“He said he was going to, quote unquote, drain the swamp, and all he’s done is splashed around and rolled around in it.” nytimes.com/2020/07/01/ups… The quotes in this piece from 2016 Trump voters are something else.

“I think if he weren’t such an appalling human being, he would make a great president, because I think what this country needs is somebody who isn’t a politician.”

From POLITICO Nightly tonight...

politico.com/newsletters/po… VEEP IN THOUGHT — Since February there has been a rift inside the White House between the scientists and the politicians over how to contain the spread of coronavirus. Anthony Fauci has been the consistent advocate of a forceful response and an opponent of any sugar-coating of...

Some scenes from Washington, D.C., last night, where peaceful protests outside the White House were overshadowed by widespread violence, looting, and arson. As you approach the White House from the west along Pennsylvania Ave graffiti from the weekend of protests is omnipresent.

This frequent billionaires attack deserves some scrutiny. A billionaire, like anyone else, can only donate $2800 to a campaign. So 60 billionaires equals $168,000. Add spouses and it’s $336,000. That’s .5% of what Biden has raised. Hardly qualifies as “funding” Biden’s campaign.

https://twitter.com/berniesanders/status/1235335576288743427

As for the second argument about SuperPACs, which aren’t controlled by campaigns, there’s just one and it has only raised $8 million. List of its top donors here: opensecrets.org/outsidespendin…

Lots of good content on politico dot come today. Here’s a good place to start:

politico.com/news/2020/03/0… Then check out this @ccadelago @hollyotterbein joint on Bernie and California

politico.com/news/2020/03/0…

Big crowd in L.A. for Bernie and Public Enemy First campaign event I’ve been to with a smattering of people wearing masks

NEW from me in Columbia, South Carolina: “Wednesday was the start of Lent, and Joe Biden gave up losing.” politico.com/news/2020/03/0… “The scale of Biden’s victory in South Carolina was enormous...He will leave South Carolina, where turnout exceeded Iowa and New Hampshire combined, with a lead in the popular vote and, according to estimates late Saturday night, about a half-dozen delegates behind Sanders.”

Via ⁦@HeidiNBC⁩ here‘s a more nuanced account of Sanders’s record on Iraq and WMDs than is generally understood. Sanders was open to authorizing George W. Bush to attack Iraq if WMDs were found, the UN failed to respond, and Bush returned to Congress nbcnews.com/politics/2020-… Here’s how the NYT described the amendment Sanders suported: “Though it was defeated, the amendment drew the votes of 155 Democrats, many of whom intend to point to it, if criticized, as an indication that they supported military action under the right circumstances.”

There’s been a lot of great material published at POLITICO this week to coincide with the Democratic debate that we are co-sponsoring with PBS tonight.

Here’s a cool video by @marynewmanphoto that takes you behind the scenes of putting on a debate.

politico.com/video/2019/12/… This is a typically excellent @AlxThomp piece about the history of Elizabeth Warren and Hillary Clinton tangling over staff and economic policy:

politico.com/news/magazine/…

It seems like a crisis right now in American politics is disimformation and how press, voters and Congress deal with it. Worth remembering that this isn’t the first time that our politics has been seized with a political actor and his allies spreading falsehoods with a firehouse. I was doing some reading on Joe McCarthy and noticed that his reign of demagoguery and disinformation lasted exactly 4 years, 4 months—from 1950 speech about communists at State to “have you no sense of decency?” It‘s been 4 years, 3 1/2 months since Trump’s announcement speech.

I’ve been busted by the NY Post: “why did [Lizza] append not 1 but 9 red-siren ‘emojis’ to a tweet about Mueller’s impaneling of a grand jury, also in 2017?” This whole thing was my fault. I apologize for everything, but especially the excessive sirens. nypost.com/2019/03/24/col… In the interest of full disclosure I need to make a painful admission: I once used 13 siren emojis in a tweet. Again, I apologize for the pain this may have caused anyone, especially editors at the NY Post.

https://twitter.com/ryanlizza/status/902216842210680836?s=21

Watching @Oprah interview @BetoORourke. He certainly does not sound like someone who’s not running. Beto: “I have been thinking about running for president.” Oprah’s pressing him hard now

Woodward has receipts. For instance he publishes the draft letter Cohn swiped from Trump’s desk: A staple of every Woodward book: the note to readers regarding his sourcing.

I recently talked to Sen. Lindsey Graham about expectations for the Trump-Putin meeting. He warned that Trump better not accept Putin’s “fake news.” Full quote: That quote ended up on the cutting room floor but the full piece, with more from Graham and many other Republicans, is here: esquire.com/news-politics/…