Trumpism
PART IV
“Back to the Future” by Barry Blitt
January 21, 2024
Melania’s Ex-BFF is BACK with MORE TROUBLING
News For Entire Trump Family | The Weekend Show
Former friend and aide to Melania Trump, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, joins Anthony Davis to expose the Trump family dynamic during this politically turbulent period as Donald becomes even more extreme in light of his legal troubles and as the country grapples with the threat of dictatorship.
January 26, 2024
Liz Cheney Talks Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell
Being Weak and the 2024 Election
Former Congresswoman and Vice Chair of the January 6th select committee Liz Cheney joins the pod to discuss the dangers of a second Trump term, his chokehold on the Republican party and why she thinks Nikki Haley needs to stay in the GOP primary. Plus, more on Mitch McConnell’s about-face on the bipartisan Senate immigration deal and President Biden’s endorsement from the United Auto Workers Union.
January 26, 2024
The Far Right In The US And Europe | The Politics Of Hate (2017)
At 16 he became the leader of the Chicago Area Skinheads, later a white supremacist punk band. But when Christian Picciolini started a family, he began questioning his far right views. This timely doc explores a changing Western political climate, chronicling the rise of the far right in the US and Europe, and giving alarming insights into the ways the alt-right movement operates.
PBS
January 30, 2024
Democracy on Trial
In March, 2024 Republican presidential nomination front-runner Trump is scheduled to begin standing trial on federal charges, including conspiracy to defraud the U.S., in connection with efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss. He says the charges against him are politically motivated.
“Democracy on Trial” traces the road to this unprecedented moment, and examines the implications of the historic criminal case unfolding in the midst of a presidential election year. Drawing on court documents and revelatory interviews with elected officials, former government lawyers, House Select Committee witnesses and former committee staffers, authors and journalists, the documentary reports that the work of the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack provided the groundwork for special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment of Trump and may offer insights into how the trial unfolds.
The documentary chronicles how the committee built its case against Trump and tried to prove his intent, how it chose to present its case to the American public, and criticisms of its work. Key witnesses who testified before the committee and whose firsthand accounts are now evidence in the federal case speak out in the documentary — including Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, Georgia election official Gabriel Sterling and former Arizona Speaker of the House Rusty Bowers.
Gripping and illuminating, “Democracy on Trial,” the newest film from FRONTLINE’s award-winning political team, Michael Kirk, Mike Wiser and Vanessa Fica, also examines how Trump has challenged the case. Trump has pleaded not guilty and made the legal argument, now being reviewed by an appellate court, that he has “absolute immunity” from prosecution for his actions while in office.
January 30, 2024
Prosecutor Who TOOK DOWN Trump
BACK for More | Burn The Boats
While serving as the Assistant Attorney General of New York, Tristan Snell prosecuted Trump University, the Trump Organization, and Donald Trump himself. Tristan’s new book, Taking Down Trump, talks about that case, and lays out the 12 rules for prosecuting Donald Trump. In this interview, Tristan talks about Trump’s legal strategy, how he is manipulating the legal system, and his history of lies.
February 4, 2024
The resurrection of Donald Trump
To loyal Trump supporters, their candidate can do no wrong. Donald Trump’s 2024 run for the White House seems unstoppable despite all the controversies.
February 6, 2024
Trump’s Presidency: The first year as it happened
History, as it happened. A reminder of what happened in Donald Trump’s first year in office. It’s the reality that millions of Americans struggled to accept. Following a tumultuous campaign filled with chants, sledges and accusations, Donald Trump came out on top and officially became the 45th President of the United states. His campaign was a strong indicator for what was to follow with Trump in the White House as Donald Trump wasted no time in taking action on his many promises.
In this documentary, we relive the first year of the Trump administration, through the 7NEWS team’s coverage of all key moments, with additional new commentary from 7 News anchor Mike Amor, who was the US Bureau Chief reporter during the first year of 45’s reign.
Februray 6, 2024
Is the USA on the Brink of Another Civil War?
Vice president of George Fox Digital, Dr. Brian Doak, speaks with university president Dr. Robin Baker and renowned historian Dr. Allen Guelzo about the American spirit, the removal of Civil War monuments, and the prospect of a major national conflict in light of the 2024 presidential election. Why do we still see Confederate flags flying, what is really behind the erection and removal of Civil War era statues, and are the conditions right for another violent schism in our time?
February 6, 2024
It’s Way Too Easy for a Crook Like Trump
to Pervert Our Legal System
If the law has one standard for the rich and powerful and another for the rest of us, it will be hard for ordinary Americans to maintain their faith in democracy.
By Michael Tomasky
We once again come to the start of yet another week that could, and by rights should, destroy Donald Trump. This Thursday, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in the case that seeks to bar Trump from the ballot under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment. Meanwhile, we await word from New York Judge Arthur Engoron, who blew past his self-imposed January 31 deadline for announcing the damages he’ll make the former president pay in the Trump Organization fraud case. Finally, we also sit here wondering what is taking that three-judge panel on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals so long in deciding that Trump should not be immune from prosecution.
What does it all add up to? This: We are forced to confront the devastating possibility that our legal and political systems have no way of punishing obviously illegal and immoral behavior when carried out by someone with enormous political and financial power.
We tell ourselves we’re a nation of laws. But what if that is a lie? What if that’s a fairy tale? What if our system is not only imperfect, as any system designed by human beings is bound to be? What if it is designed so that rich and powerful people — even ones with horrible defense lawyers! — can wait the system out, even pervert it, and prevail?
[ It’s Way Too Easy for a Crook Like Trump pdf ]
Feb. 19, 2024
Trump fake elector in Wisconsin describes
how he says he was tricked
Andrew Hitt, who signed a phony electoral certificate for former President Trump in 2020, tells 60 Minutes that he and other Wisconsin Republican electors were tricked.
MARCH 1, 2024 * A JOURNAL FROM AMERICA’S HEARTLAND * Vol. 30, No. 4
An Incurable Disease?
The Mystery of MAGA
How is it possible that people cheer and celebrate the most transparent fraud, the most outrageous liar, the most straitjacket-ready psycho ever visited on the body politic?
By Hal Crowther
Like nearly every self-appointed critic of the American political system, I never imagined that I would still be typing that dread-laden five-letter word in February of 2024. The one that begins with “t” and ends with “p”, of course, and it isn’t “tulip.” I’ve prayed, I’ve fasted, I’ve made burnt offerings to the neglected god of common sense, a deity so many Americans have left behind. And still the T-word and the man who embodies all its mystery and menace persist.
Arguments against the presidential candidacy of Donald Trump are like arguments against infanticide, or microwaving kittens. When you offer one, and there must be hundreds, you can’t conceive of an objection or rebuttal. The case against this creature was closed nearly a decade ago, though more damning evidence seems to turn up every day. The New York Times’ Michelle Goldberg, not a writer given to heated overstatement, refers to him as a “freakish madman” and an “onrushing nightmare.” Yet indictments for 91 felonies haven’t kept him from winning Republican primaries and drawing crowds of passionate believers. One Times headline reads “Trump Tightens Grip on National Psyche.” And another, “Trump’s Connection With Supporters Has Little Precedent: Victory Reveals a New Depth of Devotion.”
The New York Historical Society
March 18, 2024
Confidence Man with Maggie Haberman // The American Story
How does a man like Donald Trump—simultaneously hailed as an all-American hero and condemned as a harbinger of the end of American democracy—become not only a cultural phenomenon, but the president of the United States? Maggie Haberman, the New York Times reporter who won a Pulitzer Prize for her coverage of the 45th president, offers insight into his background, his motivations, and the true nature of his personality, not to mention the means by which he gained a seat in the Oval Office.
Maggie Haberman, a senior political correspondent for the New York Times and a political analyst for CNN, is the author of Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America. David M. Rubenstein (moderator), co-founder and co-chairman of the Carlyle Group, is the author of How to Invest: Masters on the Craft and the host of History with David Rubenstein on PBS.
March 28, 2024
The Mass Psychology of Trumpism
What explains Donald Trump’s enduring appeal among his supporters? What drives the intense emotional connection that his most passionate followers feel with the former — and possibly next — president? This question has flummoxed and bedeviled pundits, political scientists, journalists, historians and other observers for the last decade, leading many to the realization that the normal categories of political analysis fall short when it comes to this phenomenon.
In this video essay, the psychologist Dan McAdams ventures a theory: In the minds of Trump’s most ardent supporters, he is both more and less than a person. “In the eyes of his supporters, Trump possesses extraordinary powers that are wielded for good and against evil,” McAdams observes. “Who cares if he is flawed? So what if he lacks certain distinctively human qualities? What does it matter that he is rude, authoritarian or even a criminal?”
To explain this apparent paradox, McAdams draws on the research for his book The Strange Case of Donald J. Trump: A Psychological Reckoning (2020). McAdams, the Henry Wade Rogers professor of psychology and professor of human development and social policy at Northwestern University, is a pioneering scholar in the field of “narrative identity” theory, or the life-story model of human identity. His other books include The Redemptive Self: Stories Americans Live By (2006).
This video essay is drawn from McAdams’ New Lines Magazine article “The Mass Psychology of Trumpism,” which can be found at https://newlinesmag.com/argument/the-….
Written & narrated by Dan P. McAdams
Produced by Danny Postel
Edited by Mikey Andreasson
Assistant editor Mindi Roscoe
Sound engineered by Stephen J. Lewis
April 5, 2024
The Antisocial Network: Memes to Mayhem
How did a niche meme-sharing message board become a hotbed for conspiracy theories and dangerous disinformation? This documentary investigates.
April 2024
Jacob’s Dream
MAGA meets the Age of Aquarius
By Frederick Kaufman
Jacob Angeli-Chansley, the man the media has dubbed the QAnon Shaman, had been released from federal custody six weeks before when we met for lunch at a place called Picazzo’s, winner of the Phoenix New Times Best Gluten-Free Restaurant award in 2015. Despite a protracted hunger strike and 317 days isolated in a cell, Jacob’s prison sentence of forty-one months for obstruction of an official proceeding on January 6, 2021, had been shortened owing to good behavior, and he was let out about a year early on supervised release.
It took some doing to get him to sit for an interview, as Jacob is wary of what he calls Operation Mockingbird, an alleged CIA-sponsored effort begun in the Fifties to use mass media to influence public opinion. Jacob believes that people like me are the tools of the Mockingbird operation, of the deep state, international bankers, pharmaceutical cartels, and corporate monarchies that control the world. People like me believe in medicines that are addictive drugs, in food that is poison, in environmentalism that is ecocide, in education that is ignorance, in money that is debt, in objective science that is not objective. “People are brainwashed by the elites and their propaganda networks,” he said. “Mass hypnosis, bro.”
April 9, 2024
Lying Is What Dictators Do
Straight from the authoritarian playbook, Trump has turned the RNC into a hereditary dictatorship in his quest to swap out the entire GOP—and reality itself—with a murderous Christofascist fantasy.
By Brynn Tannehill
One of Donald Trump’s first acts as president in 2017 was to force Sean Spicer onto the podium to lie about how his inauguration was the best attended and watched ever. It was such an audacious and easily dispelled lie—there was footage to prove otherwise. But Trump’s narcissistic ego prevented him from admitting defeat. More so, everything had to be superlative—the most popular, the biggest, the best. It was Spicer’s job as his flack to make us understand and accept this. (Spicer paid for this by ritually being humiliated and emasculated in a way that recalls the infamous “My name is Reek” scene in Game of Thrones.)
However, Spicer was one man. And now it is a command from above to define reality as whatever Donald Trump says it is, regardless of facts, evidence, or logic. Now Trump, in his bid to run for the White House for a third time, wants the Republican National Committee, which he effectively has taken over, to replace the entire GOP. He swapped the organization’s chair Ronna McDaniel with his daughter-in-law, Eric’s wife Lara Trump, and longtime Trump loyalist Michael Whatley, and then immediately instituted mass layoffs and began restaffing it with his own people. The goal was clear: Establish the Trump family as a hereditary dictatorship.
This past week, the Washington Post revealed that interviewees for positions at the RNC were asked whether they believed the 2020 Election was stolen. This was the litmus test, so that they would only hire those who would vocally support lies meant to undermine the legitimacy of the United States’ government.
If Trump takes power again in 2025 (according to polls, if the election were held today, he would likely easily win the electoral college based on six key swing states), he will spread this command to all of government via Schedule F. This will also allow him to fill all of the top 50,000 spots in government with cronies, ideologues, and sycophants who can be hired and fired at his will.
April 11, 2024
Column: Trump 1.0 made some world
leaders laugh. Trump 2.0 terrifies them
By Jackie Calmes
Not a joke, as Joe Biden might say.
