Editors’ Blog

We know the former president has a lot of enemies — both political and inanimate.

I’m still poking around. Because this is just a very general impression and of course this is not an area of expertise. But putting together comments over the last 36 hours from political leaders in Ukraine and Russia in addition to political and military leaders in Europe and North America, something seems to be shifting. As in I’m getting the sense that Russia’s near-term position is weaker than we might have imagined. This isn’t a prediction. I wouldn’t be in a position to make one. But watch the statements coming out of Ukraine and Russia, both their substance and their tone.

I must say that I am looking forward to the raft of articles in the works from the Times, WaPo, Politico and above all Axios about the GOP’s reckoning with the fact that their party leader (and most of his party) has spent the last several years toadying and obsequiously embracing Vladimir Putin and Russia. I jest of course since I have little hope that any of these pieces will be written. But the leader of this party has spent the last seven years fawning over the increasingly dictatorial leader of the country who has now tipped the world into the biggest international crisis in a generation and I guess we’re somehow not going to talk about that. I mean, he actually got impeached over it and for participating in a scheme to make the country Russia just invaded easier to invade.

It’s been a while since we’ve checked in on this character.

Convicted Russian spy Maria Butina just did a bizarre and rather concerning interview with the BBC in which she argued that Ukraine is “bombing” its own civilians and pushed Kremlin talking points that President Vlodymyr Zelensky, a Jewish descendant of Holocaust survivors, is a Nazi.

The interview honestly sounds like a confused hostage video. I’ll get into the details more below. But since serving 15 months in U.S. prisons after being convicted of working as an unregistered foreign agent — for attempting to infiltrate the National Rifle Association and after admitting to helping set up a Russian backchannel for conservative strategists ahead of the 2016 election — Butina returned to Russia in 2019. And she’s a politician now — apparently a fairly successful one. Butina became a member of the Russian parliament’s lower chamber in 2021 and has batted away accusations that President Putin helped hand her the position as a “reward” for her criminal endeavors in the U.S.

In the midst of so much news I wanted to give you a heads up about something very important we have coming up next week. We suspended our annual sign up drives for the last two years. But we’re bringing them back because … well, because they’re super important and we need regular readers to become members. So if you’re a regular reader and you haven’t become a member or your membership has lapsed please consider joining or joining again. And if you’re already a member please spread the word about how cool a TPM membership is or lean on your coworker who keeps leaning over your desk to read Prime content without a subscription. The overwhelming percentage of the funds that keep our operation going come from your membership fees. So we really need you. There’s no big corporation behind this outfit to keep it going. It’s entirely reliant on you.

So keep an eye out next week when we get the drive started. And thank you in advance.

I’m sharing a list of write-ups that I have found helpful.

There’s an element of buyer-beware here. I don’t agree with everything these pieces say. As important, I don’t know every aspect of the background of the authors. But I’ve done enough research to have confidence they are reasonable, knowledgable people and the pieces are ones I have found helpful in making sense of what’s happening on the ground in Ukraine right now.

I wanted to share a few more thoughts on this fighter jet issue.

Elana Branson, a dual U.S.-Russian citizen, has been charged with illegally acting as a Russian agent in the United States.

The WSJ reports tonight that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have both signaled to Washington that they won’t help ease the global squeeze on gasoline supplies and surging prices unless the Biden administration falls into line on Yemen and other regional issues — one of these being immunity for Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the murder of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi. The specific hook of the article is that the leaders of Saudi Arabia and the UAE have both declined calls from President Biden in recent weeks.

GOPer Robert “RJ” Regan won a special Republican primary election last week and will advance to the special general election for an open Michigan state House seat in May.

After winning the special election by just 81 votes, Regan participated in a panel discussion via Facebook livestream over the weekend with the conservative group “Michigan Rescue Coalition,” which believes that the 2020 election was stolen from President Trump. The beginning of the panel discussion focused on what, if any, actions could be taken to continue challenging the 2020 presidential election results in the state of Michigan. One panelist, a Republican strategist named Amber Harris, argued that it was “too late” to continue the Big Lie crusade in the state. She suggested Michigan Republicans should instead focus on ensuring future elections are legitimate.

That’s when newly-relevant Regan cut in with some horrific commentary.