Anne Applebaum

@TheAtlantic and @SNFAgoraJHU
Author of Gulag, Iron Curtain, Red Famine, Twilight of Democracy and now AUTOCRACY INC
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[Anne Applebaum @anneapplebaum]

American foreign policy under Trump is not isolationist. On the contrary, MAGA ideologues want to build an international empire run by far-right political movements who serve the interests of American crypto, mineral and tech companies, especially if they have links to the president. They think of themselves as "the vanguard of a movement that will alter not just America, but the world."
Read more here:
https://t.co/I1lNTvIPgn

[Sarah Fitzpatrick @S_Fitzpatrick]

*NEWS* :

[David French @DavidAFrench]

For almost my entire adult life I've heard elements of the GOP base blame failure on not being tough or aggressive enough. In the first two years of the second Trump term, they got all the aggression they could ever want, and the party got crushed at a level we haven't seen in more than 50 years.

So what happens next? With Stephen Miller and Jim Jordan, they double down on aggression. Nothing about those picks suggests the slightest sense that the MAGA base understands or even cares about what actually happened.

[Marc E. Elias @marceelias]

None of the NYT, WaPo, or Politico mention Jim Jordan’s key role in trying to help Trump overturn 2020 in their stories today on Jordan becoming House GOP leader. NYT says the move “signaled a desire for fresh leadership.”

Subscribe to Democracy Docket. https://t.co/7W0yoPHmq2

[Renee DiResta @noUpside]

“we don’t want you doing what we just did”

[Scott Nover @ScottNover]

Scoop w/ @aaronjschaffer:

Sarah Rogers, a top State Department official, took a vacation last November to the Mediterranean that was paid for by Irish billionaire Patrick Collison of Stripe. Rogers valued the gift at $11,900 in a financial disclosure.

https://t.co/tbMycAxuKV

[NEXTA @nexta_tv]

⚡️ Russian ambassador to the US has died — he called Crimea Russian and justified the invasion of Ukraine

Alexander Darchiev was more than just a diplomat — he was a staunch defender of Kremlin policies.

“Crimea is Russia, once and for all,” he said in 2014. In March 2022, he also confronted the US ambassador after Biden called Putin a war criminal.

Darchiev was appointed ambassador to Washington in spring 2025. He was 66.

[Radosław Sikorski 🇵🇱🇪🇺 @sikorskiradek]

Pan prezydent w jednym przemówieniu raz jest młotem na elity a raz królem, którego nie słucha magnateria.
Moim zdaniem to niespójność.
Zapomniał też dodać, że Pierwszą Rzeczpospolitą niszczyło nieodpowiedzialne wetowanie ustaw, często za poduszczeniem lobbystów i obcych państw.

[Michael Weiss @michaeldweiss]

New: The contents of a hacked computer belonging to John Mark Dougin, an American ex-cop living in Russia, offer documentary evidence that he worked with the FSB and GRU to peddle disinformation. He liaised with GRU Unit 29155 the originator of the Ukraine biolabs hoax, and his "moment of triumph came in June 2026, when information from his investigation was endorsed by @TulsiGabbard, who was serving as director of national intelligence in the Trump administration." https://t.co/yUTo5ZAEq7

[Anne Applebaum @anneapplebaum]

The more Trump appeases Putin, the more Putin demands

[Yaroslav Trofimov @yarotrof]

As they say in Russia, appetite grows while eating.
Russia’s top negotiator Medinsky says in Abu Dhabi that Moscow’s demands extend to all of Europe, far beyond Ukraine.
“The security system in Europe works very badly. The entire organism is sick. Ukraine is just an abscess that burst. The organism must be cured as a whole, a band-aid will not be enough.”
Dr Putin to the rescue of poor sick Europe…
The more Trump seeks to mollify Putin, the more megalomaniac the Russian demands become.

[Kate from Kharkiv @BohuslavskaKate]

Russian occupation is not peace. It is torture chambers, mass graves, children's abduction, rape, looting, and starvation. Russian occupation is a chance for Russia to erase Ukrainian identity by erasing Ukrainians.

[Anne Applebaum @anneapplebaum]

🧵

[Zack Beauchamp @zackbeauchamp]

On the right, there's an emerging line that true MAGA has never been tried — that Trump betrayed his principles, and cost the GOP the midterms.

This isn't really true. But it tells us something important about the post-Trump right.

THREAD

[Tymofiy Mylovanov @Mylovanov]

Russia's death registry counts 450,100 people killed in its war against Ukraine.

Hackers seized about 25,000 computers at Rosstat, the state statistics agency, and pulled 23 TB of data, including death certificates — Silent Crow and Belarusian Cyber Partisans. 1/

[David Frum @davidfrum]

Hegseth tried to send members of Congress to prison for criticizing him.

[French Response @FrenchResponse]

Such coincidences do happen

[Anton Shekhovtsov @A_SHEKH0VTS0V]

How Russian propaganda turned the Kraków mass shooter into a pro-Ukraine, pro-LGBT "left-wing terrorist". https://t.co/avAXrYST4K

[Kareem Rifai 🌐 @KareemRifai]

This is an absolutely insane explosive story by @Eleanor_Mueller that isn't getting enough attention:

ANOTHER Trump-world official, Alexander Alden, is implicated as a major player in the plot to align the US with Republika Srpska (the pro-Russia Serb-controlled separatist entity in Bosnia).

Alden changed his last name from Mulabdic to avoid being easily recognized as Bosniak.

Alden is currently a senior adviser for Rubio (while simultaneously being a senior counselor at Palantir) and is the nominee to become Ambassador to Azerbaijan.

Alden is part of the same cadre who were swept up in this story in recent months: top Trump advisors James Blair and Chris LaCivita + Susie Wiles' daughter.

Must-read the entire article, too many insane details to include in a tweet.
https://t.co/EShFRvp7Sc

[Max Tani @maxwelltani]

The Atlantic said it is beginning discovery in Kash Patel’s defamation lawsuit against the magazine.

“If Director Patel did not want to face this process, he should not have filed this suit,” an Atlantic spokesperson said.

[Anne Applebaum @anneapplebaum]

Can ICE be abolished now?

New season of the AUTOCRACY IN AMERICA podcast launches today, focused on "how we fix things":

https://t.co/PkdWuhE3pU

[Anne Applebaum @anneapplebaum]

Read more on the incompetence and wastefulness Kari Lake brought to America's foreign broadcasting:

https://t.co/wUPlyzAG7K

[Anne Applebaum @anneapplebaum]

Major Court decision: Kari Lake illegally fired the director of Voice of America, who can now return to his job

[Scott Nover @ScottNover]

Breaking: A federal appeals panel said Tuesday that Michael Abramowitz, the Voice of America director, was illegally fired by Kari Lake. A trio of judges unanimously affirmed Judge Lamberth's decision from last year.