Brian King

[Marc E. Elias @marceelias]

NEW: Friday night’s ruling marked the department’s 12th straight loss in lower courts in its legal crusade to force all 50 states and the District of Columbia to forfeit their voter rolls to the federal government. https://t.co/eBq5lJtb2X

[Jon Favreau @jonfavs]

Sweet dreams tonight everyone

[Chris Murphy 🟧 @ChrisMurphyCT]

Trump has turned the White House into a 24/7 corruption operation. This is a national crisis.

Trump thinks the public will stop paying attention.

So I went to the Senate floor to call his bluff. I told the ENTIRE STORY of his 500 days of corruption.

1/ Here it is - in one🧵

[Mike Levin @MikeLevin]

A brand new bridge between Detroit and Canada is finished and ready to open. It would speed up traffic for millions of trucks, cut delays for American businesses, and help the auto industry that employs people in every state. There is just one problem.

Donald Trump won’t let it open.

Here is why.

The family that owns the old bridge stands to lose business when the new one opens. So in January, they gave one million dollars to a pro-Trump super PAC.

Weeks later they met with Trump’s Commerce Secretary.

He called Trump.

Hours after that, Trump announced he would block the new bridge. The opening was set for June 12. It got canceled the day before. The bridge sits there finished and empty.

Now here is the part that should make every taxpayer angry.

Canada paid for the entire bridge.

Every dollar. And the United States already owns half of it for free. Trump is holding up a bridge we got for nothing, to protect a donor who wrote him a check, while picking a fight with our closest ally and biggest trading partner.

This is corruption in plain sight.

A billionaire pays, and the President delivers. American workers and businesses pay the price.

Open the bridge. A government should work for the people, not for whoever writes the biggest check.
https://t.co/9o9Gz9UrBo

[Hunter Biden @HunterBiden]

Dear Joe,
I wish I could sit down with you face to face and explain why so many of us were offended by the UFC fight on the South Lawn of the White House.
For me, it had nothing to do with the UFC or who showed up for the fights. The brand you and Dana have built is a bona fide American success story. More power to you. As for the fighters, in my book, anyone brave enough to put it all on the line in the arena is remarkable to witness. Their dedication and discipline inspire me. I don’t understand anyone who can’t admire that.
And as for the people who attended, I, for one, love Shane Gillis. I think he’s hilarious and brilliant. It was a show. A once-in-a-lifetime spectacle. I can’t blame anyone for wanting to witness it firsthand.
My problem is that I believe some of our public spaces are sacred. And unlike many of the great powers that came before us, these American monuments belong to all of us. Not to whoever happens to hold power at the moment.
The White House does not belong to Donald Trump. It does not belong to any President. It belongs to the people. To treat it as Caesar treated the Colosseum is antithetical to everything our founding fathers fought for.
This is not Rome. Presidents are not emperors doling out bread and circuses for the peasants. The White House is the People’s House. This “celebration” could have happened in any stadium within a stone’s throw of the South Lawn. No one would have had an issue with it.
But that was obviously Donald Trump’s whole point. By holding the event on the South Lawn, what he was saying to the rest of us is:
“This is my house. I own it. I will do with it what I please. I’ll build a colosseum and have the gladiators fight under my gaze. I’ll tear down the East Wing. I’ll pave over the Rose Garden. I’ll cover everything in gold and marble. I’ll erase the names of all the men who came before me.”
The fights were an exhibition of imperial domination, not a celebration of our 250th anniversary as a democracy.
The White House is not Buckingham Palace. It is not the Palace of Versailles. It is not the Forbidden City of Beijing. It does not belong to an emperor, or a king, or a commissar.
The White House belongs to us. All of us. The person who sits behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office is nothing more than an honored guest. A temporary caretaker.
The President is our servant. Not our Caesar.
Respectfully, Hunter

P.S. Cage match between me and Don Jr.? Your call on the venue. Anywhere but the South Lawn.

[Josh Reynolds @JoshReynolds24]

I still am struggling to wrap my head around the fact this is actually happening…

Don’t care what your political views are, EVERYONE should be absolutely embarrassed & ashamed that this is happening at the Lincoln Memorial & White House. What a joke.

[(((Harry Enten))) @ForecasterEnten]

Trump's "I love the inflation" is one of the most politically tone deaf statements I've ever heard.

No prez before him ever had a -50 pt or worse net approval in an inflation poll. Trump's done it 8+ times.

Trump's the only prez to ever hit 80% disapproval on gas prices.

[Jim Sciutto @jimsciutto]

We are ten years into allegations of widespread election fraud - only for elections Trump or republicans lose, mind you - for which Trump and allies have either not produced evidence, or claimed evidence which was subsequently debunked. And blatant contradictions - such as celebrating wins under the same laws and practices while confidently declaring theft for any losses - are now the norm.

[Polly Sigh @dcpoll]

I’m constantly amazed at how Republicans keep pretending that this isn’t the dumbest motherfucker who ever lived.

[Mike Levin @MikeLevin]

This is really stupid, and it’s not getting enough attention.

The Trump administration is pulling a working $368 million ocean monitoring system out of the water, equipment taxpayers already bought, built, and sank into the deep ocean.

