Month: December 2022

Eric Trump describes his blue-collar childhood: “I grew up wiring buildings with electricians, pouring concrete, doing tile work, running HVAC, cutting down trees, running backhoes.” pic.twitter.com/H2HsFsR92d

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) December 8, 2022

Uhm. right. He had a real hardscrabble upbringing.

Here are some anecdotes from Ivana Trump’s book “Raising Trump”

Ivana admitted that she “avoided play dates like the plague” while they were living at Trump Tower in New York. “The triplex was just too huge and lavish,” she said. And given her recollection of the kids breaking into her humidity and temperature controlled fur vault to use her designer mink, sable and chinchilla coats in games, it’s no wonder.

But only one visitor could come over any time – and he happened to be a global superstar. “The only person who had an open invitation to come to the triplex for play dates whenever he wanted was Michael Jackson,” she said. Ivana added that she never believed allegations of child sexual abuse against Jackson – who lived in Trump Tower at the time.

Birthday parties were OTT

Owning hotels had its perks. Ivana shared that when they owned New York’s iconic The Plaza Hotel, catering would set up a dozen tables in meeting rooms and decorate them with balloons and confetti for birthdays. The cakes, she said, were several tiers tall.

It’s no wonder the standard was so high – Donald’s biographer Michael D’Antonio has detailed how, when the former US president was younger, he would throw cake at birthday parties.

When the Trumps became famous, going trick or treating on Halloween with their nannies supervising wasn’t good enough. Ivana said that they were so worried, they would get their security team to follow them, incognito.

Ivana has admitted that being wealthy influenced the way they took care of their children. “My version of helicopter parenting was to bring the kids to work with me in the Trump chopper,” she joked.

Ivanka detailed in her own book The Trump Card that at the time of her father’s affair with Tiffany Trump’s mother Marla Maples, she was hounded by paparazzi at the school gates, with reporters even asking the then nine-year-old Ivanka about Donald’s performance in bed.

However, Eric insisted in a group interview in 2016 that while Donald “always had thousands of cameras on him”, they were raised as normal kids – “or at least as normal as you could be raised under the circumstances”.

Old childhood friends have claimed that Donald – who was himself shipped off to military school as a teenager – was for the most part absent from supporting Donald Jr. and Eric at their boarding school events, according the The Guardian.

A college friend of Donald Jr. recalled that on the rare occasion the real estate entrepreneur did take his son out to a baseball game, he would make him wear a suit, according to Complex.

Ivana also said in “Raising Trump”:

“I got total custody of the kids when I divorced Donald,” Trump tells The Post. “That was non-negotiable. But even if Donald and I had stayed together, I would have raised the kids.

“Donald was the kind of father who was at the office at 6 in the morning. I would take the kids to his office after the breakfast and they would play on the floor with the Legos while Donald was on the telephone.

“He provided for them and he loved them,” she continues. “But he does not know how to make small talk and he certainly was not going to say, ‘Oh, choo, choo, choo, choo. How cute we are today. Let’s go to the park in the stroller.’ No. That was not his kind of thing. He only started talking to them when they were in university and they could talk business.”

Once, during their brutal, bruising divorce that was on the front pages of The Post and the Daily News for months in 1990, one of Trump’s lawyers said Ivana was a bad mother.

“I was devastated,” she says.

Her husband called that afternoon and told her to bring Donald Jr. to his office immediately. After spending 20 minutes with his eldest son, Trump called his wife and said, “You are a bad mother. I’m keeping Donald Jr.”

Ivana was furious, but this tough lady, who was born and raised behind the Iron Curtain, kept her cool.

“Keep him,” she said. “I have two more to raise.”

Ten minutes later, Donald Jr. was back in her arms in their penthouse in Trump Tower.

“I knew Donald would not know what to do with him,” she says. “It was hurtful, but I could not be intimidated.”

Real, salt ‘o the earth stuff there. Let’s just admit that Trumpie had his boys to the “site” once or twice and let them climb up in the seat of a backhoe a couple of times before they were whisked off to their tennis lesson and then lunch at 21. We know what life they led. Anyone who buys this line of crap from Eric (which Don Jr had also peddled) is a sucker.

Does it mean anything?

