Listen on Spotify (transcripts available)

Listen on Apple (transcripts available)

As of today, Trump has less than 7% of his campaign left (47 of 721 days).

As of today, Harris has almost 44% of her campaign left (47 of 107 days).

Keep that in mind as you read this column from NYT’s Nate Cohn, in which he tries to puzzle out why Kamala Harris is doing less well in what he deems high quality national polls than she’s doing in Pennsylvania.

Never mind that his pick of polls has some few suspect polls in there. Effectively what Cohn convinces himself he’s seeing is that the Electoral College, which normally favors Democrats, may this year favor Trump.

Now let’s consider our puzzle: a clear lead for Ms. Harris in Pennsylvania, but a tie nationwide? This is unexpected. Four years ago, President Biden won the national vote by 4.5 percentage points, but won Pennsylvania by just 1.2 points. Similarly, our poll averages have shown Ms. Harris doing better nationwide than in Pennsylvania. This poll is nearly the opposite.

Usually, I’d say that this is probably just statistical noise — the inevitable variation in poll results inherent to random sampling. And it might well be, as we shall see. But I think it’s hard to assume that this is simply noise, for two reasons:

• It’s what we’ve shown before. It’s easy enough to dismiss any single poll result as a statistical fluke. But we’ve now found similar results in our last two polls of the nation and Pennsylvania.
• This is becoming a trend among high-quality pollsters. Yes, our poll average shows Ms. Harris doing better nationally than in Pennsylvania, but if you focus only on higher-quality polls (which we call “select pollsters” in our table), the story is a bit different. Over the last month, a lot of these polls show Ms. Harris doing relatively poorly nationwide, but doing well in the Northern battleground states.

Note that Nate says NYT’s own polls aren’t moving much (while admitting the first days after the debate, responses in PA were more favorable to Harris). But Harris’ lead in MI and PA, across all polls, is inching ever so slowly higher, with some polls beginning to show leads outside the margin of error.

My suspicion is we’re still seeing two effects: that of RFK endorsing Trump, which may have helped Trump by a point (indeed, some polls aren’t including him in states, like WI and MI, where he remains on the ballot) and the debate and Taylor Swift endorsement, which may have helped Harris by up to three.

So far.

But this is why I keep coming back to the 7% versus 44% that each candidate has left in their campaign. Harris is doing in an incredibly compressed timeline, at least by US standards, what campaigns spend years doing. As a result, some baseline actions, such as recruiting volunteers, happened later than they otherwise might have. So there could be — though by no means is guaranteed — a late-election effect from them, as those efforts bear fruit.

Still, as Harris tries to build on that foundation, Trump’s unconventional choices — such as to fire the RNC personnel doing field work and instead to let an Elon Musk PAC do that work — has risks, as evidenced by the decision to fire and replace the canvasing contractor in NV and AZ with 50 days left to go.

That leaves open the possibility that we’ll see gradual movement in the weeks ahead, even ignoring a big blunder by one of the campaigns, or a Black Swan event of the type that would be unsurprising this year.

Brittany Mahomes

To understand what kind of delayed effect recent events might bring about, start with Brittany Mahomes, the spouse of KC Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes, who has become close to Taylor Swift as both root for their partners at football games. According to the Daily Mail, Trump’s attack on Swift led Ms. Mahomes to rethink her prior support of Trump.

Brittany Mahomes is ‘deeply bothered’ by Donald Trump’s very public attack on her close friend Taylor Swift, according to sources who claim the Kansas City Chiefs WAG is questioning her support for the former president.

Brittany, who has been married to Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes since 2022, sparked a liberal meltdown last month when she liked a post about Trump, 78, on social media.

Weeks later, Taylor, 34, publicly endorsed Kamala Harris’ bid for president – an action that drove a reported 338,000 visits to the federal voter registration website after she shared a link on Instagram.

Trump hit back in predictably blistering style on his Truth Social platform, claiming ‘I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT’ – prompting Brittany, 29, to ‘question’ if she will continue to endorse his campaign.

‘She is questioning her support for Donald Trump after he lashed out at Taylor, saying he hates her,’ a source exclusively revealed to DailyMail.com.

Swift is perhaps the most trusted American, in any sphere. Because of that, polarization will work in her favor, and through her, Harris’, in the same way it tends to work in Trump’s favor when he spins prosecution of him as an attack on him. If people do things to Swift, her supporters will side with her all the more strongly, and in this matter, that may produce movement to Harris.

Mahomes’ vote — presumably cast in MO, where the couple lives — is not going to swing any races. But what is publicly reported to be going on with her may go on with millions of the diehard Swifties who would normally be soft Trump supporters. But that process takes time. First they reconsider their prior beliefs, then they learn why Swift supports Harris, then they get used to the idea of voting for a Democrat.

It’s a process, one that has as many as 47 days left to work.

Springfield’s Republicans and Reagan’s Dead-Enders

Something similar may be happening among more traditional Republicans.

Politico reported on how Republicans stuck with the chaos Trump has created in heavily Republican Springfield are rethinking their Republican support.

“Any political leader that takes the national stage and has the national spotlight needs to understand the gravity of the words that they have for cities like ours, and what they say impacts our city,” Rue, who said he was tired and angry, told POLITICO. “And we’ve had bomb threats the last two days. We’ve had personal threats the last two days, and it’s increasing, because the national stage is swirling this up. Springfield, Ohio, is caught in a political vortex, and it is a bit out of control. We are a wonderful city — a beautiful town. And for what it’s worth, your pets are safe in Springfield, Ohio.”

Asked whether he is going to vote for Trump, the 54-year-old mayor said, “I’m just probably not going to answer that question.” He said he is deeply “frustrated” with Trump’s remarks and how Springfield has become collateral damage.

[snip]

Republican Clark County Commission President Melanie Flax-Wilt, who said she backed Trump in 2016 and 2020 but is now undecided, largely refused to talk about national politics. But she said she was frustrated.

“I’m of the belief that it’s our local community that is going to be here dealing with this after all of the national news is gone and everybody’s done using Springfield, Ohio, as a poster child for immigration reform. We’re the ones who are going to be stuck figuring out what to do with these challenges that are facing us,” said Flax-Wilt.

Sasha Rittenhouse, another Republican member of the county commission, said, “We’ve seen a lot of, I don’t want to say crazy, but unfounded things. It’s a matter of trying to go back and see if there’s any validity to any of it.”

She added, “And thus far, we have not been able to track anything down that definitively shows that any of these things are happening.”

Of her plans to vote this November, Rittenhouse said: “I have not decided what I’m doing. I’ve been a Republican my entire life, and I will leave it at that.”

Any such reconsideration would happen amidst a larger permission structure created by the number of Republicans who’ve publicly supported Harris, including a new batch of national security professionals (some with ties to Dick Cheney, who of course endorsed Harris a week ago — rolled out yesterday, and a group of former Reagan aides rolled out days earlier.

I don’t know whether that will or is working; clearly, Harris finds the support valuable, so the campaign may be seeing positive effects from the GOP support.

But the point is to simply create a permission structure for those wavering in their support for Trump to consider Harris, to rebrand it as patriotism.

Again, if it works, it’ll take time. It’ll be a process.

