Chris Murphy 🟧 Profile picture
Dec 18, 2024 9 tweets 3 min read Read on X
It's happening right in front our eyes. It's accelerated rapidly in the last 24 hours. Not sure why everyone doesn't see this.

1/ Can I take a minute to connect the dots - on how Trump is putting into action a plan to cripple our democracy in a way we may never recover from?
2/ He wasn't kidding when he said Democrats were the no. 1 threat to America and needed be dealt with by law enforcement and the military.

Today House Republican's referral of Liz Cheney for criminal prosecution - on made up charges - shows you the plan.
yahoo.com/news/key-repub…
3/ Who will stand in the way of Cheney and others being put in jail?

Not DOJ. Kash Patel was chosen to lead the FBI BECAUSE he wants to prosecute Trump's opponents.

Not the courts. Trump's pliant DOJ can handpick a jurisdiction with a MAGA judge.
rollingstone.com/politics/polit…
4/ Not every Trump opponent will fold, but many will. If you have a family at home, are you really going to stand up to Trump if there's a chance you could end up in jail?

History shows that selective prosecution of a regime's opposition has a broad chilling effect.
5/ The second part of Trump's plan is to use the White House to destroy the free media. Today's lawsuit against the Des Moines Register - just because they released a poll showing a close race in Iowa - is stunning. We shouldn't pretend this is normal.
nbcnews.com/politics/2024-…
6/ Already, you see how the big media companies are giving in. ABC paid Trump $15m even though his defamation suit had no merit. Bezos told the Post to not endorse against Trump. MSNBC is up for sale because Comcast doesn't want to get in trouble.
thehill.com/media/5042894-…
7/ Sometimes Trump will win these suits because he controls the DOJ and some courts, but other times he doesn't care. After he lost one case against a journalist, he said, "I did it to make his life miserable, which I'm happy about."

He gladly admits it's about intimidation.
8/ Trump has also said he will use the FEC and regulatory agencies - all of which will be run by his blind loyalists - to intimidate news orgs. Even if he uses this power rarely, media companies have already shown they are reluctant to put up a fight.
cnn.com/2024/10/22/med…
9/ Is there a chance this is all show and bluster? Maybe, but the developments of just the last few days - ABC's bogus settlement, the referral of Cheney for prosecution, Trump's suit against the Register - all point to this being very, very real.

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More from @ChrisMurphyCT

Jan 22
As the DHS funding bill moves closer to a vote in the House, and likely a vote in the Senate (where it could be combined with DoD and other budgets), I want to spell out the dangers of a bipartisan vote to keep funding this version of DHS.

1/ This is a really serious moment.
2/ I get my colleagues' desire to support government funding. Even under Trump, the government performs many vital tasks.

But not at any price. The political police force Trump is building at DHS - and their daily violation of the law - threatens to unwind our republic.
3/ What Trump is doing in Minneapolis is a test case. His goal is likely to create disruptions in cities in Democratic and swing states as a pretext to interfere in the fall elections.

Yes, he's got loads of money from BBB for this, but this budget gives him $28 billion more.
Read 7 tweets
Jan 17
We told you the Venezuela invasion was just corruption. It took one whole week to get the proof.

Trump took Venezuela's oil at gunpoint, and gave it to one of his biggest campaign donors.

1/ But when you learn the details, it's even worse. A short🧵on this corruption story. Image
2/ John Addison donated a stunning sum to Trump's election campaign: $6 million. And then, as the Venezuelan operation unfolded, his company, Vitol, asked Trump for a license to trade Venezuelan oil - before their competitors.

Shocker: Addison got it.
wsj.com/business/energ…
3/ And then, just days later, Trump selected Vitol for the first sale of Venezuelan oil - at a discount that will likely allow Vitol to make a huge profit when it sells it to secondary buyers.

A windfall for Addison and Vitol. And fundamentally corrupt. thedailybeast.com/trump-hands-fi…
Read 5 tweets
Jan 14
I want to talk about a dystopian world we are entering - where every moment, event, and crisis just become commodities.

Life stops being something we live, but something we sell and trade. It will breed both corruption & emptiness.

1/ A 🧵on why our politics can't ignore this. Image
2/ Sportscenter used to be my favorite show. But now it's just a show about sports betting.

We used to follow sports because of the sense of drama and camaraderie of joining together with a community of fans in common purpose.

No longer. defector.com/espn-will-not-…
3/ Now, much of fandom is connected to the monetization of sports. Millions no longer watch for the pure pleasure of it - they watch to make money.

Sports betting can be good fun, but research shows how experience gets cheapened when it becomes monetized. pinkston.co/blog/sports-ga…
Read 13 tweets
Jan 6
5 years ago today, our Capitol was attacked. A year ago, Trump pardoned the worst attackers as a reward for their violence.

You should know them.

1/ Let's start with David Dempsey - he was out for blood: pepper sprayed officers, stomped on their heads, beat them with poles.
2/ This is DJ Rodriguez. He posted: "There will be blood. Welcome to the revolution". He beat officers with a wooden pole, tasered an officer in the neck causing a heart attack.
3/ Here is Thomas Webster. He led the charge to break into the Capitol. He beat officers with a metal pole, held one down so rioters could brutally kick him.
Read 4 tweets
Dec 19, 2025
Trump will do anything to distract from the Epstein scandal and high prices.

But this is no ordinary distraction. He's putting us on the brink of war, and his national security team is lying to Congress.

1/ A short thread on why you should be paying close attention.
2/ In a classified briefing to Senators this week (that contained scant secret info), Sec. Rubio and Sec. Hegseth told us that the military strikes in the Caribbean were a counter-drug mission, NOT designed to overthrow the Venezuelan government. thehill.com/homenews/senat…
3/ That made no sense. The drug killing Americans is fentanyl. There's NO fentanyl coming from Venezuela. Venezuela exports cocaine and 90% of it goes to Europe, not the U.S.!

So why spend billions to stop cocaine from going to Europe? nbcnews.com/news/military/…
Read 6 tweets
Nov 19, 2025
Why do Democrats raise money for future elections that may not happen? Our priority needs to be protecting democracy - NOW.

So now I raise money and give it out to citizen led groups - about $1 million so far.

1/ An update on the groups we've funded:
chrismurphy.com/american-mobil…
2/ We funded Pennsylvania's student-led Project 26. They just hosted a day of action and food drive at 6 college campuses encouraging students to contact their members of Congress to ask them to lower their costs and revive Trump's dead economy. Image
Image
3/ This year @DownHome_NC - a group we funded to organize rural voters in North Carolina against Trump's cost increases - reached 52,676 (WOW!) voters no one else was able to reach across North Carolina, mainly by knocking on people's doors. downhomenc.org
Read 5 tweets

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