A Veep Who Wants Your Skin Ripped Off

Posted on by Nicole LaFond

Hello it’s the weekend. This is The Weekender ☕️

It appears that in his quest to find a running mate who might pull in a few Republican voters who aren’t thrilled about voting for him again in 2024, Donald Trump has moved on from the dog killer who lies about meeting with North Korean regime leader Kim Jong Un.

He’s reportedly now considering, among a handful of other options, the senator who thinks those protesting Israel’s actions in Gaza should have their “skin ripped off.”

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Scenes Of Damage Caused By Tornadoes In Central Iowa

Posted on by Christine Frapech

Earlier this week, a violent tornado ripped through central Iowa leaving a path of destruction in its wake. In Greenfield, Iowa, residents returned to their neighborhoods on May 22, 2024, to find some of their homes destroyed. Residents and first responders have been searching the area to assess the extent of damage and death toll. Iowa has seen more than 850 confirmed tornadoes so far this year.

Residents go through the damage in Greenfield, Iowa

GREENFIELD, IOWA – MAY 22: Residents go through the damage after a tornado tore through town yesterday afternoon on May 22, 2024 in Greenfield, Iowa. Multiple deaths and injuries have been reported from a series of tornadoes and powerful storms that hit several Midwestern states (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Residents and first responders look through debris in Greenfield

GREENFIELD, IOWA – MAY 22: : In an aerial view, residents and first responders go through the damage after a tornado tore through town yesterday afternoon on May 22, 2024 in Greenfield, Iowa. Multiple deaths and injuries have been reported from a series of tornadoes and powerful storms that hit several Midwestern states. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Some structures were completely destroyed by the tornado

GREENFIELD, IOWA – MAY 22: An aerial view shows the devastation left behind after a tornado tore through town yesterday afternoon on May 22, 2024 in Greenfield, Iowa. Multiple deaths and injuries have been reported from a series of tornadoes and powerful storms that hit several Midwestern states. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Residents return to their destroyed homes

GREENFIELD, IOWA – MAY 22: Residents and first responders go through the damage after a tornado tore through town yesterday afternoon on May 22, 2024 in Greenfield, Iowa. Multiple deaths and injuries have been reported from a series of tornadoes and powerful storms that hit several Midwestern states. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Clear path of tornado that ripped through neighborhoods in Greenfield, Iowa

GREENFIELD, IOWA – MAY 22: An aerial view shows devastation left behind after a tornado tore through town yesterday afternoon on May 22, 2024 in Greenfield, Iowa.Multiple deaths and injuries have been reported from a series of tornadoes and powerful storms that hit several Midwestern states. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Someone searches a badly damaged home in Greenfield, Iowa

GREENFIELD, IOWA – MAY 22: Residents and first responders go through the damage after a tornado tore through town yesterday afternoon on May 22, 2024 in Greenfield, Iowa. Multiple deaths and injuries have been reported from a series of tornadoes and powerful storms that hit several Midwestern states. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Residents embrace in front of destroyed home

GREENFIELD, IOWA – MAY 22: People embrace in front of their home which was destroyed when a tornado tore through town yesterday afternoon on May 22, 2024 in Greenfield, Iowa. Multiple deaths and injuries have been reported from a series of tornadoes and powerful storms that hit several Midwestern states (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Wind turbines near Prescott, Iowa, were damaged by the tornadoes

PRESCOTT, IOWA – MAY 22: A wind turbine lies toppled in the aftermath of tornadoes which ripped through the area yesterday on May 22, 2024 near Prescott, Iowa. Multiple deaths and injuries have been reported from a series of tornadoes and powerful storms that hit several Midwestern states. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

A toppled wind turbine with smoke rising in the distance

PRESCOTT, IOWA – MAY 22: A wind turbine lies toppled in the aftermath of tornadoes which ripped through the area yesterday on May 22, 2024 near Prescott, Iowa. Multiple deaths and injuries have been reported from a series of tornadoes and powerful storms that hit several Midwestern states. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Wreckage of fallen wind turbine

PRESCOTT, IOWA – MAY 22: A wind turbine lies toppled in the aftermath of tornadoes which ripped through the area yesterday on May 22, 2024 near Prescott, Iowa. Multiple deaths and injuries have been reported from a series of tornadoes and powerful storms that hit several Midwestern states. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Fallen wind turbine broken into pieces

PRESCOTT, IOWA – MAY 22: In an aerial view, a wind turbine lies toppled after tornadoes tore through the area yesterday on May 22, 2024 near Prescott, Iowa. Multiple deaths and injuries have been reported from a series of tornadoes and powerful storms that hit several Midwestern states. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