Iowa draws closer

One of the most interesting polling developments in recent weeks is not in a swing state; it’s in Iowa. The state’s best pollster, Ann Selzer — whom some argue is the best state pollster in the country — released a poll showing Harris within 4 of Trump in the state.

Ann Selzer’s gold standard poll is out, and suggests a remade presidential race in Iowa.

The top line numbers from Selzer & Co’s latest poll for the Des Moines Register and Mediacom indicate former President Donald Trump has 47 percent support and Vice President Kamala Harris 43 percent among likely Iowa voters. This poll started contacting respondents on September 8 (before the debate) and concluded on September 11, the day after the debate. At the end of this piece is a summary of post-debate national polling, which has found a gain for Harris of about 1 percent.

When you compare the new survey to Selzer’s numbers from June (Trump 50 percent, President Joe Biden 32 percent in Iowa), you will find a 14 point shift in margin. But purely focusing on the margin may be a mistake.

Trump’s level of support has varied little since February, when Selzer found him ahead of Biden by 48 percent to 33 percent in Iowa. The change is in the Democratic number. Harris has consolidated the Democratic base, and the 43 percent she receives in this survey is close to the 44.9 percent vote share for Biden in the 2020 election.

As Selzer describes it, this poll reflects new participation among groups energized since Harris got in the race.

Now, 81% of all Iowans say they will definitely vote in the general election, up from 76% in June. However, some of the demographic groups more likely to favor Harris are showing increased participation.

Women show an 8-percentage-point uptick in likely voting since June, Iowans younger than 45 show a 10-point increase, city dwellers show a 6-point bounce, and those with a college degree are up 9 points.

Iowa is not going to go for Harris; if it does, this would not be a close race. But because of Selzer’s credibility, this suggests a trend in the Midwest that likely confirms positive polling for Harris in neighboring WI (and Nebraska’s Omaha district).

But by drawing close in Iowa, Harris puts two of Iowa’s congressional districts in play.

To understand the importance of this new poll, and what it means if it is on target, let’s look at Iowa’s U.S. House seats. As noted above, this poll find Harris trailing Trump by 4 percent statewide. The table below applies that shift to both the 2020 numbers and the results of the 2022 Congressional races.

If Selzer is accurate, Harris is ahead in two of Iowa’s four Congressional districts (the first and the third), and would only narrowly lose the second district. Based on those numbers the Democrats would likely pick up at least one House seat in Iowa, and three races would be competitive.

Even before this poll, Democrats had started dumping (more) money in the two Iowa CDs, so their internals must be showing similar movement.

Pennsylvania bellwethers

There have been a slew of polls from PA overnight. But the result I find most interesting is this one, from earlier in the week: a Suffolk poll of PA (showing a 49-46 Harris lead) and two bellwether counties, Northampton (Bethleham) and Erie (around the city), showing 4-5 point leads for Harris in both.

The survey results showed that the vice president also led the former president in Northampton and Erie counties – two counties that have picked the winner of the last two presidential elections.

Harris had a five-point edge (50-45%) over Trump in Northampton County, located in eastern Pennsylvania and is the home of the cities of Bethlehem and Easton. President Joe Biden carried the county, 50-49%, in 2020 after Trump topped Hillary Clinton, 50-46%, in 2016.

In the northwest corner of the Commonwealth, Harris carries a four-point advantage over Trump, 48-44% – a larger margin than either winner produced in the last two elections. Biden squeezed out a 1-point edge (50-49%) in winning in 2020, while Trump had a two-point triumph in Erie, 49-47%, four years earlier.

Experienced politicos tend to focus on bellwether precincts or counties to read a state and Suffolk just started doing this in the 2022 race (their results predicted John Fetterman’s victory, but weren’t accurate for the county). I’m interested in this approach, though, because it’s one attempt to address all the difficulties with polling.

I’m also interested because of how NYT, among other outlets, has covered the race in Erie.

In July, when Trump led Joe Biden’s native state by 3, NYT did a story on how little credit Biden has gotten for economic investment in Rust Belt areas, focusing on Erie.

On a blighted industrial corridor in a struggling section of Erie, Pa., a long-abandoned iron factory has been humming with activity for the first time in decades. Construction crews have been removing barrels of toxic waste, knocking down crumbling walls and salvaging rusted tin roofing as they prepare to convert the cavernous space into an events venue, advanced manufacturing hub and brewery.

The estimated $25 million project is the most ambitious undertaking the Erie County Redevelopment Authority has ever attempted. It was both kick-started and remains heavily funded by various pots of money coming from Biden administration programs.

Yet there is no obvious sign of President Biden’s influence on the project. Instead, the politician who has taken credit for the Ironworks Square development effort most clearly is Representative Mike Kelly, a Pennsylvania Republican who voted against the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law that is helping to fund the renovation.

It is one example of a larger problem Mr. Biden faces in Pennsylvania, a swing state that could decide the winner of the 2024 election. In places like Erie, a long-struggling manufacturing hub bordering the Great Lake that is often an election bellwether, Mr. Biden is struggling to capitalize on his own economic policies even when they are providing real and visible benefits.

In August, after Harris had remade the race, WaPo did a story about Erie’s longterm economic plight, noting that its plight would affect the vote there. When it described a new factory funded by the Inflation Reduction Act as a green shoot that might change things, it didn’t describe that Kamala Harris cast the deciding vote for the law that funded it.

The irony — or the puzzle — is that this evident stress coexists with hints of green shoots in the local economy.

A long-planned plastics recycling facility is moving forward, thanks to a new federal loan guarantee. The Japanese corporation Kyocera broke ground this spring on a new manufacturing facility. And popular amenities, including an indoor golf simulator and a rock climbing gym, have opened downtown.

A pre-debate September story in NYT focused on Tim Walz’ appearance in Erie to highlight the campaign’s efforts — more apparent in Harris’ stop in Wilkes-Barre, a story about which NYT focused on skeptics about Harris —  to shave Trump’s margins in rural areas.

“Look, it would be easier if we didn’t have to do this. It would be easier if these guys wouldn’t undermine our system, if they wouldn’t lie about elections, if they wouldn’t put women’s health at risk. But they are, so it’s a privilege for us to do the fight,” he said in Erie, Pa., where he stumped from a stage at the edge of Presque Isle Bay before hundreds of cheering supporters waving “Coach” and “Kamala” signs.

The appearance was one of several events that Mr. Walz used to blitz the local media airwaves and fire up Democratic volunteers with the Midwestern dad charm that his party is banking on to help draw white working-class voters. Mr. Walz, and his daughter, Hope, hit several cities in counties that went for Mr. Trump in 2016 — stung by fading American manufacturing and a difficult economy.

[snip]

His trip also underscored the challenges for his ticket as Democrats aim to improve their margins in rural and red-leaning areas in November. The specter of the former president loomed at nearly every stop, and though Mr. Walz arrived ready to engage with undecided voters, some places yielded few opportunities to do so. Mr. Walz also frustrated a handful of reporters as he refused to answer shouted questions.

It complained, twice, that Walz didn’t take reporters’ bait to answer questions only interesting to a pack of beltway journalists.

That outcome by Suffolk, if accurate, reflects a lot of work that Harris and Walz have put in, work that mainstream outlets seem ready to dismiss (while griping that candidates aren’t focusing on coastal journalists while visiting those areas).

