The Media Started Capitulating to Trump with Russia Russia Russia

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I took a few days to go wander around Paris.

In the meantime (as Nicole and I discussed on Friday), the WaPo has subjugated itself to Donald Trump by spiking an endorsement of Kamala Harris.

Whatever else WaPo and LAT’s capitulation to Trump has done, it has focused attention on media failures this year.

I concluded back in February that the media was not going to help hold Trump accountable this year. I concluded that when zero traditional outlets pursued the story of how Donald Trump’s DOJ used a side channel to ingest dirt Rudy Giuliani collected from — among others — known Russian spies to criminally frame Joe Biden, with the Alexander Smirnov bribery allegation.

One candidate’s DOJ criminally framed the other candidate and it has been simply ignored.

That’s not the only way the media has failed. Hell, there have been maybe two stories about Trump’s abuse of pardons. There has been no scrutiny about whether Trump works for the Saudis, rather than the American people. We don’t talk about the fact that Trump stole 100 classified documents, and probably more we haven’t located.

This failure is not surprising. After all, the first act via which Trump cowed the media came with his success at spinning the results of the Russian investigation.

The Mueller investigation and its aftermath obtained legal judgments that Trump’s Coffee Boy, his National Security Adviser, his campaign manager, his personal lawyer, and his rat-fucker all lied to cover-up what happened with Russia in 2016. That’s an astoundingly productive investigation, one that should keep the issue of what really did happen at the forefront (particularly after Treasury confirmed that Russian spooks did get the internal campaign information Paul Manafort shared). And yet the media has never taken the time to fact check Trump’s Russia Russia Russia chant, via which he dismisses the result of the Russian investigation as a witch hunt. The media never calls him on that lie.

For whatever reason — perhaps ignorance, perhaps exhaustion — the media has allowed Trump to dodge accountability for the help Russia gave him in 2016. They have allowed him to apply a double standard on the Iran and Chinese hacks this year, when Trump invited foreign hacks in 2016. They simply ignored how in advance of 2020, Rudy Giuliani flew around the world soliciting help from — again, this is uncontroversial — at least one known Russian spy, right out in the open.

This is one thing I’ve tried to accomplish with the Ball of Thread series. Here’s how it worked.

  • Trump and the media let the Steele dossier serve as a substitute for the actual things Trump did, both before and after the election.
  • Trump turned an investigation into people grifting off their access to him into an attack on him by the Deep State.
  • Republicans in Congress picked up and expanded the Steele dossier substitution.
  • Along the way, these efforts did real, undoubtedly intentional damage to the FBI, especially those with expertise on Russia.
  • Bill Barr thwarted what was intended as an impeachment referral.
  • In his effort to kill Zombie Mueller, Barr created propaganda about the investigation and Joe Biden and laid the groundwork for January 6.
  • The Durham investigation criminalized Hillary’s victimization by Russia.
  • Bill Barr helped Rudy criminally frame Joe Biden.
  • The Hunter Biden investigation(s) sucked up all the oxygen that should have been focused on Trump.

This is the process by which Trump has stoked grievance out of a Russian investigation that concluded that five top aides lied to hide what really happened.

And the media, to this day, lets him dismiss all that by chanting only Russia Russia Russia.

The media’s surrender, led by Jeff Bezos, to Trump’s authoritarianism is not new. The media has been doing this for six years.

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90 replies
  1. Error Prone says:

    Without a specific link, I have seen reporting that Orban, in power, harassed enemies. Espeially media outlets that opposed him. Trump sees, he learns. Bezos sees, he learns. We are being Orbanized. Bezos wants his rockets to have a fair shot at contract launch things and Amazon to have favorable postal rates. Bezos sits on his world’s biggest yacht and believes things all over are okay it the yacht is okay. He’s gotten soft, a former risk taker.

    • harpie says:

      Here’s something from March [not directly about “media”]:

      How Viktor Orbán Conquered the Heritage Foundation Once the redoubt of Reaganism, the think tank has taken to promoting Trump’s favorite strongman. https://newrepublic.com/article/179776/heritage-foundation-viktor-orban-trump Casey Michel March 15, 2024

      […] The Budapest-based Danube Institute is largely unknown in the U.S., but it has transformed in recent years into one of the premier mouthpieces for propagating Orbánist policies. While it is technically independent, it is, as Jacob Heilbrunn notes in his new book on the American right’s infatuation with dictators, located “next to the prime minister’s building and funded by Orbán’s Fidesz party.” Indeed, the Hungarian think tank is overseen by a foundation directly bankrolled by the Hungarian state—meaning that the Danube Institute is, for all intents and purposes, a state-funded front for pushing pro-Orbán rhetoric. […]

      • earlofhuntingdon says:

        Given the Heritage Foundation’s present leadership, Orban didn’t have to lift a finger to get its backing.

