âtariffs are a tax cut for the American people.â She added that the tariffs would make us âwealthy again,â as if we havenât experienced any growth since the McKinley administration.
Practically everyone in Trumpâs orbit is there solely because theyâve shown a willingness to go to great lengths to entertain his delusions and stroke his ego. His attorney general, Pam Bondi, got the job because she supports the delusion that Trump was wrongfully and illegally targeted by federal prosecutors. Likewise, Kash Patel, the new FBI director, understood that engaging Trumpâs delusions and constantly flattering him were key to landing a big role in the administration. Patel has been a frequent proponent of the idea of a widespread and nefarious âdeep state,â and heâs even written childrenâs books wherein he helps topple the enemies of âKing Donald.â
Adding the most fuel to the fire, perhaps, is Trumpâs right-hand manâyet another angry megalomaniac who suffers delusions of grandeur (and grand delusions). Elon Muskâs rage toward Democrats may stem in part from a perceived snub by the White House under the Biden administration, when Musk wasnât invited to an electric vehicle event (though he had also, of course, grown tired of what he saw as interference from federal regulators in his businesses). These days, Musk competes with Trump on a near-daily basis for the title of Most Batshit Social Media Post. Last month, he tweeted that the journalists at 60 Minutes âdeserve a long prison sentenceâ for the crime of editing an interview with Kamala Harris. The other day, he retweeted a post blaming âpublic sector workersâ for millions of deaths under Hitler, Stalin, and Mao. (As it happens, Muskâs own policies as the head of the Department of Government Efficiency are causing people to die around the world.)
Some of you might argue that Trump isnât mad, but just a psychopath feigning madness for his own ends. Or perhaps his ludicrous assertions began as convenient foils and have morphed into true delusions. After all, heâs had plenty of people telling him heâs right. Perhaps thereâs a more accurate Shakespearean comparison, then. King Lear has a deep hole in him that constantly has to be filled: He insists that his three daughters publicly fawn over him to gain his graces and dismisses his most beloved daughter, Cordelia, when she refuses to engage in the practice. He cannot accept the errors of his ways. Yet Lear somehow retains his hold on power even as his hold on reality slips away, until ultimately he meets his demise and causes the death of all who are dear to him.
We are in a Shakespearean moment right now. Journalists are trying to understand Trumpâs irrational behavior, and are generally unwilling to consider the possibility that it is not some grand strategy but just a sign of a madman with increasingly diminished mental faculties. Perhaps heâs not quite yet burying steaks to grow meat trees, like George III, but Trumpâs delusions cause considerably more damage than that. Are we going to wait until heâs ranting about âdrainageâ like Daniel Plainview and beating someone to death with a bowling pin? Are we going to continue to bend over backward to pretend that this emperor isnât naked?
Ross Rosenfeld is a political writer and educator who lives on Long Island. Follow him on Substack.
March 20, 2025
“Murder the Truth”: David Enrich on Right-Wing
Campaign to Silence Journalism & Protect the Powerful
The new book Murder the Truth: Fear, the First Amendment, and a Secret Campaign to Protect the Powerful by The New York Times business investigations editor David Enrich chronicles an ongoing campaign by the wealthy and powerful to overturn the landmark Supreme Court decision New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, which in 1964 established bedrock protections against spurious defamation and libel cases in the U.S. legal system.
By “subject[ing] people to this torturous, long-running and extremely expensive legal process,” those who can afford to pay for expensive and threatening defamation lawsuits can silence any public criticism and suppress others’ rights to free speech, says Enrich. “It has huge implications for our democracy and the ability of everyone to speak their mind.”
March 20, 2025
Trumpâs Appetite for Revenge Is Insatiable
The president is making good on his campaign promise.
By Peter Wehner
NO ONE CAN SAY THEY DIDNâT KNOW.
During his first official campaign rally for the 2024 Republican nomination, held in Waco, Texas, Donald Trump vowed retribution against those he perceives as his enemies.
âI am your warrior,â he said to his supporters. âI am your justice. For those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution.â
Sixty days into Trumpâs second term, we have begun to see what that looks like.
REPORTS
March 21, 2025
Canadian citizen describes her ânightmareâ
12 day ICE detention that came without warning
Canadian citizen Jasmine Mooney says she was detained by ICE without explanation while attempting to apply for a new work visa. She recounts her experience in detention to Katy Tur, saying no one spoke to her about her case while she was there and that there were other women being held who had been there far longer than her.
March 21, 2025
What the Venezuelans Deported to
El Salvador Experienced
Reporting from San Luis Talpa, El Salvador
Holsinger is an American photojournalist
based out of Nashville, Tenn.
On the night of Saturday, March 15, three planes touched down in El Salvador, carrying 261 men deported from the United States. A few dozen were Salvadoran, but most of the men were Venezuelans the Trump Administration had designated as gang members and deported, with little or no due process. I was there to document their arrival.
The BEAT
March 21, 2025
Voters reject Trump: AOC hits billionaire âthievesâ,
Michael Moore calls for alternative to Dems
Director Michael Moore joins Ari Melber for a conversation on the future of politics in the Trump era.
