Friedman Unit

In the next six months I'll be right, or you'll forget...

[Daniel Dale @ddale8]

Trump’s egregious (repeat) lie about Jan. 6 in the new NBC interview he walked out of: “They had FBI agents ushering them into the building. They had FBI: ‘Go into the building.’”

There’s precisely no evidence this happened. DOJ’s inspector general found that the FBI had zero undercover agents in the Capitol crowd. Kash Patel has himself debunked a Trump-promoted conspiracy theory on this subject, saying FBI agents were merely deployed to do crowd control after the police declared a riot.

And of the dozens of Jan. 6 defendants who tried a “the cops let me in” defense, just one (1) was acquitted. Even in that case, the acquitting judge said that though the defendant reasonably believed he was being allowed in, the officers in question were actually overrun by the crowd and standing back reasonably and responsibly, not explicitly encouraging anyone to enter. (And they weren’t FBI.)

[Harry Sisson @harryjsisson]

Every single person behind this cover-up needs to be investigated.

[Ro Khanna @RoKhanna]

On the 100th day of the war in Iran, we know it was immoral, illegal, and unstrategic.

The regime is largely unchanged and Iran has fuel.

Gas and food prices have soared in America.

That's why @RepThomasMassie and I led a WPR to stop it that passed in the House. @FaceTheNation

[keepitquarterly @keepitquarterly]

SEC Rule S7-2026-15 would let public companies hide bad numbers for six months at a time. Insiders dump their shares before disclosure, retail buys the bag. Comment is open until early July.

[Scott Dworkin @funder]

CBS bosses ordered icon Scott Pelley to broadcast flat-out lies to please Trump. He refused, sacrificed his 37-year career, walked out, and exposed the censorship. Read his final words: 👇
https://t.co/FnW3BoMymv

[Ted Lieu @tedlieu]

Dear @DAGToddBlanche: You don’t get to decide to “move on” from the Epstein Files or from following the congressional law. That decision can only be made by the American people and Congress.

You will be disbarred. The files will eventually be released.

November is coming.

[Brian Stelter @brianstelter]

"Do you have evidence?" "That's not evidence." "There is no evidence."

@kwelkernbc kept rebutting Trump's lies about January 6 and about election fraud, and he eventually wrapped up the interview, calling her "crooked." Here's the transcript of the astonishing final few minutes:

WELKER: Do you think anyone who attacked police officers on January 6th should get taxpayer money?
TRUMP: I wouldn't be inclined to say so, but I have to see it. I can tell you this: 97% of those people, you look at them, the FBI or whoever it was, cause you had a lot of crooked cops, you had dirty cops. Comey was a dirty cop.
WELKER: Well, there is no evidence to –
TRUMP: A guy like Bolton was a dirty cop –
WELKER: But there is no evidence that-- but there's no evidence that people who –
TRUMP: Wait a minute, wait a minute. Oh, you think Comey was a straight cop?
WELKER: We had 170 people who pleaded guilty to assaulting police officers.
TRUMP: Comey was a dirty cop.
WELKER: No, no, but the people who assaulted police officers.
TRUMP: They had FBI – listen to me. They had FBI agents ushering them into the building. They had FBI "Go into the building." Those people are walking around, they're looking, "Oh, isn't this nice?" They weren't in-- they were being ushered into the building.
WELKER: There's no evidence of that, sir. There's no evidence of that.
TRUMP: You had a bunch of dirty cops, and frankly, what they did was weaponization of our government.
WELKER: But sir, there-- there's no evidence of that. More than a thousand people pleaded guilty to crimes –
TRUMP: No, well, yeah, no, there's none. You know what they do?
WELKER: Would you –
TRUMP: Try looking at the tapes one time.
WELKER: Would you take it off the table?
TRUMP: Look at the tapes one time.
WELKER: Okay, but 172 people did plead guilty to assaulting police officers.
TRUMP: You know why they pled guilty?
WELKER: Should they be exempt –
TRUMP: Because they told they were going to jail for 15 years –
WELKER: – from receiving funds?
TRUMP: – if they didn't.
WELKER: Should they –
TRUMP: They pled guilty because they were frightened. They went down. They were ushered into a building. Many of them were arrested without even going into the building.
WELKER: You'd be okay with them receiving taxpayer dollars?
TRUMP: The people were destroyed by dirty cops and by weaponization. Many of those people should be compensated. Now, with that being said, the, as I understand it, the weaponization fund was going to set up a group of people, people that could be picked by anybody, fair people, smart people, and they will go on an individual case basis.
WELKER: Okay.
TRUMP: Now, I don't know what's going to happen with the weaponization fund. I love the idea, because people like you, the fake dirty press, the crooked press, people like stupid Biden, he's not smart enough to know what's going on, but people that surrounded him, surrounded his beautiful Resolute Desk in the Oval Office, what they did to the lives of people, they destroyed people. They sent people to jail who did nothing wrong.
WELKER: All right, this is, just to be very clear, there's no evidence of what you're saying, but let me ask about Todd Blanche.
TRUMP: There's a lot of evidence.
WELKER: Let me ask about Todd Blanche.
TRUMP: Listen – listen to me – listen to me.
WELKER: Let's talk about Todd Blanche.
TRUMP: There's tremendous evidence. There's nothing but evidence.
WELKER: Well, it’s not been presented in a court of a law.
TRUMP: The election was rigged. It was a dirty election.
WELKER: Mr. President –
TRUMP: And it's happening again right now in California.
WELKER:  – you've never presented evidence –
TRUMP: It’s happening right now in California
WELKER: – that the 2020 election was rigged.
TRUMP: Right now, it's look at what's happening in California.
WELKER: Where's the evidence to that?
TRUMP: It's four days –
WELKER: The Republicans are doing well in California.
TRUMP: In California, it's, no they're not. They're dropping fast because it's a rigged election. Let me tell you, it's four days and they aren't even close to coming up with the –
WELKER: That's how they count the votes in California.
TRUMP: Do you know why they're doing that? Because they're cheating on the election.
WELKER: There's – What? Do you have evidence to support that?
TRUMP: It's-- all I have to do is look. All I have to do is look.
WELKER: But that's not evidence.
TRUMP: And I listen. And I listen to people. And let's see what happens.
WELKER: But sir, that's not evidence, and that's how they count the votes in California--
TRUMP: Do you think it's appropriate that they have an election and five days later, they're nowhere close to picking a winner?
WELKER: State and local officials acknowledge they are slow. They're urging–
TRUMP: No, they're crooked.
WELKER: – they're urging the votes to be counted quickly. That's how they vote in California.
TRUMP: They're crooked just like you're crooked, your press is crooked. And Meet the Press is crooked.
WELKER: To be fair, I'm not crooked. But let's continue.
TRUMP: Really? Well, you play right into their hands then.
WELKER: Let's continue.
TRUMP: You're either crooked or you're stupid.
WELKER: Let's continue.
TRUMP: You play right into their hands with this stuff. You know that these elections are rigged. Your network knows that they're rigged. Do you know that I won an election in a landslide and I got 94% bad press.
WELKER: But Mr. President –
TRUMP: You know why I got that?
WELKER: – you've never presented –
TRUMP: Because you have no credibility.
WELKER: -evidence. But you've never presented evidence it was rigged. Let's keep talking about, I want to talk about Todd Blanche.
TRUMP: You have more evidence, there's more evidence than ever presented.
WELKER: Let's talk about--
TRUMP: Your elections in this country –
WELKER: – you went to court.
TRUMP: We're like a third world country.
WELKER: But sir –
TRUMP: Your elections are crooked and you're crooked, and Meet the Press is crooked.
WELKER: But Mr. President–
TRUMP: And so is ABC and CBS and CNN.
WELKER: But Mr. President--
TRUMP: You're a one-sided crooked network. Sorry. Let's call it quits because I've had enough. Thank you, darling. Have a good time.
WELKER: Mr. President, let's – please, I traveled all the way to Wisconsin.
TRUMP: I've sat in the rain with you--
WELKER: I traveled all –  I know. I traveled all the way--
TRUMP: I sat in the rain with you for an hour.
WELKER: --to Wisconsin.
TRUMP: On and off in the rain, and I've given you enough time. You ought to straighten out your press, because you know what?
WELKER: Mr. President--
TRUMP: A country can never be great with a dishonest press.
WELKER: – we traveled all – listen. We traveled all the way to Wisconsin for this interview.