    • harpie says:

      From 2019:

      Hungary’s leader is waging war on democracy. Today, he’s at the White House. It’s arguably the most revealing White House visit yet — and not in a good way. https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/5/13/18564378/donald-trump-viktor-orban-white-house-visit-2019 Zack Beauchamp May 13, 2019

      […] Hungary today looks like a democracy — there are still elections, and dissidents aren’t jailed. But since winning the country’s 2010 election, Orbán has subtly consolidated power and rendered elections almost impossibly unfair. He and allies of his political party, Fidesz, control nearly all of Hungary’s media; he manipulates the state’s economic powers to weaken potential rivals and empower his cronies. Widespread anti-immigrant sentiment, kicked off by the 2015 refugee crisis, has become a key propaganda tool [link] Orbán uses to legitimize his power grabs.

      Hungary is now the premier example of an emergent political model I’ve called “soft fascism” […]

    • dannyboy says:

      “Bezos sits on his world’s biggest yacht and believes things all over are okay i[f[ the yacht is okay.”

      What is it with these oligarchs and their yachts?

      Funny story

      Trump is in arrears on debt with us at Bankers Trust.

      He arrages to come it to discuss pledging more real property as collateral. Meeting in BT conference room at 1 Liberty Plaza (overlooking the river, to set the scene).

      BTCo don’t want no more real estate exposure, suggests pledgimg the yacht.

      Trump digs in. His properties are the “Best” properties.

      Well, to avoid the loan called, he pledges the yacht.

      Our negotiator realizes that Trump can’t get laid without the yacht.

      He says: “We’ll ensure continued maintenance, and when you return to satisfy the provisions of the Agreement, we’ll meet here so you can look out and see.”

    • gmokegmoke says:

      One person to follow on what is happening in Hungary and what it might mean for the rest of us is Kim Lane Scheppele of Princeton [@KimLaneLaw on Xitter, BlueSky, and Mastodon]. I remember years ago, before Trmp, Paul Krugman, when he was still at Princeton, turned over his NYTimes column to her so she could lay out what was happening there and what the ramifications might be. Prescient in every way.
      .

    • Magbeth4 says:

      I have been disturbed by the fact that the financing of our U.S. Space programs/projects by the two Oligarchs, Bezos and Musk, have replaced the creative contributions of multiple states with the taxpayers of this country supplying the talent and the money. We were able to achieve so much in a very short time after Kennedy’s vow to get to the moon before the end of (that) decade. We did it, without the Oligarchs. We did it as a unified nation in a patriotic, national effort, utilizing small businesses (such as making space suits) and larger entities in the aeronautical industries. We lost this unification because of Republican stinginess and anti-science political rhetoric. The ennui of the Media contributed, as well, since the “news” has to be new, right?

      Americans have been manipulated by Media for decades to arrive at this moment where a convicted criminal and insurrectionist threatens to lock up anyone who doesn’t look like him when he gets elected. Bezos’ latest abomination and Musk’s courtship of Putin is just icing on the cake.

  2. grizebard says:

    It used to be thought that political candidates in America were beholden (to some extent) to the needs of wealthy donors. Trump seems to have turned that right around. Now wealthy oligarchs like Bezos and Soon-Shiong seem cravenly beholden to The Candidate, even before they know for sure whether he will be elected.

    The Trumpistas obviously haven’t a clue, but how many ordinary non-cultist Republicans still don’t fully grasp that this is the dreadful prospect of a second Russia in the making…?

    • Matt___B says:

      Soon-Shiong’s daughter, Niza, criticized her father’s decision to quash the LAT endorsement of Harris. He had to state in public that she was not a member of the editorial board, has nothing to with the LAT, and she is entitled to her own opinion.

      https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2024-10-25/latimes-no-presidential-endorsement-decison-resignations

      (LAT is paywalled but this can be worked around by removing cookies and allowing ads, so subscription not required to read this, just a little effort)

      Woodward and Bernstein publicly criticized Bezos’ move FWIW. I saw Woodward in a long interview with Brian Tyler Cohen and found him to be curiously low-energy. Maybe it’s just his personality and/or his age (same as Biden: 81).

      Tim Snyder on American Fascism:

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2gJvnzv8gg&t=1s

      • thesmokies says:

        To me, the best part of the Soon-Shiong story was his alternative recommendation in lieu of an endorsement of Harris:

        He said they should “draft a factual analysis of all the POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE policies by EACH candidate during their tenures at the White House, and how these policies affected the nation.”

        “In addition, the Board was asked to provide their understanding of the policies and plans enunciated by the candidates during this campaign and its potential effect on the nation in the next four years,” he added. “In this way, with this clear and non-partisan information side-by-side, our readers could decide who would be worthy of being President for the next four years.”

        Wow. Why don’t news organizations do exactly that. I’m sure the LA Times hasn’t. Can you point to any news organization that has? There would be few ways better at showing the complete ineptness and dishonesty of Trump than to lay out his proposed policies (e.g., tariffs) and their effects side-by-side with the Biden/Harris ones. So, why won’t they do that?

        It’s the stakes, not the odds!

