I spent the last few months trying to get my head around Tommy Tuberville for @RollingStone. Talked to him multiple times, chatted with former players and a bunch of senators.

Very few are happy with him right now.

rollingstone.com/politics/polit… Many Black former players struggle to square his racially charged comments with the coach they knew.

Deuce McAllister: "Is this truly a front? Or was this who you were the past 20, 30, 40 years?"

Adlai Trone: "I know who the coach was, but I don’t know who the senator is."

The Claremont Institute's leaders did more to normalize Trump on the right—then help his 2020 coup efforts—than any other think tank.

But now many of them are embracing DeSantis. And he's returning the favor.

It says a lot about his worldview.

vice.com/en/article/y3w… Claremont recently opened its first state-based office in its history in FL, and DeSantis rolled out the red carpet.

He's involved them in his hostile takeover of New College, his push to end DEI programs and a K-12 civics program.

They're involved in his nascent campaign too.

This week's election for RNC chair will likely feature something we haven't seen in some time:

Mike Lindell says he'll admit election defeat.

"Of course I would accept it," he told me. "There’s no machines involved."

vice.com/en/article/m7g… Lindell has exactly one public supporter at the RNC out of 168 voting members.

I asked him who else is backing him.

“I wouldn’t tell you that in a million years. What, so you could go attack them? I’m not stupid. You guys must really think I’m dumb."

Get ready for a long, ugly election week(s).

Trump and his allies have spent two-plus years plotting to turn states with slower vote counts into scenes of chaotic protest, last-minute lawsuits and outright rejections of the democratic process.

vice.com/en/article/v7v… Former DOJ Voting Rights attorney @beckerdavidj:

“I'm very concerned about the possibility of violence in the post-election period incited by losing candidates."

Blake Masters explicitly called to fire all the U.S. military generals at least seven times over a span of eight months.

“I would love to see all the generals get fired. You take the most conservative colonels, you promote them to general."

vice.com/en/article/dy7… 9/22: "You probably want to fire most or all the generals and replace them with apolitical colonels, who will probably have conservative politics."

2/22: "It means purging the military of the left-wing generals..There's a lot of center-right or apolitical colonels"

I took a deep dive into Toni Shuppe, a top Doug Mastriano ally who's rumored to be his pick to run Pennsylvania's election system.

She's repeatedly pushed QAnon-linked conspiracy theories and credits her political awakening to a wild QAnon video.

vice.com/en/article/jgp… Shuppe in her own words:

“After I pulled an all nighter watching The Fall of the Cabal, I was wrecked. Between the compelling evidence indicating that the migrant caravan in 2018 was totally staged, to the bone chilling saga of Pizzagate..."

A half-dozen GOP Senate candidates are pushing the conspiracy theory that Democrats want to import massive numbers of immigrants to seize control of the country electorally—a claim rooted in the white supremacist Great Replacement theory.

vice.com/en/article/n7n… JD Vance (OH): "You’re talking about a shift in the democratic makeup of this country that would mean we never win."
Blake Masters (AZ): "Democrats, they hope to just change the demographics of our country."
Ron Johnson (WI): "Why? ...to ensure they stay in power forever?"

Former NSC adviser Alexander Vindman was key in exposing Trump's 2019 attempt to extort Ukraine & in his 1st impeachment.

"It’s because of Trump’s corruption that we have a less capable, less prepared Ukraine," @AVindman told me. vice.com/en/article/n7n… @AVindman told me that Trump's delay in military aid "absolutely" hurt Ukraine's ability to defend itself and that there was "no question" it emboldened Vladimir Putin.

Wisconsin Republicans are at each other's throats this week after Trump blasted their draft election bill.

"The conspiracy theorists have taken over the party," state Sen. Kathy Bernier, whose bill Trump attacked, told me.

vice.com/en/article/dyp… Someone leaked GOP leaders' election proposal to the Gateway Pundit, Trump called them "fools," they stripped a pro-Trump legislator of his only staffer and he accused them of colluding with Hillary Clinton, then he tried to reverse Biden's 2020 win. It's a total mess.

The Lincoln Project and Dem operative @lawindsor hired operatives to pose as tiki torch-wielding white supremacists at @GlennYoungkin's Charlottesville rally today.

They only took credit/blame after I told them I IDed someone in the photo.

vice.com/en/article/3ab… @lawindsor: “In my capacity as a communications consultant, I worked with the Lincoln Project to coordinate this action. I join them in the fight to defend our democracy from rightwing extremists and in calling for Glenn Youngkin to denounce Trump’s ‘very fine people.'"