I’m talking about our country: America is no joke, no matter how many times Donald Trump claims it is.
One of his most obnoxious lies at every rally and in most interviews is his contention that, with Biden as president, a disrespectful world is laughing at us. Trump was at it again last week, at his most recent rally in Green Bay, Wis., claiming the United States is a global laughingstock.
“Joe Biden is not respected and Joe Biden is not feared” among the world’s nations, he told his fawning crowd. But once he, Trump, is reelected, “America will soon be respected again, very quickly respected, like never before.”
Like virtually all Trumpisms, this one is demonstrably false.
“Throughout Donald Trump’s presidency, publics around the world held the United States in low regard,” the Pew Research Center reported soon after he left office. Its 2020 survey found that among 13 allied nations, the share of people who had a favorable view of America was the lowest it had been in the two decades since Pew began asking the question. Good feelings toward the United States rebounded after Biden took office and remained favorable by a 2-to-1 ratio last year.
It’s almost laughable, Trump’s projection of his own unpopularity onto Biden. Except that too many Americans believe him.
As for foreign leaders, they’re not laughing at the United States or Trump. They’re openly fretting that the pro-authoritarian neo-isolationist whose crude credo is “America First” could return to power. Their agita is pretty astounding, really.
They don’t respect Trump at all, though they do fear him — the way you’d fear a madman at the nuclear button. President Nixon sought leverage by making foreign counterparts think he was unstable; Trump actually is unstable. Foreign diplomats and some leaders don’t even mask their anxiety. They mostly speak anonymously, in case he actually regains power, but they speak nonetheless, ignoring norms against opining about another country’s election.
Trump’s former national security advisor John Bolton has said repeatedly that even the autocrats Trump admires — Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Kim Jong Un, among others — “think he’s a laughing fool.”
April 19, 2024
What Did President Trump Do
for 187 Minutes on Jan. 6?
DEMOCRACY ON TRIAL
PART 12 of 13
April 30, 2024
How Far Trump
Would Go
By Eric Cortellessa / Palm Beach, Florida
Donald Trump thinks he’s identified a crucial mistake of his first term: He was too nice.
We’ve been talking for more than an hour on April 12 at his fever-dream palace in Palm Beach. Aides lurk around the perimeter of a gilded dining room overlooking the manicured lawn. When one nudges me to wrap up the interview, I bring up the many former Cabinet officials who refuse to endorse Trump this time. Some have publicly warned that he poses a danger to the Republic. Why should voters trust you, I ask, when some of the people who observed you most closely do not?
As always, Trump punches back, denigrating his former top advisers. But beneath the typical torrent of invective, there is a larger lesson he has taken away. “I let them quit because I have a heart. I don’t want to embarrass anybody,” Trump says. “I don’t think I’ll do that again. From now on, I’ll fire.”
Six months from the 2024 presidential election, Trump is better positioned to win the White House than at any point in either of his previous campaigns. He leads Joe Biden by slim margins in most polls, including in several of the seven swing states likely to determine the outcome. But I had not come to ask about the election, the disgrace that followed the last one, or how he has become the first former—and perhaps future—American President to face a criminal trial. I wanted to know what Trump would do if he wins a second term, to hear his vision for the nation, in his own words.
May 17, 2024
The Affairs and Scandals of Trump’s Pastor
Paula White | Documentary
In a world of faith and flashy lights, megachurches and their pastors sometimes come with mega-drama… In Pastor Paula White’s world, alleged marital affairs, bankrupting churches, and using church money to pay for plastic surgery aren’t unheard of. As a young girl who lived in a trailer and became a young married mother, she grew up to become a preacher after an affair with the associate-pastor of her church (and not before they ran off together to start their own church). She went on to lead a congregation of 22,000, became a multimillionaire, hosted a Christian TV show, owned a private jet and an 8,000 sq ft. beach-front home. But no matter how high she climbed, betrayal, greed, and multiple scandals have followed Paula her entire career and three marriages. This is the scandalous story and luxurious lifestyle of Pastor Paula White.
May 25, 2024
Yes, That’s Right: American Fascism
Why waste time debating the extent of Trump’s
fascism when we ought to be fighting it instead?
By Michael Tomasky
“No, no,” some admonish: “Don’t get carried away. Sure, Donald Trump is dangerous, perhaps uniquely so. But … fascist? The need to label him a fascist says more about the labeler than about Trump.” This argument has sprung from certain quarters of the right, which was to be expected, but it has also sprouted from the left, where a point of view has arisen that the “hysterical” invocation of the f-word is as much a danger as Trump.
We have trouble seeing the hysteria. We chose the cover image, based on a well-known 1932 Hitler campaign poster, for a precise reason: that anyone transported back to 1932 Germany could very, very easily have explained away Herr Hitler’s excesses and been persuaded that his critics were going overboard. After all, he spent 1932 campaigning, negotiating, doing interviews—being a mostly normal politician. But he and his people vowed all along that they would use the tools of democracy to destroy it, and it was only after he was given power that Germany saw his movement’s full face.
Today, we at The New Republic think we can spend this election year in one of two ways. We can spend it debating whether Trump meets the nine or 17 points that define fascism. Or we can spend it saying, “He’s damn close enough, and we’d better fight.”
We unreservedly choose the latter course. And so we have assembled herein some of our leading intellectual historians of fascism; a member of the fourth estate who learned firsthand what the Trump lash feels like; a leading expert on civil-military relations; a great Guatemalan American novelist with a deep understanding of immigrants’ lives; one of our most incisive cultural critics; and a man with all-too-real experience in living under a notorious authoritarian regime. The scenarios they describe are certainly grim. We dare you to say, after reading these pieces, that they are impossible.
June 4, 2024
Vice President Kamala Harris on Protecting
Reproductive Rights, Trump’s Guilty Verdict
& Health Care
June 8, 2024
Trump’s final year as President: Part One
History, as it happened. A reminder of what happened in Donald Trump’s final year as president. In this documentary, we relive the first six months of 2020 under the Trump administration, through the 7NEWS team’s coverage of all key moments.
~~~~~~~~~
Part Two – June 9, 2024
“A Man of Conviction” by John Cuneo
June 19, 2024
Who Will Win America’s Second Civil War?
From April 12, 1861 to April 9, 1865, the U.S. Civil War drenched America in blood, claiming up to 750,000 soldiers’ lives and leaving the South in ruins. Today, 41% of Americans believe another civil war is likely within five years. What would this conflict look like?
July 12, 2024
The Problem With Elon Musk
The Billionaire Who’s Not Like Other Billionaires
Is Elon Musk a net positive or negative for society? We spoke to people he’s worked with and researched his childhood, past business ventures like Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink, and X (formerly known as Twitter), and what he’s currently working on to answer this question.
With an assassination attempt on Donald Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania on July 13, 2024, the U.S. experienced another violent episode in its increasingly polarized politics. Former President Trump, who’s about to formally become the GOP nominee for president in the 2024 election, survived the attempted assassination when, initial reports said, a bullet grazed his ear. But one rally attendee was killed, more spectators were injured and the suspected gunman is also dead. The Conversation’s politics editor, Naomi Schalit, spoke with University of Massachusetts, Lowell, scholar Arie Perliger after the event. Perliger offered insight from his study of political violence and assassinations. Given the stark political polarization in the U.S., Perliger said, “it’s not a surprise that eventually people engage in violence.”
Schalit: When you heard the news, what was the first thing you thought?
Perliger: The first thing that I thought about is that we were basically one inch from a potential civil war. I think that if, indeed, Donald Trump would have suffered fatal injuries today, the level of violence that we witnessed so far will be nothing in comparison to what would have happened in the next couple of months. I think that would have unleashed a new level of anger, frustration, resentment, hostility that we haven’t seen for many, many years in the U.S.
This assassination attempt, at least at this early stage, may validate a strong sense among many Trump supporters and many people on the far right that they are being delegitimized, that they are on the defensive and that there are efforts to basically prevent them from competing in the political process and prevent Trump from returning to the White House.
What we’ve just seen, for many of the people on the far right, fits very well into a narrative that they’ve already been constructing and disseminating for the last few months.
Political assassination attempts don’t aim only to kill someone. They have a larger goal, don’t they?
In many ways, assassination attempts bypass the long process of trying to downgrade and defeat political opponents, when there is a sense that even a long political struggle will not be sufficient. Many perpetrators see assassinations as a tool that will allow them to achieve their political objectives in a very quick, very effective way that doesn’t demand a lot of resources or a lot of organization. If we are trying to connect it to what we’ve seen today, I think that many people see Trump as a unicorn, as a unique entity, who in many ways really consumed the entire conservative movement. So by removing him, there’s a sense that that will or may solve the problem.
I think that the conservative movement changed dramatically since 2016, when Trump was first elected, and a lot of the characteristics of Trumpism are actually now fairly popular in different parts of the conservative movement. So even if Trump will decide to retire at some point, I don’t think that Trumpism – as a set of populist ideas – will disappear from the GOP. But I can definitely understand why people who see that as a threat will feel that removing Trump can solve all the problems.
In a study of the causes and impacts of political assassination, you wrote that unless electoral processes can address “the most intense political grievances … electoral competition has the potential to instigate further violence, including the assassinations of political figures.” Is that what you saw in this attempted assassination?
July 15, 2024
‘Noxious’: See Maddow expose JD Vance’s past
statements about Trump, Jan. 6 and more
Rachel Maddow looks back at the blistering insults JD Vance directed at his now running mate Donald Trump, as well as his newfound MAGA perspective on the January 6 insurrection.
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
July 15, 2024
Rep. Adam Kinzinger On Trump’s Cult-Level Control
Over The Republican Party
Former congressman Adam Kinzinger recalls the events of January 6, 2021 and admits he was surprised to see Donald Trump take total control over the GOP in the runup to the 2024 presidential race. Stick around for two more segments with Rep. Kinzinger.
“The Face of Justice” by Anita Kunz
July 15, 2024
RETRIBUTION
PART ONE: THE BATTLE FOR DEMOCRACY
Investigating Trump, Project 2025 and the future
of the United States | Four Corners
There has never been a US president like Donald Trump — and now he’s back, this time with a detailed plan for his second coming.
Nearly four years after he was cast out by voters and accused of encouraging the American people to assault their own democracy with the attack on the US Capitol, the now convicted criminal wants to rebuild the country in his own image.
Ahead of the US election in November, Four Corners reporter Mark Willacy travels to Washington for the first of a special two-part series.
He sits down with White House insiders who witnessed the chaos of Trump’s first term — some who continue to support his vision, and others Trump now considers “traitors”.
Trump wants to reshape the pillars of American democracy and give himself more power. Willacy goes inside “Project 2025”, the blueprint for a second Trump term and the army of recruits ready to carry out his orders.
Meanwhile strategy, security and defence experts warn of the impact another Trump presidency could have on America’s institutions, its democracy, and the rest of the world.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
July 19, 2024
Preacher, prophet, messiah: Trump cult
takes on religious overtones at RNC
As Christian nationalism grows in strength and influence within the Republican Party, Donald Trump’s cult of personality is shifting toward increasing religiosity with Trump as the central deity. George Conway, president of the Anti-Psychopath PAC, Susan Glasser, staff writer at the New Yorker, and Tressie McMillan Cottom, columnist for the New York Times, discuss with Alex Wagner.
July 23, 2024
Trump: Guilty on all Counts | Full Documentary
Donald Trump faces four criminal cases, with the sentencing for the Hush money scandal taking place on the 11th of July 2024. Just days before the start of the Republican National Convention on the 15th of July where Trump is expected to be formally nominated for president. Although the ex-president continues to claim he is ahead in the polls, the prospect of a jail sentence could really rock his campaign and has warned that the public would reach a breaking point. However, at a time of such high intensity, the prospect of civil unrest and violence could very much rear its ugly head…once again.
Cast
Andrew Wroe
Guy Walters
Matthew Goodwin
Natasha Lindstaedt
Filmmakers
Sarah Findley, Brian Aabech, Jordan Hill
July 26, 2024
Trump Backers Are Talking Up Possible
Civil War
These commentators and GOP state official sound willing to take drastic measures if Trump loses in November.
By Arianna Coghill
Last week, at J.D. Vance’s first rally as the GOP’s vice presidential nominee, Ohio state Sen. George Lang said that civil war would be necessary if former President Donald Trump does not win the 2024 presidential election.
“I believe wholeheartedly Donald Trump and Butler County’s J.D. Vance are the last chance to save our country politically. I’m afraid if we lose this one, it’s going to take a civil war to save the country, and it will be saved,” Lang said, as the crowd erupted in raucous applause.