And they are doing it right when the oceans are behaving in ways that alarm the scientists who study them.

Record-breaking temperatures.

A system of Atlantic currents that may be lurching toward collapse.

The response?

Yank out the instruments and walk away.

That is not budgeting. That is smashing the gauges while the engine is on fire and calling it efficiency.

For what? The Trump administration dressed it up as a “nimbler approach” and “smart lifecycle management,” which is fancy nonsense for “we shut it off and hoped nobody would ask why.” There is no return-on-investment analysis. They cannot show taxpayers save a dime, because the gear is already paid for and the science it produces protects real money and real lives.

The kicker: the same people killing the monitors want to mine the deep sea for minerals. So they are destroying the only tools that could measure what that mining does. That is not an accident.

That is the point. You cannot see the damage if you break the instruments first.
https://t.co/MzE4AW1QBv

[John Harwood @JohnJHarwood]

Fox is disgusting trash

[Team Ossoff @TeamOssoff]

Ossoff: Last September, the President of Kazakhstan calls Donald Trump and says he wants to grant tungsten mining rights to an American company. And the very next month, Eric and Don Jr. get a stake in the American company pursuing the mining deal.

Six days later, six days after Prince Eric and Prince Don get their stake, Kazakhstan announces this company will get, “The largest known undeveloped tungsten resource in the world.” A few more weeks go by, and then the U.S. government, run by their father, sets aside 1.6 billion of your tax dollars to fund and finance their mining project. In Kazakhstan.

All this while you pay more for gas, for groceries, for health care, and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

[Mike Young @micyoung75]

Nick Bilton walked into the 60 Minutes newsroom four days after Bari Weiss fired the people who built the show. He tried to pretend he didn't know about the firings. Scott Pelley, in front of the remaining staff, would not let that stand.

"She loves 60 Minutes," Bilton said. "She's murdering 60 Minutes," Pelley said back. "She does not love this place. She was brought in to kill it - and she's doing exactly that."

One of Weiss's lieutenants kept interrupting to say Pelley was being rude. Pelley kept going.

JVL's framing is the right one. The corrupter depends on the existing institution being too polite to say the obvious thing out loud. Christopher Wray resigned quietly to "preserve the integrity of the FBI." John Kelly gave print interviews after he left. Thom Tillis, John Cornyn, Mitch McConnell, Jim Mattis, Bill Barr - all of them saw it. All of them objected privately. None of them said it in the room where it was happening, to the person doing it, while the cameras were still running.

Pelley said it in the room. To the person's face. In front of witnesses. While he still worked there.

That is a different thing entirely. Not a memoir. Not an anonymous source in a tell-all. Not a carefully worded statement issued after the resignation letter was already filed. The true thing, said out loud, to the people who needed to hear it, at the moment it could still matter.

Authoritarianism counts on politesse. It counts on people deciding the fight isn't worth the awkwardness, the career risk, the label of being difficult. Scott Pelley decided it was worth it. The republic needs more of that calculation to come out the same way.

[Matt Royer @royermattw]

Every time the shadow docket has touched a contested map, the outcome favors Republicans.

Texas gerrymander: allowed.

New York Democratic flip: blocked.

Louisiana: VRA gutted.

Virginia Democratic map: refused to save it.

Alabama: a Black district erased.

Same direction every time.

[Variety @Variety]

Fired "60 Minutes" journalist Scott Pelley says CBS News boss Bari Weiss is lying when she says there was an effort to "find a way back" for him.

"At no point did anyone in the meeting suggest there could be steps taken by either side that would lead to a resolution. Weiss and Tom Cibrowski were openly hostile from the start. 'Firing' was raised by Cibrowski in the first 15 seconds. No CBS executive, at any time, suggested 'a way back.' To say so now is disingenuous. And they know it. In fact, Weiss, Cibrowski and Nick Bilton refused to answer my questions. I asked Weiss a number of questions about why she fired the entire senior staff of '60 Minutes' a few days before and without cause. 'I'm not answering that question,' she said... These executives cannot gain the trust of the staff with lies. This is antithetical to everything we stand for and reveals contempt for what journalists do."

https://t.co/UNDmIyCPBt

[Tommy Vietor @TVietor08]

BRUTAL indictment of @bariweiss by Scott Pelley:
"For my part, new management has instructed me to inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story. I’ve been told to include assertions that are unverified." Then it gets worse...

[Britni Danielle @BritniDWrites]

So Virginia can't use their new map, which was approved by voters. But Alabama can?

But sure, SCOTUS isn't "political"

[Drew Savicki @DrewSav]

A few years ago the Supreme Court struck down Alabama's congressional district map. Tonight they have upheld the very map they struck down.

[The Bulwark @BulwarkOnline]

"We should be clear: Bari Weiss is murdering 60 Minutes. She is doing so not out of incompetence or foolishness, but with malice aforethought. She is doing it at the behest of her corporate patron."
https://t.co/ptjRbzqB0k

[NYTPitchbot @DougJBalloon]

I’m Kid Rock.”
“I’m Naomi Wolf.”
“I’m Kanye West.”
“I’m Matt Taibbi.”
“I’m Catturd. Those stories, plus Rob Schneider, tonight on 60 Minutes.”