March 23, 2025
Former Facebook executive exposes
tech giantâs alarming failings
Sarah Wynn-Williams reveals the secrets about the upper management of Facebookâs parent company, Meta.
She has written a tell-all memoir — Careless People: A Story of Where I Used to Work — detailing disturbing stories, including the company honing in and cashing in on vulnerable teenagers.
March 23, 2025
The far-right Proud Boysâ chilling message
Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, jailed for 22 years over the US Capitol riots but then freed by Donald Trump, has a chilling message for the world.
DEADLINE | WHITE HOUSE
March 24, 2025
âNazis got better treatmentâ: Judge unloads
on Trumpâs deportation of Venezuelan nationals
Lisa Rubin, MSNBC Legal Correspondent and Jacob Soboroff, NBC News Correspondent join Alicia Menendez in for Nicolle Wallace on Deadline White House with reaction to the stunning and chilling court hearing the DC Court of Appeals over the Trump Administration’s use of the Aliens Enemies Act which has led to chilling and inhumane deportation of Venezuelan nationals some of whom have been sent to a notorious prison in El Salvador.
March 25, 2025
I’ve Never Been to a Bernie Sanders Rally Like This
The Fight Oligarchy Tour is drawing larger crowds than Bernie Sandersâ presidential campaign ever did, but itâs also drawing a different sort of crowd, writes Mother Jones Senior Reporter Tim Murphy.
Although there were still more âFeel the Bernâ t-shirts than you can count, at two stops in Arizona last week, most of the people I talked to were not longtime supporters. A significant number had not even attended a political event or a protest before. Many of these voters found Sandersâ long-running message of a growing oligarchy newly resonant at a time when the richest man in the world has been given carte blanche to dismantle public institutions. Above all, they showed up because they wanted to hear elected officials express the sort of frustration and rage Democratic voters have been feeling for months.
They wanted to be where the fight was. Sandersâ rallies offer both a lifeline and a warning to a party that hasnât yet found its footing: Start going after Trumpâor voters might start going after you, too.
These people are as furious at Republicans right now as you might expect. Musk would probably find a warmer reception on Mars. But what separates the energy of the Sanders-led Fight Oligarchy Tour from the 2017-era Resistance is that a lot of the anger is trained at their own party. Democratic votersâ approval of congressional Democrats has fallen 35 points since last year, according to a recent survey, and rallygoers at the two Arizona stops took aim at what they perceived as a toothless approach to the new administration.
The speakers on stage during the tour sought to channel this frustration into immediate action and longer-term transformation. Sanders, who has said he went on tour only after seeing the tepid response to Trump from the Democratic Party, chose his rally locations strategically. They are all either in competitive but Republican-held House districts, or close to them.
Sanders is, in large part, still giving the speech about oligarchy heâs been giving for the last decade. But the 83-year-old was a bit more soulful, as he spoke with urgency about threats that are now not just theoretical but existential. And now that people have come around to Sandersâ diagnosis of the problem, he hopes they will accept that the prescriptions he and his allies are offering.
March 26, 2025
Donald Trump on Retribution â From My 1992 Interview.
On March 20th, The Atlantic posted an article titled: âTrumpâs Appetite for Revenge Is Insatiableâ
Author Peter Wehner quotes President Trump from this CHARLIE ROSE interview in 1992.
March 26, 2025
Hear Trump officialsâ Signal chat through
AI-generated audio
CNN is using artificial intelligence software to create an audio version of the text conversation between Trump officials that was exchanged via Signal and inadvertently included Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic. The AI-generated voices we used are reading the text neutrally; we did not add emphasis or emotion or alter the text exchange in any way. We also did not try to imitate the actual voices of the officials in the group chat.
March 27, 2025
Jeffrey Goldberg and Anne Applebaum discuss
the Signal group chat | New Orleans Book Festival
The Atlantic kicks off opening night at the NOLA Book Festival with a dynamic conversation reflecting on the Signal breach and weighing its national-security implications. Featuring editor in chief Jeffrey Goldberg, this special event brings him into conversation with Anne Applebaum as they survey the landscape of democracy.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Watch Jeffrey Goldberg and Anne Applebaum, in conversation with Atlantic staff writers McKay Coppins, Elaina Plott-Calabro, and Adam Serwer on the opening night of the New Orleans Book Festival. Our journalists take the stage at Tulane University to explore themes including the threat to free press, the future of journalism, and the intersections of politics, media, and American identity.
March 28, 2025
Why Bob Woodward worries about Trumpâs America
What does Bob Woodward think of all this? Colby Itkowitz poses that question to the renowned Washington Post journalist in his first sit-down interview about President Donald Trump since Trumpâs second inauguration.
Over 50 years ago, Woodwardâs reporting of the break-in at the Watergate with his colleague Carl Bernstein exposed the Nixon administrationâs plan to spy on and sabotage his political adversaries and the cover-up that followed. After President Richard Nixonâs resignation, Congress would go on to enact new limits on presidential power, which Trump is now challenging.
In the years since Watergate, Bob Woodward has continued to report on presidents â interviewing Trump and writing three books about him that reveal the presidentâs approach to power.