Asked why the WH still expects to work successfully with Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ), Press Sec. Karine Jean-Pierre notes Sinema’s voting record has generally been loyally Democratic:

“She has voted with the president 93% of the time … We think that partnership will continue.” pic.twitter.com/QMW7c5Wv5B

— The Recount (@therecount) December 9, 2022

My question is, what’s in Sinema’s head? She’s not a stupid person and she has huge political ambitions (President Sinema?) She’s very obviously calculated her political career at every step of the way. And no — I don’t think this is about landing a big corporate/lobbying job. She is political to the bone. It’s all about positioning for power.

Josh Marshall has one analysis:

I first heard about Kyrsten Sinema’s party switch this morning and I thought, Holy Crap! I didn’t expect her to join the GOP. This reaction was largely based on my first seeing the Axios headline “Senate Earthquake.” Only it’s not an earthquake and she’s not joining the GOP.

At first I saw the key news that she would not caucus with Senate Republicans and then the real tell that she will continue to caucus with the Democrats. In other words, she’s going to do the same thing Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Angus King of Maine already do just with much less drama and preening.

Literally nothing changes. It’s still a 51 to 49 Senate, except the Democrats’ 51 senators are now made up of three nominal independents rather than 2. That ain’t no earthquake.

Far more complicated is the subject we talked about a few weeks ago. What happens in 2024? The first and most obvious thing this does is take a primary challenge off the table if Sinema chooses to run for reelection. (I think that is very much an ‘if’, which we’ll get to in a moment.) You can’t challenge her in the primary because she’s not running in the primary.

I’ve heard a few people in the Senate say this is a brilliant move because she eliminates the problem of a bitter primary fight with a stroke. She then dares Democrats to run someone against her. I probably agree that if Sinema wants to run for reelection this is her best move. But that’s only because all her options are terrible.

It is extremely unlikely that Democrats will agree to sit out the race – as they do in Vermont and Maine – to allow her to run against the Republican nominee. Her argument will be: run a nominee and you’re handing the seat to the GOP. Your choice. I don’t think that will cut it as an argument.

It’s possible her Senate colleagues might agree to this. Maybe Chuck Schumer and the head of the DSCC might agree. SenateBrain is a strange and unpredictable thing after all. But I do not think Democratic voters in Arizona or in the rest of the country (for the purposes of fundraising) will go along with that. There are simply too many Democrats who will never support Kyrsten Sinema for anything. In other words, if party leaders want to do that, or feel they have no choice ( if they want to hold the senate) I don’t think they’ll be able to make it stick.

So where does that leave things?

One obvious answer is a three person race that Republicans win because they hold their voters while Democrats split theirs. But I’m not sure it plays out in quite that way. Sinema is very unpopular in Arizona. One recent poll found that only 37% of Arizonans view her favorably. But those numbers obscure a deeper vulnerability. Usually when a Democrat has a 37% favorability or approval number it’s made up of strong support among Democrats and very low or close to non-existent levels of support from Republicans and independents. But in this AARP poll her overall favorable rate of 37% is matched by only 37% of Democrats viewing her favorably. She’s at 36% with Republicans. But Republicans like her for tormenting her own party. None of them will vote for her against an actual Republican. So in practice that terrible 37% number greatly overstates Sinema’s popularity.

This poll shows Sinema with 41% favorability among independents, her notional base. That’s at least a bit better and suggests some possibility of grabbing the center of the electorate. But many polls have shown her even more unpopular among independents than Democrats. Another recent poll showed Sinema with the strongest support from Republicans, at 43%. That’s compared to 28% of Democrats and 35% of independents.

You can look at different polls. But they all amount to the same thing: Sinema has no actual constituency in Arizona. So in a three person race, how much support does she pull? It’s quite likely she comes in third in that race. And once it’s clear she can’t win her support likely drops further.

Does she want to end her political career pulling 8% in her run for reelection? I doubt it. Then there’s the other side of the equation: can Democrats field a first tier nominee if it looks certain Sinema will insist on being a spoiler?

What I think we’ll see over the course of the next year is essentially a game of chicken. Who blinks first? Regardless, Kyrsten Sinema is not going to be in the Senate in 2025. It’s just a question of which set of facts gets you there.