Three days later, Lang apologized on X, claiming that the statement “didn’t accurately represent his views.” But while the Ohio legislator’s statement may not represent his views, it certainly seems to represent those of other Trump supporters.
Since campaigning for the 2024 race began, several MAGA loyalists have openly advocated for political violence in the event the real estate mogul loses the race.
July 29, 2024
A half-million records and one app: The group
behind a massive effort to ‘clean’ voter rolls
Police officers in Texas, senior citizens at a nursing home in Pennsylvania, and people who had registered to vote at a Marine base in California are among the thousands of voters whose right to cast a ballot has been needlessly challenged ahead of this November’s election by activists — many of whom have been inspired by conspiracy theories — seeking to prevent voter fraud.
“My simple right as a voter is being attacked,” said Daniel Moss, a university administrator from Denton County, Texas, whose registration was challenged by one of the activists even though he has lived in the county and voted there for about two decades. “It’s kind of un-American to do that.”
Election officials across the country have been inundated with dubious complaints about inaccurate voter rolls, which have wasted government resources and sapped taxpayer money spent reviewing lists of registered voters that officials say are already carefully maintained, a CNN investigation has found.
One of the main drivers of the fruitless challenges is a conservative Texas-based nonprofit group called True the Vote, an election-monitoring organization that has long peddled debunked voter-fraud theories. The group’s founder, Catherine Engelbrecht, has called on followers to help clean voter rolls by using an app called IV3 that enables users to research voter data and submit voter-eligibility challenges to local election offices.
Aug. 5, 2024
Even FOX can’t save Trump! Anchors struggle
to stop Trump disaster | Will’s Take
While Donald Trump brags about his own intelligence, he doesn’t have the intelligence to answer questions Fox News anchors directly coach to him. Will Saletan explains.
August 6, 2024
Kamala Harris Picks Minn. Governor & Midwestern
Dad Tim Walz as Running Mate
Michael Kosta gets to know Tim Walz, the Minn. governor Kamala Harris chose as her running mate. While the Trump campaign claims the vice presidential candidate will “unleash hell on earth,” Democrats love his political record and “Midwestern dad af” vibes. Plus, Josh Johnson weighs in on why Walz is the “right type of white guy” for this race.
Aug. 15, 2024
Trump DUMPED By Evangelicals After Ruthless
New Ad
Evangelicals are finally turning on Trump as his hypocrisy and moral failures push them to rally behind Kamala Harris in a desperate bid to save the GOP from its own self-destruction. Richard Ojeda breaks it down on Rebel HQ.
August 16, 2024
Project 2025 Co-Author Lays Out “Radical Agenda”
for Next Trump Term in Undercover Video
As Donald Trump tries to distance his campaign from Project 2025, those behind the right-wing policy blueprint to remake the U.S. government continue to brag in private about their close ties to the Republican presidential nominee and how they intend to push a radical right-wing agenda in a second Trump administration. In July, Project 2025 co-author Russell Vought met with two people he believed to be relatives of a wealthy conservative donor interested in funding the effort.
In fact, he was meeting with two reporters with the U.K.-based Centre for Climate Reporting as part of an undercover sting captured on video. Over the course of two hours, Vought described Trump’s disavowal of Project 2025 as mere theater and laid out plans for mass deportations, restricting abortion, gutting independent government bureaucracies, using the military against racial justice protesters and more.
The secret plans are “designed to ensure that this kind of radical agenda that the conservative movement has in the U.S. can be implemented from day one,” says Lawrence Carter, founder and director of the Centre for Climate Reporting and one of the reporters who spoke with Vought. “They want to make sure that the mistakes from the first Trump administration, as they see them, where not much got done, are avoided this time around.”
September 5, 2024
Trump’s Latest Scheme to Steal the
Election: Let Congress Do It
The ex-president has demanded that Congress insert
“voter fraud” measures into a must-pass spending
bill. Speaker Mike Johnson says he agrees.
By Thom Hartmann
Get ready. Donald Trump has made good use of the propaganda technique known as the Big Lie 1.0, famously claiming that the 2020 “election was stolen” from him. And now he’s preparing to use Big Lie 2.0 to shut down our government this fall, believing it’ll hurt the Biden administration and thus the Harris-Walz campaign.
That second weapon—this Big Lie 2.0—is the false allegation of widespread “voter fraud” in America. He intends to use it to try to bring the Biden administration to its knees in the next few weeks. And, as a bonus, if it works, he gets to prevent millions of people, particularly minorities and women, from voting.
Republicans have been using this lie to attack the heart of our democracy right out in the open ever since the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964, the year they responded by rolling out “Operation Eagle Eye,” yelling about nonexistent “voter fraud” and using it as an excuse to intimidate minority voters in the Goldwater/Johnson race.
In the 60 years since then, with the exception of the past year or two, no major American news media have seriously challenged the Republican “voter fraud” lie. Even though for the last few decades Republicans have routinely used it for blocking minority and women voters, and purging voting rolls the way, for example, Governor Brian Kemp and Attorney General Ken Paxton just did in Georgia and Texas, respectively, in preparation for this November.
[ Trump’s Latest Scheme to Steal the Election pdf ]
September 6, 2024
Fred Trump III Denounces His Uncle Donald Trump
for Saying Disabled People “Should Just Die”
Democracy Now! is joined by the nephew of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, who has endorsed Trump’s Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris. Fred Trump III’s new memoir, All in the Family: The Trumps and How We Got to Be This Way, shares fresh insights into the Trump family and acts as a platform to advocate for individuals with developmental disabilities. Fred Trump’s own son William has a rare genetic disorder that causes severe developmental and intellectual disabilities. He says Donald Trump once told him to abandon William, saying, “He doesn’t recognize you. Let him die, and move down to Florida.” After a meeting in the Oval Office about dedicating more resources to people with disabilities, Fred Trump says his uncle said, “Those people, the costs. They should just die.”
“How could one human being say that about any other human being, least of all your grandnephew?” says Fred Trump, who calls on the next president to support disabled Americans.
Sept. 9, 2024
‘This is not an idle threat’: Schiff sounds
alarm on Trump’s threat to jail opponents
Congressman Adam Schiff discusses Trump’s threat to jail opponents if he wins reelection as well as Trump’s delayed sentencing in his New York “hush money” case.
Sept. 12, 2024
The Secret Trump Investigation
Nobody is Talking About
Did Egypt’s President el-Sisi try to buy Trump’s loyalty by sending Trump $10 million? We looked into it and here’s what we found.
Read the excellent report that inspired this video, by Aaron C. Davis and Carol D. Leonnig for The Washington Post here.
Sept. 17, 2024
75 Worst Things about the Trump Presidency
Donald Trump left office with the lowest approval rating of any president ever. But some people now seem to be suffering from amnesia.
Sept. 18, 2024
Maddow on her ‘profoundly funny’ new
documentary on Trump-Ukraine scandal,
‘From Russia with Lev’
Rachel Maddow is the executive producer of a new documentary on the Trump-Ukraine plot, “From Russia with Lev,” airing this Friday at 9 pm ET on MSNBC. Maddow joins Joy Reid with more.
Sept. 19, 2024
NC Candidate Mark Robinson Gets Exposed
and Trump Reunites with Rudy Giuliani
Ronny Chieng on the North Carolina Republican busted for posting weird comments on a porn site, Rudy Giuliani’s frightening performance at Trump’s Long Island rally, and the shocking truth behind JD Vance’s cat eating stories. Plus, Troy Iwata joins with the inside scoop on one missing feline.
Sept. 19, 2024
Was Trump’s Presidency Part of Putin’s Plan?
NATO troops amass along Russia’s borders as U.S. officials grapple with Putin’s election meddling. How will a battle that started in cyberspace play out on the ground?
This episode of Cyberwar originally aired in 2017.
September 24, 2024
New Look at Trump’s Most Consequential Day:
Jan 6 Attack on the Capital
Fight Like Hell shows the true story of January 6 as it’s never been seen before. With no narration, commentary, or other “spin,” the film immerses the viewer into the Stop the Steal movement from its origins — long before the 2020 election had even ended.
As President Trump fought the election results in court, see how the Stop the Steal movement fought it in the streets. With original never-seen footage shot by an army combat cinematographer using state-of-the-art cinema cameras, Fight Like Hell is a visceral experience that brings you right into the moment as it happened.
Sept. 24, 2024
You Will Never Look At Elon Musk
The Same Way Again…
September 24, 2024
One-on-one with Heather Cox Richardson
Cap Times Idea Fest 2024
Heather Cox Richardson is a Boston College history professor whose daily digital essays (“Letters from an American”) that place current political events into historical context have gained a massive national following.
In this keynote Idea Fest session, she talks with fellow historian David Maraniss about the precedents for what we are seeing now in America’s political landscape and where we might be headed.
Sept. 24, 2024
Mary Trump: “Cruelty Was a Currency” in Trump Family
In a busy week for diplomacy, world leaders are weighing up what a second Trump term could mean for the U.S. and the world. To the former president’s niece, Mary Trump, it would spell nothing but bad news for American democracy. Mary Trump joined Michel Martin to discuss her views on the upcoming election and her latest book, Who Could Ever Love You: A Family Memoir.
PBS
THE
CHOICE
2024
HARRIS vs.TRUMP
Premiered Sep 24, 2024 | FRONTLINE investigates the lives and characters of Kamala Harris and Donald Trump as they seek the presidency.
October 1, 2024
Psychiatrists expose Trump’s mental
deterioration at major conference. Part 2
Anthony Davis reports on The World Mental Health Coalition’s major conference ‘THE MORE DANGEROUS STATE OF THE WORLD AND THE NEED FOR FIT LEADERSHIP’ with Dr Bandy Lee and 18 experts.
October 2, 2024
Unmasking the Illusion of Donald Trump
Russ Buettner and Susanne Craig are investigative reporters at the New York Times. Get a copy of their bestselling book, Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered His Father’s Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success.
with Glenn Kirschner
October 2, 2024
Jack Smith Lays Out The Sharply Incriminating
Evidence of Trump’s Democracy-Busting
January 6 Crimes
In anticipation of conducting the litigation the Supreme Court directed her to conduct on the issue of presidential immunity, Judge Tanya Chutkan placed on the public docket Jack Smith’s 165-page motion setting out the crimes of Donald Trump and why he is not immune from prosecution.
Smith’s motion reads like a 165-page opening statement, showing why Trump should never again be allowed to get within a thousand miles of the Oval Office.
Vice President Kamala Harris on
October 9, 2024
Oct. 11, 2024
Fears grow that ‘clown-like’ Trump
could achieve fascist goals despite
gross incompetence
For as long as Donald Trump has been on the political scene, analysts have struggled with how much of his performance to take seriously. But as Election Day races closer and polls remain tight even as Trump rhetoric becomes more extreme and his supporters become more radicalized, more people are realizing that no matter how big a buffoon Trump may be, the risks of him taking power and abusing that power are significant and worrisome.
Charlie Sykes, a former conservative radio host who has now endorsed Kamala Harris, is joined by Susan Glasser, staff writer at the New Yorker, and McKay Coppins, staff writer for the Atlantic and author of Romney: A Reckoning, discuss with Alex Wagner.
October 11, 2024
“The Apprentice”: New Film Opens Despite
Trump’s Attempts to Block Anyone from Seeing It
We speak with the director of “The Apprentice,” which opens today in theaters despite legal threats from the former president. The film looks at how Trump was mentored by Roy Cohn, former chief counsel to Senator Joseph McCarthy during the Red Scare. He went on to represent Trump as he built his New York real estate empire, and “was the person who sort of built Trump, as a person, as a brand, as an identity,” says Abbasi.
October 12, 2024
Trump’s 40-Year Entanglement
with the FBI and Organized Crime
Never has a president so repeatedly and openly demonstrated his disrespect for the law, the Constitution and the democratic institutions of the United States. From Russian interference in the 2016 elections to secret deals with the mafia, Donald Trump has faced many accusations – while he claims to be the victim of an FBI conspiracy.
Despite being implicated in well-documented suspect deals, he was never charged. In fact, Trump and the FBI have been covertly enmeshed for 40 years. But exactly how far did he go to get his way, and to keep agents from investigating?
Using privileged access to FBI officials, this film examines the complex relationship between the United States Intelligence Community and its businessman-turned-President, who plays a double game with the Mafia and the bureau. In the run-up of the next presidential election, this investigation proposes to lay out the inside story of Trump’s potentially compromised presidency, examined by those who know him best.
Documentary: An American Affair : Trump & the FBI (2020)
Directed by: Fabrizio Calvi & David Carr-Brown
Production: Pumpernickel Films and Allumage
October 14, 2024
The DISTURBING links between Trump, Hitler, Stalin, and Putin
— A deep dive into the comparisons between, and often taboo of, comparing Donald Trump or other modern-day authoritarians to the dictators of history, including Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Kim Jong Un, and others.