There’s a story in Erie. It is a recognizable bellwether area. But rather than look there to see if that’s what explains a possible split between the national polls and PA, NYT’s pollster ignores the possibility that Harris is doing better in swing states than nationally because efforts she has made in those swing states, efforts that don’t feed the media’s narrative have made a difference.

What the Iowa poll may show is a national reconsideration that has happened as Kamala took over the ticket, particularly as women and young voters became more enthused. What the Suffolk PA poll may show is that more focused efforts in swing states are, very gradually, having some results.

That’s why I keep coming back to timing. Trump has 7% of his campaign left, and he’s spending much of his time outside of swing states, attempting to create stunts to shift the media narrative. Harris has 44% of her campaign left, and she’s spending it, partly, out of the limelight, working relentlessly to win over small groups of voters in the swing states that will decide the election.

We should expect a well-run campaign that has focused on swing states to show some results in those swing states, particularly in a race against a guy, Trump, who seems to have a ceiling for his support. Maybe that’s what we’re seeing.

If the election were held today, Harris would have a very good shot to win, but only narrowly. A narrow win might not be enough to stave off whatever fuckery Trump has planned.

But the election won’t be held today. She’s still got 44% of her campaign left to get this hard work to pay off.

Update: Fixed spelling of bellwether.

As I noted in my piece in The New Republic the other day and as I have before, there’s a figure in the Twitter DM lists presented at the Douglass Mackey trial, using the moniker P0TUSTrump and referred to by others as “Donald,” who pushed the group to spread the PodestaFiles hashtags WikiLeaks had adopted on the same day that WikiLeaks had directly encouraged Don Jr to promote those hashtags.

[I]n an interview with Mackey last year, Donald Trump Jr. admitted that he had been added to the chat rooms. There’s even a persona on the lists who used the moniker “P0TUSTrump,” whom others called Donald, who pushed the John Podesta leaks in the same days that WikiLeaks encouraged Don Jr. to disseminate them. That user aimed to use the same trolling method to “Make #PodestaEmails4 Trend” so that “CNN [a]nd liberal news forced to cover it.”

If P0TUSTrump is Don Jr, it means that WikiLeaks piggybacked on the trusted network of this trolling group by getting Don Jr, a trusted member of it, to suggest pushing WikiLeaks. The trolls were otherwise occupied doing things that more directly impugned Hillary Clinton, but when P0TUSTrump suggested they push the Podesta hashtags, they all turned to doing that.

That may not have been an accident. There are many ways via which that group could have been discovered by WikiLeaks supporters and/or Russia. If they had, Don Jr’s since-admitted inclusion in it would be one of the most lucrative features of the group, a really dumb member of Trump’s family who commanded a lot of trust from the group. Don Jr was (and remains) really easy to manipulate, and by manipulating him, you can direct entire groups.

These networks matter not just for the work they do and the memes they put out. These networks matter because they can be mapped and exploited. Don Jr is going to be a ready point of weakness in any network because, well, he’s Don Jr.

The same is true of Elon Musk.

In my piece arguing that people were overstating what a comment in the Doppelgänger affidavit about the project identifying 2,800 influencers and 1,900 anti-influencers meant, I noted that there had already been signs that those behind the effort were exploiting the way that Musk very publicly acts on Xitter (public behavior documented through a whole lot of journalism about how Musk has ordered Xitter engineers to make it work this way).

Even if SDA were doing more, it would in no way signal full “collaboration.” An earlier report on Doppelgänger’s work (one I’m still looking for, to link), for example, described how Doppelgänger would exploit the way Elon Musk uses his Xitter account to piggyback on his visibility to magnify pro-Russian content with no involvement from him. Elmo is so predictable and so stupid with his Xitter account it requires no payment or even witting involvement to be exploited in such a way.

Like Don Jr, Elon Musk is very important, very trusted among a key network, and painfully easy to dupe. And in his case, the algorithms deliberately magnify any network effects of his influence.

You would not necessarily have to recruit Elon Musk to be a Russian stooge (though some of his close advisors might make that easier to do). You would only need to recruit those whom he trusted to exploit him as a useful idiot.

Keep that in mind as you read this analysis of how much content from Tenet Media Musk shared.

Musk has frequently replied to or reposted content from three conservative pundits formerly paid by Tenet: Tim Pool, Dave Rubin and Benny Johnson. From the public launch of Tenet Media in November 2023 until the release of the indictment, Musk interacted with Pool’s account at least 32 times, Rubin’s at least 11 times and Johnson’s at least nine times, according to searches of X’s archives. He did so on a wide array of subjects including immigration, presidential politics and homelessness.

[snip]

In August, Musk replied “!!” to a Tenet post on X criticizing diversity training at NASA. That post by Tenet received 1.9 million views, far more than Tenet’s typical posts, although it’s impossible to determine how much Musk helped. In April, Musk replied with the monocle emoji to a Tenet video about “eco-terrorism.”

Musk has used his influence to spotlight some of Tenet’s individual creators, too. In mid-August, Musk had a back-and-forth with then-Tenet Media pundit Lauren Southern, which began with her saying most people misunderstand Musk and Trump.

“Anyone who thinks the media is real is an idiot,” Musk responded, getting more than 647,000 views.

“Much work to do in reversing this brain rot,” Southern wrote back.

“Much work indeed. And it’s far worse in Europe. People really believe the media there!” Musk replied.

Lauren Chen didn’t pick Dave Rubin and Tim Pool to recruit because they were her buddies or because they would be profitable (though the fact that they were her buddies made her more useful). Rather, they were on a list that her handler gave her. The project was built around people like them.

Beginning in or about February 2023, Founder-1 solicited Commentator-I and Commentator-2 to perform work on behalf of “Eduard Grigoriann.” For example:

a. On or about February 6, 2023, Persona-1 emailed Founder-1 a “shortlist of candidates” for the YouTube channel, including Commentator-1 and Commentator-2. In the same email, Persona-1 attached a receipt for an $8,000 money transfer from an entity in the Czech Republic (“Czech Shell Entity-I “) to Founder-1 ‘s Canadian company, Canadian Company-1. Persona-I requested that Founder-I submit an invoice for Founder-1 ‘s “consultation services” to Czech Shell Entity-I, which Persona-I described as “our Czech sister company.” Czech Shell Entity-I has a website purporting to sell automobile parts, but also listing unrelated services (e.g., “CyberAmor Suite, Fortifying Your Digital Defenses”). The website makes no mention of “Eduard Grigoriann,” Persona-I, Persona-2, Persona-3, Viewpoint Productions, or Hungarian Shell Entity-I.

[snip]

c. On or about February 8, 2023, F ounder-1 reported to Persona-I on Founder1 ‘s outreach to Commentator-I and Commentator-2. Founder-I advised that Commentator-I said “it would need to be closer to 5 million yearly for him to be interested,” and that Commentator-2 said “it would take 100k per weekly episode to make it worth his while.” Founder-I cautioned that “from a profitability standpoint, it would be very hard for Viewpoint [i.e., the initial publicfacing name of the new venture] to recoup the costs for the likes of [Commentator-I] and [Commentator-2] based on ad revenue from web traffic or sponsors alone.” Despite Founder-1 ‘s warning that Commentator-I and Commentator-2 would not be profitable to employ, on or about February 14, 2023, Persona-I informed Founder-I that “[w]e would love to move forward with [Commentator-I and Commentator-2].”

