Editors’ Blog
Your subscription could not be saved. Please try again.
Your subscription has been successful.
04.28.23 | 12:58 pm
The Last Day

This is the final weekday of our annual TPM membership drive. We’re trying to get to 600 new sign ups for the drive. We’re currently at 587. Just 13 more to get there. If you’re ready here is the link. Thank you in advance and thank you to everyone who has joined us this month.

04.27.23 | 1:51 pm
You Have A Moment?

We’re coming to the end of our annual TPM membership drive. If you’ve been thinking about it but haven’t yet, I want to ask you to take a moment today and join us. We need your support and membership. It’s what powers our operation. We’re doing exciting things right now and we’re moving forward when everyone else seems to be shuttering or laying people off. So please take a moment and join our operation and be part of what we do every day. Just click right here.

04.27.23 | 11:00 am
Mass Shooter in the Making

There’s a new filing out in the Jack Teixeira case, written up here by the Times. It’s a government motion to keep Teixeira locked up while awaiting trial. The government argues, unsurprisingly, that Teixeira is a major flight risk and that he still knows lots of information that could cause grave damage if shared with hostile foreign powers. But what is new and newsworthy if not entirely surprising is that Teixeira’s record suggests he was carrying most of the red flags we’d expect for a future mass shooter. You can see the filing here.

As the government filing explains, Teixeira was suspended from high school in 2018 when a classmate “overheard him make remarks about weapons, including Molotov cocktails, guns at the school and racial threats.” Later that year he was denied a firearms identification card because of the local police department’s concerns about his threats and suspension at the high school.

Read More
04.26.23 | 8:41 pm
This Might Finally Be the Real Tucker Story

For the first time I’ve read an article that presents at least the outlines of a convincing account of why Fox fired Tucker Carlson. The Times account, published an hour ago, isn’t dramatically different from other accounts we’ve seen over the last three days, at least not at first glance. So it may seem odd that I’m putting it in a different category. But on my read at least it provides a degree of specificity about the precise chain of events and who did what, when, that is different from all the earlier stories.

Read More
04.26.23 | 6:56 pm
Where Things Stand: Gianforte’s Own Son Is Lobbying Him To Stop With The Anti-Trans Bills
This is your TPM evening briefing.

Republicans in the Montana state House just voted to formally punish a member of the legislature, Democratic Rep. Zooey Zephyr, a trans woman who has been blocked from speaking in chamber since last week. Her crime? Vocalizing the harms of the anti-trans legislation that the state House was considering at the time.

Read More
04.26.23 | 1:29 pm
Listen To This: What The Tuck

A new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast is live! This week, Josh and Kate discuss the ousters of Tucker Carlson and Don Lemon, as well as the Supreme Court order on mifepristone.

You can listen to the new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast here.

04.26.23 | 1:00 pm
Now It’s Ukraine! (Tucker Firing Explanation Whack-A-Mole Continues …)

The Washington Post just published its own “why Tucker was canned” story.

Now it’s a mix of the endless controversy, Tucker’s hubris and his still redacted criticisms of Fox brass contained in discovery material from the Dominion case. But now the kicker is Ukraine. Rupert Murdoch got fed up with Carlson’s relentlessly pro-Russian commentary about the Ukraine war and his withering attacks on Ukraine itself. Even more, key Republican senators had had enough; and they were talking to Murdoch about it directly.

Read More
04.26.23 | 11:56 am
McCarthy Herds Republicans for Joe Biden

We’re about to have a Speaker Week Vote-O-Rama replay in which Speaker Kevin McCarthy will try to pass a pseudo-budget to kick start negotiations with Joe Biden over the debt ceiling, despite the fact that Biden has made clear he’s not going to negotiate over the debt ceiling at all. Biden has made clear he won’t negotiate but he’s definitely not even going to get into it until McCarthy says what it is is he wants. This pseudo-budget is the bill of particulars in which McCarthy says what he — or rather the Freedom Caucus — wants. As I said, it’s the Speakership vote all over again.

Following all this? Well, as you can tell it’s pretty convoluted. There’s a lot of kabuki and signaling wrapped around what should be an ordinary budgetary process. Because it’s so convoluted I wanted to provide some big picture points to keep in mind as this unfolds.

Read More
04.25.23 | 9:11 pm
Was Tucker’s Firing Part of the Dominion Settlement? (No)

Kate Riga and I discussed this during the podcast today — for scheduling reasons we recorded one day early this week. But so many of you have asked me this question that I wanted to address it here in the Ed Blog. The question is this: Is it possible that Tucker Carlson’s termination was a non-public part of Fox’s settlement agreement with Dominion? I have no inside information. But I’m pretty sure the answer is no.

Read More
04.25.23 | 6:53 pm
Where Things Stand: Another 2024 Republican Avoids Abortion Specifics
This is your TPM evening briefing.

Republicans’ inability to find their footing in a post-Roe America remains an omnipresent issue not just for the GOP as a whole, but one that is increasingly tripping up nearly every Republican with 2024 ambitions.

Read More