âSo much of it is Trump just asserting himself, taking on the role of the courts, taking on the role of Congress,â Woodward told Itkowitz. âSo we are entering a moment where there is going to be a clash of those traditions and laws and Trumpâs will.â
March 29, 2025
Highlights â March 28 â THE TRUMP REGIME
March 29, 2025
Trump vs. Truth â Schiff Fact Checks It All
Thereâs an important strategy behind Donald Trumpâs constant firehose of falsehoods. And it comes straight from the dictatorâs playbook.
March 30, 2025
What Trumpâs silencing of Voice of America
means for listeners worldwide
Voice of America is silent after President Trump effectively shut down the broadcaster. VOA journalists are speaking out about what this could mean for an audience of 360 million around the world.
âLeft to Their Own Devicesâ by Barry Blitt
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ITâS ALWAYS THE OTHER
SIDE THATâS BEEN
BRAINWASHED
What talk of brainwashing helps us not to talk about.
By Nikhil Krishnan
March 31, 2025
March 31, 2025
STEVEN CHEUNG IS THE
VOICE OF TRUMP
The White House communications chief has a strategy:
relentless aggression
By Elaine Godfrey
The Rachel Maddow Show
April 1, 2025
âBloodbathâ: Protesters meet Trump at every step
as he butchers U.S. government agencies
Rachel Maddow looks at some of the extreme actions Donald Trump has taken in the 24 hours that Senator Cory Booker was delivering his history-making speech in the Senate, from slashing thousands of healthcare jobs to cutting veteransâ health services to snatching immigrants off the street, with Americans protesting every step of the way.
House Committee on the Judiciary
April 1, 2025
Ranking Member Jamie Raskin delivers opening remarks
Hearing: Judicial Overreach and Constitutional Limits on the Federal Courts Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, Artificial Intelligence, and the Internet.
April 5, 2025
TRUMP FINALLY GETS HIS WAY ON TARIFFS
With a single act, the President has upended
the entire global economic order.
April 6, 2025
How Trump’s Corruption Hurts You
April 6, 2025
Are Elon Muskâs days in the White House numbered?
Elon Musk is feeling the consequences of his controversial role at the White House.
April 6, 2025
Bernie Sanders: U.S. under Trump faces
âunprecedented level of dangerâ
Across the U.S., tens of thousands have been attending rallies held by Sen. Bernie Sanders, who has said that the nation is moving rapidly toward what he calls an oligarchy influenced by billionaires. Sanders sits down with âSunday Morningâ national correspondent Robert Costa to discuss the senatorâs criticism of the Trump administration; the influence of Elon Musk and other wealthy backers in Washington; the pressure campaign waged by the White House against some law firms; and why, at age 83, Sanders continues to fight.
April 6, 2025
What records show about the migrants sent
to Salvadoran mega-prison
The U.S. sent 238 Venezuelan migrants to a Salvadoran mega-prison. The Trump administration says theyâre all gang members, but 60 Minutes could find no criminal records for 75 percent of them.
This Week
April 6, 2025
Sen. Booker: Trumpâs vows of retribution
is a way âto hurt peopleâ
George Stephanopoulos interviews Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J.
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
April 7, 2025
Sen. Cory Booker On Americaâs âMoral Momentâ
And Why Trump Is The Last Boomer President
Stephen Colbertâs full extended conversation with Senator Cory Booker, who talks about his record-setting speech on the Senate floor, how Americans are pushing back against President Trumpâs disastrous second-term agenda, and why the country is ready for a new generation of leadership in Washington.
April 7, 2025
Forging a New Political System, 2024 and Beyond
Historian and political commentator Heather Cox Richardson joins UC Berkeley professor of law and history Dylan Penningroth in a timely conversation about the reshaping of the United Statesâ two major political parties. A professor of 19th century American history at Boston College, Richardson provides an incisive perspective on current politics to the more than three million readers of her nightly newsletter, Letters from an American.
She has written for the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Guardian, and is the author, most recently, of the best-selling book Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America. Penningroth is the author of the award-winning Before the Movement: The Hidden History of Black Civil Rights.
Recorded on 2/26/2025. [Show ID: 40424]
ALL IN with Chris Hayes
April 8, 2025
âTheyâre attacking attorneysâ: Lawyer representing
student protestor detained
Michigan attorney Amir Makled was detained by federal agents on his way home from a spring break trip with his family. His only crime appears to be representing a student protestor. âWeâre seeing a chilling effect on not just individuals and their rights, but also on the attorneys representing these individuals,â Makled tells Chris Hayes.
REPORTS
April 8, 2024
âMoral shameâ: Why Trumpâs second term is
âmaking the globe a playground for gangstersâ
In the latest cover story for The Atlantic, contributing writer David Brooks explains how President Trumpâs second term has transformed Americaâs role in the world. He joins Katy Tur to explain more on the shift.
April 8, 2025
Democracy DYING in Broad Daylight,
How Trump is Leading a Totalitarian COUP
Marianne Williamson delivers monologue on the U.S. approaching totalitarianism.
April 10, 2025
Trump is Handing Our National Security to⌠Who?
Right-wing internet troll Laura Loomer is firing top national security professionals across the Trump administration.