        • Matt___B says:

          What I heard was that Soon-Shiong and Trump are buddies – they have private dinners together, he’s been to Mar a Lago. Having made his oligarchic fortune in biotech holding multiple patents on promising cancer treatments, some say he’s been angling for the Secretary of HHS in a Trump administration. Of course, he’d have to duke it out with RFK Jr., in that case…RFK is crazier, so he’d probably win out.

          Anyway, Soon-Shiong sees even greater things in his future beyond his already-impressive empire, and he doesn’t want to close any doors on that – might as well be a hedge-fundie with that attitude.

        • bgThenNow says:

          I can’t stand to hear him say nu-cu-lar. It makes me crazy. He said it over and over in an interview I heard. GWB did the same. Nu- clee-ar.

  3. earlofhuntingdon says:

    “I took a few days to go wander around Paris.”

    The mind reels. Proust, Joyce, Harry’s, Les Deux Magots, Gertrude Stein, Shakespeare and Co., pain au chocolat, Owen Wilson’s Midnight in Paris taxi ride.

      • earlofhuntingdon says:

        Once you’ve seen one gilled Mexican salamander, you’ve seen them all. Hope the autumnal visit to the Jardin des Plantes was enjoyable nonetheless. Perhaps you’ll write a story about it.

      • Savage Librarian says:

        Marcy, thanks for the beautiful mind meld story by Julio Cortazar. Takes me back to my days as a student in an experimental filmmaking class. Cortazar almost makes the axolotl seem like a mind incarnate. Neural coupling is fascinating, in both good and bad ways.

        Thanks also for laying out a very logical progression in your Ball of Thread series. Very helpful.

      • Harry Eagar says:

        You could have gone to my granddaughter’s third-grade classroom in central Maryland. The food around here is terrible but we are rich in axolotls.

  6. Eschscholzia says:

    The Guardian is reporting that Bezos spiking the endorsement and Lewis’ announcement was followed the same day by meetings between Blue Origin executives and Trump, and that the CEO of Amazon has reached out to speak with Trump by phone : https://www.theguardian.com/media/2024/oct/27/bezos-washington-post-non-endorsement-election

    Beyond the superficial angling for federal contracts if Trump wins, I don’t quite know what to make of this. Both Blue Origin and Amazon (AWS) have large contracts with the Federal Government, but Blue Origin competes with Musk’s SpaceX, and AWS competes with MS Azure, which seem to have won most recent large contracts. So preemptively surrender to Trump’s authoritarianism not for big profitable contracts, but for smaller scraps, or just in hopes he won’t explicitly target them with immune “official acts”?

    • earlofhuntingdon says:

      Bezos and Musk are two of the wealthiest men on the planet. They are play a global game; Trump is just part of it. I don’t think we have any idea how many ways they can profit, avoid loss, and/or obtain new forms of political influence and control.

      • RitaRita says:

        Interesting. Perhaps instead of Bezos bowing to Trump, Trump was bowing to Bezos and the scrap that Bezos gave him was the non-endorsement.

        Or, perhaps Bezos realizes that Trump controls a large group capable of violence and Bezos wants to make sure their rage remains directed at the wrong people.

    • SteveBev says:

      Will Lewis statement is calculated to create the *impression* 1 that Bezos played no part in the decision to spike, and 2 that it was Lewis’s decision alone. Yet it curiously falls short of expressly stating either point. If both those points were true, then one would expect the matter to be stated clearly and directly.

      “Reporting around the role of The Washington Post owner and the decision not to publish a presidential endorsement has been inaccurate,“ Lewis said. ”He was not sent, did not read and did not opine on any draft. As Publisher, I do not believe in presidential endorsements. We are an independent newspaper and should support our readers’ ability to make up their own minds.” https://www.thedailybeast.com/washington-post-publisher-will-lewis-falls-on-sword-to-defend-jeff-bezos/

      But of course not opining “on any draft” doesn’t mean Bezos didn’t say “We aren’t endorsing Harris period”. And Lewis’s statement of his own opinion is consistent with such an order from the boss, and not particularly consistent with “As publisher I took the decision …”. And the preamble that the reporting had been inaccurate doesn’t alter the interpretation that the statement as reported here is calculated spin.

      • RitaRita says:

        A non-denial denial.

        But it it is true that Will Lewis made that decision without consulting with Bezos, then I would expect Bezos to fire Lewis forthwith. Owners are usually consulted on such decisions. Moreover, a decision not to endorse should have been made months ago in order to make it a principled rather than apparent ad hoc stance.

  7. omphaloscepsis says:

    A few snippets from this book published in 2000:

    Robert I. Friedman, Red Mafiya: How The Russian Mob Has Invaded America
    https://archive.org/details/red-mafiya-how-the-russian-mob-has-invaded-america-robert-i.-friedman-z-library

    “Despite Ivankov’s flagrant, multinational criminal activities, during his first years in America, the FBI had a hard time even locating him. ‘At first all we had was a name,’ says the FBI’s James Moody. ‘We were looking around, looking around, looking around, and had to go out and really beat the bushes. And then we found out that he was in a luxury condo in Trump Towers’ in Manhattan. *
    * A copy of Ivankov’s personal phone book, which was obtained by the author, included a working number for the Trump Organization’s Trump Tower Residence, and a Trump Organization office fax machine.”