[John Jackson @hissgoescobra]

It’s incredible to have the President of the United States falsely claiming an election is being stolen, totally crumbling on-air, laden with heavy orange makeup and yelling into the ether like a sick old man. Oh wait, that’s exactly what he is.

[Niall Stanage @NiallStanage]

This is a devastating interview.

Scott Pelley tells the NYT that Bari Weiss directly put a “thumb on the scale” for Trump over the killing of Renee Good.

Here’s his explanation of exactly what happened.

[The Bulwark @BulwarkOnline]

Welker: "You insisted no new wars."

Trump: "First of all, I didn't guarantee no war."

Welker: "You said it over and over again."

[Holly 🇺🇸🦅 @Msdesignerlady]

@Acyn

[Acyn @Acyn]

Ossoff: He’s trying to put his face on the money. He's building a monument to himself . But see, Atlanta, he's doing these things now because no one will honor him when he’s gone… because he's a failed president and a national disgrace.

[Senate Judiciary Democrats 🇺🇸 @JudiciaryDems]

The cruelty is the point.

The Trump-Mullin ICE is wrongly detaining people… and in detention, they’re being treated in a way no human should.

Worms in food. No medical care. Poor infrastructure. Rampant flu and viruses.

Now, detainees are being beaten by agents.

[GOP Ls @GOP__Ls]

🚨 Republican Ken Paxton has been reported to the FBI eight times.

Each time by his own senior staff.

[bot blocker | блокировщик ботов @antibot4navalny]

17/
What makes them an inauthentic network?

🧩 ~80% accounts created on Sep..Oct 2024
🧩 25% replies posted at rate >200 wpm, impossible for a human typist
🧩 each bot waits ≥10s, typically 12s between its tweets
🧩 if 2 bots replied to the same tweet, a typical interval is 10s

[bot blocker | блокировщик ботов @antibot4navalny]

16/

Totaling at least 1360 fake accounts, the network is powered by LLM and runs under a day-to-day human oversight for over 10 months now.

Its 123K replies gained 4.7M views overall; nearly every second reply on the average was liked or replied to.

[bot blocker | блокировщик ботов @antibot4navalny]

15/

We reconstructed the above list of opponents, appointees and policies based on nearly 85% of bot replies, categorized unambiguously into 28+ distinct, clearly defined narratives.

Most likely there were no other narratives from the network within the scope that we analyzed.

[bot blocker | блокировщик ботов @antibot4navalny]

🧵 For Trump's admin, influencing its citizens with a bot network seems becoming an ordinary routine.

Today's US is one of the first G7 powers that uses bots domestically outside of an election cycle—what for a long time used to be exclusive to authoritarian states.

1/

[Caroline Orr Bueno, Ph.D @RVAwonk]

At this point, the allegations are just that — allegations. But they closely align with other recent claims made by Ashley St. Clair, and with the new counter-disinformation framework released by the State Dept, which among other things calls for using local influencers to launder official government messaging so it looks organic. Except this time, it’s aimed at Americans, not foreign nations.

[Caroline Orr Bueno, Ph.D @RVAwonk]

The leaked docs allege that the White House is working w/ an org called Vine and Fig Tree Institute to surveil, profile, & “go after” critics of Trump and Israel, using tactics such as burner accounts, AI content, & character assassination.

Details here: https://t.co/cFnH8T13Pm