October 15, 2024
Operation Trump: Russian Spies Conquer America
As the 2024 elections approach, Russia’s interference in American politics—through spies or agents of influence—remains a troubling reality. Vladimir Putin is counting on Donald Trump’s victory to weaken Ukraine.
Why does Trump almost always support Russia? Is he compromised? Did he betray during his presidency? And why has the Republican Party shifted its stance toward Russia?
Answering these questions means shedding light on a labyrinthine operation of espionage and manipulation. Still ongoing, it began in the final years of the Cold War. While it remains shrouded in mystery, some hold pieces of the puzzle. A former KGB leader, infiltrated “illegals,” a former Trump advisor, former CIA and FBI officials, and a former prosecutor provide testimony.
This gripping investigative documentary, filmed like a spy thriller, takes us deep into Soviet and later Russian infiltrations in the United States.
October 16, 2024
PolitiFact Founder Explains the “Epidemic of Lying”
in American Politics
As Americans gear up for the election, Bill Adair warns of an “epidemic of lying” in U.S. politics — particularly within the Republican Party. Adair joins the show to discuss his new book, Beyond the Big Lie: The Epidemic of Political Lying, Why Republicans Do It More, and How It Could Burn Down Our Democracy. As founder of the fact-checking website PolitiFact, Adair is well placed to account for where disinformation comes from, how it spreads and the danger it poses to democracy.
Oct. 18, 2024
“That man needs to go to jail”: Former Trump voters
explain why they could never support him again
Speaking to Salon, Republicans and independents who previously backed Trump explain why they’re now voting blue.
By Charles R. Davis
News Editor
Oct. 20, 2024
DONALD TRUMP’S PAST REVEALED
*3 Part Marathon*
October 20, 2024
Ex-Trump supporters on why they DUMPED TRUMP
— Former Donald Trump supporters, Robert Nix, Damian Salmon and Kyle Sweetser, join David to discuss why they have abandoned Donald Trump, who they are voting for in the 2024 election, whether they are still Republicans and/or conservative, and more.
Oct. 21, 2024
Rachel Maddow interviews Yulia Navalnaya
Watch the full, extended version of Rachel Maddow’s interview with pro-democracy, anti-Putin, anti-corruption activist Yulia Navalnaya, widow of Russian opposition leader and political prisoner Alexei Navalny.
Oct. 25, 2024
President TRUMP – Has he Made
America Great Again? | First Term
The World According to Trump | Documentary
Donald Trump has imposed his own pace, provocative style, and agenda, and the world experienced his four years in office at full throttle. Every day a new controversy crowded out the previous one, to the extent that it was hard to grasp what was really at stake. What if the time had come to watch the film once again at a normal speed?
October 25, 2024
Why Trump Is So Dangerous
In this Changing Climate video essay, I examine the disaster of another Trump presidency and the implementation of Project 2025. In short, Trump will build a fossil fascist regime that would not only be catastrophic for oppressed people everywhere, but also lock-in climate chaos for decades to come.
October 26, 2024
Trump: The Art of the Insult
Donald Trump used The Art of the Insult to brand political opponents and bash the media all the way to the White House. Trump dominated the news with a master plan of political incorrectness, hurling insults like Lyin’ Ted and Crooked Hillary.
In this film, Trump emerges as a marketing genius and performance artist who, despite being a Manhattan billionaire, captured the hearts of middle America.
October 28, 2024
“Whoever Wins this Presidential Race,
We’re Going To See a Lot of Violence” | Shawn Ryan
Shawn Ryan, former Navy SEAL and CIA contractor, joins John to discuss politics, war, and the psychological toll of military service. Shawn reflects on his experiences in conflict zones like Iraq and Afghanistan, the rise of his podcast “The Shawn Ryan Show,” and how it resonated with listeners craving authenticity amidst a media landscape they no longer trust. He shares his personal struggles, including battling alcoholism, and how transparency and vulnerability became central themes on his platform, especially for veterans reintegrating into civilian life.
Shawn and John explore the state of the world today, touching on societal unrest in the US, the dangerous rise of extremism, and the challenges posed by foreign adversaries like China. Shawn also highlights the importance of critical thinking, the influence of money in politics, and the vital need for America to “get its house in order” before it can effectively handle global threats.
October 29, 2024
American Voices 2024
Returning to voters filmed in 2020, this 90-minute documentary explores how their hopes and fears have changed amid another polarizing election season.
“American Voices 2024” begins in 2020, following ordinary Americans with different viewpoints as they dealt with COVID-19 in their communities that spring, responded to George Floyd’s murder that summer, and then participated in the election and its aftermath that fall. Then, the documentary revisits those same Americans from a mix of urban, rural and suburban areas as they reflect on the past four tumultuous years, navigate health and economic challenges, and share their perspectives on politics today.
Filmed everywhere from Texas to California; from Virginia to Minnesota; and from Iowa to Oregon, “American Voices 2024” is a journey across geography, race and politics that sheds light on where our country has been — and where it is headed.
October 30, 2024
Nationalism is not patriotism: 3 insights
from Orwell about Trump and the 2024 election
Shortly after Donald Trump was inaugurated as president of the United States in January 2017, George Orwell’s 1949 novel Nineteen Eighty-Four shot to the top of Amazon’s bestseller list. Apparently, lots of people thought Orwell had something relevant to say in that political moment.
Nearly eight years later, the United States once again faces the prospect of a Trump presidency.
In 2016, many Americans were caught off guard by Trump’s win, leading them to grapple with the potential consequences of a Trump presidency only after he was elected. But this time, more people seem to be thinking about the ramifications of such an outcome in advance.
Oct. 30, 2024
Why Narcissistic Leaders Always Fail (In The End)
October 31, 2024
Fahrenheit 11/9
Michael Moore’s epic Trump-era film, presented in full.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
2007 documentary on America’s healthcare system.
Fire and Fury – The Podcast
What happens when one of the best-sourced reporters in the game catches up with an old friend to share his latest scoop? Every week, we listen in as journalist Michael Wolff (Fire and Fury, Siege, Landslide) speaks with James Truman, former editorial director of Condé Nast. They dish from inside the Trump campaign and share election intel before the world gets to hear it. Fire and Fury: The Podcast is essential listening for anyone looking to stay one step ahead of the headlines.
October 31, 2024
EPISODE 22: JEFFREY EPSTEIN AND DONALD TRUMP
In this episode, Michael reveals a key source for his reporting on Donald Trump: Jeffrey Epstein. Through behind-the-scenes stories and never-before-heard recordings, Michael recounts Epstein’s candid insights into Trump’s rise, revealing a world of power plays, unsettling competitions, and twisted allegiances. The conversation unearths Epstein’s perspective on Trump’s character, ambition, and his relentless pursuit of power.
Oct. 24, 2024
Former Sports Illustrated swimsuit model says
Trump groped her to show off for Jeffrey Epstein
In her first on-camera interview about the allegation, with CNN Thursday, Stacey Williams offered her most detailed public account of the alleged encounter, which she said occurred outside Trump’s office in Trump Tower in the early 1990s when she was in her 20s and was briefly dating Epstein. CNN has spoken to three friends of Williams, who each said that she told them about the incident with Trump and Epstein, in 2006, in 2015 and in 2018, respectively.
October 31, 2024
Trump’s brain is QUICKLY getting worse,
says psychologist
— Doctor Harry Segal, clinical psychologist and Senior Lecturer in the Psychology Department at Cornell University, as well as the Department of Psychiatry at Cornell Weill Medical School, joins David for a final discussion of the cognitive stakes of the Donald Trump vs Kamala Harris election.
November 1, 2024
Interview with Dr. Greenwood on Trump’s Brain
Top psychologists and doctors, including Dr. Greenwood, sound the alarm on Donald Trump’s dangerous mental diagnosis, which could prove terrifying consequences if elected again.
Nov. 1, 2024
Trump Loves Pretending God Likes Him,
But His Cult Is Far From Christian
Will Saletan breaks down how Donald Trump and his supporters have used the failed assassination attempt on the former president to argue he’s been chosen by God to save America.
Nov. 2, 2024
Donald Trump against the FBI | Full Doc
Nov. 2, 2024
US faces ‘chaos’ if Trump wins 2nd term
A second Donald Trump presidency would paralyse the US government and embolden its global adversaries, says former George W. Bush speechwriter David Frum.
The Atlantic writer says the former president would immediately try to shut down the various legal investigations against him if re-elected, triggering widespread resistance.
Nov. 4, 2024
Fascist tendencies in Trump: A comparison to Hitler’s rise
An unsettling question has been dominating the US presidential race: Is Donald Trump a fascist? Some have even compared him to Nazi Adolf Hitler. DW’s Washington Bureau Chief Ines Pohl sat down with Timothy Ryback, historian and author of Take Over: Hitler’s Final Rise to Power.
Nov. 8, 2024
Jon Stewart on Trump’s Win and
What’s Next w/ Heather Cox Richardson
In the aftermath of 2024 election results, Americans are rightfully worried about what a second Trump administration may bring. This week, Jon Stewart is joined by Heather Cox Richardson, author of Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America to explore what our past can teach us about the resiliency of our democratic institutions as we navigate an uncertain future.
“Tightrope” by Barry Blitt
November 11, 2024
Did Donald Trump Actually Win?
2.7 Million Provisional Ballots Were Rejected
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Oct. 18, 2024
VIGILANTES INC.
AMERICA’S NEW VOTE SUPPRESSION HITMEN
Greg Palast’s award-winning documentary, introduced by Martin Sheen and narrated by Rosario Dawson.
Nov. 12, 2024
Is Every Civilization Doomed to Fail?
Gregory S. Aldrete is Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Wisconsin–Green Bay. He earned his PhD in Ancient History from the University of Michigan. He has been honored with numerous awards for his research and teaching and has received five fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities. He is also a prolific scholar whose books include Gestures and Acclamations in Ancient Rome, Daily Life in the Roman City, and The Long Shadow of Antiquity: What Have the Greeks and Romans Done for Us?
November 15, 2024
America’s Last Election Part 5:
Trump demands loyalty
Donald Trump is bringing together his cabinet, from RFK to Matt Gaetz to Elon Musk to Vivek Ramaswamy. The one thing he is prioritising above all else is loyalty.
The President has learnt from his last term in the White House where senior leaders in his administration refused to follow through on his orders.
The story of his interactions with the likes of James Comey, Mark Milley and Mark Esper are a warning for Trump.
This time around, he is determined to Make America Great Again and he is setting up his administration to make that happen.
November 16, 2024
Top Harvard Intelligence Expert: “This is the
Golden Age of Disinformation” | Open Book
Calder Walton is a world-leading expert on intelligence, national security, and geopolitics — a scholar at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. Get his wonderful book, Spies: The Epic Intelligence War Between East and West.
Nov. 16, 2024
Trump ‘is crazy’ says his biographer
David K. Johnson is a professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology and the author of The Making of Donald Trump.
November 21, 2024
Heather Cox Richardson
Today, former Florida representative Matt Gaetz withdrew his name from consideration for the office of attorney general. He did so shortly after CNN told him that they were going to report that the House Ethics Committee had been told there were witnesses to yet another sexual encounter between Gaetz and a minor in 2017. There was already evidence that he had sent more than $10,000 to two women who later testified in sexual misconduct investigations. The notes explaining the payments said things like: “Love you,” “Being my friend,” “Being awesome,’ and “flight + extra 4 u.”
Trump transition spokesperson Alex Pfeiffer told Will Steakin of ABC News that discussions of Gaetz’s payments “are meant to undermine the mandate from the people to reform the Justice Department.”
Gaetz’s withdrawal turns attention to Trump’s pick for secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth. As host of the weekend edition of Fox & Friends, Hegseth has no relevant experience to run a crucial United States government department, let alone one that oversees close to 3 million personnel and a budget of more than $800 billion.
According to Heath Druzin of the Idaho Capital Sun, Hegseth has close ties to an Idaho Christian nationalist church that wants to turn the United States into a theocracy.
Jonathan Chait of The Atlantic did a deep dive into Hegseth’s recent books and concluded that Hegseth “considers himself to be at war with basically everybody to Trump’s left, and it is by no means clear that he means war metaphorically.” Hegseth’s books suggest he thinks that everything that does not support the MAGA worldview is “Marxist,” including voters choosing Democrats at the voting booth. He calls for the “categorical defeat of the Left” and says that without its “utter annihilation,” “America cannot, and will not, survive.”