April 10, 2025
Is Elon Musk the Ultimate Scam Artist?
This week author and journalist Max Chafkin, co-host of the podcast Elon, Inc. joins myself and Christiana to discuss one of todayâs most fascinating and controversial figures: Elon Musk. We talk about how Elon came to be the worldâs richest person, whether heâs a brilliant entrepreneur, scam artist, or both, and whether he and the rest of the âPaypal Mafiaâ have helped the world or helped ruin it.
The Rachel Maddow Show
April 11, 2025
âHow is it possible that you have this job?â
RFK Jr.âs incompetence becomes too glaring to overlook
From his cluelessness about critical cuts made to his agency, to his celebration of dangerous quackery, Robert. F. Kennedy Jr., Donald Trumpâs HHS secretary, is distinguishing himself as not only incompetent but dangerously so, leading a department with lives at stake.
April 11, 2025
Russian People Are Abandoning Putin
Greetings from Anka Daily News. Today, we bring you a shocking development from within Russia â a reality the Kremlin desperately wants to keep hidden. Thousands of Russian citizens are fleeing their country, no longer willing to carry the burden of war and repression. Soldiers are deserting the front lines, while civilians seek refuge in neighboring countries to escape the oppressive regime. This growing wave of migration clearly signals the internal collapse of Putinâs rule.
From Georgia to Kazakhstan, from Finland to Latin America, Russians are searching for hope along migration routes. Why is this mass exodus happening? How have Putinâs policies pushed the people to this breaking point? And what does this historic escape mean for Russiaâs future? Before we dive into the details, a quick reminder: Here at Anka Daily News, we continue to bring you the truth despite censorship. Make sure to subscribe to our channel and turn on notifications to stay updated with our daily reports and analysis.
No matter how much the Kremlin tries to hide the truth â we will keep exposing it.
April 12, 2025
Violent, suspicious deaths of Putin foes
From November 2024, Cecilia Vegaâs report on critics of Vladimir Putin who suffered mysterious deaths around the world. From 2017, Lesley Stahlâs chat with Russian opposition activist Vladimir Kara-Murza, who was twice poisoned to the brink of death by a mysterious toxin. And from 2020, Stahlâs interview with the late Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny.
April 12, 2025
Trump is Putinâs âuseful idiotâ enabling the
ongoing destruction of Ukraineâs sovereignty
âPutin is simply laughing in his sleeve at what Trump is attempting to do.â
Vladimir Putin âteasesâ Donald Trump and is exploiting the âweakâ White House administration to stall a ceasefire deal, says military historian Sir Antony Beevor.
April 13, 2025
Volodymyr Zelenskyy: The 2025 60 Minutes Interview
As Russia’s war with Ukraine continues, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy sits down with Scott Pelley to discuss U.S. support for Ukraine, the war, the Oval Office meeting, and the latest attacks on civilians.
April 14, 2025
Top U.S. & World Headlines
Breaking News
from Washington and beyond
Trump Ramps Up War on the Media in Dark Rant on CBS and 60 Minutes
Donald Trump is determined to gut the free press.
Hafiz Rashid / April 14, 2025
Donald Trump worked himself into a frenzy after watching CBSâs 60 Minutes on Sunday, calling for the network to be penalized in a Truth Social post.
âThey should lose their license! Hopefully, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), as headed by its Highly Respected Chairman, Brendan Carr, will impose the maximum fines and punishment, which is substantial, for their unlawful and illegal behavior,â Trump posted. âCBS is out of control, at levels never seen before, and they should pay a big price for this. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!â
Itâs Trumpâs latest complaint about CBS, which he is already suing in a $20 billion defamation suit, claiming that the network deceptively edited an interview with Vice President Kamala Harris to make her look better before last yearâs election. The FCC is also investigating the network over Harrisâs interview.
Trumpâs latest tantrum is over two segments on the show Sunday. The first was an interview with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in which correspondent Scott Pelley traveled to the site of a Russian attack earlier this month that killed nine children. The second was a report from Greenland by correspondent Jon Wertheim on how people in the Danish territory are receiving Trumpâs threats to take over the island.
The president is trying to intimidate news networks that produce even the slightest bit of critical coverage against him, threatening lawsuits and FCC action. He has also threatened other news outlets, such as ABC and NBC, with ABC even capitulating with a legal settlement before Trump took office. In a presidential term already full of abuses of power, hopefully the free press in America continues to report critically of the Trump administration, otherwise theyâll be paving the way for autocracy.
April 15, 2025
‘Oh My Word’: Bernie Sanders Mocks Trump For
Trying To Remove CBS’ License After Critical Reporting
At a “Fight Oligarchy” rally in Nampa, Idaho on Monday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) spoke about President Trump’s lawsuits against media platforms.
April 16, 2025
AOC rallies anti-Trump voters in Montana
on ‘Fighting Oligarchy’ tour
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is taking his âFighting Oligarchyâ tour deep into Trump territory alongside his fellow progressive champion Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
This week, the duo drew the same types of large crowds that they got in liberal and battleground states. Utah, Idaho and Montana will almost certainly remain Republican strongholds for the near future. But the events offer a glimpse of widespread Democratic anger over the direction of President Donald Trumpâs administration and a dose of hope to progressives living in the places where theyâre most outnumbered.