I think he’s right. But what I don’t get is why Sinema sees this differently. Does she really think she can thread that needle? After all, she has two years to shore up her Democratic bonafides. Mark Kelly has won twice in the last two years and the Dems just swept the midterms. Why would she think this could be a successful path to power? I guess we’ll see.

But it doesn’t appear that anything’s going to change for now. So, whatever.

Sinema was not very popular with anyone, I'm not sure whether today's move increases or decreases her chances of winning another term (I actually suspect decreases) but they were low to begin with and they remain low. pic.twitter.com/r2tbstLBWz

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) December 9, 2022

You love to see it

They just don’t know who to blame or who is safe to ally with or throw overboard. It’s delicious:

A handful of Republican National Committee members denounced former President Donald Trump, with one pushing for fellow members and RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel to forcefully condemn his decision to host a pre-Thanksgiving dinner with antisemites.

“I am flabbergasted at the lack of outrage from Ronna about this,” Oscar Brock, a national committeeman from Tennessee, wrote in one of a series of private email threads obtained by POLITICO. “I tweeted to her yesterday, asking her to condemn this. We must, as a party, oppose all racism and prejudice, and condemn those who accept and endorse it, which includes inviting neo-nazi’s [sic] to dinner.”

The emails, which were sent to all 168 committee members’ email addresses, offer a rare glimpse at the agitation that is roiling among some in the Republican National Committee at a moment of intense scrutiny of the institution and the party it represents. It also brings to the surface tensions over whether or not McDaniel can or should lead the RNC in this current political climate, with an increasingly undisciplined Trump launching a third presidential run and the party coming to terms with midterm losses that many blame on the former president. McDaniel claims the support of a majority of committee members, but has recently faced challenges for the chair position.

The thread begins with a heartfelt message from committeeman Richard Porter from Illinois on Thanksgiving Day.

“I am sipping my coffee and thinking how thankful I am to be part of an organization dedicated to preserving, protecting and promoting our great nation, the ideals of which were so beautifully expressed by Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence,” Porter wrote. “I am so thankful to be working alongside each of you, and each of the other people in our respective states and territories, to stop the hate and defeat the anger.”

But days later, the discussion quickly turned to Trump’s dinner with Ye, the rapper known better as Kanye West, and Nick Fuentes, an avowed white nationalist and Holocaust denier.

“Is it just me or is anyone else struck by the incredible irony that Richard was writing these wonderful words within 48 hours of Donald Trump having dinner with anti-Semite Kanye West and Nick Fuentes, also an anti-Semite and a racist, white nationalist. All Republican leaders need to stand up and denounce Trump’s actions and lack of judgment here,” wrote committeeman Bill Palatucci from New Jersey on November 26.

Palatucci confirmed the authenticity of the email, noting he has long been critical of Trump in public too. In the email thread, his sentiment was echoed by Jay Shepard, a national committeeman from Vermont.

“As individuals and as a party we must not tolerate people like Nick Fuentes and Kanye West,” Shepard wrote. “We should never ever give them a platform for their hatred. Giving them attention only divides us as a nation. No Republican should be associated with them, its [sic] not who we are.”

McDaniel did respond to Trump’s dinner at Mar-a-Lago in a statement that said, “white supremacy, neo-Nazism, hate speech and bigotry are disgusting and do not have a home in the Republican Party.” She later called Kanye’s remarks “abhorrent,” adding, “there is no place for Kanye, Fuentes, or their views inside the Republican Party.”

But she did not mention Trump by name.

At the time, McDaniel was trying to navigate the fallout from the dinner while also managing several major other political projects. She and her team were securing support from the necessary number of RNC committee members to secure a fourth term. The RNC was also helping prop up Herschel Walker’s candidacy during the senate runoff election in Georgia, as private angst mounted that the National Republican Senatorial Committee was not devoting enough funds.

In an email to the same thread of committee members on Nov. 26, David Shafer, the chair of the Georgia Republican Party, outlined the challenges that McDaniel faced.

“I feel for Ronna in the sense that I have spent much of my four years as Chairman of the Georgia Republican Party dealing with various requests and demands that I use my platform to denounce other Republicans,” Shafer wrote, and went on to explain to his fellow members how the Georgia runoff “does not grip the national imagination the way it did two years ago because there is no way for us to get to 51.”