    “Just prior to trial, David Bogatin had jumped bail . . . (Before he fled the United States, he turned over his mortgages for five pricey Trump Tower apartments to a Genovese associate. The mortgages were liquidated and the funds were moved through a Mafia-controlled bank in Manhattan’s Chelsea.)”

    “Stasiuk picked up Ivankov’s trail at the Taj Mahal in Atlantic City, the Trump-owned casino that the real estate magnate boasted was the ‘eighth wonder of the world.’ The Taj Mahal had become the Russian mob’s favorite East Coast destination. As with other high rollers, scores of Russian hoodlums received “comps” for up to $100,000 a visit for free food, rooms,
    champagne, cartons of cigarettes, entertainment, and transportation in stretch limos and helicopters. ‘As long as these guys attract a lot of money or spend a lot of money, the casinos don’t care,’ a federal agent asserted. Russian mobsters like Ivankov proved a windfall for the casinos, since they often lost hundreds of thousands of dollars a night in the ‘High-Roller Pit,’ sometimes betting more than $5,000 on a single hand of blackjack.”

    Ivankov:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vyacheslav_Ivankov

    The author:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_I._Friedman

    • JanAnderson says:

      One of Putin’s great successes was in exporting corruption to the West. The man knows his targets very well.

    • Lefty Throckmorton says:

      “Russian mobsters like Ivankov proved a windfall for the casinos, since they often lost hundreds of thousands of dollars a night in the ‘High-Roller Pit,’ sometimes betting more than $5,000 on a single hand of blackjack.”

      But not enough of them to keep Trump’s casino’s in business, since they all closed down.

      [Moderator’s note: Welcome to emptywheel. Please be sure to check your HTML for a closing tag; your blockquote has been edited for this reason. /~Rayne]

  8. dannyboy says:

    This and the entire Ball of Thread exposes the darkness to daylight (is this a WaPO knockoff?).

    Do you wonder why you are able to uncover the truth of the matter from publically available documents, while nobody else has?

    Could it be because they don’t want to?

    So let’s answer the question you raise together:

    “For whatever reason — perhaps ignorance, perhaps exhaustion — the media has allowed Trump to dodge accountability for…[insert extensive list of offesces here]”.

    Not ignorance,

    Not exhaustion.

    Could it be that they don’t care to and that you alone have pursued this without self-interest?

  9. Canine Whisperer says:

    Don’t forget that the media caved, in particular CBS, to George Bush’s desertion from the Texas Air National Guard. Dan Rather and Mary Mapes paid the price not Bush.

    • Lefty Throckmorton says:

      What you said only reinforced my belief that (if it gets into power in November) the Harris-Waltz administration needs to seriously also consider a big (and much-needed/overdue) round of media trustbusting, or the news will never get reported as it should be again.

  10. Peterr says:

    Will the David Hoffman and the WaPo be returning the Pulitzer Prize they won (checks notes) last year for (wait for it) editorial writing?

    The award citation describes the writing like this: “For a compelling and well-researched series on new technologies and the tactics authoritarian regimes use to repress dissent in the digital age, and how they can be fought.”

    Seems Bezos is fine with editorials about other country’s authoritarians and other country’s protesters, but there shall be no editorials about this country’s wannabe authoritarian in chief.

    • JanAnderson says:

      “…the end of the world is always a local event, it comes to your town and knocks on the door of your house and becomes to others some distant warning, a brief report on the news, an echo of events that has passed into folklore…”
      Prophet Song

  11. JanAnderson says:

    I picked up Timothy Snyder’s book ‘On Tyranny – 20 Lessons from the Twentieth Century’ a year or two after Trump won in 2016. How was it possible that so many many Americans voted for him? I was gobsmacked (like millions of Americans) really couldn’t figure it out, firstly given his weird fixation on Russia/Putin during the 2016 campaign (I mean, who was even thinking about Russia before Trump showed up?), not top of mind to say the least. Then the whole hacking and release by that phony egomaniac “journalist” – the very day after the tape of Trump displaying his predatory ways, his misogyny. I was looking for an explanation for all of it, start to finish. By accident I found Emptywheel, and read here as often as I could over the years. I never believed “the dossier” was anything other than a private eye’s notes – the salacious stuff sounded like some Soviet produced garbage. Raw intelligence is merely collected data – not information, it must be analyzed (that much I know). Between Marcy here (thank you), Rayne, and others – and Snyder’s book, I see the big picture.
    I’m rambling, so back to the media.
    They are self-censoring.
    Snyder calls it Obeying in Advance – his first lesson. Thank you for your kindness.