November 22, 2024
PROJECT 2025: Trump’s REAL Plan All Along
We Should Have Known
Mary Trump exposes the terrifying reality of Project 2025 – the extremist blueprint Trump denied but is already implementing. Watch as his administration executes the playbook’s core principles: mass deportations, military purges, and the dismantling of public education. From targeting reproductive rights to eliminating a million federal jobs, the plan reveals exactly how to prepare for what’s coming.
November 23, 2024
Ex-Republican predicts “Fascism” and “Chaos”
in Trump 2nd term
— Steve Schmidt, renowned American political strategist, commentator, and founder of The Warning, joins David to discuss the aftermath and consequences of the 2024 election.
November – December 2024 Issue
The Bureaucrat Who Could Make
Trump’s Authoritarian Dreams
Real
Russ Vought has a plan to take presidential power to
new heights.
By Isabela Dias
Our November+December issue investigates the Christian nationalist movement that aspires to take over government at all levels, from school boards and state legislatures to Congress and the Supreme Court. Read the series of stories here.
In the waning days of the Trump presidency, Russell Vought, the outgoing director of the Office of Management and Budget, had a request.
After years in Washington, DC, soaking in the minutiae of policy, Vought had come to both know and loathe the bureaucracy. A rare voice in an administration committed to “draining the swamp” who had actual Beltway experience, he found in the Trump era he could put his expertise to use.
On November 20, 2020, Vought wrote to the head of the Office of Personnel Management for approval to reclassify dozens of career civil servant jobs within his agency. A few weeks before the 2020 election, President Donald Trump signed an executive order creating a new category of at-will employees—so-called Schedule F positions—which would be exempt from the rules designed to protect civil servants from partisan hatchetmen.
Despite Trump’s loss, Vought pushed to recategorize scores of OMB roles. To an outsider, this might have seemed like a technical adjustment. But in practice, reassignment would have stripped 415 employees—68 percent of the agency’s personnel—of work protections, effectively making it easier for political appointees to fire them. Vought called it “another step to make Washington accountable to the American people.”
In the end, Vought couldn’t get it done by inauguration. But this combination of lofty public rhetoric and ruthless behind-the-scenes gamesmanship has become his trademark. By the tail end of Trump’s turbulent four years in the White House, the OMB director had turned into one of the president’s most trusted and obsequious officials—an acolyte with a knack for making the half-formed schemes from his boss achievable.
As Trump runs for a second term, Vought’s years of faithful service haven’t gone unnoticed; his name has been widely floated for chief of staff, and he is a key policy adviser. One of the masterminds behind Project 2025—the Heritage Foundation’s presidential transition blueprint to overhaul the executive branch and usher in an ultraconservative agenda—Vought, an avowed Christian nationalist, is the man best positioned to realize Trump’s visions.
PBS
Nov. 26, 2024
China, the U.S. & the Rise of Xi Jinping
The complex, contentious U.S.-China relationship is a high-profile issue President-elect Donald Trump will face in his second term. FRONTLINE’s timely investigation traces China’s emergence as one of the world’s wealthiest and most repressive countries, and the role of its longtime president, Xi Jinping.
Nov. 27, 2024
Chris Hayes: Remember the last time a country
fooled around and found out?
“Just like the Tories and Liz Truss in London two years ago, Donald Trump told us what he plans to do. And just like then, the critics have said what the devastating results will be. Now we are about to enter the ‘finding out’ phase of the story,” says Chris Hayes on Trump’s economic plans.
Nov. 29, 2024
INFURIATING Clip Shows Just How Little
the Truth Matters to Trump | Will’s Take
Will Saletan breaks down how Donald Trump pathologically lies, using a story Trump tells about CNN’s Van Jones as a prime example.
December 2, 2024
“Instrument of Vengeance”: Mehdi Hasan on
How Trump & Kash Patel Could Weaponize
FBI Against Critics
We speak with journalist Mehdi Hasan, founder and editor-in-chief of Zeteo, about the incoming U.S. administration and President-elect Donald Trump’s picks for key roles, including lawyer Kash Patel to lead the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Trump reportedly considered Patel for FBI deputy director during his first term but dropped the idea after pushback from within his own administration. Hasan describes Patel as a “toady” whose threats against political opponents and journalists should be disqualifying, but that he aligns with Trump’s goals of further politicizing the FBI. “He wants to use it as an instrument of vengeance.”
December 2, 2024
Trump 2.0: Here Comes the Night
Well, reality must be faced now. But many courageous
Americans are ready to fight.
In the summer of 2015, Steve Bannon watched Donald Trump descend the Trump Tower escalator. He exclaimed: “That’s Hitler!” He meant it, of course, as a compliment.
Bannon would go on to become campaign CEO and a White House staffer, and Trump went on to win his first presidency. He didn’t get to do full Hitler. He did spend four years smashing norms, insulting women, finding “fine people on both sides” of a Nazi march, committing treason (or at least trying to), operating an open-air kleptocracy, mishandling and lying about a pandemic, inciting a coup, surviving two impeachments, and then grabbing dozens of classified documents on his way out the door.
Now, a majority of the American electorate—over 70 million voters—has handed supreme power back to this supremely unqualified, disrespectful, convicted fraudster and sexual abuser who likely avoided prison time for conviction in the Stormy Daniels hush money case. And now, his power to fulfill Bannon’s prophecy is even greater than it was during his first term, thanks to a timorous Republican Party and a Supreme Court that has granted him nearly monarchical immunity.
We are headed into uncharted territory as a people and a nation. Trump and his allies have promised to initiate their radical right-wing agenda the minute after he takes his hand off the Bible on Inauguration Day. We are about to experience an unprecedented assault on the Constitution and our civil liberties related to speech and assembly, and an abandonment of norms related to the military, the Justice Department, and government contracting that will make the first term look, well, normal.
[ Trump 2.0: Here Comes the Night pdf ]
December 4, 2024
America’s Lonely Future: David Frum on
Trump’s “Predatory” Foreign Policy
With Trump’s inauguration on the horizon, conversations continue about the impact of the President-elect’s policies both at home and abroad. David Frum is a political commentator and former speechwriter for President George W. Bush. In his latest piece for The Atlantic, “America’s Lonely Future,” Frum warns that the U.S. could become a global bully. He joins Walter Isaacson to discuss.
MSNBC Highlights
Dec. 22 Dec. 23 Dec. 24 Dec. 26
Dec. 20, 2024
Why Democrats can’t get over the grief
of losing to Donald Trump
A party without a leader is hopeless
By Chauncey DeVega
Senior Writer
Following their trouncing by Donald Trump and the MAGA movement in the 2024 election, Democrats continue to plod through the stages of grief, vacillating between denial, anger and bargaining. This behavior is increasingly taking the form of self-soothing talk among its leadership, consultant and media class that their defeat in the 2024 election was not as extreme and dire as it first appeared (Trump won the popular vote and the Electoral College; the Republicans now control both chambers of Congress) and that a big rebuild and reassessment of the party and its strategy, messaging and leadership are not necessary.
December 23, 2024
Americans Are FLEEING to These 10 Countries Because of Trump.
Escape Plan: Discover the top 10 countries Americans are fleeing to in 2024! From Costa Rica’s “Pura Vida” lifestyle to Japan’s strict social rules, we’re exploring the most popular destinations for Americans looking to start fresh abroad.
Ready to trade your American zip code for an international address? We break down the real deal on living in these countries — from Portugal’s golden visa program to Canada’s point-based system. Plus, get the inside scoop on visa requirements, cost of living, and what daily life is really like in each destination.
Dec. 24, 2024
‘Pay-to-pray’: Trump reportedly charging supporters
$100,000 to attend church service with him
By Carl Gibson
The day before his inauguration, President-elect Donald Trump will reportedly be attending an interfaith prayer service in Washington D.C. His wealthiest supporters can also attend — if they write or solicit a big enough check.
That’s according to a recent report in Religion News Service (RNS), which published promotional material from Trump’s inaugural committee showing a list of different tiers of “benefits” depending on how much a donor gives. On Saturday, January 18, donors can get tickets to a “Make America Great Again Victory Rally,” a Cabinet reception and a dinner with Vice President-elect JD Vance. And on Sunday, January 19, donors who give $100,000 or raise $200,000 can get two tickets to the “One America, One Light Sunday Service.” RNS reporter Jack Jenkins described it as a “pay-to-pray” event.
December 26, 2024
THE WEIRD NEW
NORMAL OF DONALD
TRUMP IN 2024
Radical revisionism is a strong contender for the theme
of this disruptive year, in which some unique property
of political alchemy managed to transform a defeated
and disgraced ex-President into a perfectly electable
Republican candidate.
By Susan B. Glasser
WELCOME TO THE DONALD!
Welcome to the forum of choice for The President
of The United States, Donald Trump!
Be advised this forum is for serious supporters of
President Trump. We have discussions, memes,
AMAs, and more. We are not politically correct.
December 27, 2024
WASHINGTON WEEK with The Atlantic
George Packer is known far and wide for his penetrating analysis of American history and American politics. Across his distinguished career, Packer has reported from war zones and countries in turmoil around the world. This week, Jeffrey Goldberg and Packer focus on turmoil at home to make sense of this year and America’s future.
Jan. 6, 2025
Rep. Jamie Raskin – Jan. 6 & Reevaluating
Democrats’ Priorities
“We’re going to be standing up every single day for the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the freedom of the people.” Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland joins Jon Stewart from Washington D.C. to discuss the country’s future following the certification of Donald Trump’s 2024 election win.
As the newly-elected ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, he weighs in on Democratic priorities moving forward, engaging young voters through the Democracy Summer project, his friendship with Rep. Lauren Boebert, and positive memories from the day after the 2021 insurrection.
Jan. 7, 2025
Chris Hayes: Zuckerberg and tech execs cozying
up to Trump is chilling—but ‘very clarifying’
January 8, 2025
Donald Trump holds a bizarre and disturbing
press conference at Mar-a-Lago
Jan. 8, 2025
“We did not discuss that”: Trump spoke to Alito
before asking SCOTUS to intervene in hush money case
Justice Alito admits he spoke to Trump before the filing,
but denies they discussed Supreme Court business
By Alex Galbraith
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito spoke with Donald Trump mere hours before he filed a request for the court to intervene in his New York hush-money case.
The president-elect’s legal team filed an emergency application to the highest court on Wednesday, asking the justices to intervene ahead of Trump’s upcoming sentencing hearing. The filing asked the court to act to “prevent grave injustice and harm to the institution of the Presidency.” Though Alito admitted to speaking with the president-elect on Tuesday, he said they did not discuss his case.
“William Levi, one of my former law clerks, asked me to take a call from President-elect Trump regarding his qualifications to serve in a government position,” Alito told ABC News. “We did not discuss the emergency application he filed today, and indeed, I was not even aware at the time of our conversation that such an application would be filed… We also did not discuss any other matter that is pending or might in the future come before the Supreme Court or any past Supreme Court decisions involving the president-elect.”
Trump was found guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in May of last year. After several months of delays, Trump was ordered to a sentencing hearing by New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan. Barring intervention from other courts, Trump will be sentenced on Jan. 10.
Merchan has telegraphed that he has no intention of sentencing Trump to jail time or fines. In his order, he shared that the court would not “impose any sentence of incarceration” and floated the idea of an “unconditional discharge,” a sentence that comes with no consequences. That did not stop Trump from raging against Merchan and calling for him to be disbarred.
“There has never been a President who was so evilly and illegally treated as I. Corrupt Democrat judges and prosecutors have gone against a political opponent of a President, ME, at levels of injustice never seen before,” he wrote on Truth Social earlier this month. “Corrupt judges or judges so blinded by their hatred of me … are making a mockery of the United States Judicial System, and the World is watching in disgust.”
Jan. 10, 2025
Rachel Maddow on Pam Bondi: Five things to know
about Trump’s (second) pick for attorney general
How much will Americans get to know about the people Donald Trump is choosing to run the U.S. government? In the absence of any real vetting the way it’s usually done, Rachel Maddow presents a Rachel Maddow Show Public Servant Announcement to hopefully help fill that gap.
In this episode, Rachel takes a closer look at Trump’s choice for attorney general, Pam Bondi, who has been working closely with Trump, despite not being given a role in his first administration, showing commitment to his causes, including the prosecution of his political opponents. While Bondi is not highly regarded for her abilities, she does benefit from comparison to Trump’s first choice for attorney general, former Rep. Matt Gaetz.
Jan. 12, 2025
Interview with FBI Director
FBI Director Christopher Wray, who’s stepping down before President-elect Donald Trump takes office, sits down with Scott Pelley to discuss the Bureau’s future, and the threats America faces.
January 12, 2025
How global autocrats will OWN Trump
— Anne Applebaum, Pulitzer prize winning historian and writer for The Atlantic, joins David to discuss her book Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World.
