David Frum Profile picture
Jul 4, 2024 14 tweets 3 min read Read on X
"Donald Trump tried to overthrow an election by violence."

That's old news, we already reported that.

"As president, Donald Trump directed tens of millions of tax dollars to his own pockets."

Old news.

(cont'd)
"Russian intelligence helped elect Trump by illegal means. Trump welcomed the help."

Russia, Russia.

"He was proven in court to have raped a woman."

Civil proceeding, not criminal - and sexual assault, not rape. Besides ... old news.

(cont'd)
"Two dozen other women say Trump attacked them. There's literally a recording of him boasting about it!"

Old news, we litigated all that in 2016.

"There's new news just unsealed about Trump and Jeffrey Epstein!"

Salacious gossip, beneath our editorial standards.

(cont'd)
"You don't have to focus on the sex stuff. There's more evidence that Trump gave a seat in cabinet to a man for no good reason other than to thank him for the Epstein cover-up."

Arrant speculation. Also old news.

(cont'd)
"It's not arrant speculation that Trump's family falsified receipts to cheat the government out of hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes."

Old news.

"It'll feel like new news because you ignored it at the time."

We gave it a day.

(cont'd)
"Trump used the same trick - false records - in all his many civil frauds, and also in the hush-money case that got him convicted of 34 felony counts by a jury!"

Complicated technicalities, you're boring me.

(cont'd)
"You want simple? Someone bravely defied a non-disclosure agreement to go on the record that Trump used the most vicious racial slurs on the set of The Apprentice."

Doubtful source.

"The 'suckers and losers' quote comes from an impeccable source."

Old news.
"But Trump denied the 'suckers and losers' quote only last week during the nationally televised presidential debate. He lied to the whole country!"

Not our job to fact-check every word he says.

"But you personally know it to be a lie."

Maybe we do, maybe we don't.

(cont'd)
"Okay, look, let's do it your way. What does interest you?"

Indications of cognitive decline.

"We've got millions of examples of Trump obviously off his rocker."

Right - he says crazy things all the time. Not news.

(cont'd)
"Are you telling me that the more often a candidate for president says addled, senile, crazy things - the less newsy it is?"

Not exactly. We also need a lot of background quotes about how his party is worried. If the party is cool with his dementia, we're cool with it.
"These rules don't seem on the level."

We're not the Supreme Court.

"The Supreme Court isn't on the level either."

Oh, now you're undermining confidence in our most sacred institutions. How is that different from Trump?
"Oh for God's sake, the wives of two justices supported - and one conspired in - Trump's Big Lie. I don't understand why you sat on the story for two years.

Leave families out of it.

"Biden's family too?"

We have to cover that, Trump's made a campaign issue of it.

(cont'd)
"I give up. Talk to me like I'm eight years old. How the hell do you explain what you're doing?"

We have to report equal numbers of bad things about each side.

"But what if there aren't equal numbers?"

That's our job, to make sure that there are.

END
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More from @davidfrum

Jun 20
The Benin artifacts previously delivered to Nigeria from UK and Germany have disappeared from public view. They are not on display in any museum. Some or all may have been sold into private markets. (Links in next tweet)
See here theatlantic.com/magazine/archi… and here theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/… Western museum curators know perfectly well what happens to art works delivered to Nigeria but are intimidated into silence.
The late PJ O'Rourke had a great line: "Just as some things are too strange for fiction, other things are too true for journalism." The fate of artworks delivered to Nigeria is one of those subjects too true for journalism. Fiction and fantasy are reported as moral imperative.
Read 4 tweets
Jun 11
In 2018, protesters against gasoline tax demonstrated in Paris. A radical few set fires near the Arc de Triomphe, creating scenes of chaos for social media platforms - like the iconic image below. (THREAD) Image
To the consumer of social media, it must have looked as if France hovered on the brink of revolution in 2018. Paris engulfed in flames! (2/x) Image
Here's how things looked to Parisians, though. Some agitator poured gasoline on a bike at a distance from the Arc, set it on fire, and then photographed the monument through the black smoke created by burning tires. (3/x) Image
Read 9 tweets
May 28
Here's the decision just won by @IlyaSomin and allies striking down Trump's tariffs as an abuse of presidential emergency authority. It's blinking inspiring. (thread) cit.uscourts.gov/sites/cit/file…
The Trump administration argued that US federal courts must accept presidential claims of "emergency" at face value, no matter how manifestly nonsensical and in bad faith those claims in fact are. The US Court of International Trade said, in effect, "not so fast."
Courteously but forcefully, the Court demonstrated that Trump's actions are only tenuously related to the pretextual emergency Trump proclaimed. Trade is a congressional domain, and Trump abused the constitutionally limited power Congress delegated him.
Read 5 tweets
May 28
President Trump and his family are extorting billions of dollars from US companies and foreign nations. In new piece for @TheAtlantic I examine past US corruption - and conclude Trump can't be compared to anything American, only Russia or Africa. theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
Today's @TheAtlantic piece linked above is supplement to monologue on the David Frum Show today. Trump's analogues are not Nixon, Harding, or Grant. They are Putin, Mobutu Sese Soko, and the Duvaliers in Haiti.
@TheAtlantic I once owned a dog who avidly chased squirrels, but looked away when he met a deer. My wife explained: "Some things are too big to see." I recall that saying when journalists get excited over "Biden was addled" and ignore "Trump is a Putin- or Mobutu-scale crook."
Read 4 tweets
Apr 26
Donald Trump's approval rating in his first term moved in a narrow band: never above 50%, but also seldom below 40%, and then not much below. 1/x
Even during COVID, Trump's supporters stayed true. Unhappy as they were during COVID, Trump supporters agreed to shift blame for their unhappiness to somebody else: blue-state governors, Dr Fauci, etc. 2/x
But what if the US is struck by a disaster that is undeniably Trump's doing? Financial markets *predict* the disaster, but are not themselves the disaster. Few Americans have yet lost jobs, prices are only beginning to rise, shops are still full of goods to buy. 3/x
Read 6 tweets
Apr 17
First-term Trump was also an economic idiot. He imposed escalating tariffs in first half of 2018, not only on China but on EU and Canada too. Trump bad policy triggered a big stock slump in second half 2018. 1/x Image
Trump worried that the bad stock market of 2018 might dim his re-election chances. He spent much of 2019 desperately pleading with the Chinese for an exit from the trade war he started the year before. 2/x Image
Trump's eagerness for a China deal to save his re-election was a reason that he dismissed the gathering warnings of a new pandemic in China. He failed to protect the country because he was trying to protect himself. Here's Trump in January 2020: 3/x Image
Read 10 tweets

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