Benjamin Mack

Peabody Award-winning & Emmy-nominated TV producer/director. NYC kid on a neverending mission. I root for the underdog. Anima sana in corpore sano.

[Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський @ZelenskyyUa]

Peace never comes through weakness. Today, representatives of the U.S. Congress were in Kyiv – a bipartisan delegation – and I am grateful to them for visiting Ukraine at such a difficult time. They asked: what is needed to end the war? The answer must be strong. There must be sanctions under the Lindsey Graham bill, there must be support for Ukraine in protecting lives, and there must be pressure on Russia for its war. And today, there was a conversation between the leaders of America and Russia. A conversation that leads to something different.

Recently, there was a European decision to lift sanctions on Russian oligarchs. Since then, Russian strikes and the torment of people have only increased. This past week alone, there was a brutal Russian missile strike on a residential building in Pryluky, aerial bombs were dropped on Kramatorsk – on ordinary city buses – and there have been constant attacks on Kyiv’s energy infrastructure and on the life-sustaining infrastructure in Dnipro, Kharkiv, Odesa, and our other cities. Dozens of people have been killed and hundreds wounded.

The Russians are compensating for their inability to achieve their objectives on the battlefield with this kind of terror. This year, Russia is weaker on the battlefield than at any other point in the war. That is why Putin is relying on terror. That is why he is relying on attempts to strike backroom deals to secure some form of pressure relief for Russia, in order to buy more time and more opportunities for war.

Any easing of sanctions against Russia without a clear and lasting de-escalation agreement with Russia is an obvious weakness. It plays into Russia’s hands – allowing it to kill more, wage war for longer, have even less respect for America, and inflict even greater losses and damage on the world.

Ukraine is ready to take symmetrical de-escalatory steps, and the American team knows our position. Our strikes on Russian oil refineries and other oil facilities are a response to Russia’s years-long campaign of terror against Ukraine’s energy sector. Ukraine will not set Russian oil refineries on fire if Russia does not destroy our energy infrastructure. This is the kind of agreement we are proposing to America, and we believe the United States has enough power to achieve such a compromise.

Gifts to Putin will not bring peace or any benefit to the civilized world. Russia will “repay” the diesel with further terror and perfidy. Allowing Russia to sell petroleum products is an investment in a war that must be ended, not prolonged. What is needed is real de-escalation with Russia on a reciprocal basis.

We count on America’s fair support for our defense of life, for our defense of people in Ukraine – and on the United States having a correspondingly strong conversation with Russia. A strong one, not a weak one.

[Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський @ZelenskyyUa]

Today, Russia expressed its thanks for the lifting of sanctions on diesel exports by dropping five glide bombs on residential buildings in Zaporizhzhia. As of now, sadly, twelve people have been confirmed killed, including three children. My condolences to all their families and loved ones. Another fourteen people have been injured, and two of them are in critical condition – the doctors are fighting to save their lives. The status of twelve more people who may have been there is still being verified. All emergency services are at the scene, and search-and-rescue operations are underway. Overnight, thirteen of our regions came under attack. Residential buildings, infrastructure, and railway facilities have been damaged.

Last night confirmed once again that in Russia, they take any easing of pressure to mean they can keep fighting, to mean they can keep dropping bombs on cities. Different signals are needed. Russia must understand that it needs to stop the war, and for that to happen, Russia must feel its losses. Right now, it is our long-range capabilities that are ensuring this. And we will respond to Russian strikes. I thank everyone who is helping.

[Chef José Andrés 🕊️🥘🍳 @chefjoseandres]

This is the biggest betrayal to American values, to democracy…. @SecRubio history will remember…..

[Mike Pence @Mike_Pence]

President Trump’s decision to lift sanctions on Russian fuel amidst Putin’s ongoing and brutal attacks on civilian targets in Ukraine makes no sense and is a betrayal of the legacy and leadership of the late Senator Lindsey Graham.

While Ukraine fights for its survival, Putin’s war machine continues to prosecute his terrorist war on civilian populations and innocent Ukrainians are dying every day.

Now, Instead of implementing the tough sanctions Lindsey Graham fought to his last breath to enact, President Trump has announced the United States is lifting sanctions on Russian energy, fueling the Putin’s war machine.

As I saw firsthand in Ukraine last month, Putin is losing this war. Ukraine has fought the Russian military to a standstill and reinvented warfare with drones taking the fight into the heart of Russia.

America should not be throwing a lifeline to Putin’s war machine. Now is the time to stand strong against Russian aggression as we did during the first Trump administration.

Putin doesn’t want peace. Putin wants Ukraine. I have no doubt that if Putin overruns Ukraine, it will only be a matter of time until Russia’s military crosses a border that our troops will have to deal with him.