    • Lefty Throckmorton says:

      The real reason why Trump got into power was explained better here:

      Comedian Bill Maher took aim at left-wing Democrats on Monday night, slamming them for political correctness that he called a “cancer on progressivism.”

      While often taking Democrats’ side as a vocal critic of President Trump, Maher, who hosts HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher,” said in an appearance on CNN that Democrats “don’t help themselves a lot.”

      The longtime political commentator pointed to backers of Trump who regularly cite that they like his lack of political correctness.

      “The vast majority of liberals in this country hate it,” Maher said of political correctness. “They think political correctness has gone way too far. No one likes to be living on egg shells.”

      Maher said that he goes after Democrats because they “need some tough love, and I’m not going to stop.”

      He pointed to the news surrounding the 2016 election and the focus on Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s email scandal, saying that he believes the coverages affected the election.

      “They have some things to answer for,” Maher said. “I think this far-left political correctness is a cancer on progressivism.”

      Speaking with @ChrisCuomo, “Real Time” host Bill Maher didn’t just criticize President Trump.

      He also had tough words for Hillary Clinton saying she was a “terrible candidate” in 2016 and “committed obstruction of justice” by smashing up her phone and hard drives. pic.twitter.com/06RegN2sFg

      — Cuomo Prime Time (@CuomoPrimeTime) June 11, 2019

      …

      https://thehill.com/homenews/media/447843-bill-maher-political-correctness-a-cancer-on-progressivism-forwarding/

      If the American (and Canadian) people don’t start getting a lid on the alt-left extremist purist/firebagger/emoprogressive/frustrati magical unicorn pony bunch pushing ‘fascism pretending to be manners’ as George Carlin put it, on everybody, then the United States (and Canada) will be at risk of being dominated by authoritarian regimes like Trump’s (possible) and Pierre Polivere’s (possible) one for eons to come. No amount of blabbering by Snyder can change that. Extremist endeavors generate extremist responses, as what happened in Germany in the mid-to-late ’20’s/early ’30’s proves.

      [Moderator’s note: You’re brand-new here and perhaps are unfamiliar with the site’s policies. Your comment has been cropped at the ellipis because it not only exceeded 300 words but cut-and-pasted in its entirety copyrighted material. The original content can be viewed at the link you provided (where you will also note at the bottom of the page, “Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.”). Optimum comment length is 100 words; 300 words is overlong except when introducing new material on topic. Respect copyright by relying on Fair Use. /~Rayne]

      • Cheez Whiz says:

        Oh please. Maher is running the Limbaugh Maneuver of “let me tell you at great.length what liberals think and believe”, still effective after all these years. And Carlin is the hero/comedian who said “don’t vote, it only encourages them”. Comedians value getting a laugh far more than telling “the truth”.

        • Ginevra diBenci says:

          If only Bill Maher did prioritize “getting a laugh”–he might actually be funny again. What he does prioritize? Demonstrating his superiority to everyone, with oily unctuousness. He’s less than half as smart as he thinks he is, and that’s insufficient to carry off his act.

          So let’s not pin the blame for this on The Libs’ Purity Demands. That is not the problem. Wake up and pay attention. You’ll figure it out.

      • Trypeded says:

        Lefty, are you saying that Left wing political correctness was to blame for the contrived outrage over HC’s emails? That’s some spin if so

  13. Peterr says:

    The NYT has a new story with troubling implications:

    A memo circulating among at least half a dozen advisers to former President Donald J. Trump recommends that if he is elected, he bypass traditional background checks by law enforcement officials and immediately grant security clearances to a large number of his appointees after being sworn in, according to three people briefed on the matter.

    The proposal is being promoted by a small group including Boris Epshteyn, a top legal adviser to Mr. Trump who was influential in its development, according to the three people.

    It is not clear whether Mr. Trump has seen the proposal or whether he is inclined to adopt it if he takes office.

    But it would allow him to quickly install loyalists in major positions without subjecting them to the risk of long-running and intrusive F.B.I. background checks, potentially increasing the risks of people with problematic histories or ties to other nations being given influential White House roles. Such checks hung up clearances for a number of aides during Mr. Trump’s presidency, including Mr. Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and Mr. Epshteyn himself.

    The proposal suggests using private-sector investigators and researchers to perform background checks on Mr. Trump’s intended appointees during the transition, cutting out the role traditionally played by F.B.I. agents, the three people said. Once Mr. Trump took the oath, he would then summarily approve a large group for access to classified secrets, they said.

    This will scare the pants off every one of our Five Eyes intelligence partners, as well as every US intelligence officer, every US intelligence asset, and everyone who was considering being an intelligence asset.

    • P J Evans says:

      And everyone who knows anyone who’s had a high-level clearance, and knows about the background checks required for them..

    • Konny_2022 says:

      I’ve read the article before I saw your comment, Peter, and it gave me the chills. The paragraf in the middle

      It is not clear whether Mr. Trump has seen the proposal or whether he is inclined to adopt it if he takes office.

      seems typical Haberman. To me, it seems Trump may have asked Epshteyn how to circumvent the normal vetting process, and the memo is the result.

