Campaign reporter covering 2024 for @CJR, @WIRED & others. Retired podcast host, emergency backup hockey writer. FR/EN 🇫🇷
Oct 30 • 4 tweets • 3 min read
SCOOP: Workers Say They Were Tricked and Threatened as Part of Elon Musk’s Get-Out-the-Vote Effort
Paid canvassers in Michigan were hauled into a U-Haul van with no rear seating, threatened with money being withheld for their motel rooms & more @WIRED wired.com/story/elon-mus…
This is just a wild one, no other way to put it.
Per video obtained by @WIRED, door knockers for a subcontractor of Elon Musk's America PAC sat on the floor of a moving van with no seats (or seatbelts, obv), separated from their driver by a metal cage. wired.com/story/elon-mus…
Oct 26 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
This exchange, somehow, really happened:
Trump goes on this tangent about the Lincoln bedroom about 8 minutes into the Joe Rogan interview, and at one point Rogan has to cut in to say he has no idea who Trump is talking about (after comparing Abe Lincoln and Robert E Lee to prize fighters).
The exchange on Robert E Lee and the unnamed MMA fighters starts here:
Mar 16, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
New — Ex-DeSantis staffers and those involved in planning his book tour/pre-campaign events describe long standing issues over his soft skills coming to the fore as he hits the road.
Example: A 2019 flight from TLH to DC where he ate pudding w/ 3 fingers. thedailybeast.com/the-republican…
A feedback loop has begun forming around DeSantis, with early primary state campaign venues trying to cater to his aversion to the press and unpredictable interactions with the public. But they still don't know exactly what he wants.
Second to last stop of the day here for Tim Ryan in Medina, solid turnout at around 100
This flag is a bit of a hit at the Ryan rally
Feb 24, 2022 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
Fox News just cut off Glenn Greenwald as former President Trump calls into Laura Ingraham's show
Trump says Putin wanted to "negotiate" initially until he saw "the weakness" in the US (doing his usual stuff from here)
Sep 23, 2021 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
On the Yang "Forward Party" platform, gonna do a separate thread here on the descriptions of the 6 components/slogans. 1/ businessinsider.com/andrew-yang-ne…
Ranked choice voting & open primaries:
"Party primaries disenfranchise the majority of voters. In 80 percent of cases the general election is essentially a foreordained conclusion. Non-major-party candidates are regarded as a “waste” of a vote and can never compete..." 2/
Sep 23, 2021 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Scooplet — @AndrewYang's third party has a name "The Forward Party." Comes in the final chapter of his forthcoming book, a copy of which was obtained by Insider. businessinsider.com/andrew-yang-ne…@AndrewYang "The two sides will be trapped in a war that both sides win—they will still be hovering in one of the most affluent areas in the country trading power—but the people will lose," Yang writes in the chapter about the new party. businessinsider.com/andrew-yang-ne…
Sep 22, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Eric Adams is back on Morning Joe, sitting next to Rev. Sharpton on the panel
Adams also says people are walking into Duane Reade pharmacies with garbage bags to take stuff off the shelves with no pushback from security or the NYPD
Really like the way @RossBarkan's piece expounds on this stat hiding in plain sight:
"If they were a single candidate, Wiley and Garcia would have taken 41 percent of the first-place vote, compared to Adams’s roughly 31 percent." rossbarkan.substack.com/p/the-decline-…
This dynamic in primaries is really where New York could be a leading indicator in what the Democratic Party becomes over the 2020s
Jun 3, 2021 • 43 tweets • 7 min read
Here at the Manchester Double Tree for New Hampshire Republican prom, aka the Hillsborough County GOP’s Lincoln Day Dinner.
Mike Pence is scheduled to speak around 6:20.
You can enter for your chance to win a Tommy Gun from WWII at the raffle here
May 5, 2021 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
MTG on Tucker's streaming show:
"But when I got to Congress, I found out ... here's why the business — it's a business, that's what Congress is, it runs the country — this is why this business is failing ... because most of the people there are not qualified to be there."
Greene gives a lot of credit to @AOC in this interview and cites the Green New Deal as a model for what she wants to do (says her versions would be impeaching Biden and "Defund Dr. Fauci").
May 5, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Cuomo: "Columbus Day is a day where we celebrate the Italian-American contribution to this state."
More Cuomo on Columbus Day and BDB: "You don't have to exclude Italian-Americans to celebrate Native Americans ... Why do you feel the need to diminish the Italian-American contribution to recognize the indigenous people contribution? It's not one or the other."
May 5, 2021 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Emmanuel Macron is giving a big speech on the 200th anniversary of Napoleon's death. Lots of old guard stuff here on the value of French sovereignty and "the grandeur of the country."
He credits Napoleon with a "national synthesis" in his conception of the state(/empire).
Macron's anti-political correctness strategy is interesting in this context. He's not venerating the French Empire in the way a Marine Le Pen would for the National Front, but there does seem to be a conscious effort by Macron to hedge on that front and hang on to certain voters.
May 3, 2021 • 7 tweets • 1 min read
Cuomo says he was "scared" during the one time he took the New York City subway last year
Full quote:
Cuomo once again flanked by the troops. No sign of the "No Excuses" banner that has been behind him at these type of events. businessinsider.com/andrew-cuomo-n…
Cuomo before intro-ing Senate Maj. Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins (who called for his resignation):
"Community, communitas, my father used to say — God rest his soul — that New York is a family." timesunion.com/news/article/S…
Apr 20, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Trump tells Hannity he has no idea why Republicans don’t want to get the vaccine while complaining about being asked to do commercials promoting the vaccine (Hannity also asked Trump if he got it, which he did, but not on camera)
Lots of hot takes from Trump here about nefarious plotting by “Phizah”
Apr 20, 2021 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
Trump is getting deep into Big Lie territory on Hannity, rattling off how many votes he had and how his people told him he only needed 65 million to win — then he has this throw away line of “I think you have a cabal.”
It always stands out in Hannity interviews how much he tries to gas up Trump and “the Trump agenda,” to the point where Hannity is almost implying he can make a much more coherent case for Trumpism than Trump himself.
It’s a flex, that’s for sure.
Feb 19, 2021 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
New York Assemblyman Ron Kim is on The View.
"Cuomo is an abuser," he says right off the bat. "And he's worse than TJ Ducklo." He also said something that got bleeped out about Cuomo staff comments to women he's worked with??
.@rontkim also uses his View hit to plug an upcoming event with @AndrewYang & @JumaaneWilliams.
Feb 18, 2021 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
How Rush Limbaugh became Rush Limbaugh is a pretty remarkable story, and it only could have happened with the FCC's repeal of the "fairness doctrine" under Reagan (if you'll indulge me in a petit thread): businessinsider.com/rush-limbaugh-…
Couple things right off the bat:
- Rush started out under the alias "Rusty Sharpe," and he burned through a series of radio jobs before being told he should look at a diff career.
- The fairness doctrine is really complicated, but TLDR you couldn't do what Rush did under it.
Feb 17, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Mike Pence is now calling into Fox News to commemorate Limbaugh, says Rush gave the House GOP "air cover every day" during the Clinton years
Pence chuckles when John Roberts recalls how he once described himself as "Rush Limbaugh on decaf"
Feb 17, 2021 • 8 tweets • 1 min read
Donald Trump is calling into Fox News right now to talk about Rush Limbaugh
Trump: "He, in theory, could have been gone four months ago, really ... He was a fighter."