And one reason you pick someone like Tim Pool is because you know that Elon Musk will promote his idiotic commentary, which not only ensures the widest possible dissemination, but uses Musk’s credibility to gain credibility for the project itself.

You piggyback on Pool’s credibility with Musk to piggyback on Musk’s credibility and reach.

The thing about these networks of right wing influencers is they offer a cascade effect. You pay off or persuade one or six useful idiots and the entire network becomes your useful idiot.

Update: In related news, the Guardian has a close focus on what George Papadoupoulos and his spouse, Simona Mangiante, have been up to, building a network around the Hunter Biden laptop.

Amid the recent crackdown on Russian influence in American media, a group of former Trump advisers and operatives have quietly helped build a pro-Russian website that frequently spreads debunked conspiracy theories about the war in Ukraine, election fraud and vaccines.

Working alongside contributors for Kremlin state media, the former Donald Trump policy aide George Papadopoulos, his wife, Simona Mangiante, and others have become editorial board members of the website Intelligencer, which is increasingly becoming a source of news for those in the rightwing ecosystem.

[snip]

Intelligencer appears to be gaining in popularity. It recently had its best month for internet traffic, with an increase of nearly 300% during August, according to data from Similarweb, and its articles have been shared on social media by the conspiracist Alex Jones, former Trump White House staffer Garrett Ziegler and former Trump aide Roger Stone.

[snip]

Three other editorial board members also have close connections to the Trump campaigns. Leah Hoopes and Greg Stenstrom, both from Pennsylvania, have written a book falsely alleging the 2020 election was stolen. Both of them have been litigants in court cases challenging the results of the election in Pennsylvania, and Hoopes was one of Pennsylvania’s fake electors, who falsely signed paperwork saying that Trump had won the election.

Tyler Nixon, Roger Stone’s personal attorney, also serves on the board and hosts his own show on TNT Radio. The former Radio Sputnik journalist Lee Stranahan is also involved.

Nixon, Hoopes, Stenstrom and Stranahan did not respond to requests for comment.

Simona met with Andrii Derkach, the Russian spy who cultivated Rudy Giuliani, earlier this year and did a big roll-out of the efforts to return to Hunter Biden disinformation.

I have long believed that one reason Trump was so sad that Biden dropped out is that there were plans for shit like this that now have limited value.

At a press conference on Ohio’s efforts to respond to the chaos created in Springfield by a slew of bomb threats, Governor Mike DeWine revealed that a number of the bomb threats came from “one particular country” overseas.

We have people, unfortunately, overseas, who are taking these actions. Some of them are coming from one particular country. We think that this is one more opportunity to mess with the United States. And they’re continuing to do that.

After that, in a truly deranged Xitter manifesto basically arguing that if the media doesn’t platform the false claims of Nazis attacking migrants, they’ll shoot someone, JD Vance falsely claimed that that’s proof a double standard from the media, then continued to lie that Kamala Harris was responsible for the assassination attempts against Trump.

[R]eports today suggest they came from a foreign country, not–as the media suggested–a deranged Trump fan.

The double standard is breathtaking. Donald Trump and I are, by their account, directly responsible for bomb threats from foreign countries. Why? Because we had the audacity to repeat what residents told us about the problems in their town. Meanwhile, Harris allies call for Trump to be eliminated as the media publishes arguments that he deserved to be shot.

Vance integrated this attack into his stump speech in Sparta Michigan, claiming that, “the American media has been laundering foreign disinformation” and deliberately lying — before DeWine revealed this — when they noted the bomb threats followed Trump and JD’s false attacks on Haitians.

Bomb threats that shut down schools and police stations and city halls is not foreign disinformation, JD. They are threats, just like the threats Trump has elicited against prosecutors, judges, and witnesses in cases against him. Everyone has had to take those bomb threats seriously, because you never know when one will be real. A school principal can’t tell in real time if a threat is coming from overseas. The threats have caused real costs to the city and its residents.

And, even if all the threats are coming from overseas — which goes further than what DeWine said — they are a foreign attack on Springfield. A foreign attack on Springfield doing very real damage.

I find it curious that DeWine didn’t reveal which country — China, Iran, Russia are the likely candidates given DeWine’s description that the country is taking “one more opportunity to mess with the United States” — is calling in these bomb threats. A Trump supporter like DeWine would have incentive to reveal if it were either of the first two (China doesn’t do this kind of thing, but Iran adopted the identity of Proud Boys in 2020 to threaten Democratic voters). If it’s Russia — and even if it’s Iran — the foreign country would be doing the bomb threats for the same reason Trump and JD keep lying about Haitians: to stoke fear and division. If it’s Russia, they’d be doing so in support of the candidate selling fear and division. But whichever it is, it appears to be (given DeWine’s description), a hostile foreign country seeking to harm the United States.

And the Senator from Ohio, JD Vance, treats these attacks on his state with very real consequences as mere disinformation.

The Senator from Ohio is minimizing an attack from one foreign country so he can attack immigrants legally in his state. JD Vance is awfully selective about which foreign threats he wails about.

Update: Relatedly, yesterday The New Republic published my analogy between JD’s false claims and those made by trolls pushing Trump in 2016.

Of all the coverage on Ryan Routh — the seemingly unbalanced man who fled Trump’s golf course after being spotted with a gun yesterday — just the NYT (that I’ve seen) notes that Routh’s various statements seeming to express regret about the US’ worsening relationship with Iran.

In one convoluted passage, Mr. Routh vented his anger at Mr. Trump’s dismantling of the Obama administration’s nuclear deal with Iran.

After writing “Iran, I apologize,” Mr. Routh added, “you are free to assassinate Trump” — although he moves freely in the book between addressing his general readers and specific subjects.

Mr. Trump and his allies have long warned about the threat posed by Iran to the former president’s personal safety. In August, the Justice Department charged a Pakistani man who had recently visited Iran with trying to hire a hit man to assassinate political figures in the United States. Investigators believe that those potential targets likely included Mr. Trump.

Most journalists report that there have been two seeming assassination plots against Trump. Not so, if you count Asif Merchant’s efforts to hire a hit man, purportedly to go after Donald Trump. That would be a third.

Unless there’s a tie between Merchant’s efforts and Routh’s.

That’s almost certainly not the case.

Routh seems like someone who keep searching for grandiose meaning in his life.

Still, I keep thinking about this paragraph from the complaint charging Routh with owning a gun as a felon.

Routh was offering a public way to contact him, via WhatsApp, on the phone he had with him yesterday, a phone he seems to have carried on his person even though the gun he had and the truck he drove both had identifying information obscured.

Routh was doing so on July 10, on a day when Merchant remained at large (Merchant was arrested on July 12).

One aspect of Merchant’s planning involved requiring the EDNY informant — whom Merchant believed would help him find a hit squad — to get him a new phone.

