Awful: Senate investigations into Trump's solicitation of $1 billion from Big Oil and Jared Kushner's financial dealings with Saudis will now hit a wall with GOP control, Dems tell me. We're headed for unchecked elite corruption under Trump.
For many reasons, conditions are ripe for right wing elites to loot the place from top to bottom. Remember when Trump vowed to give Big Oil execs what they want in exchange for $1 billion in campaign funds? Now we'll likely never get to the bottom of it.
“The next four years are going to be a smash and grab under Trump,” Sen Ron Wyden tells me, because “special interests who put Trump back in office expect a return on their investment."
His probe into Kushner's dealings will get much harder w/GOP control
Interesting suggestion from @NoahBookbinder: Trump's Truth Social gives wealthy investors a way of currying favor with him by buying stock, which would "quickly affect his net worth."
Needless to say, Trump won't divest, as he should.
Underappreciated point: Trump's plan to purge civil servants and replace them with MAGA loyalists will create new avenues for corruption. Special interests can hijack rulemaking more easily and career people will be in less of a position to blow whistle.
Trump is going to hoodwink pundits into writing that his presidency is "taking on the elite class," even as he sells off the government for parts to his right wing oligarchic elite cronies.
Trump's agents shot Marimar Martinez, a US citizen, multiple times for allegedly menacing them with her car in Chicago. Only hours later, Kristi Noem and DHS started spreading disinfo about the shooting.
DHS also said her car "rammed" the agents' vehicle. But the Chicago Sun-Times reports that her lawyer says body cam footage undermines the notion that she drove her vehicle toward them and shows an agent saying "do something, bitch" before shooting. 3/
News on Trump boat bombings --> Now that SouthCom Commander Alvin Holsey resigned, likely over bombings, ranking Armed Services Dem Adam Smith tells me committee Ds will demand Holsey's sworn testimony and press Rs to join them.
This fiasco has gotten worse. Some highlights from my pod talk w/ ranking Armed Services Dem Adam Smith: First, he says SouthCom Commander Alvin Holsey was likely pushed out over the boat bombings and that he's heard stuff to this effect from inside:
This is incredible. Rep Adam Smith tells me the administration has given lawmakers *zero* in the way of the most basic information about the bombings. He says this is nothing like previous situations where basic info was supplied. In this case, nothing.
This week, MAGA figures claimed Kristi Noem "stared down" violent antifa protesters in Portland. Turns out they were talking mostly about a guy in a chicken suit.
This opens a window into MAGA propaganda and MSM's failure to cope with it. 1/
Trump and Stephen Miller have relied on an army of MAGA "influencers" disseminating a fraudulent picture of Portland in chaos, to bolster the case for deploying military.
NYT has a good piece on this. But it made several missteps worth highlighting. 2/
Appalling: JB Pritzker tells me he hasn't been able to get a single convo with Kristi Noem or any other top Trump officials to even discuss their Chicago operations. Pritzker just wants heads up for logistical reasons. Nada.
JB Pritzker has also been emphatically placing Trump's mental decline front and center. On our pod, he adds a new element: People around Trump are using his decline to manipulate him, so they're less likely to intervene. More Dems should say this.
JB Pritzker and Gavin Newsom are doing something new and important: They understand Stephen Miller's theory of fascist power politics and have developed a theory on how to combat it. More Dems must reckon w/Miller's understanding of the moment.
Stephen Miller believes that if he supercharges the debate over Trump's abuses of power with enough propaganda, he can polarize it and nudge low-info voters into accepting authoritarianism. Pritzker/Newsom get that this requires an info-war in response.
Trump's tweet that Portland is "war ravaged" just backfired. A Trump-picked judge cited it in blocking National Guard deployment to Portland, declaring him "untethered from facts."
Highlights from this pod w/Oregon AG Dan Rayfield: He tells me Dem AGs are preparing for likelihood that Trump will expand efforts to federalize National Guards and deploy them in more cities.
Trump is trying to normalize troops in US cities, he says.
"Anyone who’s seen the visual presence of what it’s like to live in an authoritarian country knows it’s a very different existence. That can never become a reality for us."