A wind turbine with a broken blade near Prescott, Iowa

PRESCOTT, IOWA – MAY 22: A wind turbine sits with broken blades in the aftermath of tornadoes which ripped through the area yesterday on May 22, 2024 near Prescott, Iowa. Multiple deaths and injuries have been reported from a series of tornadoes and powerful storms that hit several Midwestern states. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

A Proposal for Saving Some Publications that are Worth Saving

Posted on by Josh Marshall

Today I got an email from a publication you know the name of telling me that they’re very excited to announce that they’re starting a membership program. They’ve already been taking contributions for a number of years despite being owned by two megacorporations and having a history as an aggressively funded VC start up. This isn’t a publication I tend to read often, but it’s one many people do. And they employ lots of first-rate journalists.

(They addressed me as a former contributor, which I’m pretty much certain isn’t accurate. Which suggests some of the slapdashedness of the pivot to membership and doesn’t bode well for the corporate overlords’ patience with this new direction.)

But it suggested to me a small policy idea that could be a part of the solution to some current woes of the journalism industry. It’s no silver bullet. And there other policy ideas people are backing. But here’s mine.

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A Very Important Poll Detail

Posted on by Josh Marshall

I want to commend to your attention this article from Nate Cohn at the Times. It looks at the weak point for the NYT-Siena poll, and, indeed, many other polls this election cycle. In short, Donald Trump’s current lead is heavily focused on people who didn’t vote in 2020 and tend not to vote in general. They tend not to follow politics closely or pay much attention to traditional news sources. This isn’t new to our discussion. It’s sort of the internal anatomy of the gap between polls of registered voters and likely voters.

This is a fairly big deal. It has always struck me as inherently unlikely that what many suspect will be a relatively low turnout election (relative to recent cycles) will be determined by voters who tend not to vote and didn’t vote in 2020 — voters who, in this election, are supporting Trump in greater numbers. It’s not impossible. But it’s hard to figure. And this is what Trump’s current lead in most polls is based on. To be clear, this isn’t some hidden defect in the NYT-Siena poll or Cohn’s earlier logic. He’s discussed this issue throughout. And this article today focuses on it.

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First Arrest in UCLA Overnight Encampment Attack

Posted on by Josh Marshall

We have our first arrest tied to the vigilante attacks on the UCLA Gaza encampment on April 30th. In some ways it illustrates how slow and incremental the process has been. The arrestee is an 18-year-old high schooler named Edan On. He appears to be either Israeli or Israeli-American. I base this in part on his name but more on the fact that his identity was originally uncovered in part by his mother’s boasting about his role in the attack in Hebrew on Facebook. (Many American Jews know some Hebrew, or even a lot of Hebrew. But they don’t tend to use it as a casual posting language on social media unless they’re from Israel or have a family background in Israel.)

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Trump Turns WSJ Reporter Detained By Russia Into Re-Election Pawn

Posted on by David Kurtz

A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.

Russia, Russia, Russia

The challenge of the present moment is to continue to relentlessly observe, report, and document each of Donald Trump’s serial transgressions of democratic norms, the rule of law, and basic human decency. Challenging because the list is endless, the mind numbs, the body tires, and because the effort is not going to change his behavior or calm the fervor of his true believers. We do it not for him but for ourselves.

But even with Trump’s non-stop transgressiveness, certain episodes stand out as especially egregious, as the kind of thing no one, including the Republican Party, would have tolerated just a few years ago, and which no one should tolerate for a moment now.

Yesterday brought one such episode, when Trump baldly tied the release of WSJ reporter Evan Gershkovich, illegally detained by Russian, to his own re-election:

Where to start? It’s not just how bad it is but the myriad ways in which it is bad.

As to Gershkovich himself, Trump absolutely jeopardized his release. Why would Russia now do Trump the disservice of releasing Gershkovich any time before the November election? Why would Russia release Gershkovich after the election if Trump loses? In what way do Trump’s remarks do anything but harm the ongoing efforts to secure Gershkovich’s release?

As to the larger picture, Trump remains a toady of Putin, an easily played neophyte in geopolitics who can’t distinguish his personal and political interests from the national interest. The GOP nominee for president happily places himself in the thrall of Putin, which was bad enough in 2016 and 2020 but now comes after Putin invaded and continues to occupy U.S. ally Ukraine.

It was as reckless a move as anything Trump has done since being booted from office.

