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12 Jan, 4 tweets, 1 min read
“From the beginning the danger presented by Trump was obvious: an unfit leader driven by contempt for democratic norms.

“One of the confounding things of this era is how many otherwise intelligent people have been unable or unwilling to grasp the obvious” nymag.com/intelligencer/…
“Even after four years of Trump abusing power, fomenting violence, and actively attempting to rig the vote while claiming any prospect defeat must be fraudulent, his supporters denied any danger”

/2
“ ‘I have a lot more concern about Democrats accepting the results of a Trump reelection than Trump accepting results of a loss,’ argued Republican adviser Josh Holmes, ignoring the fact that the only candidate who had questioned the 2016 election result was Trump himself.”

/3
“ ‘Say what you will about Trump violating norms, he has never tried to redo the balance of power by irregular means,’insisted Ari Fleischer in an October column endorsing Trump.

“The debate came to a sudden end last week, when Trump directed a mob to storm the Capitol”

/4

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More from @JohnJHarwood

John Harwood Profile picture
14 Jan
“Trump has instructed aides not to pay Giuliani’s legal fees, and has demanded that he personally approve any reimbursements for the expenses Giuliani incurred while traveling on the president’s behalf to challenge election results in key states.”

/1 washingtonpost.com/politics/trump…
“Trump was upset generally that virtually nobody is defending him — including press secretary McEnany, senior adviser and son-in-law Kushner, economic adviser Kudlow, national security adviser O’Brien and Chief of Staff Meadows, according to a senior administration official.”

/2
“One of Trump’s few confidants these days is Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.)

“Trump asked Graham to lobby fellow senators to acquit him in his eventual impeachment trial, which Graham did from Air Force One”

/3
Read 4 tweets
John Harwood Profile picture
12 Jan
AL GOP Rep Mo Brooks is facing consequences for having exhorted Jan 6 insurrectionist audience to “start taking down names and kicking ass”

He has issued a statement to rebut what he calls “vicious and scurrilous fake news media and socialist Democrat attacks”

/1
from the statement:

“I have never smoked tobacco

I don’t consume alcohol

I have never taken illegal drugs

I have never been accused or convicted of any felonies or misdemeanors

My parents raised me to be a good, self-supporting citizen and I have strived to be just that”
/2
“on Jan 5, I had a telephone call with Brian Jack, WH Political Director. He asked me to speak at the Trump rally the next day

“Due to lack of time, I did not draft my speech from scratch

“The bulk of my January 6 speech comes from my often-used ‘America is Great’ speeches”
/3
Read 4 tweets
John Harwood Profile picture
4 Jan
“The GOP attempt to overturn the election doesn’t pose an imminent threat to the Republic - Biden will be sworn in Jan 20 regardless - but it’s hardly meaningless. We’re watching another iterative stage in the party’s long evolution into authoritarianism” nymag.com/intelligencer/…
“Trump’s authoritarianism is a combination of his unique sociopathy and worship for authoritarians, and a tendency to accept it in his party. The Democratic Party as it currently exists could not produce a Trump. Nor could have the old Republican Party until perhaps the 1990s”
“Conservatives inclined to lay the blame on a lone madman president, should mull over the fact that their two most respected leaders from a quarter-century ago, Newt Gingrich and Kenneth Starr, have both thrown themselves enthusiastically behind Trump’s abuses of power.”
Read 6 tweets
John Harwood Profile picture
8 Dec 20
“Republican rejection of reality didn’t start in 2020, or w/Trump.

“Climate change denial has been a badge of partisan identity for many years.

“Crazy conspiracy theories about the Clintons were mainstream on the right through much of the 1990s.”

/1

nytimes.com/2020/12/07/opi…
“One episode foreshadowed much of what we’re seeing: Republican reactions to the mostly successful introduction of Obamacare.

“The act, Republicans claimed, would drive premiums sky-high, fail to reduce the number of uninsured and have a devastating effect on employment.”

/2
“None of it happened. Millions gained health coverage. Job creation continued, w/3-M jobs added the following year. Obamacare may have fallen somewhat short of its sponsors’ hopes, but from the beginning it helped many Americans. Nothing like the disaster opponents predicted.”
/3
Read 4 tweets
John Harwood Profile picture
22 Nov 20
“It would be wrong to think about Trump on the same spectrum as predecessors. you have to look on his presidency in a different way — seeing his possibly criminal conduct not as a byproduct of a political agenda but a central feature of his tenure”
/1 nytimes.com/2020/11/17/mag…
“In this light, Trump’s potential criminality becomes a kind of throughline, the dots that connect his life as a businessman to his entry into politics and then onward across his four years as president.”

/2
“One potentially illegal act led Trump to the next: from law-bending moves as a businessman, to questionable campaign-finance, to willingness to interfere with investigations into his conduct, to public corruption and the seemingly illegal abuse of powers to remain in office”

/3
Read 4 tweets
John Harwood Profile picture
23 Oct 20
one big journalistic challenge in covering Trump is simply keeping pace with the large number of things he says that are, not just false, but obviously, wildly, fundamentally false.

A thread from last night's debate
Trump boasted of cutting coronavirus deaths from the 2.2-M originally “expected to die"

were this true, the actual toll of 220+K would be a 90% reduction

but it's ridiculous

2.2-M refers to the toll if government did NOTHING. that was never an option for anyone
Trump repeated his frequent statement that the US has so many coronavirus cases because “we have the best testing in the world by far.”

that’s ridiculous

testing doesn’t create cases. it reveals them
Read 15 tweets

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