Jan. 14, 2025
Mary Trump: My uncle is out for revenge
Speaking to Andrew Marr, Mary Trump said: “Donald thrives in division, he’s a chaos agent, and he will use the most horrific tragedy or crisis of humanity to his benefit. He will exploit human tragedy to divide us against each other and weaken his perceived enemies. Gavin Newsom was just doing his job and minding his own business. It’s Donald Trump who launched baseless attacks against the Governor and other officials in California and who has been threatening to make aid to California conditional, which is just absurd.”
Mary Trump also discussed Elon Musk, the next administration, and democracy.
January 14, 2025
White Nationalism, Sexual Assault & Corruption:
Pete Hegseth Faces Senate Confirmation
The confirmation hearing for President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for defense secretary, former Fox News host and military veteran Pete Hegseth, begins today amid backlash over his history of sexual assault, misusing funds in his previous positions, and various violations committed while under the influence of alcohol.
Hegseth was also one of 12 National Guard members removed as guards for President Biden’s 2021 inauguration over possible extremist ties. He has tattoos associated with the white supremacist and neo-Nazi movements, including what’s known as a Jerusalem cross, a symbol used by Christian nationalists. If Hegseth is confirmed, “the Trump administration would stand to gain a loyalist,” says reporter Alice Herman, who is covering Hegseth in The Guardian.
January 16, 2025
Trump’s Return Echoes Rome’s Fall: Is America Next?
Will Trump make America fall like Ancient Rome? Thom Hartmann reveals how Ancient Rome’s democratic collapse set the stage for America’s current crisis… Trump’s second inauguration.
Jan. 17, 2025
What’s with Trump’s obsession
with Greenland? | About That
U.S. president-elect Donald Trump has long been fascinated with owning and controlling Greenland, spanning from his interest in buying the country in 2019, to his recent refusal to rule out taking it by military force.
Andrew Chang explores four potential reasons why Trump calls ownership of Greenland ‘an absolute necessity.’
Jan. 17, 2025
PBS News Weekly: Trump’s incoming
cabinet under the spotlight
In his final days in office, President Joe Biden reflected back on his presidency in a speech to the nation, while his successor’s administration began to take shape through confirmation hearings. This week, we take a close look at the hearings, the upcoming presidential transition and the legacy Biden will leave behind after 50 years in public service.
Jan. 17, 2025
‘Alarming’: RFK Jr. sought to stop vaccinations
In May 2021, just six months after the rollout of the Covid vaccine, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. tried to stop all coronavirus vaccinations in the U.S., the New York Times reports. Sen. Ed Markey joins Chris Hayes to discuss that and more.
January 17, 2025
Heather Cox Richardson
In his final address to the nation last night, President Joe Biden issued a warning that “an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power, and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms, and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead.”
It is not exactly news that there is dramatic economic inequality in the United States. Economists call the period from 1933 to 1981 the “Great Compression,” for it marked a time when business regulation, progressive taxation, strong unions, and a basic social safety net compressed both wealth and income levels in the United States. Every income group in the U.S. improved its economic standing.
That period ended in 1981, when the U.S. entered a period economists have dubbed the “Great Divergence.” Between 1981 and 2021, deregulation, tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, the offshoring of manufacturing, and the weakening of unions moved $50 trillion from the bottom 90% of Americans to the top 1%.
Biden tried to address this growing inequality by bringing back manufacturing, fostering competition, increasing oversight of business, and shoring up the safety net by getting Congress to pass a law—the Inflation Reduction Act—that enabled Medicare to negotiate drug prices for seniors with the pharmaceutical industry, capping insulin at $35 for seniors, for example. His policies worked, primarily by creating full employment which enabled those at the bottom of the economy to move to higher-paying jobs. During Biden’s term, the gap between the 90th income percentile and the 10th income percentile fell by 25%.
But Donald Trump convinced voters hurt by the inflation that stalked the country after the coronavirus pandemic shutdown that he would bring prices down and protect ordinary Americans from the Democratic “elite” that he said didn’t care about them. Then, as soon as he was elected, he turned for advice and support to one of the richest men in the world, Elon Musk, who had invested more than $250 million in Trump’s campaign.
January 18, 2025
The rise of the ultra-right in the US
How has the ultra-right made it to the heart of American politics? By gradually occupying positions of power in politics, the judiciary and the media and steadily expanding its sphere of influence. Adherents have been bolstered by Trump’s 2024 election victory.
The tightening of abortion laws, the 2021 storming of the Capitol, a flare-up in racist violence: The US far-right has never been more powerful and visible than it is today – and that’s not just due to Donald Trump. The ultra-right has managed to gain a foothold at the very heart of US politics.
As part of a strategy to win the 2024 election, it was ready to create a social divide similar to that of the secessionist wars, plunge the country into chaos and cause democracy to totter. The triumph of the radical right is the outcome of a well-thought-out strategy set in motion more than 40 years ago by a conservative minority thirsty for power. And this group has pushed through its agenda under the nose of the world.
Today, we can see how successful its strategy was: The ultra-right has gained control of the key centers of power, a process accelerated on all levels by Donald Trump. With his help, the ultra-right now has control of the Supreme Court. Its advance continues unabated, with Trump’s election victory marking an interim high point.
Donald Trump’s Disruption Is Back
By Massimo Calabresi | Jan. 19, 2025
January 20, 2025
Donald Trump’s nephew tells all ahead of
White House return
Fred Trump, the nephew of Donald, 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 world’s top job he has become even more proficient at belittling and slandering anyone who stands in his way. This time around, Trump’s campaign for the presidency is setting records for spitefulness, and with 11 weeks still until polling day, there’s bound to be plenty more vitriol. On 60 MINUTES, Amelia Adams reveals a counter-attack from an unexpected quarter: a member of Trump’s 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
Trump’s Comeback (full documentary)
FRONTLINE examines defining moments over Donald Trump’s life and career, his 2020 election loss, felony convictions and his historic comeback. “Trump’s Comeback” tells the story of Trump’s return to the presidency, overcoming obstacles and opposition.
Jan. 22, 2025
WATCH: With Capitol officers from Jan. 6 attack,
House Democrats rebuke Trump’s clemency
Jan. 22, 2025
Constitutional Expert: Jan. 6 Pardons
“Most Shameful” in Presidential History
Among those included in President Trump’s 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 “one of the most shameful acts” ever committed by a U.S. President. Rosenzweig explains to Michel Martin how Trump’s action differs from Biden’s 11th-hour preemptive pardons.
Jan. 23, 2025
Power
Mad
A weekly accounting of the rogues and scoundrels of America
—Jason Linkins, deputy editor
Well, I hate to say I told you so. Back in December, I warned that Donald Trump’s plan to pardon the January 6 insurrectionists was going to be greeted by the media with prewritten takes about how President Biden’s own use of the pardon power justified a decision to free a violent mob. Today, The Washington Post’s editorial board, tasked with the mission of obtaining 200 million paying users while simultaneously following owner Jeff Bezos’s directive to make the venerable newspaper substantially more mendacious, made me look prescient.
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 “very minor incidents.”
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 “firearms, 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 ‘Trump’ billboard, ‘Trump’ flags, a pitchfork, pieces of lumber, crutches and even an explosive device.”
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.
“Few understand the Global Media landscape in print, television, and online better than Brent,” Trump wrote. “He 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.”
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.
“These are not dispassionate observers of the national scene,” he wrote of journalists, in a characteristic commentary in 2018. “These are leftist partisans.” (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, Bozell’s 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. Trump’s 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 “fake news.”
Jan. 23, 2025
WATCH: Trump nominee and Project 2025 author Russ Vought ‘dangerous’ 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 God’s chosen instrument to rescue America. He recalled the assassination attempt he survived last year: “I was saved by God to make America great again.”
Just a few minutes earlier, a beaming Franklin Graham—minister, Trump acolyte, and sometime Vladimir Putin admirer—had driven home the same point during his prayer. “Father, when Donald Trump’s 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.”
One of the first acts of God’s 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 “a last-minute, rip-the-bandage-off decision to try to move past the issue quickly.” As Trump’s team wrestled with the issue, “Trump just said: ‘Fuck it! Release ’em all,’” an adviser familiar with the discussions told Axios’s Marc Caputo.
January 24, 2025
“Shock and Awe”: 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 “blatantly unconstitutional.”
Thursday’s ruling is the first in what’s expected to be a long legal battle against Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda. “We’re in a moment where there’s a ton of fear in the community,” 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. “What we’re seeing this week is shock and awe. It’s meant to terrorize,” she says. “We have to fight on all levels.”
Inside with Jen Psaki
January 26, 2027
Gov. Whitmer condemns Trump pardons: ‘Everything that’s happening continues to normalize violence’
Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer reacts to Donald Trump’s pardoning of over 1,500 Jan. 6 offenders and discusses excerpts from her new book True Gretch: What I’ve Learned About Life, Leadership, and Everything in Between.
“Two’s a Crowd” 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. Trump’s in no doubt the razzle dazzle’s well deserved. This is the 45th, now 47th President’s finest moment. The greatest comeback in American politics. But along with the congratulations, caution. So what does ‘making America great again’ really mean? Amelia Adams reports on the President’s 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 Trump’s transactionalism could undermine that world.
January 28, 2025
Trump’s Comeback: Tim O’Brien (interview)
Timothy O’Brien 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 O’Brien’s book. The suit was later dismissed.
This interview was conducted by the Kirk Documentary Group’s 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
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 Trump’s relationships with these industry leaders since his first term, and the symbolism of their proximity to the president.
January 29, 2025
Caroline Kennedy says her cousin RFK Jr. is
“dangerous” and a “predator” in video to Senate
The BEAT with Ari Melber
January 30, 2025
He was wrong: Trump’s own FBI nominee rebukes pardons for violent MAGA convicts at fiery hearing
Ari Melber reports on the confirmation hearing for Trump’s controversial FBI nominee, Kash Patel, who walked back previous statements during the proceedings.
February 1, 2025
American Heretics: The Untold Truth About Faith
in America’s Most Conservative State
“American Heretics” 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 Oklahoma—a 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
Don’t Believe Him
Look closely at the first two weeks of Donald Trump’s second term and you’ll see something very different than what he wants you to see.
Feb. 5, 2025
Rep. Al Green (D-TX): “The movement
to impeach the president has begun.”
“I rise to announce that I will bring Articles of Impeachment against the president for dastardly deeds proposed and dastardly deeds done.”
February 5, 2025
THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE
ENGINEER
The right claims to loathe technocracy—but 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 conservatives’ recent rhetoric, their surrender to Musk’s 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, wouldn’t 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 “New Christianity.”
Feb. 7, 2025
Inside Elon Musk’s 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 Nishimura—Getty 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 agency’s 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 America’s 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 Musk’s 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 bureaucracy—slashing budgets, gutting the civil service, and stripping independent agencies of the ability to impede the President’s objectives.
USAID leadership had allowed Musk’s team, a group of his young and eager followers, to spend several days inside their headquarters at the end of January. “The DOGE kids,” 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 demands—including access to sensitive facilities designed to store classified information—went too far for the agency’s 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. “USAID is a criminal organization,” Musk wrote to his 215 million followers on his social media platform, X, soon after. “Time for it to die.”
February 7, 2025
It’s Time to Prepare for the Fall of American Democracy
We’re in the middle of an ongoing constitutional crisis at the moment and may soon find out if The Constitution will remain “in effect” 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 we’ll 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 it’s too late.
Feb. 7, 2025
5 Reasons Trump Will Fail (and it’s already happening)
Inside with Jen Psaki
Feb. 9, 2025
‘Constitutional crisis’: Sen. Booker reacts to
possibility that Elon Musk will defy court orders
Senator Cory Booker discusses Democrats’ playbook for fighting back against Elon Musk’s government takeover.
Feb. 9, 2025
Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn.: U.S. facing most
serious constitutional crisis ‘since Watergate’
Feb. 10, 2025
David Remnick – 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 magazine’s 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 America’s 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 America’s looming future under a toxic mix of corporate greed, religious extremism, and fascist politics.
Hedges calls out the “Christian Right” for its deep ties to the billionaire class, claiming they’re using “magic Jesus” to distract the masses from real economic collapse. The conversation goes deep into how the system is rigged against the working class, how “boutique activism” misses the point, and why the fight for true justice can’t 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. He’s 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 Trump’s Key Strategy?
Unpredictable, impulsive, arbitrary. These are some of the words that might come to mind to describe President Trump’s first few weeks in office. But is the chaos the point? Richard Nixon famously wanted the North Vietnamese to believe he’d do anything to end the war, including using nuclear weapons. It was called his “madman theory.”