April 16, 2025
FULL SPEECH: Bernie Sanders Tears Into Trump
Administration At ‘Fighting Oligarchy’ Rally
In Missoula, Montana on Wednesday
April 15, 2025
THEY NEVER THOUGHT
TRUMP WOULD HAVE THEM
DEPORTED
The administrationâs drive to carry out the largest campaign
in history has ensnared people who didnât see themselves as targets.
By Caitlin Dickerson
Speaking to a classroom of students at his alma mater, Boston Universityâs School of Theology, Martin Mugerwa described how being a chaplain informs his work as a counselor at a mental-health clinic, where he treats people navigating depression, unemployment, and homelessness. But the campus was whirring with talk of the Trump administrationâs immigration crackdown, and several international students stayed after class that February evening to ask whether Mugerwaâwho is from Ugandaâfeared that he could be targeted. âIâm not worried,â Mugerwa told them confidently. âHeâs going after criminals.â
Mugerwa told me that his outlook on the new presidency, and how it could alter his own fate, changed the next day. His family and a group of friends stopped to see Niagara Falls on their way to visit one of Mugerwaâs seminary classmates. But they took a wrong turn and ended up on a bridge that led across the Canadian border. When they told an American customs officer that they wanted to turn around and remain in the United States, they were directed instead to an immigration office. Hours later, an official explained that Mugerwa and two others in the group were going to be detained for overstaying their visas, even though they had all applied for asylum and were still waiting for their cases to be decided.
Mugerwa turned to his partner and sons, who are 5 years old and 10 months old. âI was like, What is going to happen at this point? How is she going to manage?â he recalled thinking. âWho is going to pay the mortgage? My mind was just spinning.â
REPORTS
April 15, 2025
âThe federal government will find youâ:
DHS mistakenly tells U.S.-born woman to leave country
Immigration attorney Nicole Micheroni, a U.S. citizen born and raised in Massachusetts, was told to âimmediatelyâ self-deport from the United States last week in a DHS email that was mistakenly sent to her. Micheroni joins Chris Jansing to discuss the email she received and what she sees as the “messâ at DHS.
April 16, 2025
Judge says Trump officials could be found in contempt.
What happens next?
By Brandon Drenon
A US federal judge has given President Donald Trump’s officials a one-week deadline to comply with his court order or risk being found in contempt of court – potentially setting up a historic clash between two equally powerful branches of government.
Judge James Boasberg said the “most obvious way” for the officials to avoid contempt was to “assert custody” over a group of more than 200 people who they deported to El Salvador last month – after he told them not to do so.
But the Trump administration has shown no sign of a desire to adhere, criticising Wednesday’s request and saying it would appeal.
The White House denies any wrongdoing, and has depicted the group as “terrorists and criminal illegal migrants” who threaten American society.
Experts have told the BBC that a showdown between the judicial and executive branch appears all but inevitable. So, what might happen if the government does not comply with Judge Boasberg’s deadline of 23 April?
April 17, 2025
Targeting by Trump:
Who’s in the crosshairs and why? | Inside Story
Universities threatened, NGOs and media outlets targeted, US overseas agencies shut. The Trump administration has taken drastic action against hundreds of organisations and companies.
Why is this happening, and what does it mean for the US and its global standing?
Presenter: Dareen Abughaida
Guests:
David Cay Johnston — Author of three books on Donald Trump and professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology
Ryan Enos — Professor of Government and Director of the Center for American Political Studies at Harvard University
Shannan Adler — Host of the political show ‘The Shannan Show’ and an Adjunct Professor of Journalism, Ethics and Interactive Media at Emerson College
April 17, 2025
The Emergency Is Here
The president of the United States is disappearing people to a Salvadoran prison for terrorists: a prison built for disappearance, a prison where there is no education or remediation or recreation, a prison where the only way out, according to El Salvadorâs justice minister, is in a coffin.
The president says he wants to send âhomegrownâ Americans there next. This is the emergency. Like it or not, itâs here.
April 19 – Part 2
April 17, 2025
Los Angeles schools leader explains why
he refused to let DHS agents see students
Officers with the Department of Homeland Security recently attempted to enter elementary schools in Los Angeles but were not allowed in. Agents claim to have been conducting a welfare check, not an immigration enforcement action. School administrators say DHS lied about having permission from caregivers to speak to students. The agency denies that its officers lied.
Laura BarrĂłn-LĂłpez is joined by Alberto Carvalho, the superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District.
April 17, 2025
Will Trump invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807
to enforce his rule, via a militia if need be,
ending democracy in the USA in the process?
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
April 18, 2025
Sen. Raphael Warnock: The GOPâs Budget Plan
Is âRobin Hood In Reverseâ
Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock sympathizes with soul-weary Americans who have been through a lot in recent decades, and he condemns the Republican-led Congress for pushing a budget plan that will serve to enrich this country’s billionaires. His children’s book Weâre in This Together: Leoâs Lunch Box is available everywhere next Tuesday.