America is the Leader of the Free World. For our National Security, for the security of our Allies in Europe including Ukraine, President Trump should rescind this deal immediately and return to the strong policies of our four years in the White House; impose harsh sanctions on any nation purchasing Russian energy and work with our allies to ensure Ukraine has the military support it needs to repel and defeat this Russian invasion once and for all. Slava Ukraini🇺🇸🇺🇦

[Tammy Duckworth @SenDuckworth]

Putin told Iran the locations of our warships.

Today, Trump rewarded him by lifting sanctions and allowing American dollars to fuel Russia’s war machine.

Our troops are in harm’s way, and the President cut a deal with the adversary putting a target on their backs.

[Chris Murphy 🟧 @ChrisMurphyCT]

The United States government is now a funder of state sponsored terrorism.

I know that sounds political and hyperbolic, but it is factually true. Russia is intentionally targeting civilians in Ukraine at scale, and Trump is intentionally funding their efforts.

[ben “reschultzed.com” schultz @reschultzed]

as of today, the post-9/11 era makes up exactly 10% of american history

[Evan Hubinger @EvanHub]

Jacob is correct here—we really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans! I personally think it is >10% within the next decade. I believe Anthropic is trying its best, but we do not yet have a plan to solve alignment for superintelligence and are not clearly on track to.

[Jacob Coxon @hilbertspaess]

The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade. This is not a marketing stunt. If anything, many executives and senior researchers will couch their phrasing in the press to sound sensible - but I hear the same people express fear privately. No other human activity poses this level of danger.

[Jacob Coxon @hilbertspaess]

Do not underestimate the power of this technology. These will soon be superhuman systems that can hack anything, revolutionize any field overnight, and acquire real power and resources. We have all witnessed the progress in each of these domains, and progress is not slowing.

[Jacob Coxon @hilbertspaess]

I resigned from Anthropic today. I spent the last three years doing pretraining research at both OpenAI and Anthropic. Neither company is acting responsibly. They are racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives. More thoughts below.

[Benjamin Mack @bennyjet55]

@SenThomTillis @JohnCornyn Coward

[Benjamin Mack @bennyjet55]

If you voted for this orange clown once shame on him, but if you voted for him twice? Well you’re just a fucking idiot.

[ABC News @ABC]

JUST IN: Capital One says it closed hundreds of bank accounts associated with President Trump and his businesses in 2021 "for anti-money laundering reasons," according to a recent court filing from the financial institution. https://t.co/5M3BVCQtJx

[David Frum @davidfrum]

The 20% who lived in the most pro-Trump places suffered 70,000 more COVID deaths than the 20% in the most pro-Biden places. Red America obeyed those who told them not to mask, not to vaccinate. They died for it. No, Fauci is not the villain here. https://t.co/7hxuP9yOfi

[Benjamin Mack @bennyjet55]

@HouseGOP Great, so what’s your plan with Putin & Russia?

[Benjamin Mack @bennyjet55]

So far Pentagon admits to spending more than $30 Billion dollars on an Iran war that was unnecessary and has also killed at least 18 Americans serving in the military. Imagine what positive impact all that money and time and effort could have had here in America instead.

[Benjamin Mack @bennyjet55]

@ESPNFC @franklinleonard Shouldn’t have shaved those sideburns. That’s a new look that just doesn’t work for everyone.

[Acyn @Acyn]

Mamdani: There is a term so often used to describe our nation and those who have shaped it: American exceptionalism. 

American exceptionalism, the conventional wisdom tells us, makes our freedom a little more free, is how we dug the Erie Canal and irrigated the West, is why children in far away lands grow up dreaming of one day moving here.

And yet the irony is that the story of America has so often been written by those who were told by others with power and influence and wealth that they were anything but exceptional.

For generation after generation, we have been told that when the world has sent its people to our shores, it has not sent its best. It sent Puritans and Sikhs and Quakers and Muslims and Jewish people who were banished for praying the wrong way, worshipping the wrong Gods, angering the wrong people. It sent peasants and serfs from who were treated as less because they hardly owned clothes, let alone land. It sent immigrants for whom power was something someone else had.

We are told that America is exceptional because we are richer, stronger, more powerful than everyone else.

The truth, my friends, is that America is exceptional because here, nothing is fixed into place. The frontier may be closed, we may have walked on the moon, but the work of fulfilling the values first enshrined in the Declaration of Independence-that work endures, my friends, and it belongs to us all.

It belongs too to our newest Americans, those standing here with me today, all of whom were recently naturalized. Nearly a decade ago, I too felt what you feel— the joy of no longer being just a New Yorker, but an American too.

[NoelCaslerComedy @caslernoel]

Dear younger voters who went for Trump in ‘24, watch the speeches of Prez & Michelle Obama & Mamdani today then compare it to Trump speaking at the White House this afternoon. Ask yourself what kinda world you wanna live in & what real leadership looks like. Then get involved.

[Darren Rovell @darrenrovell]

Well Done, ESPN.