On or about June 10, 2024, Merchant met with the purported hitmen, who were in fact undercover U.S. law enforcement officers (the “UCs”) whom the CS introduced to Merchant at Merchant’s request. Merchant advised the UCs that he was looking for three services from them, including killing a “political person.” During the meeting, Merchant presented himself as the “representative” in the U.S., indicating that there were other people he worked for outside the U.S. Merchant told the UCs that he wanted to pay the hitmen in cash through “hawalas”—an informal and unregulated method of transferring money—in Istanbul and Dubai. Merchant also stated that he would give the hitmen instructions on who to kill either the last week of August 2024 or the first week of September 2024, after he returned to Pakistan. Merchant requested that the UCs provide him with a secure cellular phone so they could communicate, and the UCs said they would do so. The UCs also told Merchant that they would be in touch about how much their services would cost.

On or about June 12, 2024, Merchant met the UCs again and obtained the cellular phone from the UCs to use in furtherance of the assassination plot. During the meeting, Merchant agreed to pay the UCs a $5,000 advance payment for the plot. Following the meeting with the UCs, Merchant met with the CS again in furtherance of the plot.

On or about June 13, 2024, Merchant wrote out coded language on a piece of paper that he instructed the CS to copy down and use when communicating with him in the future. Merchant wrote that the word “tee-shirt” would mean a “protest,” which he described as the “lightest work.” The phrase “flannel shirt” would mean “stealing,” which was “heavier work.” The phrase “fleece jacket,” the heaviest work, would mean “the third task . . . commit the act of the game,” indicating murder as previously discussed. The phrase “denim jacket” referred to “sending money.” Merchant told the CS to use the code words only orally on the phone and not to text them. [my emphasis]

So even in the plot the FBI thwarted, Merchant had a plan to set up a dedicated device for his efforts.

Again, I think it most likely that Routh is just a mentally ill person looking to give his life meaning.

But I don’t rule out that Iran tried to find more potential recruits to target Trump. Routh’s public profile would make it clear he wanted to recruit and be recruited, and his beliefs were so quirky, he might well allow himself to be recruited by Iran.

Which is to say, it’s early yet. Routh’s story may well be more complicated than it seems.

One reason fact checking doesn’t work with Donald Trump is that he has trained his followers to so distrust the press that even if Daniel Dale lays out 33 lies in one debate, Trump’s followers will simply write that off to press bias. Donald Trump has created a system in which there are two truths in the United States: one, the reality that sane people live in, and another, an all-encompassing system of false claims that Trump has spun with the help of Fox News.

So every time you try to fact check Trump, you simply reinforce the polarization in the US. You simply reinforce the belief of Trump’s supporters that the other half of society simply hates Trump’s truth. And so, counterintuitively, fact checking has the opposite effect you might want it to have: it reinforces the loyalty of Trump’s rubes, rather than leads them to doubt him.

Kamala Harris appears to understand that. One of the most fascinating aspects of last week’s debate is how, with one major and two lesser exceptions, rather than directly disputing Trump’s truth, Harris instead rebutted his false claims by making Trump look weak.

The one exception — over an hour into the debate — came when Linsey Davis invited Harris to respond to Trump’s accusation that she hates Israel.

LINSEY DAVIS: Vice President Harris, he says you hate Israel.

VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: That’s absolutely not true. I have my entire career and life supported Israel and the Israeli people.

But aside from Harris saying, “that’s not true,” or, “that’s a lie,” Harris usually doesn’t directly dispute any of the lies Trump tells. Often, she instead says things that suggest his incompetence.

For example, in response to Trump’s first answer in which he makes a claim about the economy under his term, instead of directly disputing it, Harris mocks what a mess he left her and President Biden.

Let’s talk about what Donald Trump left us. Let’s talk about what Donald Trump left us.

[snip]

And what we have done is clean up Donald Trump’s mess.

Trump claims that all the jobs created under the Biden Administration were just “bounceback” jobs as the economy reopened after the pandemic. Rather than disputing that, Harris describes how Trump is just trying to help rich people (and then notes that even Wharton assess his economic plans would bankrupt the country).

So, Donald Trump has no plan for you. And when you look at his economic plan, it’s all about tax breaks for the richest people.

[snip]

What the Wharton School has said is Donald Trump’s plan would actually explode the deficit.

Trump complains about inflation and brags that up to 90% of people think he’ll be better on the economy. Harris could have corrected the polling claim or — more importantly — talked about how the Biden Administration had tamed inflation. She didn’t (there are reports that some Biden insiders are hurt she didn’t defend him more, and this may be an example). Instead, she hit Trump for sending chips to China.

[Y]ou wanna talk about his deal with China what he ended up doing is under Donald Trump’s presidency he ended up selling American chips to China to help them improve and modernize their military basically sold us out when a policy about China should be in making sure the United States of America wins the competition for the 21st century.

Donald Trump tells his normal lie, claiming that everyone wanted abortion to be returned to the states, and Harris simply calls him a liar, before explaining how his hand-picked Justices did what Trump wanted.

Well, as I said, you’re going to hear a bunch of lies. And that’s not actually a surprising fact.

Trump’s claim that people are engaged in infanticide is one of three lies that ABC, in this case Linsey Davis, fact-checked in real time. So Harris starts her reply by first addressing Davis’ question about whether Harris would put any limits on abortion access by using Roe as a stand-in, she then translates Trump’s infanticide claim into what it would really mean, then describes even claiming it is an insult to women.

I absolutely support reinstating the protections of Roe v. Wade. And as you rightly mentioned, nowhere in America is a woman carrying a pregnancy to term and asking for an abortion. That is not happening. It’s insulting to the women of America. And understand what has been happening under Donald Trump’s abortion bans.

Trump interrupts and tries to refloat his infanticide claim and Harris successfully interjects — come on! But her first response to the infanticide is to emphasize that Trump hasn’t denied he would veto an abortion ban.

VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: Come on.

FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Would you do that? Why don’t you ask her that question —

VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: Why don’t you answer the question would you veto –

FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: That’s the problem. Because under Roe v. Wade.

VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: Answer the question, would you veto–

FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: You could do abortions in the seventh month, the eighth month, the ninth month –

VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: That’s not true.

David Muir invites Harris to respond after Trump’s cat screech. She starts by labeling him as extreme and pivots to talking about her Republican endorsers.

Talk about extreme. Um, you know, this is I think one of the reasons why in this election I actually have the endorsement of 200 Republicans who have formally worked with President Bush, Mitt Romney, and John McCain including the endorsement of former Vice President Dick Cheney and Congressmember Liz Cheney.

That leads to a long exchange between Muir and Trump in which Trump falsely blames crime on immigrants. Muir corrects Trump’s claim that crime is going up. But there’s still a false claim that Harris could have corrected: that immigrants are more likely to commit crimes than American citizens. Instead of doing that, she raises Trump’s own crimes.

Well, I think this is so rich. Coming from someone who has been prosecuted for national security crimes, economic crimes, election interference, has been found liable for sexual assault and his next big court appearance is in November at his own criminal sentencing. And let’s be clear where each person stands on the issue of what is important about respect for the rule of law and respect for law enforcement.

Trump responds with his tired lies about the legal cases against him being political. Again, Harris could fact check those lies (at least the ones that wouldn’t amount to command influence from a sitting Vice President). Instead, she doubles down on the “extreme” comment, then lays out the way SCOTUS’ immunity decision would immunize Trump for misconduct.

