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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
Sep 8
Many media types and Dems continue to operate as if Trump is a politically invincible figure, or "Teflon Don." But in truth he's become a weak, failing, diminished, unpopular, naked-emperor figure, and it's time to treat him as such. 1/

(new piece)
newrepublic.com/article/200096…
Trump's jobs report fiasco is a case in point. He knows his mystique depends on perceptions that he always wins/wields mastery over foes. So last month he fired the data person to appear strong/decisive. Then it blew up in his face w/awful new report. 2/

newrepublic.com/article/200096…Image
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Trump shapes his whole politics around strong-vs-weak frame. He always uses the word “strongly." He attacks foes as sickly/enfeebled. His crowd size BS, his face attached to steroid bodies, the occupying cities agitprop all convey an overbearing aura. 3/

newrepublic.com/article/200096…Image
Read 7 tweets
Greg Sargent Profile picture
Aug 25
As you watch the extraordinary spectacle of Trump's government attempting to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia to Uganda, let's not lose sight of just how lawless and indefensible Trump's misconduct has been all throughout.

Here's a thread recapping all of it. 1/
DHS Sec Kristi Noem's announcement of this states AS FACT numerous charges against Abrego. But the admin couldn't produce real evidence of MS-13 ties despite trying for MONTHS. He has been convicted of NONE of the criminal charges lodged here. Guilty until proven innocent. 2/ Image
Noem's announcement notes that when he was arrested in 2019, the PG County Gang Unit validated his MS-13 ties. But as we reported, the cop whose testimony this was based on was suspended soon after and indicted for serious professional misconduct. 3/

newrepublic.com/article/194010…Image
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Read 11 tweets
Greg Sargent Profile picture
Aug 23
Lawyers for Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who has been released, have been informed by ICE that he could now be subject to deportation to Uganda, and he's been told to report to ICE next week, a source confirms to me.

A few points about this, b/c there will be a lot of BS about it. 1/
What this confirms is how deeply corrupt and indefensible Trump and Stephen Miller's handling of this has been all throughout.

Those of us commenting on this have argued all along that Trump *always* had the option of bringing him back and proceeding through lawful channels. 2/
In other words, after illegally renditioning Abrego Garcia to a Salvadoran gulag, Trump could *at any point* have brought him back and moved to deport him to a third country or contested his "withholding of removal" status.

We argued for this for months. 3/
Read 9 tweets
Greg Sargent Profile picture
Aug 2
NEWS --> An internal DHS memo suggests Trump's use of military for domestic enforcement is about to get worse. It details top-level talks between Defense Department and DHS on what this should look like. Experts say it's alarming.

We obtained the memo:
newrepublic.com/article/198708…
The DHS memo lays out the agenda for a July 21 meeting among top level officials from DHS and Defense Department. It was authored by Philip Hegseth (yes, he's Pete Hegseth's brother), a top adviser to DHS Sec Kristi Noem and liason to the Pentagon.

newrepublic.com/article/198708…Image
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Memo says bluntly that US military leadership need to better grasp the threat of illegal immigration *in the homeland.*

Experts say this means DHS, maybe w/Pete Hegseth's help, may be pressuring top Defense officials to get more involved domestically.

newrepublic.com/article/198708…Image
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Read 7 tweets
Greg Sargent Profile picture
Jul 28
Striking: Zohran Mamdani's video about returning to Uganda racked up 4.5 million Instagram views, 56% among nonfollowers, per data given to me.

He's offering a new answer to Dem digital woes. I talked to his team in depth about it. Fascinating. 1/

(link)
newrepublic.com/article/198482…
Zohran's campaign provided me with data on the reach of a number of his most recent videos on Instagram. We're talking millions and millions of views on content about things like traffic and city council bills impacting street vendors.

Details below. 2/

newrepublic.com/article/198482…Image
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National Dems are noticing.

“His campaign is putting digital practitioners in charge who understand what’s going to resonate online,” the exec director of a top Dem super PAC says. The secret? “Letting him speak authentically to what he believes." 3/

newrepublic.com/article/198482…Image
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Read 8 tweets
Greg Sargent Profile picture
Jul 23
NEWS --> Sen Ron Wyden writes to Pam Bondi, urging DOJ to probe $1.5 billion in Epstein financial transactions that banks flagged for Treasury Dept. He lays out roadmap for DOJ to examine money flow related to sex trafficking. Calls Bondi's bluff.

Read:
newrepublic.com/article/198247…
“I am convinced that DOJ ignored evidence found in the Treasury Department’s Epstein file [involving] mountains of cash Epstein received from prominent businessmen...to finance his criminal network,” Wyden says.

Wyden's investigators viewed these docs:

newrepublic.com/article/198247…Image
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This from Wyden is striking:

"Epstein clearly had access to enormous financing to operate his sex trafficking network, and the details on how he got the cash to pay for it are sitting in a Treasury Department filing cabinet."

Lays out roadmap for DOJ:

newrepublic.com/article/198247…Image
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Read 4 tweets

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