Sam Stein Profile picture
19 Jan, 5 tweets, 2 min read
On inauguration day '17, Obama briefed Trump on a natl security matter.

“Trump,” Mosteller recalled, “says, ‘Well what would *you* do in this situation?’”

Mosteller exchanged a glance with Pete Souza. “We had this realization that this was really bad”

politico.com/news/magazine/…
“Jesus that day sucked,” said Ben Rhodes, Obama’s longtime adviser, who was with him that day.

politico.com/news/magazine/…
At the ’09 inaugural, Obama paused and closed his eyes before heading out. “It was clear to me that he was saying a prayer," said Souza

In ’17, there was no attempt to summon the divinities.

“I don’t remember him closing his eyes,” Souza said. “Maybe he should have.”
For Team Trump, the issues that day were different. Marla Maples and Ivana Trump both asked to attend the inauguration. So Trump gave “clear instructions” to put them on opposite sides of the platform. “They had to be in the same row and same chair in case one saw the other."
Elton John had tentatively committed to performing at the inauguration, an aide said. But after financier Anthony Scaramucci, then a vocal Trump fan, inadvertently leaked it too early, he had pulled out.

politico.com/news/magazine/…

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More from @samstein

9 Dec 20
NEW — During the campaign, a top Dem group secretly did a study to see if the most viral Lincoln Project ads were persuading persuadable swing state voters. It turns out, they weren’t.

thedailybeast.com/the-hottest-ca…
The ads were proving motivational. But "the correlation of Twitter metrics—likes and retweets—and persuasion was -0.3, 'meaning that the better the ad did on Twitter, the less it persuaded battleground state voters.’"
The Lincoln Project didn’t argue with the conclusions. They had two tracts of ads, as they saw it. And the ones going viral on twitter weren’t supposed to change someone’s mind in PA.
Read 4 tweets
1 Nov 20
NEW—Joe Biden made a bet: the majority of voters didn’t want the Democratic version of Trump but, rather, the polar opposite of him. On Tuesday, we’ll see if it works.

thedailybeast.com/joe-biden-bet-…

A detailed look at how we got her, with @HCTrudo
@HCTrudo A few campaign moments that get overlooked that Biden’s team points to as important.

1. The Zelensky phone call. It allowed Biden to say: here’s proof Trump himself believes Biden is his toughest re-election opponent, at a time when defeating Trump was the top primary issue.
2. Finishing 2nd in Nevada. It was a ~25 point loss to Sanders. A complete drubbing. But a campaign aide told us: “Had we finished third or fourth, I do not think we could have made it to South Carolina.”
Read 6 tweets
26 Oct 20
Back when I did Candidate Confessional, we interviewed @stuartpstevens about Romney-Obama ’12. One thing that stuck with me is how confident he said the campaign felt that they would win. One of the reasons they were confident? Because Obama was flailing. (cont…)
@stuartpstevens Stu chuckled at one attack line in particular: a riff Obama did in mid Oct. about Romney suffering from “Romneysia.” It was cheap and silly. And for the Romney campaign it was a sign that Obama was still scrambling for a message.

theguardian.com/world/us-news-…

(cont..)
In the end, Romneysia didn’t stick. But that’s because a separate story overtook it and everything else: Hurricane Sandy.
Read 4 tweets
8 Sep 20
A thread about what's happening now on the Left.

Last week, a coalition of leading progressive groups that make up the relatively secretive Fight Back Table discussed, for the first time, how to organize and prepare for post-Election Day chaos. 

thedailybeast.com/the-left-secre…
The meeting was two hours. And touched on operational questions: setting up a communications infrastructure, how to fight against disinfo, how to get quick transportation in place if a pol location mysteriously closes, etc...

thedailybeast.com/the-left-secre…
There is wide consensus that this could be the biggest mass civil unrest moment in decades. One source described the plan as: “Occupy shit, hold space, and shut things down, not just on Election Day but for weeks." 

thedailybeast.com/the-left-secre…
Read 11 tweets
25 Feb 20
I don’t think people appreciate just how bad Donald Trump was during the Ebola outbreak of 2014. Here’s a short list of the things he said, which were amplified (rather inexplicably) by the media. (Seriously, what was the reason for that?)
He infamously insisted that the U.S. could not allow those infected back into the country, saying that had to “suffer the consequences” -- including doctors who’d gone to treat patients.
He said that the CDC was not being honest with how contagious the disease actually was

Read 9 tweets
11 Dec 19
Some personal news. I am a father again. Harry Leinwand Stein was born four weeks ago. I've held off on saying anything because he's been in the NICU since his birth. He came pretty early.
The NICU can be a trying place. But my wife and I are fortunate. Harry is doing great and his big brother is loving him being home
Most important we had exceptional care. The staff at @MedStarGUH are truly amazing people. But especially the nurses. They lifted our spirits when they were low. They helped us through emotionally difficult times.
Read 5 tweets

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