Well let’s talk about extreme. And understand the context in which this election in 2024 is taking place. The United States Supreme Court recently ruled that the former president would essentially be immune from any misconduct if he were to enter the white house again. Understand, this is someone who has openly said he would terminate, I’m quoting, terminate the constitution of the United States.

After Trump responds to Harris answer to a Davis question about fracking, he spurts out some of the other things that Trump claims she has flip-flopped on. Don’t lie, Harris answers after first saying that his claims were not true.

Uh, defund the police. She’s been against that forever. She gave all that stuff up, very wrongly, very horribly. And everybody’s laughing at it, okay? They’re all laughing at it. She gave up at least 12 and probably 14 or 15 different policies. Like, she was big on defund the police.

VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: That’s not true. [mouthed, not audible]

FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: In Minnesota, she went out — wait a minute. I’m talking now. If you don’t mind. Please. Does that sound familiar?

VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: Don’t lie. [lie is audible]

Then Trump responds to a Muir question about whether he regretted his actions on January 6 by blaming Nancy Pelosi. Again, Harris could fact check Trump’s claim that it was Pelosi’s role, and not his own, to keep the country safe. Instead, she states clearly that he incited a violent mob and coddled right wingers on other occasions.

I was at the Capitol on January 6th. I was the Vice President-Elect. I was also an acting senator. I was there. And on that day, the president of the United States incited a violent mob to attack our nation’s Capitol, to desecrate our nation’s Capitol. On that day, 140 law enforcement officers were injured. And some died. And understand, the former president has been indicted and impeached for exactly that reason. But this is not an isolated situation. Let’s remember Charlottesville, where there was a mob of people carrying tiki torches, spewing antisemitic hate, and what did the president then at the time say? There were fine people on each side. Let’s remember that when it came to the Proud Boys, a militia, the president said, the former president said, “Stand back and stand by.”

Harris says, “we’re not going back” to this — a clear sign that when she uses the term, it’s not about incumbency, it’s about Trump’s fascism.

After the Israel exchange — the clearest moment, I argue, when Harris directly disputed a claim Trump made — and the commercial break, the discussion turns to Ukraine, to Trump’s unwillingness to answer whether he wants them to win. After Trump babbles a bunch about Biden before claiming he would end the Ukraine war before he took office, Harris accuses Trump of planning to just give up.

Well, first of all, it’s important to remind the former president you’re not running against Joe Biden, you’re running against me. I believe the reason that Donald Trump says that this war would be over within 24 hours is because he would just give it up. And that’s not who we are as Americans.

When Muir invites Harris to respond to Trump’s false claim that she met with Putin, Harris first notes she has predicted he would lie, then describes, again, meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy (I’ve seen Trump supporters complain that she didn’t deny meeting Putin).

Yet again, I said it at the beginning of this debate, you’re going to hear a bunch of lies coming from this fella. And that is another one. When I went to meet with President Zelenskyy, I’ve now met with him over five times. The reality is, it has been about standing as America always should, as a leader upholding international rules and norms.

Some questions later, Trump interrupts to respond to Harris’ observation that Trump uses race to divide America, making a rubber-glue argument. I’m not the most divisive presidency, you are.

Knowing that regardless of people’s color or the language their grandmother speaks we all have the same dreams and aspirations and want a president who invests in those, not in hate and division.

DAVID MUIR: Vice President Harris thank you. Linsey?

LINSEY DAVIS: President Trump, this is now your third time —

FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: This is the most divisive presidency in the history of our country.

Trump is trying to revert to that two truths position, on which he usually operates. Rubber, glue. In such a world, you don’t have to decide who really has had a divisive presidency, you have only to decide who you trust, and your answer will come from there.

He somehow goes from there to inflation. Once again, Harris does not respond by pointing out that inflation has been tamed, but instead with her generational comment, which she uses as a way to list all the plans she has, in contrast to Trump.

I want to respond to that, though. I want to just respond briefly. Clearly, I am not Joe Biden, and I am certainly not Donald Trump. And what I do offer is a new generation of leadership for our country. One who believes in what is possible, one who brings a sense of optimism about what we can do instead of always disparaging the American people. I believe in what we can do to strengthen our small businesses, which is why I have a plan. Let’s talk about our plans.

After Trump sets off on a rant, it appears that Harris tries to interrupt to correct Trump’s claim that she wants to take everyone’s guns, which Davis cuts off.

She has a plan to confiscate everybody’s gun. She has a plan to not allow fracking in Pennsylvania or anywhere else. That’s what her plan is until just recently.

LINSEY DAVIS: President Trump, President Trump.

VICE PRESIDENT HARRIS: The former president has said something twice and I need to respond too. I just need to respond one time to what he has said multiple times.

She returns to both fracking (which as she notes, she answered in response to a question from Davis) and guns during a later response on healthcare.

I just need to respond to a previous point that the former president has made. I’ve made very clear my position on fracking. And then this business about taking everyone’s guns away. Tim Walz and I are both gun owners. We’re not taking anybody’s guns away. So stop with the continuous lying about this stuff.

But that’s it–the next most direct responses to a claim from Trump, after the Israel claim.

Some of these are admittedly closer to direct responses to Trump, but except where Trump makes claims about Harris, she does not directly dispute him.

The effectiveness of this approach is clear: Rather than saying Trump’s manufactured version of truth was false — again, setting up a clear dispute and inviting Trump’s supporters to simply dismiss her as someone opposing him because she hates him — she instead demonstrated, over and over, Trump’s weakness.

That recognizes an important fact about the cult-like following Trump has created: So long as his followers believe his strength, they will believe what he says as an article of faith. They believe in him, and so believe what he says.

But they believe in him because they believe his pose of being strong.

With some exceptions (such as a segment of the Jan6ers prosecuted because they believed him, and left with a lot of time to reconsider the actions they took in response), Trump’s people won’t start to rethink what he tells them to believe until they first doubt who he is, until they first begin to see through his con of being strong and successful.

And you demonstrate that not by telling them facts that might directly contest the belief system they’ve adopted from Trump, but by pointing not just to evidence that he’s weak — he is laughed at, he is insecure about his crowd size, his daddy gave him millions that he squandered in six bankruptcies.

It’s only after they step out of a belief system based on a false belief that Trump is strong will people listen to you.

There was a great deal that Kamala Harris did to succeed in the debate. The most important thing was to rattle the old man, so his own narcissism led him to meltdown of his own accord.

But even as that was happening, the Vice President didn’t stoop to a contest of two truths, a contest over which truth voters might pick. She instead made it clear that the basis of the “truth” Trump offers, is a base of weakness and fear. She didn’t refute individual aspects of Trump’s truth. She instead kicked at its foundations, and showed how flimsy it is.

LOLGOP had already started the (probably two) posts on how Bill Barr bolloxed the Mueller Report when we realized we hadn’t actually done the report itself! So here’s my take, in readily accessible format.

The Patreon site has a rough transcript; remember: subscribing to that is separate from my own Patreon, but we’re also releasing bonus episodes.

Apple Podcasts
Spotify 
YouTube 
Audible
RSS
Podcast Addict

At about the same time that several of Donald Trump’s most loyal supporters were warning that Laura Loomer’s access to the former President threatens his presidential bid, Tim Walz was in Grand Rapids mocking how easy it is to manipulate Donald Trump.