INTERVIEWS WITH
Brian Tyler Cohen Interviews top political figures â from
the President of the United States and cabinet members
to Senators and lawmakers to local leaders and activists.
Breaking News
from Washington and beyond
Articles on Donald Trump
DONALD TRUMP
Reporting and commentary on the forty-fifth and forty-seventh President.
TOPIC: DONALD TRUMP
News about Donald Trump, including commentary and archival coverage from Salon, the original online source for news and politics.
President Donald Trump
DONALD TRUMP
Trump Administration
The 45th and 47th President and His Administration
News and investigations about President Donald Trump and his administration, his business interests and the impact of his policies.
Quora
Sustained resistance to the Traitorous Mister Trump,
his clones, and his MAGATS.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
United against Trump, Trumpism, and all threats
to democracy and civil rights.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A space to protect democracy and inspire action.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fighting for our Democratic Republic against MAGA!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Secrets, Scandals, and Strategies of American Politics
April 18, 2025
Trump’s authoritarian push stumbles
as resistance diversifies and grows
Rachel Maddow shows how resistance to Donald Trump’s authoritarianism is mutually reinforcing among a broad range of American society, from the courts to civic activism to journalism to politicians. Collective pushback succeeds and feeds on itself.
April 19, 2025
“No Kings in America”:
Anti-Trump Protests Erupt Across The US
Thousands of protesters rallied Saturday in New York, Washington, and cities across the United States in a second major wave of demonstrations against Donald Trump and his hard-line policies.
April 20, 2025
âInhumane political theaterâ: Ex-ICE official slams Trump
for âcollapsingâ US immigration processes
Former ICE Chief of Staff Jason Houser joins The Weekend to discuss the chaos the Trump Administration has injected into Americaâs immigration system.
April 20, 2025
Rep. Jamie Raskin Delivers URGENT UPDATE
on Trump Corruption
Congressman Jamie Raskin joins Anthony Davis on The Weekend Show to discuss Trumpâs abuse of the U.S. Constitution and the rule of law, over deportations, tariffs and mass firings. Plus the corruption within the regime and how Democrats can return America to a state of normalcy.
April 21, 2025
Sheldon Whitehouse on Trumpâs Flying Monkeys,
Cosplaying Billionaires, & his Festival of Corruption
Rick is delighted to sit down with Senator-meets-influencer Sheldon Whitehouse, who is fed up and is “not going to take it anymore!” Chatting about Trump’s flying monkey followers in the House, Senate, and in his administration, Sheldon and Rick unpack the three C’s — Cost, Chaos, and Corruption — that are hurting Americans and will challenge Republicans in the upcoming 2026 race.
October 7, 2020
Are You a Narcissistâs Flying Monkey?
Are you caught up in a narcissistâs emotional abuse of others?
By Claire Jack Ph.D.
Anyone who remembers watching the Wizard of Oz as a child will probably remember how horrifying the Wicked Witch of the Westâs flying monkeys were. These monkeys were sent by the witch to do her dirty work, and the phrase has since become synonymous with people who end up doing the dirty work of a narcissist.
Flying monkeys get caught up in a narcissistâs plan â often to damage the life of another person. The narcissist may use their flying monkeys as piggy in the middle, carrying information from party to party. The flying monkey may use gaslighting tactics, open aggression, and guilt-tripping in order to make another person feel bad and weak, whilst shoring up the narcissist. And theyâre often involved in pleading the case of the narcissist. Narcissists love having at least one flying monkey, as it makes them feel important and means they can appear to be above the people below them (on both sides) who are caught up in the messy parts of the drama.
THE POLITICAL SCENE
HOW TRUMP WORSHIP
TOOK HOLD IN
WASHINGTON
The President is at the center of a brazenly transactional
ecosystem that rewards flattery and lockstep loyalty.
By Antonia Hitchens
April 21, 2025
April 22, 2025
3 prosecutors resign amid fallout from Adams case
ABC News’ Aaron Katersky has the details.
April 23, 2025
âAlarmâ: Jake Tapper sounds off on â60 Minutesâ exec resigning
CNNâs Jake Tapper looks into the resignation of â60 Minutesâ Executive Producer Bill Owens, and why CBS could be on the verge of an unprecedented caving into the Trump administration.
Next Question with Katie Couric
April 24, 2025
Project 2025 Is Real. And Itâs Happening Now.
Project 2025. Maybe youâve heard whispers about it. Maybe youâve rolled your eyes. But David A. Graham read the whole thingâand he sat down with Katie to break down why this isnât just rhetoric â itâs a roadmap already in motion. From privatizing weather data to rewinding civil rights gains, this playbook for Trump 2.0 is more extremeâand more possibleâthan you might think.
In this episode, Graham walks us through the wildest parts of the plan, the men behind it, and why his book The Project might just be the most important one you read this year.