So why is a swing-district House GOP candidate speaking at a fringe church that worships with AR-15s? Hint: They were both in Washington on January 6.

vice.com/en/article/epn… .@DanielsCongress has mocked the Capitol police and accused Gen. Mark Milley or organizing a "coup" against Trump. Rod of Iron Ministries, an offshoot of the Moonies, is having him this weekend at a "Freedom Festival." Other guest include Steve Bannon and Dana Loesch.

Trump is racing to endorse candidates who could help him try to rig 2024—and increasingly turning his attention down-ballot.

He's stumping in Georgia tomorrow—and recently backed candidates to run election systems in other crucial swing states.

vice.com/en/article/g5g… Trump's Saturday rally is for Jody "This is our 1776" Hice against GA SOS Brad Raffensperger, and for lie-backing Senate candidate Herschel Walker.

And he just endorsed QAnon-touting Mark Finchem for Arizona SOS, and a Dominion Voting System conspiracist for Michigan AG.

Former Ron/Rand Paul & McConnell campaign aide Jesse Benton (who Trump pardoned earlier) charged with a new campaign finance law violation—soliciting a contribution from a Russian national. Says he solicited $100K, pocketed $75 for himself. Full DOJ stmt: justice.gov/opa/pr/politic…

https://twitter.com/kyledcheney/status/1440073570839777289

$75K obviously. Also indicted is former Ron/Rand Paul and adviser Doug Wead, also known for previous shadiness for secretly taping private calls with George W. Bush when he was his adviser.

The press conf defending the Capitol rioters that @mtgreenee & co. were holding was just abruptly ended bc protestors waving "traitors and rapists for Trump" signs and blowing whistles interrupted it. Right after Greene said "we won't be deterred" one of the staffers called it. Vid on @cspan: c-span.org/video/?513731-…

Do... do the Playbook authors remember Trump barring reporters (and, hell, lawmakers) from child detention centers two years ago? The story they're linking to shows the opposite of what they're saying. Trump said he'd start allowing press into detention centers after the CBP BARRED THEM for years. They'd allowed press into ONE facility, after immense pressure. cnn.com/2019/07/07/pol…

Trump State Department official Freddie Klein's alleged role in the Capitol insurrection isn't the first time he's shown pro-coup tendencies.

Klein repeatedly praised the Argentine military junta.

Turns out his uncle was a senior junta official.

vice.com/en/article/m7a… Three former State Dept. colleagues told me that Klein defended the Argentine dictatorship, which killed ~30K of its own citizens in the Dirty War.

"The views expressed were very sympathetic to a notorious human rights-abusing regime that came to power in a coup," one told me.

We've hit a historic new high in partisan polarization in the House. Just 9 Republicans hold districts Biden won, and just 7 Dems carried districts Trump won. Not a single Dem holds a House seat that Trump won by 5+ points.

(Reposting to fix typo in the Dem #) That's a HUGE drop even in the last few years. There were 38 crossover districts after the 2016 elections (13 D, 25 R). Now there are just 16.

As recently as 2009, there were 83 crossover districts — 49 Ds in seats Obama lost in '08, 34 Rs in Obama districts.

One more name for the list of potential Alabama Senate candidates: Former Trump state chairman Perry Hooper tells me he's thinking about running. "There may be 20 people running by the time the primary gets here. Hell, I may even look at it. I’m the Trump guy in Alabama." Hooper said he's "had people calling me since the rumors started" about @SenShelby kicked up a few months ago, doesn't sound super likely to run and plans to decide in the next 3-4 weeks. "I'll look at it. But it’s a lot of things I have to weigh."

Source tells me that roughly half the House GOP conference gave Marjorie Taylor Greene a standing ovation after she rose to speak a few min ago. Fwiw other sources saying it was likely less than half the conference but all say it was a substantial chunk of the conference. And came after MTG (sort of) apologized.

In about 24 hours, House Republicans will meet for the first time to discuss whether to punish Marjorie Taylor Greene — or Liz Cheney. Whatever they do, it'll say a lot about where the party is headed. vice.com/en/article/4ad… The most likely outcome: They don't do anything.

McCarthy hasn't indicated he'll move to strip Greene of her committee assignments, and it sounds like Cheney's foes don't have the votes to oust her from her leadership role. But there's a helluva lot of uncertainty.

Okay, why the hell did @politico hand its top newsletter @playbookplus over to @benshapiro for today? That newsroom is filled with such talented folks. We're 1 day after impeachment, a week past insurrection and stuff days to inauguration. 4 years and they've learned nothing. Seriously. It's not like Ben Shapiro doesn't get enough attention. His pieces basically dominate Facebook. And I think he's worth reading. But wtf.