On Tuesday, Republicans lost the senate runoff, prompting a follow up email from Shafer the next day.

“Tuesday was a tough day in Georgia. Herschel was massively outspent, maybe 3 to 1 in a four week period of time and still held his own,” wrote Shafer.

It goes on. And on. They are a mess. Lol.

From bored housewife to national powerhouse in five short years

If you want to read a fascinating portrait of Marjorie Taylor Green, this piece in the Atlantic is a good place to start. I’m not sure it fully explains how this suburban Atlanta housewife became the shrieking harpy she is today but it’s interesting nonetheless. It seems as if she was just a bored wealthy woman who found herself on the internet and loved the attention. (She never had any interest in politics before Trump.) But I suspect there’s more to it than that. One thing is clear — she has often gotten excited about things and then lost interest. I wonder if that will happen here?

Anyway, here’s the conclusion and I think it’s on the money:

What Marjorie Taylor Greene has accomplished is this: She has harnessed the paranoia inherent in conspiratorial thinking and reassured a significant swath of voters that it is okay—no, righteous—to indulge their suspicions about the left, the Republican establishment, the media. “I’m not going to mince words with you all,” she declared at a Michigan rally this fall. “Democrats want Republicans dead, and they’ve already started the killings.” Greene did not create this sensibility, but she channels it better than any of her colleagues.

In her speech at the Cobb County GOP breakfast, Greene bemoaned “the major media organizations” for creating a caricature of her “that’s not real” without ever, she said, giving her the chance to speak for herself. Afterward, I introduced myself, noted what she had just said, and asked if she was willing to sit down for an interview. “Oh,” she said, “you’re the one that’s going around trying to talk to [all my friends]. This is the first time you’ve actually tried to talk to me.” I explained that I had tried but had been repeatedly turned away by her staff. “Yeah, because I’m not interested,” she snapped. “You’re a Democrat activist.” Some of her supporters looked on, nodding with vigor.

Whether Greene actually believes the things she says is by now almost beside the point. She has no choice but to be the person her followers think she is, because her power is contingent on theirs. The mechanics of actual leadership—diplomacy, compromise, patience—not only don’t interest her but represent everything her followers disdain. To soften, or engage in better faith, is to admit defeat.

I think often of Greene’s blog post from July 26, 2014, and the question she posed to herself during her crisis of confidence. “Why not me?” she had written tentatively, trying it on for size. I think of it whenever I see Greene onstage, on YouTube, on the House floor, making performance art of rage and so clearly at ease with what she is. Were the question not in writing, I’m not sure I’d believe there was a time in her life when she’d been afraid to ask.

There have always been these nutty types in the GOP. Michele Bachman comes to mind. But Green seems to me to be something different. I don’t think she’s earnest, as Bachman was. She is portrayed in the profile as being quite self-aware — she cultivated her online image and shape shifted as she saw her audience’s reactions. And she created myths about herself that have no basis in fact.

She’s more than just another right wing nut. And she really gets off on power.

Even as Trump’s massive nihilist failure is documented

The House of Representatives passed an $858 billion National Defense Authorization bill on Thursday and it now heads to the Senate where it is also expected to pass. This legislation funds a pay hike and aid for Taiwan and Ukraine, circumventing the battles that presumptive House Speaker Kevin McCarthy promises are on the way for all funding measures in the new Congress. But the Republicans did win one skirmish: they managed to include a rollback of the COVID vaccine mandate for military personnel on the dubious grounds that it is limiting recruitment because so many would-be heroes refuse to get the jab. (The Pentagon rejects that assertion.) Democratic congressional leaders obviously felt it was the better part of valor to pass the Ukraine funding before Marjorie Taylor Greene’s shock troops get veto power, so they let this one go.

This is purely political, of course. The Pentagon requires all personnel to take vaccines for any number of illnesses and military leaders obviously think this is ridiculous. But we have civilian control of the military for good reasons even if, from time to time, partisan politics wins the day. As it happens, very few service members have refused to take the vaccine and the military will surely be able to maintain readiness without the mandate. 