April 24, 2025
Trump’s War on Children: DOGE Guts Head Start,
Child Abuse Programs, Healthcare & More
Cuts by the Trump administration are putting children at risk, according to a new report by ProPublica. The administration has cut funds and manpower for child abuse investigations, enforcement of child support payments, child care and more. On top of that, Head Start preschools, which offer free child care to low-income parents, are being severely gutted. Democracy Now! speaks with ProPublica reporter Eli Hager on his investigation into Trumpâs âWar on Children.â
âIt wasnât just cuts to these more liberal-coded programs like support for child care and direct assistance to lower-income families with children, but also these programs that have much more support across the political spectrum, like funds and staffing for investigating child abuse and Child Protective Services,â says Hager.
April 24, 2025
The Very American Roots of Trumpism
After last weekâs episode, âThe Emergency Is Here,â we got a lot of emails. And the most common reply was: You really think weâll have midterm elections in 2026? Isnât that naĂŻve?
I think we will have midterms. But one reason I think so many people are skeptical of that is theyâre working with comparisons to other places: Mussoliniâs Italy, Putinâs Russia, Pinochetâs Chile. But we donât need to look abroad for parallels; it has happened here.
Steven Hahn is a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian at New York University and the author of Illiberal America. In this conversation, he walks me through some of the most illiberal periods in American history: Andrew Jacksonâs Indian Removal Act of 1830, Jim Crow, the Red Scare, Japanese American internment, Operation Wetback. And we discuss how this legacy can help us better understand whatâs happening right now.
April 25, 2025
Exclusive:
Inside Trump’s
First 100 Days
April 28, 2025
60 Minutes vs. Trump
The tension between journalism and political power just hit a boiling point. 60 Minutes executive producer Bill Owens has resigned, citing a loss of editorial independence amid mounting pressure from CBS parent company Paramount.
The backdrop? A massive defamation lawsuit filed by Donald Trump, alleging deceptive editing of a 2024 interview with then Vice President Kamala Harris. âIn a rare on-air moment, correspondent Scott Pelley didn’t hold back, calling out Paramount’s increasing oversight and defending Owens’ commitment to journalistic integrity. Is the media finally fighting back? What does this mean for the future of a free press? Tune in for Don’s take.
The BEAT
April 28, 2025
Musk demoted as he loses over $100 BILLION in 100 Days:
Ari Melber’s report on Trump slump
A special report on the eve of President Trumpâs 100th day in office, reporting on Trumpâs leadership, his priority policy of immigration, and his clashes over the rule of law.
April 28, 2025
Former Social Security Chief Martin O’Malley Warns
of “Collapse of the Entire System” Under Trump
Social Security recipients could soon see their benefits interrupted or delayed as a flood of cuts hits the agency, thanks to the efforts of Elon Musk and DOGE. Martin O’Malley, the former Maryland governor who served as Social Security commissioner under President Biden, says the system is on the brink of collapse as the Trump administration pushes out thousands of staffers and peddles lies about who actually benefits from its services.
The former commissioner adds that he believes “they’re trying to wreck Social Security’s reputation, wreck its ability to serve its customers, wreck its unbeaten string of regular monthly payments, so that, having wrecked it, then they have an emergency under which they can rob it.”
Politics
FOOLED AGAIN
Who Were Those Gullible People Who Believed Donald Trump’s Bullsh*t?
His campain promises, from peace in Ukraine to “beautiful” tariffs, were truly unbelievable. And yet, somehow, many people believed him.
By Michael Tomasky / April 21, 2025
So Russia proposed an Easter ceasefire in Ukraine and then promptly ignored its own proposal. Vladimir Putin announced, around 4 p.m. local time Saturday afternoon, that a ceasefire to honor the risen savior would commence at 6 p.m. By noon Sunday, according to The New York Times, Russia had fired 445 rounds of artillery and launched 300 drones and 45 infantry assaults. (Russia says Ukraine violated the ceasefire first.)
Surprised? After what Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Friday, why should we be? He told reporters that if the United States canât get a peace deal very soon, weâll just wash our hands of the whole affair and âmove on.â How do you think that was heard in the Kremlin? Green light, baby! Do whatever you want, Vlad.
Rubioâs eh-whatever statement that âitâs not our warâ will live in infamy next to James Bakerâs unprincipled 1995 avowal, with respect to the Serbsâ war on Bosnia, that âwe donât have a dog in that fight.â (Why is it always tough-talking Republicans who hand democratic regimes to authoritarian ones on a silver platter?) But as I watched Rubio speak Friday, and then rewatched since, one thought keeps popping back into my head: Who were these people who were gullible enough to believe Donald Trumpâs bullshit?
How many times did Trump say heâd end that war on the first day of his presidency? It had to have been hundreds. I saw a lot of those clips on cable news over the weekend, as you may have. He did not mean it figuratively. You know, in the way people will say, âIâll change that from day one,â and you know they donât literally mean day one, but they do mean fast.
But that isnât what Trump said. He meant it literally. He used the phrase âin 24 hoursâ many, many times. So I ask you: Who really believed that?
Ditto with tariffs, âthe most beautiful word in the dictionary.â Just wait, Trump said, until you see me unveil my beautiful tariffs. Theyâll fix everything.
Well ⌠itâs not as if there werenât hundreds of economists and others pointing out how much smoke he was blowing. Experts predicted exactly what has unfolded: that heâd start a trade war, which would roil the markets and result in higher prices, and that the rest of the world would stop trusting us.