      The international implications would go far beyond the Five Eyes, I think. (Just corrected “will go” into “would go” in the last sentence, because there is still the “if” of Trump’s return to the White House.)

      • Rayne says:

        How hard would it have been for the NYT journalist who spent most of Trump’s term in office glued to his ass to call him and ask, “Have you seen this proposal, yes or no? Would you adopt such a proposal if you win?” and then report his response.

        -___-

        • ToldainDarkwater says:

          I don’t know, and I don’t care that much about Maggie Haberman. AND, it seems to me that someone could do that, could call up Trump and ask him, and he might respond with something about sharks and electrocution. He doesn’t have to answer anyone’s questions, except maybe in court.

          I guess I just observe that holding a billionaire to account is harder than it looks. They have armies of lawyers that help them dodge and weave. We have to not get demoralized or blame other actors when their attempts fail. Just consider how much money and power is pushing in Trump’s favor…

        • Rayne says:

          If Trump responds to a direct yes/no question with an answer about sharks and electrocution, THAT’S THE RESPONSE. REPORT IT.

          Don’t make this harder than it is. Stop giving permission slips to journalists to check out of their jobs, and to billionaires who are trashing democracy.

    • earlofhuntingdon says:

      Trump was famously frustrated when personal aides could not get or keep a security clearance, despite they’re having done things – alleged theft, domestic violence, financial crimes – that would stop anyone from getting or keeping one. His word alone should be sufficient, and that’s what this policy amounts to.

      Yes, US and foreign intelligence agencies should have their hair on fire over such a policy. For starters, it would leak like a sieve and be difficult or impossible to impose consequences. Trump and Putin would love that.

      There is precedent, but they had nothing like the impact of this. CheneyBush allegedly abused the clearance process, for example, especially at the State Dept, to geld critics and to dry up the informal grapevine that keeps DC agencies working efficiently. They also did it to punish critics, who, without a clearance, would have found it hard to stay employed outside govt, by walking through DC’s many revolving doors.

      Trump, however, proposes to simply do away with the system, in effect, birthed by J. Edgar Hoover during WWII to protect the bomb – and to vastly expand his own fiefdom. Its current reach is significant, and affects vast swathes of govt, defense contractors, and consultancies.

      Trump would internalize it and become its sole arbiter. Given his energy and attention span, that means people like Stephen Miller and Kash Patel would control it. There’s no good actor or outcome in that mix.

    • emptywheel says:

      True. But it would also give them cause to stop sharing with the US (as partners considered after Snowden and Wikileaks), which if Trump wins will give an excuse to break up the Five Eyes.

      And a bunch of experts will quit the US, go into exile, and be welcome there.

    • emptywheel says:

      Back on October 16, Devlin Barrett reported that Julie Edelstein and David Raskin have moved back to their normal roles at DOJ.

      Devlin is frequently wrong, and has been almost always wrong on this case. Plus, when Mueller finished, he spun off his existing cases, the most significant of which was Stone. Two people — Aaron Zelinsky and Adam Jed — went with the Stone case and saw it through until Barr killed it.

      The conflict that necessitated the appointment of Jack Smith ends, one way or another, on November 6.

      So I think Devlin may be wildly wildly wrong in his assumption that Jack Smith will stick around to see this through.

  14. Savage Librarian says:

    Paper Goon

    Say, it’s only the 4th Estate
    Failing by an owner’s decree
    But it shouldn’t be make-believe
    in a democracy

    Yes, if only a can-do try
    Spanning over a corrupt spree
    Would set aside the make-believe
    for our democracy

    With hand in glove
    It’s a flunky masquerade
    With hand in glove
    It’s a legacy frayed by a deadly blockade

    It’s a gaslit gish gallop world
    Just as phony as it can be
    But it shouldn’t be make-believe
    in a democracy

    It’s phony from A to Z
    This really shouldn’t be
    in a democracy

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwE_Dnd8reY

    “It’s Only a Paper Moon arranged by Rick Stitzel”

    8/29/24, rev. 10/27/24

  15. harpie says:

    WOW

    Inside the Movement Behind Trump’s Election Lies
    For years, Republican activists have huddled in video meetings to talk about remaking democracy and plan for the election. The New York Times has obtained the recordings.
    https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/10/28/us/politics/inside-the-movement-behind-trumps-election-lies.html
    Alexandra Berzon, Nick Corasaniti, Dylan Freedman and Duy Nguyen Oct. 28, 2024

    In the aftermath of Donald J. Trump’s defeat in 2020, one of his election lawyers set out to keep the lies about his loss alive.

    The lawyer, a well-connected conservative named Cleta Mitchell, knit together grass-roots activists, Republican lawyers, party officials and deep-pocketed advocacy groups into a vast national network. The aim was nothing less than remaking American elections.

