Sarah Huckabee Sanders has not yet responded to a request for comment about David Pecker’s testimony that she was involved, in her capacity as a White House official, in the hush money cover up, but Stephanie Grisham confirms that Sanders initiated discussions about the story “all the time.” Grisham was working for the First Lady. According to Grisham, Sarah Huckabee Sanders (now the governor of Arkansas) and Hope Hicks (an expected witness for the prosecution) contacted her to ask, “What did I know, what did Melania know, what were we going to do.”

Hello from Manhattan criminal court where Donald Trump’s hush money trial officially starts this morning It is another freezing day inside this courthouse

As Trump looks on in the courtroom, his lawyer is reading tweets from a prospective juror in which she called him “a racist, sexist narcissist” and “anathema to everything” she had been taught by her faith and that, among other things, he has no sense of right and wrong. The prospective juror is now reading her own tweet aloud and she remarks, “Oof, that sounds bad!” lol

Meanwhile, over on Truth Social, Donald Trump is taking a victory lap over two insufficiently loyal-to-him Republican candidates losing their elections tonight. Trump’s immediate desires (to never be wrong, to take all credit and accept no blame) seem to be in conflict with his long term needs (to use a presidential campaign as a shield to evade prosecution, etc).

Nobody is served by news organizations promoting the myth that reporters are a special class of people who either don’t have, or are capable of totally suppressing, feelings and thoughts about the world in which they live. It’s dishonest and everyone knows it. To set the standard at objectivity rather than fairness denies the reality of what it is to be a person. It’s silly and naive and insulting to news consumers. It greets them with phoniness and it encourages distrust.

Among his many idiosyncrasies, Rudy Giuliani is often getting new phone numbers. I just spoke to a man who has had of one of Rudy’s old numbers for about a month. “Really?!” he said, when I told him who used to have it. He added that it explained the odd calls he’s been getting. Beyond accumulating phone numbers, Giuliani also accumulated communication devices, making calls and sending texts, emails, and encrypted messages from at least 3 different cell phones and 1 iPad, by my count. That’s a lot for investigators to sift through.

Hannity spent months and months promoting conspiracies that falsely tied the murder of Seth Rich to the 2016 hack of the DNC (which would have absolved Russia and Trump). Rich’s family sued Fox over their coverage and reached a settlement last year. nytimes.com/2020/11/24/bus…

NEW: Linda Beigel Schulman and Michael Schulman have spent the last one thousand and seventy-nine days without their son, Scott Beigel. He was murdered in the Parkland shooting. They don’t want Marjorie Taylor Greene to get away with her “false flag” lie. nymag.com/intelligencer/… It has been one of the great privileges of my life to get to know Linda and Michael. They are truly decent and lovely. And they are furious and hurt that a person who believes the mass shooting in which their son was murdered was a conspiracy is a member of congress.

I’ve been thinking about how our very American understanding of ambition, of winning at all costs, distorts the political conversation. We point out Ted Cruz’s hypocrisy, or Lindsey Graham’s, or anyone who ran against Trump in 2016 only to spend the next 4 years at his service /1

https://twitter.com/chrislhayes/status/1346991279129784321

Everyone knows that’s the way presidential politics works: you enter the theater of the primary, you kick the shit out of each other, and then you pretend you think the world of whoever wins so that you can get ahead, get power. Career bullshitters humor career bullshitters. /2

“We love you. You’re special.” — Donald Trump to the violent mob storming the Capitol. “I know how you feel,” he said. “Go home in peace.”

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1346928882595885058

Donald Trump spends more time in this video telling the violent mob that they’re right to be angry and the election was stolen than he does telling them to stop the violence and go home.

From a Hill staffer currently on lockdown inside the Longworth building: “This is getting bad really quickly. We are locking door. We are discussing how to get members out if they breach the perimeter and get inside the building.” From a Hill staffer currently on lockdown inside the Longworth building: “Where the fuck are the police, honestly?”

Had to transcribe this moment from The Call:

TRUMP: “They’re going around playing you and laughing at you behind your back, Brad. Whether you know it or not, they’re laughing at you.” Had to transcribe this moment from The Call, too:

Last year I set a goal to read 100 books. I did it, but it was not pleasant. This year I didn’t set a goal and ended up reading 56 books, and I think I absorbed them much more, and I certainly enjoyed them more. Here are some of my favorites, in no particular order: “Our Man: Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century” by George Packer. indiebound.org/book/978030795…

This started out as a story about the press conference at Four Seasons Total Landscaping, but it became a story about the infighting and dysfunction on the campaign, the legal team, and in the White House that helped Donald Trump lose the election. nymag.com/intelligencer/… One of many strange details collected in my reporting: many White House officials expressed total confusion about what the campaign was doing at Four Seasons Total Landscaping, but at least one was actually on the ground helping to organize the event: nymag.com/intelligencer/…

“....the source of a remarkably large share of what we know about Donald Trump and his White House, from the Mueller investigation to his personal battle with the coronavirus to his refusal to accept defeat”: @maggieNYT 💖 nytimes.com/2020/11/08/bus… “the real work of reporting is painstaking and exhausting: getting people, one by one, to tell you things they should not, and then telling your readers about them.”

Mark Meadows, who has tested positive for COVID-19, was in the White House Residence on election night huddled around Donald Trump alongside Ivanka, Jared, Don Jr., and other family members and senior staffers. NEW: I’m told that Mark Meadows, who rarely wears a face mask, was not wearing a face mask in the White House Residence on Election Night.

I think Phoebe Bridget’s called the election?

https://twitter.com/phoebe_bridgers/status/1324763438380322818

Bridget’s LOL

I’m told the remarks Donald Trump is delivering now were written by a combination of the “usual folks” around the president. The speech has circulated among his advisers. He’s being encouraged to emphasize “the successes down ballot” and that this was “not a repudiation.” Effort underway to make sure this is not just Donald Trump spouting off. But as we know, even if he diligently reads a prepared text, he often finds a way to spout off. Especially during back and forth with the media.

Why is Rick Santorum

At 2:20 AM, Donald Trump is speaking from the East Room trying to claim that the election is being stolen from him. At this time on election night in 2016, the results weren’t clear yet either. Donald Trump claims he’s winning Georgia, but Georgia hasn’t been called yet.

This is huge. Now that he’s won Arizona, Biden can lose Pennsylvania and still get to 270 with Michigan, Wisconsin, and NE-2. I wrote about Arizona’s importance for @NYMag last week. nymag.com/intelligencer/…