Whoâs looking more right today, Trump or the experts? The hated experts, by a mile. In fact, if anything, the experts understated the problem because Trumpâs tariffs (at least the latest incarnation of them; itâs hard to keep track) have been higher than everyone thought theyâd be.
Again: Who on earth believed his nonsense?
Four days before the election, Trump campaigned in Dearborn, Michigan. Obviously, one can understand the anger Arab Americans felt toward the Biden administration and Kamala Harris over Israelâs destruction of Gaza, and Harris handled the whole matter in a craven fashion. But did anyone seriously think Trump was going to be better? The war, after a very brief respite, is back on; thereâs the usual finger-pointing about whoâs to blame, but the fact remains that Israel cut off humanitarian supplies and started bombing again. Since Israel broke the ceasefire on March 18, about 1,800 Palestinians have been killed. Israel has Trumpâs full backing in this. How full? This full: âThere was no need for a green light because Trump gave us the option to open the gates of hell,â an Israeli source told The Jerusalem Post.
Again I ask: Who ever believed otherwise?
Trump is the biggest liar in the history of American politics. And no, I donât know the precise extent to which Millard Fillmore or Benjamin Harrison was prone to prevarication. And yet, I write that sentence with serene confidence because I know enough about Fillmore and Harrison and the whole lot of them to know that, while many of them were mediocrities and some operated according to a rather elastic ethical scale, none of them was an outright sociopath.
But Donald Trump is. He will say anything to anyone at any time with utterly no thought of consequences or ever being held accountable. When the moment of accountability comes, he just tells another lie. When he was just a sleazy real estate grifter, this was merely annoying. But now that heâs the president, and he has an army of propagandists behind him insisting that he is American historyâs great truth-teller, itâs sick and itâs dangerous.
There is one set of campaign promises that he is fulfilling to beat the band, and thatâs his eagerness to shred the Constitution to punish or round up political enemies and people he doesnât approve of. Heâs managing to fulfill that promise for one simple reason: He and his jackboots can execute those moves unilaterally. Trade and diplomacy, in Ukraine or the Middle East, require negotiation with other parties. But throwing innocent people in foreign prisons is just something he can do, at least until the Supreme Court tells him he canât (we hope).
But these other promisesâthat heâd bring peace to Ukraine in one day, that his tariffs would produce economic nirvana, that heâd lend a more sympathetic ear to the Palestinian plightâwere ridiculous and obvious lies. Anyone who couldnât see that was either brainwashed by right-wing media and social media orâwell, or what?
Itâs hard to say. Maybe those peopleâs instinct is to hate liberals. Maybe they believed all that âheâs a businessmanâ crap. Maybe they just didnât want a woman in the White House. Whatever the case, theyâre poor judges of character, and weâand this is a âweâ that includes themâare about to pay a high price for their bamboozlement.
In a week when The Who fired and rehired Zak Starkey, we can only hope these people learn the words and message of the great anthem and wonât get fooled again.
Michael Tomasky is the editor of The New Republic and the author of five books, including his latest and critically acclaimed The Middle Out: The Rise of Progressive Economics and a Return to Shared Prosperity. With extensive experience as an editor, columnist, progressive commentator, and special correspondent for renowned publications such as The Guardian, The Washington Post, The New York Times, the Daily Beast, and many others, Tomasky has been a trusted voice in political journalism for more than three decades.
July 31, 2019
Updated May 21, 2024
Pathocracy
When people with personality disorders gain power.
By Steve Taylor, Ph.D., a senior lecturer in psychology at Leeds Beckett University. He is the author of several best-selling books, including The Leap and Spiritual Science.
The Polish psychologist Andrew Lobaczewski spent his early life suffering under the Nazi occupation of Poland, closely followed by the brutality of Soviet occupation after the war. His experience of these horrors led Lobaczewski to develop the concept of âpathocracy.â This is when individuals with personality disorders (particularly psychopathy) occupy positions of power. (1)
Lobaczewski devoted his life to studying human evil, a field which he called âponerology.â He wanted to understand why âevilâ people seem to prosper, while so many good and moral people struggle to succeed. He wanted to understand why people with psychological disorders so easily rise to positions of power and take over the governments of countries. Since he was living under a âpathocraticâ regime himself, he took great risks studying this topic. He was arrested and tortured by the Polish authorities, and was unable to publish his lifeâs work, the book Political Ponerology, until he escaped to the United States during the 1980s.
Pathocracy is arguably one of the biggest problems in the history of the human race. History has been a saga of constant conflict and brutality, with groups of people fighting against one another over territory and power and possessions, and conquering and killing one another. Surveying the course of human history from ancient times to the 20th century, the historian Arnold Toynbee spoke about the âhorrifying sense of sin manifest in human affairs.â
But there is an argument that this is not because all human beings are inherently brutal and cruel, but because a small number of peopleâthat is, those with personality disordersâare brutal and cruel, intensely self-centered, and lacking in empathy. This small minority has always held power and managed to order or influence the majority to commit atrocities on their behalf.
A Science on the Nature of Evil
Adjusted for Political Purposes