After all we’ve been through in the last three years, the anti-vaxxers are still claiming victims. There are outbreaks of measles and other dangerous diseases all over the country due to this new resistance to the science that has saved countless lives over many decades. There remain pockets of liberal intransigence on the subject, but resistance is concentrated mainly on the right among people who have been influenced by conspiracy theories and right-wing politicians and media. It’s tremendously ironic, since the political leader who can take credit for pushing a swift rollout of the COVID vaccines is none other than their Dear Leader Donald Trump. It’s the one positive achievement of his presidency, and it’s the one his followers boo him for. 

On Thursday, the Democratic staff of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs released its report on the government’s handling of the pandemic, focusing on the first six months. (It’s necessary to say “Democratic staff” because in the current 50-50 Senate the committees are evenly split and the Republicans, as usual, refused to cooperate. This problem will go away in the new Senate, with a 51-seat Democratic majority.) It’s a devastating document that describes, the first months of the crisis “one of the worst public health responses in U.S. history.” Multiple failures, including in threat recognition, cohesive response, clear communication and timely mitigation measures “resulted in the avoidable yet devastating loss of human life.”

We all saw this happen in real time but the details of how chaotic it was behind the scenes are downright chilling. The administration “failed to take decisive action and adequately convey the threat to the American people” and “remained focused on containing the virus by trying to keep it out of the U.S., rather than implementing needed measures to mitigate its spread within the country.” (You may remember Trump’s comments at the CDC that he was eager to “keep his numbers down.”)

The report cites example after example of how “contradictory and inadequate communications left Americans confused and unclear on what to do to minimize their risk and over time, eroded public trust in public health guidance.” That’s an understatement. Tens of thousands of people, if not hundreds of thousands, died unnecessarily because of Trump’s refusal to back the social distancing and masking measures that were all we had in the beginning as scientists were trying to understand the scope of the crisis.

And what went on within the Trump administration, as it abruptly shifted responsibility from one agency to the other and injected politics into every aspect of the response, was even worse than we knew. The report reveals that the administration’s “influence in CDC’s guidance expanded to the point where political officials within HHS altered public health guidance and reports.” Former CDC chief of staff Kyle McGowan is quoted saying that “every time that the science clashed with the messaging, messaging won.” It was a disaster. But the report does indeed credit the administration with quickly approving Operation Warp Speed, which, as I said, is the one big  thing Trump did right — and the one thing his followers resent him for.

One major finding of the report, as with others we have already seen, is that the government was woefully unprepared for a pandemic at virtually every level, even if we look past the Trump administration’s missteps. This goes to the heart of the troubling question of why the United States handled COVID response so much worse than most other major industrialized countries. The Government Accountability Office, House Democrats and the National Academies have previously issued reports that came to similar conclusions. None of those have gotten much press and it seems clear that the government, no matter which party holds the White House, isn’t going to take their recommendations seriously enough to prepare for the next pandemic either.

Perhaps that explains why Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is riding so high on his pandemic-response reputation. Despite the fact that Florida has among the higher per-capita death tolls in the country, DeSantis has bamboozled the media into seeing him as a crusader for common sense public health measures. Apparently his “maverick” image on the pandemic is considered the key to his potential presidential campaign. (Appointing an anti-vaxxer as Florida’s surgeon general was a sweet way to own the libs, you must admit,) Evidently, he plans to run to Trump’s right as the guy who didn’t succumb to all that weak-kneed, girly-man, Fauci-loving, vaccination nonsense.

It’s hard to say whether that will work in the real world. Florida voters sure seem to love it, so maybe that approach will be hugely popular all over the nation if he runs. It’s clear that America is done with the COVID pandemic and has simply accepted that it’s going to keep killing people at the rate of about 100,000 a year. There’s no discussion about funding any more major medical interventions or new pandemic preparedness. Vaccine manufacturers are pulling back. The scientific progress we’ve made is already slipping away. It looks like we’ll be dealing with the next pandemic on a wing and a prayer, all over again. 

As I write this, 1,092,099 people have died of COVID in the United States. About 1,500 more succumbed just yesterday. It is now the third leading cause of death in the nation. Are Americans really going to decide that a ruthless politician who embraced that as the new normal is just what the doctor ordered?  

Amy Schumer makes Hallmark real

Noelle Christianson (Ellie Kemper) heads back home for the holidays. While there, she recaptures her seasonal spirit, her Christmas cheer, and most importantly, she remembers why she moved out of her small hometown in the first place.