Kamala Harris was able to, within a matter of a few seconds, use this guy’s inflated ego and narcissism to bait him into melting down on a national stage in front of 60 million.

You don’t think Vladimir Putin could do that?

You don’t think Xi Jinping could do that?

Jewish space laser conspiracist Marjorie Taylor Greene scolded Loomer about attacking Kamala Harris for her Indian ancestry (after which MTG went back to making racist attacks on migrants again).

Lindsey Graham, a sometime hawk who makes excuses for Trump’s apologies for Russia, agreed that Trump should distance himself from Loomer and the incendiary comments she makes.

“We have policy disagreements but the history of this person is just really toxic,” Graham told HuffPost on Thursday. “I mean, she actually called for Kellyanne Conway’s daughter to hang herself. I don’t know how this all happened, but, no, I don’t think it’s helpful. I don’t think it’s helpful at all.”

[snip]

“Marjorie Taylor Greene is right. I don’t say that a lot,” Graham said.

“I think what [Loomer] said about Kamala Harris and the White House is abhorrent, but it’s deeper than that,” he added. “I mean, you know, some of the things she’s said about Republicans and others is disturbing. I mean, to call for someone’s daughter to hang themselves. Yeah, no, I think that the president would serve himself well to make sure this doesn’t become a bigger story.”

The backlash comes after Trump brought Loomer, a 9/11 conspiracist, with him to the 9/11 memorial in New York. It comes as many of Trump handlers are trying to find someone, someone besides themselves, besides the candidate, to blame for his disastrous debate performance.

When asked about Republican complaints about Loomer the other day, Trump offered word salad.

Well, I don’t know what they would say, Laura has been a supporter of mine, just like a lot of people have been supporters. And she’s been a supporter of mine. She speaks very positively of the campaign — I’m not sure why you asked that question, but Laura’s a supporter. I don’t control Laura. Laura has to say what she wants. She’s a free spirit. Well, I don’t know. Look. I can’t tell Laura what to do. Laura’s a supporter. I have a lot of supporters. So I don’t know exactly what you’re referring to. … I just don’t know. Laura’s a supporter. I don’t know. She is a strong person. She’s got strong opinions. And I don’t know what she said but that’s not up to me. She’s a supporter.

Shortly after this pathetic response from Trump, a Truth Social post was released over Trump’s initials, bearing none of the roughness of a post the man wrote himself. The post disavowed unspecified “statements she made.”

All that, in turn, has led to insinuations and whispers about precisely what kind of access Loomer has to Trump.

No one can keep former President Donald Trump away from Laura Loomer.

Throughout his third presidential campaign, aides and advisers have done their best to shield him from Loomer, a far-right social media influencer, and similar figures who stroke his ego and stoke his basest political instincts.

They lost that battle this week, as Loomer traveled on Trump’s jet to his debate with Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday and to Sept. 11 memorial services Wednesday. Her presence at the latter infuriated some Democrats and Republicans because one of the many conspiracy theories she has promoted is the false notion that the terrorist assault on the U.S. was an “inside job.” It wasn’t.

[snip]

[H]er presence reflects Trump’s loss of faith in his campaign aides and their concomitant fear of upsetting him in a time of crisis, according to people familiar with the situation. Last month, he tapped his 2016 campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, to be an adviser to his top advisers — a move widely viewed as a rebuke of the existing leadership crew.

A senior official from Trump’s 2020 campaign team said that helps explain why Loomer is no longer being kept at arm’s length.

“The people that have the authority to stop it are hanging on to their jobs,” the former official said. “So are you going to pick that fight with him?”

A lot of this is manufactured controversy. Loomer is little different than all the other far right nutbags Trump surrounds himself with. Why blame Loomer for the cat-and-dog screech when Trump’s chosen Vice Presidential candidate — chosen with the considerable input of Trump’s dumbass son — has a much more central role in magnifying this hoax, when Trump has employed Stephen Miller to engage in such fearmongering both inside and outside the White House, for years?

And Marjorie Taylor Greene, lecturing other people about being racist? You have got to be fucking kidding me.

As described, what distinguishes Loomer is her access. I even joined in, speculating that as she traveled on his plane to the Philadelphia debate, handlers may believe she tainted the killer immigration attack coached by upstanding, reasonable people like Matt Gaetz and Tulsi Gabbard, creating the screech.

The unspoken (except by Drudge) suggestion they’re fucking is the invented explanation for what might make Loomer more dangerous than the other racists and conspiracists who populate Trump’s inner circle. Me, I’m more interested in whether the problem with Loomer is that she’s so close to Roger Stone, whom campaign officials perennially attempt to keep separate from Trump during presidential elections. Ali Alexander served as Roger’s surrogate during the 2020 election; perhaps Loomer is doing so now.

Whatever it is that has Republican members of Congress and campaign officials blaming Loomer for Trump’s failures, it is also a concession.

The complaint being offered is that none of Trump’s advisors can prevent someone — in this case, Loomer — from getting Trump to parrot the most outrageous beliefs simply by inveigling herself into his closest circle and flattering him enough to stay there.

The complaint being offered is that Loomer’s mere fawning presence will lead Trump to say and do things that will disrupt the carefully cultivated illusion that he is a sane, effective leader.

Trump’s anonymous aides are making the same argument that Tim Walz did: that anyone who strokes Trump’s ego enough can win him to their view. Trump’s boasts about how valuable Viktor Orbán’s adulation is have nothing to do with Orbán’s real stature on the world stage. Rather, Trump boasted about Orbán’s “endorsement” because Orbán has serially sucked up to Trump, repeating back to Trump Trump’s own fantasy that he can deliver “peace” in Ukraine with a snap of his fingers.

The problem isn’t Laura Loomer. She’s little different than all the other extremists who remain in Trump’s good graces by performing near-perfect sycophancy.

The problem is precisely what Tim Walz warned: Trump’s narcissism and his ego make him weak, vulnerable to any person willing to use flattery to win their objectives.

Trump’s aides are making the same argument Tim Walz is: that Trump doesn’t have the self-control to protect against extremists making him their ready tool.

Listen on Spotify (transcripts available)

Listen on Apple (transcripts available)

In the Election Task Force presser at which DOJ also rolled out two operations against Russian foreign malign influence last week, Merrick Garland described that the investigation into RT’s efforts to hide its efforts in the US was ongoing. “The charges unsealed this morning do not represent the end of the investigation. It remains active and ongoing.”

Indeed, last week, Tim Pool (believed to be Commentator-2 in the RT indictment) revealed that he would assist in the investigation (presumably meaning he’ll sit for the interview the FBI requested).

The language Pool used — the emphasis on a voluntary interview, one echoed by Benny Johnson’s more equivocal statement about his response to a similar FBI invitation — suggests DOJ is treating Pool, and so presumably most of the other commentators described in the indictment, as media under DOJ’s recently updated media guidelines.

Not so Lauren Chen herself — or at least, not Tenet Media. After all, the indictment describes several Discord servers — a general one, one focused on “funders,” another on “producers,” and another for one of the commentators — that all seem to be part of Tenet’s overarching Discord server run by Chen. To get legal process on that, as they clearly did, prosecutors would have had to convince DOJ’s National Security Division head, Matt Olsen, that Tenet or Chen either aren’t media or fit into one of the designated exceptions to the media rule.

