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Greg Sargent Profile picture
@GregTSargent
Sep 5, 2024 • 8 tweets • 6 min read • Read on X
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It's a big deal that veteran journalist Mike Barnicle has now called out his media colleagues for failing to adequately cover Trump's visibly worsening mental state. It should spur a real discussion about how to do this, before it's too late. 1/

New piece
newrepublic.com/article/185622…
“We have a damaged, delusional, old man who might get reelected to the presidency," Mike Barnicle said on @Morning_Joe. He said the media doesn't really cover Trump's daily insanity as a window into his mental fitness for the presidency. This is right. 2/

newrepublic.com/article/185622…

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Some in the media will reject this, claiming they do cover Trump's crazier claims. But this misses the point. His mental unfitness for the presidency is *itself* the big story. It merits sustained scrutiny as a topic with its own intrinsic importance. 3/

newrepublic.com/article/185622…

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You can find some examples of reporting on Trump's mental state. But it's not remotely adequate. A lot of stuff gets overlooked entirely. Trump's deranged claims about gender at Moms for Liberty event were not adequately covered, as @mtomasky noted. 4/

newrepublic.com/article/185622…

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As @jbouie notes, the whole premise of Biden age coverage was that his mental capacity for the job is a matter of national importance. Why not apply this to Trump's addled incoherence, lack of curiosity, serial lying, and sadistic verbal abuses? 5/

newrepublic.com/article/185622…

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To imagine what real coverage of Trump's mental unfitness might look like, I took 10 real Biden age headlines and rewrote them around Trump's unfitness for the presidency.

Read them below; the effect is striking. Why don't we see saturation like this? 6/

newrepublic.com/article/185622…

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Those are real headlines about Biden's age at top news orgs, reimagined as heds about Trump's mental unfitness for the job. We should treat those Trump traits and the politics around them as *themselves* being the news.

Link to full argument below. END

newrepublic.com/article/185622…
Related, important point from @JRubinBlogger: Inadequate scrutiny of Trump's mental unfitness ends up insulating Republicans more broadly from hard questions about their continued enthusiastic support for him. Also citing @JeffreyGoldberg

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/…

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More from @GregTSargent

Greg Sargent Profile picture
Dec 15
Stephen Miller is employing state terror in service of the open goal of shifting the ethnic mix of the country. In numerous ways he's doing this at the expense of public safety.

We spent weeks reporting on Miller's real aims. The result is this piece:
newrepublic.com/article/204191…
Highlights from our Miller piece:

First, his grandmother has written an unpublished history of some of his ancestors' immigration to the US. We are publishing it online for the first time. They were attacked in terms similar to those he uses today.

newrepublic.com/article/204191…Image
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Some news on Trump's doling out of most refugee slots to white South Africans: Two former State Department officials tell us basic protocols designed to determine whether this group actually merits protection have simply been scrapped. It's just whim.

newrepublic.com/article/204191…Image
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Read 9 tweets
Greg Sargent Profile picture
Dec 12
Remarkable how brutal the ruling against Trump on Abrego Garcia truly is: It details malicious abuses of power all throughout. Trump and Stephen Miller were testing their ability to spread lawless state terror. But the court held the line. 1/

(new piece)
newrepublic.com/article/204355…
For Trump/Miller, the Abrego Garcia case is a crucial gauge of how far they can get in disappearing undesirables/placing them beyond the law entirely.

Judge Xinis' ruling is important in that context. It calls out Trump's lawless conduct throughout. 2/

newrepublic.com/article/204355…Image
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For weeks, Trump officials have refused to send him to Costa Rica even though he said he'd accept that. The ruling details extensive misconduct here.

We all know what happened: Trump/Miller decided sending him there wouldn't be dehumanizing enough. 3/

newrepublic.com/article/204355…Image
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Read 5 tweets
Greg Sargent Profile picture
Dec 1
News --> The commander who oversaw Pete Hegseth's alleged killing of two boat bombing survivors is now likely to come in and face questions from House Armed Services Committee, ranking Dem Adam Smith tells me.

In this piece, I try to make sense of it all:
newrepublic.com/article/203789…
Pete Hegseth denies he gave the order to kill them all. But even some Republicans now appear to be demanding answers, so Frank Bradley, who oversaw bombings, is in talks with House Armed Services about coming in.

Rep Adam Smith lays out his Qs here:

newrepublic.com/article/203789…Image
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This is big: Jack Goldsmith, former head of OLC, says that if WaPo's report is right, Pete Hegseth's order might have been an illegal one.

WaPo reports that the commander overseeing the strikes gave a rationale but Goldsmith says it doesn't hold up:

newrepublic.com/article/203789…Image
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Read 5 tweets
Greg Sargent Profile picture
Nov 25
NEWS --> BBC confirms to me that they did edit a line out of historian @rcbregman's speech. It called Trump "the most openly corrupt president in US history."

BBC also confirms this was done on the advice of lawyers. So Trump's threats worked.

New piece:
newrepublic.com/article/203648…
Today @rcbregman posted a transcript of his Reith Lecture showing that the version that BBC aired removed the line about Trump's world-historical corruption.

BBC emailed me: "we made the decision to remove one sentence from the lecture on legal advice.”

newrepublic.com/article/203648…Image
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@rcbregman Trump is the most corrupt president in US history, and the openness of his corruption is an essential feature of it. It's extra bad that this comes as the Defense Department punishes Sen Mark Kelly for correctly warning against breaking illegal orders.

newrepublic.com/article/203648…Image
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Read 4 tweets
Greg Sargent Profile picture
Nov 21
Remarkable: Rep Chrissy Houlahan, one of the Dems Trump called for executing, tells me her office literally filled out a Capitol Police threat report listing "the president" as the person making the threat.

It's at 9:20 on our pod. More like that here:
newrepublic.com/article/203487…
Here's a transcript of the key exchange:

ME: You filled out a form which essentially says, ‘who delivered this threat,’ and your office wrote in ‘Donald J. Trump.’

REP HOULAHAN: 'The President.'

newrepublic.com/article/203489…Image
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Also crucial from Rep Chrissy Houlahan:

One reason she and other Dems did the video about Trump's illegal orders is that they're hearing from inside the military and intel services of actual live fears that they're being given unlawful commands:

newrepublic.com/article/203489…Image
Read 4 tweets
Greg Sargent Profile picture
Nov 15
Trump's boat bombings in the Caribbean just got worse. An internal DOJ memo says the victims are waging war on the US, but per NYT, it extensively cites the WH's *own claims* to this effect as evidence!

It gets even darker than that. 1/

(new piece)
newrepublic.com/article/203219…
The memo purportedly justifying these murders also contains a lengthy section that lays out arguments defending the actions of those carrying out the strikes. In short, it *preemptively* defends them from potential prosecution later.

This is unusual. 2/

newrepublic.com/article/203219…Image
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Ever since the bombings began, a big Q has been: Do those carrying them out fear they're being given illegal orders? The official overseeing them recently resigned with no explanation, prompting Dems to ask if he'd concluded bombings are illegal. 3/

newrepublic.com/article/203219…Image
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Read 7 tweets

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