Sebastian Smith

AFP Washington desk chief. Formerly White House. Formerly formerly: Moscow, Chechnya, NYC, Rio de Janeiro, US #localnews. You say Thor, I say thaw.

[Michael Beschloss @BeschlossDC]

Martin Luther King, August 28, 1963, in front of Lincoln Memorial at March on Washington:
"I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice."

[ferald gord @ferald_gord]

A Black man holding the same Senate seat as James Eastland, and James K. Vardaman, and William V. Sullivan (who led a lynch mob). America might still be capable of beautiful things.

[Sebastian Smith @SebastianAFP]

How big and frequent are these balls going to be?!

[Ben Page @Benpagelondon]

Wow the Whitehouse Ball room is….quite something. To put it mildly

[Sebastian Smith @SebastianAFP]

What Kushner and Witkoff achieved is… an offer by the Russians to agree to peace across Europe if first they carve up Europe, starting with all the swaths of Ukraine they have already invaded and destroyed.

[Liza Fokht @lizafokht]

Here is the unedited translation of what Russia’s chief negotiator Vladimir Medinsky told Russian state TV today.

Q: A significant part of the territory of Kharkiv Oblast and other regions is currently under Russian control. Were exchanges of these territories discussed during the negotiations, and for which territories?

Medinsky: The topic of possible territorial exchanges is periodically floated by various sides. Let me remind you of the history. After Ukraine's incursion into Kursk Oblast, a decision was made — the president has spoken about this more than once — to create a security zone along the border with the Russian Federation.

This zone is now quite substantial. It is expanding, and it will continue to expand. I don't see any possibility of exchanging these territories.

And again, as our leader so vividly put it, wherever the foot of our Russian soldier has stepped, that is ours.

As the entire history of Russia has shown, every time we have shown a willingness to make concessions, to agree to compromises that are disadvantageous to us, to demonstrate peaceful intentions and a willingness to yield — every time we have taken steps towards our opponents to avoid certain hardships, as we thought, the result has been that we have ended up with even greater hardships.

As the saying goes, we get both war and disgrace.

But whenever Russia has demonstrated firmness and confidence in its own strength, as a result, all hardships have been overcome, and a time of lasting peace, tranquillity and development has come, both for us and for our neighbours.

Therefore, wherever the Russian flag has been raised, it must not be lowered.

The task is something else, and we talked about this today. The task is to create a system of comprehensive security in Europe that will become a new, modern Yalta and Potsdam. One that will be imbued with the spirit of Helsinki in 1975, that will reflect new, contemporary realities, and that will be fair.

If we manage to create such a security system, then we will ensure peace in Europe for decades, perhaps even centuries. That is our main task.

Q: At the very beginning of the meeting, you said some very cautious and important words: that we would try to move closer to achieving peace. Have you moved closer?

Medinsky: I think so, yes, but right now a great deal depends on all participants in the process. A lot depends on Ukraine, on the position of the United States, and on whether Europe comes to its senses.

In any case, all the objectives we have set ourselves will be achieved.

Q: Are you satisfied for now?

Medinsky: Only when we win and sign a peace agreement on our terms.

[Sebastian Smith @SebastianAFP]

From Axios on why Republicans picked Jim Jordan post midterms.
“We're gearing up for war. … we need someone who can punch hard, and I think that he'll do that," Rep. Randy Fine (R-Fla.)

Q: If the proverbial Martian came down, what the heck would he think of this country?

[Sebastian Smith @SebastianAFP]

What US presents as a deal, Zelensky sees as a shell game where Ukraine is the one being set up

[Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський @ZelenskyyUa]

Ceding Ukrainian land for peace is just abstract words. It’s not only about reality, even more about philosophy. Putin was talking about Donbas, but then he decided to occupy Kyiv, our capital. His words were about Donbas, but the reality was about Kyiv. He kept saying he was defending Russian-speaking people and then tortured hundreds and thousands to death in Bucha and other places. So that wasn’t about Russian-speaking people.

This is why when Americans asked, “Can you exchange Donbas for security?” I said right there, “Can you tell me what it means? What security? NATO?”

“Not NATO, but similar to NATO.”

“Similar? But you don't want the answer about Donbas to be ‘similar.’ You want a clear answer about Donbas. This is your goal. And this is Putin’s goal, for today. What will you do if we have security guarantees but not NATO?”

They took our nuclear weapons. I'm not a fan of nuclear weapons. I think the world would be a better place without them. But the Russians took our nuclear weapons, didn’t they? They did. Then they stopped our integration into Europe, then prevented us from being in NATO. And in the end they occupied us. This is why it’s an abstract question. Nobody trusts Putin to stop if we leave Donbas. He will pause. Then he will come back in one year, two years, or five years. And who will be guilty?