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 ‘oligarchs’ of leading the United States to ‘authoritarianism’.
ALL IN with Chris Hayes
February 13, 2025
‘Highway robbery’: Musk, Trump yank $80m
from NYC bank account over migrant lies
“They are taking money out of other people’s bank accounts, calling it a ‘clawback’ of taxpayer money. A lot of other people call it stealing $80 million,” 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 “deeply corrupt bargain”
in move to drop charges against NYC mayor Eric Adams
February 16, 2025
A government worker’s 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? “Sunday Morning” 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 Israel’s 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 “moral and diplomatic leadership” due to its support for Israel.
Feb. 16, 2025
Coup in Jordan: Trump’s Gaza Plan will
BACKFIRE For Eygpt & Jordan
Feb. 16, 2025
Trump Claims Role of Absolute Monarch
President Trump has just claimed that he’s 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 Trump’s actions around USAID and what it could mean about the role of Congress in Washington.
DEADLINE | WHITE HOUSE
February 17, 2025
Protestors chant “No one voted for
Elon Musk” 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 Trump’s 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 O’Donnell
February 17, 2025
Because of Musk and Trump, for the first time
Social Security payments are not guaranteed
MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell 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, “No damn politician can ever scrap my social security program.”
Feb. 18, 2025
“The callapse of a generation is here.” | Richard Wolff
Feb. 19, 2025
Exposes Trump & Elon’s Billionaire Giveaway Scheme
ALL IN with Chris Hayes
February 19, 2025
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA): Before Elon Musk
robs the bank, he’s firing all the cops
Inside with Jen Psaki
Feb. 20, 2025
‘This is not a game’: Psaki calls out GOP lawmakers
for flip-flopping on Russia
“This is what Republicans are doing now: going against all of their strongest convictions about America’s role in the world—about the threat of Russia, the threat of Putin—to bend the knee to Trump,” says Jen Psaki on Republicans like Marco Rubio, Lindsey Graham and Mike Waltz.
Politics
February 20, 2025
Trump Just Hit a Disgusting New Low for an American President
His embrace of Russia’s propaganda and strategic goals is appalling even by the standards of his extreme and callous second term.
By Alex Shephard
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 “dictator” responsible for “millions” of unnecessary deaths, even Vladimir Putin likely couldn’t believe what he was hearing. For three years, the Russian leader—who, unlike the democratically elected Zelenskiy, is an actual dictator—has 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 wants—huge territorial gains, the crippling of Ukrainian democracy, a weakened NATO—for no reason other than that Trump was elected as part of a global backlash to rising prices. It’s shocking that any American president would effectively abandon its defense of a former Soviet state in favor of Russia, but it’s 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 “peacemaker,” Trump is acceding to every Russian demand and setting Europe, and perhaps the world, up for even more devastation to come—without getting anything in return for the United States.
One of the hallmarks of Trump’s 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 Putin’s nonsensical pretext that Ukraine needed to be “de-nazified.” While Trump is unmoved by the actual stakes of the war—an emboldened Russia that may look to invade other neighbors, particularly Poland and the Baltic states, that belong to NATO—he does adore strongmen. At the same time, he also is so desperate for a huge, legacy-defining “win” 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.
Trump’s foreign policy is typically described as “isolationist,” but that’s not quite accurate. He’s 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 for—from a nation that the United States was, until recently, pledged to defend—is 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.—all to “pay it back” 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 Ukraine’s revenues from resource extraction as well as half of the financial value of “all new licenses issued to third parties” 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 America’s 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. didn’t “take the oil” as part of its invasion. Or his vow, as president in 2019, that the U.S. is “ keeping the oil” in Syria. (To this day, U.S. troops are illegally occupying oil fields there.)
Trump’s retreat from Ukraine should be seen as part of a larger recalibration of the United States’ strategic focus, at least for the next four years. Doing the kind of things that the U.S. did after World War II—advancing democracy, investing in alliances, countering dictatorships and adversaries—are all out. Part of this means a retreat from the nation’s European allies, whom Trump consistently denigrates as freeloaders who should provide their own security. “This War is far more important to Europe than it is to us,” Trump wrote Wednesday on Truth Social. “We have a big, beautiful Ocean as separation.”
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 “51st state”), Europe (particularly Denmark, from whom he wants to acquire Greenland—the “52nd state”), 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 America’s neighbors always have stated rationales (usually stopping the flow of illegal drugs or migrants), but in every case it’s clear that there is little that any country can do to meet these vague demands. Trump’s tariffs are partly guided by his increased veneration of William McKinley, who used them over a century ago—in a vastly different world—to enrich the nation. But they are also textbook examples of bullying: There is no ultimate goal, other than to show one’s dominance.
This points to what unites Trump’s foreign policy both in the Americas and in Ukraine. He worships “strength” and wants no part in pitting the United States against another Great Power—even a weakened one, like Russia. Instead, he’s 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. Trump’s 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
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 “confusion” and “fear.”
Feb. 23, 2025
Fareed’s Take: Trump’s foreign policy yes men
CNN’s Fareed Zakaria discusses President Donald Trump’s strategy for ending the war in Ukraine, Trump’s disdain for Ukraine, and more on his show, “GPS.” #CNN #News
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 administration’s 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 won’t fail or backfire—thus ensuring that many will.
In foreign affairs, he has antagonized Denmark, Canada, and Panama; renamed the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America”; and unveiled a Gaz-a-Lago plan. For good measure, he named himself chair of the Kennedy Center, as if he didn’t 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 regime—a change, that is, in our system of government. But a change to what?
There is an answer, and it is not classic authoritarianism—nor 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 Trump’s 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 “bureaucratic proceduralism”), 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 intuitive—“the default form of rule in the premodern world,” Hanson and Kopstein write. “The state was little more than the extended ‘household’ of the ruler; it did not exist as a separate entity.” Weber called this system “patrimonialism” because rulers claimed to be the symbolic father of the people—the state’s personification and protector. Exactly that idea was implied in Trump’s own chilling declaration: “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.”
In his day, Weber thought that patrimonialism was on its way to history’s 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 France’s
Macron instantly corrects his Ukraine lie
Lawrence O’Donnell details how French President Macron humiliated Donald Trump after the United States, for the first time in history, “voted with the dictator against freedom” when it stood with Vladimir Putin in opposing a UN resolution condemning Russia’s 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: Don’t 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 America’s closest allies. But is this just ego—or 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 America’s own allies? And is Russia backing Trump’s 2024 campaign—again?
Feb. 26, 2025
US author explains Donald Trump’s Russia,
KGB connections
Craig Unger is an American journalist and writer who has written two books on Donald Trump’s connections to Russia’s security services and the Russian mafia stretching all the way back to the 1980s. Unger says he is “absolutely certain” 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 ‘Hiding in a Cave’
the 11th Hour
Feb. 26, 2025
‘This is a time for fearless reporting’:
MeidasTouch tops podcast charts
The hosts of anti-Trump podcast MeidasTouch discuss their show and how it’s beating out conservative podcasts in the charts. Brothers Ben, Brett, and Jordy Meiselas all join Stephanie Ruhle on the 11th Hour for this extended interview.
February 27, 2025
The Billionaires’ Government: Branko Marcetic
on Trump’s “Complete Betrayal” of His Base
Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, has been the public face of the Trump administration’s effort to dismantle many government agencies and slash the size of the federal workforce.
On Wednesday, he attended Trump’s 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. “As 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,” he says.
February 28, 2025
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is trying to find
her party’s 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 party’s path toward political recovery.
Feb. 28, 2025
The full, on-camera Oval Office CLASH between
Trump, Vance and Zelenskyy
Ukrainian President Zelenskyy’s 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 Ukraine’s 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 didn’t honor the agreement.
In a social media post after the meeting, Trump said the Ukrainian leader “disrespected” the U.S. in its cherished Oval Office and that Zelenskyy “is not ready for Peace if America is involved.” 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.
Trump’s advisers have already declared the meeting a win for “putting America first,” and his apologists will likely spin and rationalize this shameful moment as just a heated conversation—the kind of thing that in Washington-speak used to be called a “frank and candid exchange.” 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 Russia’s terms. Trump is now reportedly considering the immediate end of all military aid to Ukraine because of Zelensky’s supposed intransigence during the meeting.
Vance’s 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 Trump’s critics. (The actual business of furthering Trump’s policies is apparently now Elon Musk’s job.) This time, however, he was brought in to troll not other Americans, but a foreign leader. Marco Rubio—in theory, America’s top diplomat—was 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 “disrespectful for you to come into the Oval Office and try to litigate this in front of the American media.” 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. (“This is going to be great television,” Trump said during the meeting.) The president at times sounded like a Mafia boss—“You don’t have the cards”; “you’re buried there”—but in the end, he sounded like no one so much as Putin himself as he hollered about “gambling with World War III,” as if starting the biggest war in Europe in nearly a century was Zelensky’s 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 News’ 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
‘Completely selling out to the Kremlin’:
Lawmaker slams ‘true puppet of Putin’
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 Trump’s 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 Trump’s 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 Trump’s Mind Bullying Of Zelen…
March 1, 2025
Trump-Zelenskyy blowup, Rubio ‘should resign’:
Trump’s First 100 Days – Day 40 | MSNBC 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:
‘Why in God’s name should Trump get a thank you?’
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 Trump’s Oval Office meeting with Zelenskyy.
REPORTS
March 2, 2025
‘Sick to my stomach’: Fmr. Gov. Kasich slams
Trump over combative Zelenskyy exchange
Reactions are still flying in over the abrupt end to Ukrainian President Zelenskyy’s 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 Friday’s Oval Office meeting and the unexpected support from GOP lawmakers President Trump has received so far.
March 2, 2025
Trumpism Isn’t Working
As a checked-out president sits back and lets Elon Musk shred the civil service, the signs of economic calamity are growing—and Americans of all stripes are getting pissed off.
By Jason Linkins
Last November, voters elected a president who’d 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 president’s self-enrichment and political revenge. Much of the political press either ignored this stuff or didn’t care enough to inform their readers—some were too busy trying to polish a mass deportation scheme into a sensible response to the housing crisis—but some of us, here at The New Republic and elsewhere, went hoarse trying to warn about the consequences.
And now here we are. While it’s early days, Trump’s second term has been going about the way you’d 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 what’s 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 president’s emotional-support fascist during public appearances.
March 2, 2025
Even US SHOCKED by UK, EU and Turkey’s
Surprise Bold Move for Ukraine
March 3, 2025
‘A disaster for U.S. national security’:
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: ‘It is time to act’ to defend the West at Defence Summit.
Sir Keir Starmer has set out what was agreed at Sunday’s summit on Ukraine. Speaking at a press conference in Lancaster House, the Prime Minister said that “any deal must be backed by strength”.
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 doesn’t 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 can’t handle having a normal meeting or coming up with a decent foreign policy agenda.
MSNBC’s 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 “is a moron and a genius”
It’s 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 Vance’s 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 Macron’s plan for a “coalition of the willing” to lead the defence of a post-war Ukraine is feasible very much remains to be seen – 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 “totally FAKE” by Trump). Wolff gives Kamal and Camilla his take on the thinking of a man he describes as “both a moron and a genius”.
March 3, 2025
Matthew Desmond – “Poverty, by America” & What
It Takes to Close the Poverty Gap
“Investing in American people and stabilizing communities that need it the most is the best way for all of us.” 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 America’s 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: “We Are Back in the
Days of the Red Scare”
Lessons from the lawyer of the whistleblower
who prompted Trump’s 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 whistleblower’s 2019 report led to Trump’s 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 Nixon’s attorney general, John Mitchell, who warned that the legendary publisher Katharine Graham was “gonna get her tit caught in a big fat wringer” if the Post published one of its Watergate stories. “While I hope no one ever threatens to put one of my body parts through a wringer,” Bezos wrote to the paper’s anxious journalists in August 2013, “if they do, thanks to Mrs. Graham’s example, I’ll be ready.”
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. It’s 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 Trump’s most transgressive impulses.
“You’re Fired!” by Barry Blitt
March 4, 2025
American Bar Association backs ‘rule of law’
after Musk calls for judges to be impeached
“There are clear choices facing our profession,” 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 Trump’s moves to overhaul the federal government.
The ABA said in a statement that it would “not 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,” calling for an end to efforts meant to “cow our country’s judges, our country’s courts and our legal profession” and saying that such attempts at intimidation “cannot be sanctioned or normalized.”
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 Trump’s measures.
“We are witnessing an attempted coup of American democracy by radical left activists posing as judges!” Musk wrote on Feb. 11.
“There need to be some repercussions above ZERO for judges who make truly terrible decisions,” Musk added.