    Over the past four years, Ms. Mitchell’s Election Integrity Network has done more than any other group to take Mr. Trump’s falsehoods about corruption in the democratic system and turn them into action. […]

    • harpie says:

      It seems that we might be talking a bit about
      [“We’re not asking you, honestly, Cleta”] Mitchell.

      • Ginevra diBenci says:

        Cleta has been as busy as a bee the past four years. The MSM has been derelict in not checking in to see what she’s up to, because you’re right, harpie: starting a week from today we will be hearing a lot more from (and about) her.

        And that’s if things turn out the way we want.

    • harpie says:

      These are the four headlines:

      1] Advisors Propose That Trump Give Security Clearances Without F.B.I. Vetting A memo circulating in Donald Trump’s orbit says that if elected he should use private firms to check appointees’ backgrounds and five them access to classified secrets.

      2] Racist Remarks and Insults Mark Trump’s Madison Square Garden Rally Many of the speakers at Donald Trump’s rally in New York struck offensive and vulgar notes, which Kamala Harris’s campaign moved quickly to elevate and denounce.

      3] A Trump Rally Speaker Trashed Puerto Ricans. Harris Reached Out to Them.

      4] Far-Right Figures Escalate Talk of Retribution Michael Flynn [FLYNN] has said “hell” will be unleashed if Donald Trump wins His close associate [RAIKLIN] has discussed plans to overturn the election if Mr. Trump loses.

      • dannyboy says:

        Daily News headline (By Associated PressUPDATED: October 27, 2024 at 11:44 PM

        “Trump’s MSG event turns into ugly racist rally, speakers insult Puerto Ricans, Blacks, Jews

        “Several speakers crudely insulted Kamala Harris, who is vying to become the first woman and Black woman to win the presidency, and a standup comedian made lewd and racist comments about Latinos, Jews and Black people, all key constituencies in the election just nine days away.”

        I know that I, for one, am sick of this “white replacement theory” that Jews and people of color are changing America’s racial composition by enacting policies that reduce white Americans’ political power.

        No Jews are orchestrating immigration to hurt the U.S.

        • earlofhuntingdon says:

          It’s not very original of Stephen Miller. Earlier American racists, who would have happily kept out Miller’s family, if given the chance, used it with considerable effect before and after the First World War, to restrict immigration from Catholic Mediterranean and Eastern European countries.

        • Matt___B says:

          Stephen Miller’s family is Jewish, but Jews who don’t vote for Trump are at fault if he loses. Mark Robinson is a self-described “black Nazi” and porn conoisseur. Donald Trump was chosen by God to be his vulgar messenger. January 6 was a “love fest”. Fetuses have more rights than their mothers.

          Wherever there is a will to power, it is uber alles and the prime motivator of all behavior, transcending background, family origin, and anything else…

        • dannyboy says:

          Keen observation.

          For other readers, not current on Nazism, here’s a snip form Stephen Miller, descendant of Jewish immigrants, last night:

          “America is for Americans and Americans only” a slogan that echoes, “Germans for Germans only” which the Nazis used to separate out (and slaughter) Poles, Jews and other ‘undesirables’.

  17. harpie says:

    Russ VOUGHT:

    “Put Them in Trauma”: Inside a Key MAGA Leader’s Plans for a New Trump Agenda Private videos reveal Trump adviser Russ Vought’s “shadow” plans for using the military on protesters, defunding the EPA and villainizing civil servants. https://www.propublica.org/article/video-donald-trump-russ-vought-center-renewing-america-maga
    Molly Redden and Andy Kroll, ProPublica, and Nick Surgey, Documented Oct. 28, 5 a.m. EDT

    […] In private speeches delivered in 2023 and 2024, Russell Vought, who served as Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget, described his work crafting legal justifications so that military leaders or government lawyers would not stop Trump’s executive actions.

    He said the plans are a response to a “Marxist takeover” of the country; likened the moment to 1776 and 1860, when the country was at war or on the brink of it; and said the timing of Trump’s candidacy was a “gift of God.” […]

  18. Harry Eagar says:

    I won’t quarrel with any of the criticisms of my field here, but it didn’t start with trump.

    Mencken wrote, in the ’20s, that a newspaper’s editorial approach is controlled by the business manager. That could manifest in ways that might surprise the libs here. Scripps, for example, was no friend of labor but his business plan involved exploiting openings in the evening paper market, which depended on hourly workers for its readers. Hence, Scripps papers were largely pro-union, at least until he got himself established.

    But Tom Wolfe wrote, in ‘The Right Stuff,’ about the press as the Genteel Beast, and he had that exactly right. That goes far to explain the reluctance — especially of the NYTimes — to call trump (or pretty much anyone) a lair.

    Or, say, a drunk. I could bore you with stories about that but perhaps two words will suffice: Wilbur Mills.

    OTOH, at my last paper, a cherubic little man came up to me on my first day, stuck out his hand, said, “I’m Colin Cameron. I’m the publisher. You write what you want.” Then he walked away.

  19. Franktoo says:

    Marcy: Based on what I hear from Trump supporters, your list of media failures is one of the most important posts you have written. However, this is IMO primarily or equally a list of failure of the Democrat Party.