From an interview with DR Nyheder. (2/3)

[Yaroslav Trofimov @yarotrof]

Kushner three days ago: “Any arrangements must fully respect the sovereignty, territorial integrity, and independent decision-making of every nation.”
Kushner now: “While fully respecting the sovereignty and independent decision-making of every nation.”
Respect of the *territorial integrity* of Ukraine somehow got lost on the way to Abu Dhabi.

[Kaitlan Collins @kaitlancollins]

Trump nearly a week after the midterms: "Does anybody really believe that this 'Election' was honest. How could the Polls be so wrong???"

[Sebastian Smith @SebastianAFP]

Particularly extraordinary given he just elevated the architect of those policies to be his right hand man in White House

[Acyn @Acyn]

Trump: I think that’s something that’s actually doable.

Q: Doable to create some kind of legal status for the landscapers?

Trump: Yeah. When you go into a hotel and you have a woman that’s worked there as a… You know, as a maid, as a cleaner, as a this, as a that, as a waitress—a lot of good things, great jobs. And all of a sudden, they’re being taken out of the country. It’s tough. It’s a tough thing.

But there’s a group of people that I would say on the sort of pretty far right that would like everybody taken out.

Q: Do any of those people work in your administration? Are they in the building with us right now?

[Sebastian Smith @SebastianAFP]

Just utterly head spinning stuff on so many many levels

[Theresa Fallon @TheresaAFallon]

Great reporting by @nytimes. The US Commerce Dept was approving sales of Nvidia chips to companies in China which either did not exist, were on the sanctions list, and/or had ties to China's military. A brief visit by journalists in China found that two of the offices were just empty shells.

Was Jensen Huang a "victim" of a honey trap or was he just trying to make as much money as possible? Was his $25 million donation to Trump's ballroom the price of pay to play? In the US - China tech competition, has the Commerce Dept been co-opted by other interests? Here is a gift article which raises deeply troubling questions.

Explore this gift article from The New York Times. You can read it for free without a subscription. https://t.co/HEdygUov4K

[Aaron Rupar @atrupar]

Trump accuses Zelenskyy of showing “great disrespect” to Russia

[Anna Bower @AnnaBower]

Well, that didn’t last long.

Over on Truth Social, Trump is now amplifying posts that question the integrity of the election results.

[Sebastian Smith @SebastianAFP]

The president using DOJ to threaten lawmakers doing constitutionally mandated oversight.

[Sebastian Smith @SebastianAFP]

There’s posting memes of yourself pretending to be Jesus and then there’s this…

[James Talarico @jamestalarico]

I’m running for the U.S. Senate.

Billionaires have taken over Texas and taken over America — but together, we can take power back for working people.

Join this movement: https://t.co/Cam7Y742fM

[Sebastian Smith @SebastianAFP]

Not from the woke libs. From National Review: the heart of Trump’s voter collapse is disgust at corruption.

[Jeff Blehar is *BOX OFFICE POISON* @EsotericCD]

A lot of people are trying to avoid the point, maybe because it's only going to get worse. But I confront it head-on. https://t.co/vEUSHkDMma

[Caroline Orr Bueno, Ph.D @RVAwonk]

Three minutes after Pete Hegseth tweeted "Patriots in control" (a foundational QAnon slogan), Putin ally/Kremlin propagandist Kirill Dmitriev tweeted "WWG1WGA" (another foundational QAnon slogan).

They know what they're doing. This has activated the QAnon crowd to a degree that I haven't seen in a long time.

[Sebastian Smith @SebastianAFP]

The new Democratic Party: “voters don’t just want lower costs. They want us to fundamentally fix this broken system.”

[Pat Ryan 🇺🇸 @PatRyanUC]

While pundits do the same-old tired debate of whether Tuesday’s election results mean Democrats should be more progressive or more moderate, they’re missing the whole damn point.

I just won my swing district by 26 points. This was an election about POWER.

Let me explain. 🧵:

[Sebastian Smith @SebastianAFP]

@polidemitolog Travelers on Titanic bemoan late arrival after wet and tiring diversion into small boats

[Sebastian Smith @SebastianAFP]

Tbh pretty terrible headline writing

[Susan Glasser @sbg1]

The day after…

[Sebastian Smith @SebastianAFP]

One of the big reasons America turned on Trump in the midterms is the thuggish and cruel nature of the immigration raids, the shooting of Americans, etc.

So three days later Trump names that policy’s architect, Stephen Miller, as his chief of staff.