“When judges egregiously undermine the democratic will of the people, they must be fired or democracy dies!” Musk wrote on Feb. 25.
“The only way to restore rule of the people in America is to impeach judges,” Musk added.
When a judge blocked a Trump order that paused refugee admissions, Musk posted that the judge was “violating the will of the people.”
“If ANY judge ANYWHERE can block EVERY Presidential order EVERYWHERE, we do NOT have democracy, we have TYRANNY of the JUDICIARY,” Musk posted.
The nonpartisan ABA did not explicitly name Musk in its statement, instead broadly noting, “High-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.” The ABA cited two phrases — “corrupt judges” and “corruption” — 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 Trump’s joint address to Congress
After President Donald Trump wrapped up his joint address to Congress, Meet the Press moderator Kristen Welker and NBC News’ 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 Trump’s State of the Union Address
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
March 4, 2025
“Let’s Be Clear: Tariffs Are A Tax”
Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg joins Stephen Colbert LIVE following President Trump’s address to Congress, and breaks down the real economic consequences of Trump’s tariffs on foreign goods. Stick around for two more segments with Pete Buttigieg:
2 – On Trump’s Foreign Policy Flip: “Helping Russia And Fighting Canada. It’s Upside Down.”
3 – On How Democrats (And Republicans) Can Resist Trump’s 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
“Yankee, Go Home!” – Canadian Anti-Trump Song
Feb. 14, 2025
“Not Your 51st”
(U.S. Marines’ 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 Trump’s tariffs and threats of annexation. Originally repurposed as a pro-Trump campaign song in 2016, we’ve flipped the script—using 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
“MAGA Man”
(A Neil Young Parody – Canada Ain’t Your 51st State)
Canada has always been a good friend to America—but that doesn’t mean we’ll roll over. With some in the U.S. floating the idea of annexation, this is a Canadian response to the madness. Inspired by Neil Young’s “Southern Man,” this parody, “MAGA Man,” 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, it’s time to wake up, America—and 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 doesn’t mind—because let’s 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! Let’s keep the true north strong and free.
Jan. 29, 2024
“Battle Hymn Of The Trumpublic”
Oct. 13, 2024
“Song For Donald”
Feb. 6, 2020
“The Day Democracy Died”
Premiered Dec. 5, 2020
“So Long, Farewell Donald Trump”
August 12, 2024
“How Do You Solve A Problem Like A MAGA?”
July 20, 2024
“Vance VP”
Oct. 28, 2024
“Bohemian Trumpsody”
March 1, 2025
“Puppets on a Kremlin String?”
March 5, 2025
Rep. Moulton Reacts to Trump’s Speech to Congress:
“It Doesn’t Make Sense”
In his address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night, President Trump acknowledged that there will be “a little disturbance” ahead. The theme was meant to be “Renewal of the American Dream,” 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 Russia’s war in Ukraine.
While he acknowledged President Zelensky’s efforts to repair their relationship, Trump made no mention of reversing his suspension of U.S. military aid. One of the attendees at last night’s address was Democratic Congressman Seth Moulton. He joins the show from Washington, D.C.
March 5, 2025
‘Buffoon of a president’: 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 Trump’s 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 ‘Big Lie’ to justify it.
Trump’s lies about the 2020 election had a purpose: to destroy faith in the electoral system and overthrow American democracy. Now he’s revamping same lies and false claims of “fraud” to destroy Social Security.
March 6, 2025
Canadian official’s interview stuns Amanpour
Canadian Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly talks to CNN’s Christiane Amanpour about Trump’s ideas on trade, military cooperation, annexation and more.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
March 6, 2025
Jon Stewart & Maria Ressa
on the US’s 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 meat—specifically salami.
March 6, 2025
Six Weeks In, This White House Is On Its Way
To Being The Most Corrupt In U.S. History
WASHINGTON—U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) on Thursday spoke on the U.S. Senate floor to expose the unprecedented corruption of the Trump administration’s first six weeks in office. Murphy condemned Trump’s 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 Musk’s “DOGE” follows a playbook familiar to the world’s richest person: it’s the one he used at Twitter. But the stakes this time are infinitely higher, and his actions will have lasting consequences for America. What’s more, Musk’s 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?
AYMAN
March 10, 2025
Rep. Mark Pocan: ‘people are pissed’ that
Republicans are fleeing town halls
Republicans have complete control in Washington… and yet, they’re running away from their voters. As angry constituents continue to confront Republicans over Trump’s 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.
MSNBC’s Ayman Mohyeldin spoke with Rep. Mark Pocan on how Democrats are talking to voters impacted by Trump and Elon Musk’s 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 it’s 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 “historical perspective,” Elon Musk is having a heck of a week as Tesla stock had it’s 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 Ralph’s market.
March 11, 2025
WATCH LIVE: Senate Democratic leaders hold
news conference as House considers funding deal
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
March 12, 2025
Musk And Trump Are Trying To Break
The Government So Billionaires
Can Take It Over – Ezra Klein
Ezra Klein, the bestselling author and host of “The Ezra Klein Show” podcast, offers analysis of the DOGE chaos and says President Trump ultimately intends to privatize many government services. Ezras’s book Abundance is available March 18th.
INTERVIEWS WITH
Brian Tyler Cohen Interviews top political figures – from
the President of the United States and cabinet members
to Senators and lawmakers to local leaders and activists.
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from Washington and beyond
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Articles on Donald Trump
TOPIC: DONALD TRUMP
News about Donald Trump, including commentary and archival coverage from Salon, the original online source for news and politics.
DONALD TRUMP
No More Trump
Sustained resistance to the Traitorous Mister Trump,
his clones, and his MAGATS.
March 12, 2025
“Impeach Trump Again”: John Bonifaz on Fighting
Trump’s 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.
“This 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,” says the group’s president, John Bonifaz. “When we see these abuses of power, we have to invoke this impeachment clause.”
March 13, 2025
Attacks on universities aren’t about antisemitism.
They’re 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.
- Khalil’s arrest has sparked numerous protests on college campuses, including in California.
Hello and happy Thursday. Today we’re starting with a quiz. Which American political leader said, “The professors are the enemy”?
That would be Richard Nixon, speaking to Henry Kissinger in the Oval Office in 1972.
His full quote is even more chilling: “Never 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.”
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 “professors” portion of the Nixon quote.
And it wasn’t 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 — and conservative power.
Vance has said universities “train” people to hate their family and country.
“I actually think that we have to destroy the universities in this country,” the Yale law school graduate said in another interview. “They get too much money. They have too much power. I don’t think they do anything good.”
So while this week’s 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, there’s a bigger picture that we can’t lose sight of.
This isn’t 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 government’s moves to crack down on dissent are “part of a one-two punch being targeted at some of the nation’s most elite universities, that if they don’t toe a government line with respect to viewpoint that they and the students that are most vulnerable to governmental sanction are at risk.”
That, Levin told me, “is something that a free society cannot tolerate.”
The case against Khalil is as thin as it is shocking, from what we know so far. Khalil served a leadership role in last year’s protests at Columbia, but has since graduated with a master’s 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 Khalil’s 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 “pro-Hamas” 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 “the first arrest of many to come.”
Politics
March 18, 2025
There Is No Method to Trump’s Madness. He’s Simply Insane.
His defenders try to apply reason to his erratic, nonsensical decisions. That’s a fool’s errand—but fools abound in this administration.
By Ross Rosenfeld
Trump at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on Monday
“They say an old man is twice a child,” Rosencrantz remarks in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, as he and the prince of Denmark observe Polonius. It’s a borrowed line, dating back to antiquity: Sophocles wrote, “For the aged man is once again a child.” 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 Rosencrantz’s 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 Hamlet’s act may produce certain benefits, declaring, “Though this be madness, yet there is method in it.”
We’ve 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 “a rain of ruin from the air,” 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 it’s important to recognize when there is no meaning to be found—no method to the madness.
That seemed to be CNBC economic analyst Steve Liesman’s conclusion last week about President Donald Trump’s tariffs. “I’m going to say this at risk of my job,” Liesman said, “but what President Trump is doing is insane. It is absolutely insane … and now he’s saying he’s putting 50 percent tariffs on Canada unless they agree to become the fifty-first state. That is insane. There’s just no other way of describing it.” Host Kelly Evans countered with an attempt to make sense of Trump’s actions, suggesting the president might be motivated by Canada’s threat to tax electricity exports or that he might be employing “insanity as a strategy.” But Liesman wasn’t having it. “Insanity is not a strategy,” he retorted.
It’s not just Trump’s unpredictable tariff policy that appears insane. His entire administration is defined by madness—in 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 Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, on Joe Biden. In other Truth Social posts, he’s boasted about being a king and claimed that the “European Union was formed for the sole purpose of taking advantage of the United States.”
If these acts were merely confined to deranged posts, perhaps one could argue there’s “method in his madness.” 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, he’s of the same mold and is saving the world. He’s 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 Trump’s madness. Asked last week about Trump’s tariff threats, his senior trade and manufacturing adviser, Peter Navarro, said, “Looks like the president is negotiating strategically. So stop with the rhetoric. OK? Just stop that crap.” When a reporter replied, “But he does seem to be changing his mind all the time,” Navarro snapped back, “Stop that crap!” Trump’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, went even further that same day, claiming that “tariffs are a tax cut for the American people.” She added that the tariffs would make us “wealthy again,” as if we haven’t experienced any growth since the McKinley administration.
Practically everyone in Trump’s orbit is there solely because they’ve 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 Trump’s 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 “deep state,” and he’s even written children’s books wherein he helps topple the enemies of “King Donald.”
Adding the most fuel to the fire, perhaps, is Trump’s right-hand man—yet another angry megalomaniac who suffers delusions of grandeur (and grand delusions). Elon Musk’s rage toward Democrats may stem in part from a perceived snub by the White House under the Biden administration, when Musk wasn’t 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 “deserve a long prison sentence” for the crime of editing an interview with Kamala Harris. The other day, he retweeted a post blaming “public sector workers” for millions of deaths under Hitler, Stalin, and Mao. (As it happens, Musk’s 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 isn’t 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, he’s had plenty of people telling him he’s right. Perhaps there’s 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 Trump’s 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 he’s not quite yet burying steaks to grow meat trees, like George III, but Trump’s delusions cause considerably more damage than that. Are we going to wait until he’s ranting about “drainage” 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 isn’t naked?
Ross Rosenfeld is a political writer and educator who lives on Long Island. Follow him on Substack.
March 20, 2025
Trump’s Appetite for Revenge Is Insatiable
The president is making good on his campaign promise.
By Peter Wehner
NO ONE CAN SAY THEY DIDN’T 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.
“I am your warrior,” he said to his supporters. “I am your justice. For those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution.”
Sixty days into Trump’s second term, we have begun to see what that looks like.
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 ‘thieves’,
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
The far-right Proud Boys’ 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.
March 25, 2025
Bernie Sanders Asks Trump’s SSA Chief Point Blank:
Was Trump Lying About Social Security Fraud?
At today’s Senate Finance Committee hearing, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) questioned Frank Bisignano, President Trump’s nominee to be Commissioner of Social Security Administration.
March 26, 2025
Donald Trump on Retribution – From My 1992 Interview.
On March 20th, The Atlantic posted an article titled: “Trump’s Appetite for Revenge Is Insatiable”
Author Peter Wehner quotes President Trump from this CHARLIE ROSE interview in 1992.
March 26, 2025
Hear Trump officials’ 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. #CNN #News
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 Trump’s 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 Trump’s second inauguration.
Over 50 years ago, Woodward’s reporting of the break-in at the Watergate with his colleague Carl Bernstein exposed the Nixon administration’s plan to spy on and sabotage his political adversaries and the cover-up that followed. After President Richard Nixon’s 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 – interviewing Trump and writing three books about him that reveal the president’s approach to power.
“So much of it is Trump just asserting himself, taking on the role of the courts, taking on the role of Congress,” Woodward told Itkowitz. “So we are entering a moment where there is going to be a clash of those traditions and laws and Trump’s will.”
March 29, 2025
MSNBC Highlights – March 28 – THE TRUMP REGIME
March 29, 2025
Trump vs. Truth – Schiff Fact Checks It All
There’s an important strategy behind Donald Trump’s constant firehose of falsehoods. And it comes straight from the dictator’s playbook.
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.
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 “pathocracy.” 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 “ponerology.” He wanted to understand why ‘evil’ 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 “pathocratic” regime himself, he took great risks studying this topic. He was arrested and tortured by the Polish authorities, and was unable to publish his life’s 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 “horrifying sense of sin manifest in human affairs.”
But there is an argument that this is not because all human beings are inherently brutal and cruel, but because a small number of people—that is, those with personality disorders—are 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
