A very interesting thing is happening on the way to the 2018 midterms: Democrats are coming out in droves to run for the House. You can make plausible arguments both for why that’s good for Dems and why it’s a complication. But either way, it’s fascinating. Cam Joseph reports on why everybody’s gone surfin’ trying to catch what they hope will be a 2018 wave.
Much as the first reports of the now-infamous Trump Tower meeting with Don Jr., last night’s report about Trump Tower Moscow seems to be the tip of a very large iceberg. As I noted last night, the first Post report was substantially the same as our report on Trump’s 2015 Trump Tower Moscow effort published a month ago. The key point – the significance of which will become more apparent – is that they were working from different sources. We had TPM Investigations Desk reporter Sam Thielman’s series of interviews with Felix Sater. The Post was working from accounts of what seems to be a large cache of emails which the Trump Organization is in the process of turning over to Congress.
That was only the first hint. Read More
As we’ve seen the alt-right and various white supremacist and fascistic groups grow in prominence if not necessarily numbers in recent years and now be granted renewed prominence and validation from the President, we see a renewed debate about the role of violence in American politics. Specifically, what is the best way and the appropriate way to react to and combat the always menacing and often violent actions of the kind of people we saw protesting in Charlottesville? Read More
Professor Michael Gerhardt teaches at UNC-Chapel Hill’s School of Law. His specialties include civil rights, civil liberties, the legislative process, and separation of powers. He has served as special counsel, public commentator, and/or expert witness on all the major constitutional conflicts between presidents and Congress over the past 25 years. Michael will be joining us in The Hive for a chat on the Supreme Court and constitutional law. Join us this Friday at 4 PM and submit your questions! If you’d like to participate but don’t have TPM Prime, sign up here.
The Washington Post has a piece up tonight reporting that during the 2016 campaign Donald Trump was trying to put together a deal to build a Trump Tower Moscow. I would not be doing right by TPM’s crack reporting staff if I didn’t note that TPM’s Sam Thielman reported these details in this piece on August 1st. The Times was the first to reference this deal in February, though only obliquely. But in a series of conversations with Thielman, Sater provided considerably more detail about this key project. Read More
Telling Trump the forces of MAGA are in eclipse, Gorka resigns, according to The Federalist. [G]iven recent events, it is clear to me that forces that do not support the MAGA promise are – for now – ascendant within the White House,” worte Gorka. “As a result, the best and most effective way I can support you, Mr. President, is from outside the People’s House.”
President Trump pardons former Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
White House statement after the jump … Read More
The “Blacks for Trump” guy, who shows up right behind the President in so many campaign rallies, says he has no relationship with the Trump White House or campaign. But his description of how he breezes through to that one choice position sure makes it sound like the Trump advance team is happy to see him and makes sure he gets a choice spot. Allegra Kirkland talked to him about why he supports Trump: he believes Trump is a great emancipator who will liberate the white and black races from domination by the Cherokee Indians.
If there’s one thing Donald Trump has been consistently good at over 40-plus years in public life it’s been finding other people to pick up the downside of his bad or failed investments and projects. Sometimes that process has simply been crafty and ingenious. Other times it’s amounted to criminal fraud. Most often it’s been some combination of both. We now appear to be moving toward Trump’s most audacious attempt to accomplish the same thing – only now with the Republican party. Read More
Unsurprisingly, Donald Trump’s rhetoric about the confederacy and the death of “our culture” maps to the language and lures skinheads and white supremacists use to lure people into hate groups.