Wait for it.

May your holidays be brighter.

Kyrsten Sinema switches to independent

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema announced in an Arizona Republic op-ed this morning that she’s switching her party affiliation from Democrat to independent. Like Donald Trump, the only team she plays for is her own.

What other move did Sinema have? She’s widely reviled as a vapid attention-hound by progressives and by who knows how many more-centrist Democrats. The former Green Party member has proven herself a pain in President Joe Biden’s and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s backsides. She’s going to draw a primary challenge if she chooses to run for reelection in 2024.

Sinema has, however, “created a scenario where if Democrats run a candidate in the 2024 general they risk throwing the race to the likes of Kari Lake,” observes Matthew Gertz of Media Matters. The party switch is no surprise. Very on-brand.

Not the world I wanted to wake up in pic.twitter.com/ZCSlj5nVoj

— Will Bunch (@Will_Bunch) December 9, 2022

Arizonans, Sinema explains, “make our own decisions, using our own judgment and lived experiences to form our beliefs. We don’t line up to do what we’re told, automatically subscribe to whatever positions the national political parties dictate or view every issue through labels that divide us.”

Sinema eschews partisanship and extremes, blah, blah.

“I’ve never fit neatly into any party box. I’ve never really tried. I don’t want to,” Sinema tells CNN’s Jake Tapper. “Removing myself from the partisan structure – not only is it true to who I am and how I operate, I also think it’ll provide a place of belonging for many folks across the state and the country, who also are tired of the partisanship.”

Sinema’s move away from the Democratic Party is unlikely to change the power balance in the next Senate. Democrats will have a narrow 51-49 majority that includes two independents who caucus with them: Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Angus King of Maine.

“How does leaving the party change how you do your job?” Tapper asked the “moderate, centrist” senator.

“I don’t think anything will change about how I do my job,” Sinema replied.

So, why do it? Perhaps all the attention Sen. Raphael Warnock has received has starved her of attention. And as Gertz observed, the switch may shore up her flagging leverage in the Democrats’ 51-seat Senate majority. Plus, give her (in her mind) the only hope for hanging onto her seat in 2024. Kari Lake isn’t going away.

In a natural extension of my service since I was first elected to Congress, I have joined the growing numbers of Arizonans who reject party politics by declaring my independence from the broken partisan system in Washington and formally registering as an Arizona Independent. 1/3 pic.twitter.com/jUQHAeuxym

— Kyrsten Sinema (@kyrstensinema) December 9, 2022

Becoming an Independent won’t change my work in the Senate; my service to Arizona remains the same. Read my full Op-ed in the Arizona Republic 3/3 ⬇️https://t.co/P2JQXFT5IJ

— Kyrsten Sinema (@kyrstensinema) December 9, 2022

Sinema expects to keep her committee assignments. Meaning she will, like Sanders and King, caucus with Democrats, although she declined to confirm it. She will continue to defend LGBTQ rights, she writes, and work to “ensure fair and humane treatment for migrants and permanently protect ‘Dreamers.’ ” Again, what other move does she have but to caucus with Democrats?

It looks like the DOJ has lost patience:

Prosecutors have urged a federal judge to hold Donald Trump’s office in contempt of court for failing to fully comply with a May subpoena to return all classified documents in his possession, according to people familiar with the matter — a sign of how contentious the private talks have become over whether the former president still holds any secret papers.

In recent days, Justice Department lawyers have asked U.S. District Court Judge Beryl A. Howell to hold Trump’s office in contempt, according to the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sealed court proceedings. But the judge has not yet held a hearing or ruled on the request, they said.

The request came after months of mounting frustration from the Justice Department with Trump’s team — frustration that spiked in June after the former president’s lawyers provided assurances that a diligent search had been conducted for classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago Club and residence. But the FBI amassed evidence suggesting — and later confirmed through a court-authorized search — that many more remained.

One of the key areas of disagreement centers on the Trump legal team’s repeated refusal to designate a custodian of records to sign a document attesting that all classified materials have been returned to the federal government, according to two of these people. The Justice Department has repeatedly sought an unequivocal sworn written assurance from Trump’s team that all such documents have been returned, and Trump’s team has been unwilling to designate a custodian of records to sign such a statement while also giving assurances that they have handed documents back.