Prosecutors might do that through Chen’s (or her spouse, Liam Donovan’s) past work with RT, after such time as it had registered as an agent of Russia in 2017. Or, if DOJ could prove that Chen knew the Russians she was working for were just an extension of her pre-existing RT contract, that might also satisfy the exception for “a foreign power or agent of a foreign power.” But even Chen’s acceptance of US-bound payments via wire from “Turkish Shell Entity-1” described as, “BUYING GOODS-INV.013-IPHONE 15 PRO MAX 512GB” would likely reach an aid-and-abet standard for RT’s alleged money laundering.

According to the indictment, the many cut-outs via which she (and by association, the podcasters) were being paid, were visible to her. None were in France, where the fictional funder of the project purportedly lived. She was witting to the money laundering alleged in the indictment, which probably qualifies her for an exception to the media guidelines. Charging that money laundering may be one step in justifying a broader investigation into Chen, including one that extends into her other roles in the far right network at Glenn Beck’s show and on Turning Point USA.

This post, which I started last week, was going to be a post laying out how all of last week’s activities seem to be an attempt to move beyond DOJ’s prior approach of name-and-shaming foreign hackers, to a name-and-disrupt approach. Lawfare did such a post earlier this week, and Alex Finley did one focused on RT and Doppelganger.

But I’m going to post the part of that larger post focused on RT now, because State just rolled out the next step of this name-and-disrupt operation: sharing intelligence showing how RT has become a front for Russia’s broader intelligence operations.

The State Department revealed declassified US intelligence findings that suggest RT is fully integrated into Russia’s intelligence operations around the world and announced it is launching a diplomatic campaign to provide countries with information about the risks associated with RT activities.

“Thanks to new information, much of which originates from RT employees, we know that RT possessed cyber capabilities and engaged in covert information and influence operations and military procurement,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Friday.

A key finding from the new US intelligence is that, for more than a year, the Russian government has quietly embedded an intelligence-gathering unit within RT that is focused on influence operations globally. That activity has been part of US officials described as a big expansion of RT’s role as an arm and mouthpiece of the Kremlin abroad. The activity goes beyond propaganda and covert influence operations to even include military procurement, according to US officials.

The flyer from State laying this out lists cover operations in Germany, France, and Argentina.

DOJ presumably timed last week’s indictment to beat the 60-day prohibition on announcements that might effect an election. But it was presumably also coordinated with Anthony Blinken’s trip to Eastern Europe, whence he just returned.

It appears that rolling out the indictment did two things. First, it laid out how this works, how a persona sets up an allegedly witting front, like Lauren Chen, to effectively recruit useful idiots on Russia’s behalf.

But by unrolling the indictment last week, DOJ likely facilitated further investigation of the Tenet operation.

It’s likely, for example, that DOJ needs cooperation from the podcasters like Benny and Pool to pursue an investigation into Chen any further. At the very least, prosecutors would have to lock them into statements that they had no idea they were working for RT. Those statements might not be entirely persuasive, mind you, but such statements would be crucial to showing that Chen was part of the RT deception, part of an effort by an agent of Russia to spread their propaganda via unwitting cut-outs.

By rolling out the indictment in the way they did, DOJ gave all the podcasters an incentive to immediately claim ignorance, if for no other reason than to preserve their own brand. As NBC curated, several of the podcasters did claim they were victims, within a day.

Pool said, in part, in a lengthy statement on X: “Should these allegations prove true, I as well as the other personalities and commentators were deceived and are victims. I cannot speak for anyone else at the company as to what they do or to what they are instructed.”

[Benny] Johnson, also on X, said: “A year ago, a media startup pitched my company to provide content as an independent contractor. Our lawyers negotiated a standard, arms length deal, which was later terminated. We are disturbed by the allegations in today’s indictment, which make clear that myself and other influencers were victims in this alleged scheme. My lawyers will handle anyone who states or suggests otherwise.”

[Tayler] Hansen said, in part, on X: “These allegations come as a complete shock to me and the other hosts at TENET Media. I want to be as clear as possible, I was never directed to report on any topic and had complete freedom and control over my reporting at all times. I would never agree to any arrangement where I am not the sole person in charge of the stories I cover and content I create.”

[Dave] Rubin said, in part, on X:” These allegations clearly show that I and other commentators were the victims of this scheme. I knew absolutely nothing about any of this fraudulent activity. Period.”

[Matt] Christiansen said, in part, on X: “At no point has anyone ever directed me what to say or not to say, and I would never agree to anything otherwise. My videos and streams for Tenet are exactly the same as my videos and streams on my personal channels. Every word is from me and me alone.” [my emphasis]

And after they did claim to be victims, the FBI called them up and said, “how would you like to sit for a voluntary interview … you know, as a victim?”

This is why I’m way more sympathetic to Pool and Benny’s claims they’re victims than others, who rightly argue they had to have known something sketchy was going on: not because I believe they were that stupid (both could have been, but Pool, who hired Cassandra Fairbanks after she was already tainted as a Sputnik persona, has been swimming in these waters for years). But because DOJ set this up to highly motivate them to position themselves, publicly, as victims and then capitalized on that to take further investigative steps.

But this operation also served to disrupt Russian support of propaganda, which is one of the reasons I view the efforts rolled out last week as an attempt to disrupt ongoing efforts, rather than just an attempt to name-and-shame.

After all, the podcasters (Rubin and Benny had already moved on; the others had not) are out of a hefty paycheck. Tim Pool will either have to find some right wing billionaire to pay wildly inflated rates for his apology for Russia from here on out, or he’ll have to scale back. It might take some weeks to do that. He might even have to give up politicizing the local skateboard park.

By sanctioning RT, among others, upon release of this indictment, not just the Tenet podcasters, but anyone else in the US knowingly on the RT grift, has to drop their gig immediately.

Presumably, a number of other people are doing quietly what former weapons inspector Scott Ritter did quite boisterously last week. Ritter — who, last month, had his house searched — posted that the sanctions on RT meant he had to immediately drop his RT gigs.

Per his claims in a Substack post released since then, Ritter was getting nothing close to what the podcasters were.

Amidst revelations of multi-million dollar deals where influencers were paid $100,000 a week to produce video content, and on-air hosts given million dollar salaries along with other perks, my relationship with Russian state-owned media pales into insignificance, contracted as an outside contributor compensated with what now, by comparison, seems a paltry $250-280 per item published, with the total amount received amounting to less than 7% of my total annual income.

Apparently, my negotiating skills are lacking—rather than insisting that I would not consider any offer under $5 million, I was content with compensation that matched the industry “norm” of between $150-300 per item published. Earlier this year, when RT thought that my interest in contributing had waned, they offered to double the price paid per article; I declined, insisting that we adhere to the letter of our agreement.

And now having done that — having forced people who were being supported by RT to drop their gigs — partners around the world can turn to unpacking similar operations in their own countries.

There are, undoubtedly, other nodes like the Tenet one, both in the US and around the world. This one may have been particularly important to disrupt before the election, because of Chen’s involvement with Turning Point, which will have a key role in Trump’s GOTV.

But whatever she was doing, TPA has cut her off.