Check out Friday’s newsletter!
|
|
From The Reporter’s Notebook
Donald Trump paid a slap-on-the-wrist penalty from the IRS for violating tax law with a $25,000 political gift from the Trump Organization, a registered nonprofit, to a political committee backing Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi (R). A Trump Organization staffer said it was all an “honest mistake,” as TPM’s Katherine Krueger reports.
Agree or Disagree?
Josh Marshall: “Watch Trump’s speeches, with the yelling, the reddened face, the demand for vengeance and you see there’s little to distinguish them from what we see at Aryan Nations or other white hate rallies that we all immediately recognize as reprehensible, wrong and frankly terrifying. This isn’t ‘rough’ language or ‘hard edged’ rhetoric. It’s hate speech. Precisely what policy solution Trump is calling for is almost beside the point. Indeed, it wouldn’t be hate speech any less if Trump specified no policy solution at all. This isn’t normal. It was normal in the Jim Crow South, as it was in Eastern Europe for centuries. It’s not normal in America in the 21st century. And yet it’s become normalized.”
Say What?!
“I think you’re going to see there is quite a bit of softening.”
– After delivering a hardline speech on immigration enforcement, Trump seems to be a bit confused about the definition of “softening.”
BUZZING: Today in the Hive
From a TPM Prime member: “Now I get it! As soon as I heard [Trump] say the line involving the bully that keeps getting beat up in his “policy” speech tonight, I realized that is where he’s got it all wrong. He really believes that’s our role. To push the world around. To pick on the world to make it realize how flawed it is. To get the world to do your work for you at gunpoint if you have to. Dangerous, reckless, short-sighted, nihilistic and just plain obnoxious to hear pitched as sound thinking.”
Related: Clues over the last two weeks set the stage for the big Trump speech in Phoenix that turned out not to be so big at all.
Have something to add? Become a Prime member and join the discussion here.
What We’re Reading
What happens when a homeless shelter opens in Williamsburg. (The Nation)
How a Brooklyn comedian (almost) made the governor of Maine resign. (Brooklyn)
|
|