The precise wording of the filing could not be determined because it remains under seal. Trump is under investigation for three potential crimes: mishandling classified documents, obstruction, and destruction of government records.

Trump spokesman Steven Cheung said the former president’s lawyers “continue to cooperative and transparent.” He added: “This is a political witch hunt unlike anything like this country has ever seen.”

I think there’s more to this than we know. They must think there’s more there or at the very least think this “team” Trump hired to look for more documents is not reliable.

One thing is very clear — this case is heating up and it hasn’t lost a step since it was turned over to the special prosecutor.

The country is just too closely divided to play around with this right now.

Thankfully, the Democrats are at least worrying about it this time.

Democrats are trying to stop outside groups from forming a bipartisan presidential ticket in 2024, warning voters that the effort is political malpractice.

 A third party could hand the presidency to Donald Trump, warns a new report from Third Way, shared first with Axios.

The report details epic failures from past political efforts and warns about the unique dangers of an emerging outsider candidate.

“If a third-party candidate blew past historic precedent and managed to win enough Electoral Votes to keep any candidate from getting to 270, then the outcome would be decided in the House of Representatives, which is controlled by Republicans and where Donald Trump would prevail,” the report says.

Voters’ growing dissatisfaction with both parties — and with candidates considered too extreme on either side — has reenergized a quiet campaign to recruit and fund an alternative presidential ticket without a D or R next to their name.

Over the course of this year, the bipartisan group No Labels has been working to build a $70M operation supporting a third-party option in 2024.

No Labels didn’t rule out boosting an alternative to Biden should he run again, but told Axios that they won’t offer a presidential ticket “if that choice isn’t needed,” per its spokesman Ryan Clancy.

“Our citizen leaders from around the nation have no interest in fueling a spoiler,” Clancy said. “But if the public urgently wants and needs another choice, we’ll make sure they have it.”

The report from Third Way, a center-left political think tank, leans on several data points from past cycles to argue that “anything but a staunchly conservative third-party candidate” would hurt Democrats.

In the 2016 election, outsider candidates like Jill Stein and Gary Johnson ended up with 3% of the vote share or less. And yet they siphoned enough voters away from Democrats that it helped Trump pull off an unlikely victory.

George Wallace in 1968 was the last such candidate to win even a single electoral vote.

 Third Way’s analysis found that Trump voters are stickier — they like him more than Biden voters like Biden. So they’re not as likely to jump around.

In 2020, a third presidential option wasn’t present in the same way as ’16, helping Joe Biden best Hillary Clinton’s numbers in battleground states.

Democrats improved their vote share from that cycle in Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin amid decreased support for outside candidates.

Voters who say they don’t like either party’s presidential nominee tend to lean Democratic — “ideal targets for a credible third-party candidate,” said Aliza Astrow, the Third Way senior political analyst who authored the report.

“Jill Stein and Gary Johnson weren’t that well financed, so there is a lot of concern this time around that there might be a better financed third-party candidacy that comes on the scene with $50M,” Astrow told Axios.

God help us. But they didn’t mention the one person who could easily run and could peel off just as many Democrats as Republicans: Liz Cheney. Let’s hope they’re talking to her too. Thankfully, I think she really does want Trump out so if he wins the nomination it’s unlikely she wouldn’t see how destructive this might be. But she’s got an ego too so ….

The No Labels idiots have been at this for a long time. There’s a big article in Politico today about its toxic culture which I think is hilarious. They’re the “we can all find common ground people” and the top people are apparently terrible bullies who like to hire sexual harassers. Figures, doesn’t it?

The article mentions that noted bipartisan moderate Mike Pompeo is talking to them. You read that right.

They just can’t help themselves

It’s clear that the Republicans need to lose some more elections before they sober up:

The Republican majority in the House is planning to launch full-throated investigations into Hunter Biden and other political bugbears when the new Congress convenes in January, prompting Democrats on the other side of the Capitol to respond with the powers of their Senate majority.

[…]

Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine told The Bulwark Senate Democrats could pick up the slack where these investigations have fallen off in the House. Whether they will need to do so depends on which route Republicans take over the next two years—a serious one, or a frivolous detour.