    Trump was able to use the Steele Dossier as a substitute (straw man?) for the things he did, because it was the first thing the public heard about – before Trump was even inaugurated. It was months or years before the public learned about Papadopoulos and the “real Trump-Russia” investigation (Crossfire Hurricane). No one knows that Volume 1 of Mueller’s report doesn’t even mention the Steele Dossier. IMO, Adam Schiff destroyed the credibility of that investigation by misleading the public and the media about what the FBI had found, and forced many Republicans to publicly defend Trump.

    As with any bad political news that will come our eventually, the Dems should have had Elias immediately confess that he had paid for Steele’s services, BUT NO ONE TOLD STEELE WHAT TO REPORT. Paying someone report lies to your campaign and not using them before the election is absurd.

    The public has a limited attention span and capacity to absorb information. If we are lucky, they can retain the details of perhaps three “scandals” at any time. For many, the message they received most clearly that was reinforced daily to weekly is that the MSM is out to get Donald Trump. With Trump creating new scandals and running his mouth daily, who remembers, for example, that he posted twice in 2022 that the Constitution should be temporarily suspended so he could be restored to power.

    “The Hunter Biden investigation sucked up all of the oxygen that should have been focused on Trump” … because Hunter stupidly failed to take a great plea deal.

    We know that the Trump campaign was guilty of some sort of collaboration with Russia because everyone but Page initially committed perjury by lying to the FBI. Trump refused clear himself by testifying under oath. And because they asked the Russian ambassador to set up a secure communications link to Moscow.

    • earlofhuntingdon says:

      You might have missed a few posts here. When it came time for Hunter Biden to accept a plea deal, there wasn’t one on the table. The prosecution and the judge may be implicated in the mad dance around withdrawing it.

  20. greengiant says:

    WTAF why are you appending EW’s text with this blatantly obvious lie “because Hunter stupidly failed to take a great plea deal.”?
    Keep it simple, the oligarchs lie, the media lies, the GOP lies, Trump lies.
    If one can not determine the facts themselves they are in a faith based fake reality.
    A blizzard of shiny distractor memes can not shade that it is individual actions that
    win elections not “the party”.

        • Rayne says:

          While I appreciate that you’re trying to be helpful, commenters don’t learn if they don’t resolve the issue themselves.

          With 1,426 comments under their belt, greengiant should know how this site works.

          A refresher: the ziggurat effect of comment replies has been reduced to (4) wide. The fifth comment will not have a reply button. If commenters still wish to reply, they need to preface the comment with the name of the commenter to whom they wish to reply and the date/time of the comment. Details at #CommOpsNote.

  21. Challenger says:

    What’s new is Unlimited Immunity, Musk and Bezos see this. Musk will pay anything for the connection to it. Bezos knows Trump can destroy him and leave him penniless

    • Rayne says:

      You know what would be an easy fix for Bezos? Sell WaPo. Whatever agenda he thought he was serving with its purchase he has now trashed.

      • dannyboy says:

        But isn’t its value in its influence?

        Different than Murdoch, but won’t every oligarch need a newspaper, or social media?

        • dannyboy says:

          He did get some value as censor.

          And some blowback.

          I expect he’s honing his craft.

          It’s a new play for all of them.

          Musk didn’t do so well with X

          Until he figured it out.

          Unless there’s no such thing as Influence

          And Propaganda

          And controlling the narrative in Washington

          (Sorry to be looking on The Dark Side here, but I hate surprises and being unprepared.)

        • bloopie2 says:

          An endorsement for President, from WaPo or NYT, would influence who, and how many? What part of their readership does not make up its mind using other information? (Of course, that’s still not an excuse for what they did.)

          I think one difference here is that one candidate is an evil threat to America itself. Even if you don’t like Harris’ policies, you still need to vote against Trump. That’s what they could have said.

      • Matt___B says:

        I’m hoping there will be a west coast resonance of this reader backlash and the LA Times loses subscribers – they deserve it. So far all I’ve heard is that 3 LAT editorial dept. employees have resigned. Maybe any backlash will have to wait until the World Series is over (maybe by tomorrow).

        • Matt___B says:

          Addendum: the Los Angeles Times so far has had 7000 cancellations, about 1.8% of its circulation of 400,000.

        • dannyboy says:

          “Maybe any backlash will have to wait until the World Series is over (maybe by tomorrow).”

          I see what you did there.

          I’m thinkin’ the reader backlash precedes the World Series Championship.

        • dannyboy says:

          Any backlash yet?

          Sill waiting on the World Series?

          Well, there’s this:
          Wednesday, October 30th 2024 New York Daily News SUBSCRIBER ONLY
          “Yankees’ Anthony Volpe helps childhood team stave off World Series elimination with grand slam”

          By the way, this is all in good fun as I am more of a New York Liberty fan these days

          but still feel bad about the Dodgers leaving the Polo Grounds.

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