“We may do some of our own work here to tell a more accurate story—that would depend on what the investigation is,” he said. “But if the House wants to go from a legislative body into a body that’s just trying to get headlines on weird investigations, they may feel like at the end of the day they can pat themselves on the back because they got on a cable news TV show. But I don’t think they’re going to be impressing their voters.”

Kaine added that the Democrats’ best course of action will be to ignore hyper-political investigations that come out of the House committees.

“I think if we do the work of a legislative body and produce some results, good confirmations, continue to produce bipartisan bills as we have, and the House is known for wacky investigations that aren’t really top of mind to anybody but an extreme view, that will show a real contrast between who the two parties are in ways that will not necessarily be harmful to us,” he said.

“I think if they spend the next year talking about Hunter Biden instead of health care, housing, and gun violence, we won’t have to do much,” Murphy said. “They may dig their own grave.”

“It’s a little hard in a 50-50 Senate” to increase the chamber’s oversight, Murphy said. “But we’ll do oversight when it’s policy related, but we’re not going to engage in witch hunts.”

However, Republicans appear to be all in on making the House agenda about Hunter Biden, examining whether arrested January 6th rioters have been treated unfairly by the Justice Department, and more.

“Protecting the president’s son who has committed crimes with Americans’ tax dollars is waste,” said the next House oversight committee chair, James Comer, in the Republicans’ first press conference after securing the House majority.

“Rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse will be the primary goal of a Republican House Oversight Committee,” Comer added. “As such, this investigation is a top priority.”

Even Rep. Dan Newhouse, one of just two Republicans in the House to survive his primary and win re-election after voting to impeach Donald Trump, told The Bulwark investigations into Hunter Biden are warranted in the new Congress.

“I think if the whole Biden family issue has some connection to the president, there may be a thread there that should be followed,” he said. “Some things I’ve heard and read appear that that may be the case. It makes sense I guess.”

Regarding the alleged Justice Department mistreatment of January 6th protesters, Newhouse added the issue should be examined for transparency’s sake but conceded he is unsure there is any “evidence of some wrongdoing.”

Let’s make sure we don’t get too comfortable with that Tim…

Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy echoed Kaine, telling The Bulwark spending too much legislative time on red meat for the party base will ultimately doom Republicans at the ballot box.

“I think if they spend the next year talking about Hunter Biden instead of health care, housing, and gun violence, we won’t have to do much,” Murphy said. “They may dig their own grave.”

“It’s a little hard in a 50-50 Senate” to increase the chamber’s oversight, Murphy said. “But we’ll do oversight when it’s policy related, but we’re not going to engage in witch hunts.”

However, Republicans appear to be all in on making the House agenda about Hunter Biden, examining whether arrested January 6th rioters have been treated unfairly by the Justice Department, and more.

“Protecting the president’s son who has committed crimes with Americans’ tax dollars is waste,” said the next House oversight committee chair, James Comer, in the Republicans’ first press conference after securing the House majority.

“Rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse will be the primary goal of a Republican House Oversight Committee,” Comer added. “As such, this investigation is a top priority.”

Even Rep. Dan Newhouse, one of just two Republicans in the House to survive his primary and win re-election after voting to impeach Donald Trump, told The Bulwark investigations into Hunter Biden are warranted in the new Congress.

“I think if the whole Biden family issue has some connection to the president, there may be a thread there that should be followed,” he said. “Some things I’ve heard and read appear that that may be the case. It makes sense I guess.”

Regarding the alleged Justice Department mistreatment of January 6th protesters, Newhouse added the issue should be examined for transparency’s sake but conceded he is unsure there is any “evidence of some wrongdoing.”

The Democrats have 51-49 in the Senate now and they should be prepared to use their power to offer the truth if these Republicans go as insane as it appears they are about to do. I think it’s a mistake to just assume the House members will make such fools of themselves that nobody will believe them.

The media is likely to be disseminating all their garbage to a wide audience and there must be an official response from the other body. Otherwise the right will get away (again) with the “where there’s smoke there’s fire” tactics. When people hear it in the NY Times and it’s only refuted by some anonymous Democratic Senator, even some non-QAnon types will start to think there’s something to it. They must fight this disinformation with truth or we’re going to have a problem.