Reax To Trump Dangling Gershkovich’s Release

  • Former U.S. Ambassador to Poland Daniel Fried: “Since former President Trump brought it up, the question might be whether he is in contact with Russian authorities about Evan Gershkovich and, if so, whether he has pushed for Evan’s immediate release or suggested that the Russians keep holding him, perhaps to Trump’s advantage.”
  • TPM’s Josh Marshall: “Trump seems to be saying pretty clearly that he has an understanding with Putin that Gershkovich will under no circumstances be released until after he is elected and if he’s not elected, well, sucks to be him. Could this have anything to do w Manafort again working with Trump’s campaign?”
  • Luppe Luppen, channeling Trump: “Russia, Russia, Russia is a hoax but also I’m expressly working hand-in-glove with Putin’s regime to keep an American imprisoned in Russia until I am restored to power. Not anyone else, mind you; it has to be me.”
  • Former U.S. Marine Trevor Reed: “As a former wrongful detainee in Russia, I would just like to remind everyone that President Trump had the ability to get myself and Paul Whelan out of Russia for years and chose not to. I would be skeptical of any claims about getting Evan Gershkovich back in a day.”

Related: Trump Praises Authoritarians In Bronx Rally

With Trump comparing President Biden unfavorably to Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un, Xi Jinping, and Viktor Orban, it might be time for you to watch extended excerpts from Trump’s rally last night in the Bronx to stay familiar with how routinely he is fascisting.

Important Read

Greg Sargent on the Trump campaign’s “Unified Reich” video:

The Trump campaign’s initial story about this video may or may not prove true. But as we debate those specifics, let’s not lose sight of a larger point. Trump and his highest-profile allies have plainly embarked on a broader related project—one that seeks to acclimatize the American electorate to fascistic language and far-reaching authoritarian policy “solutions.” They are slowly edging the discourse deeper into that fraught territory, as if painstakingly testing how far they can take this without provoking too much public discomfort over it.

Unpacking Disinfo One Case At A Time

  • Just Security: Anatomy of MAGA Conspiracy of Assassination Attempt Against Trump
  • Juliette Kayyem: Trump’s Assassination Fantasy Has a Darker Purpose

Buckle Up For Tuesday

Closing arguments begin Tuesday after the three-day weekend in Donald Trump’s hush money case. In the meantime, TPM’s Josh Kovensky reports on the overt flattery of Trump that his lawyers and some witnesses engaged in during the trial itself.

Alito Watch

  • U.S. District Court Judge Michael Ponsor: How Could Alito Have Been So Foolish?
  • Philip Bump: The flags were redundant
  • NYT: Lawmakers Dial Up Pressure on Alito to Recuse From Elections Cases

Alito Strikes Again

The top line of the Supreme Court majority opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito in the South Carolina redistricting case is that it’s now even harder to prove that states are discriminating against Black voters in how congressional district are drawn – but it’s how Alito got there, as explained in a withering dissent written by Justice Elena Kagan, that shows how determined the court’s conservative super-majority is to erode precedent.

RFK Jr. Watch

  • David Corn: RFK Jr. Is Even Crazier Than You Might Think
  • One-time Trump supporter and ex-con Angela Stanton King leaves the RFK Jr. campaign.

The Six Million Dollar Man

The Democratic operative indicted for allegedly using AI to impersonate President Biden in a robocall in New Hampshire is facing a proposed $6 million fine from the Federal Trade Commission over the incident.

2024 Ephemera

  • NYT: Trump’s Pattern of Sowing Election Doubt Intensifies in 2024
  • Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) has called a special session of the legislature to put Joe Biden on the general election ballot after it wrapped up its regular session without addressing the issue: “Ohio is running out of time to get Joe Biden, the sitting president of the United States, on the ballot this fall. Failing to do so is simply not acceptable. This is a ridiculous — this is an absurd — situation,” DeWine said at a press conference.
  • TPM’s Khaya Himmelman: Republicans’ About Face On Ballot Drop Boxes Is Particularly Cartoonish In Wisconsin

Signs Of Life From Senate Dems?

Exhibit A: Senate Democrats are probing whether the oil industry offered (or acquiesced) to a quid pro quo with Donald Trump during a chopped steak dinner at Mar-a-Lago: $1 billion in contributions to his 2024 campaign in return for industry-friendly policies if he is re-elected.

Exhibit B: Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) put Senate Republicans on the spot Thursday by forcing a floor vote on a bipartisan border deal that they have rejected at the urging of Donald Trump.

Abortion Watch

  • Louisiana: Gov. Jeff Landry (R) is poised to sign a bill that would punish anyone in possession of abortion pills without a prescription with up to 10 years in prison (pregnant women in possession for their own use are exempted).
  • TPM’s Emine Yücel: Trump May Have Back-Tracked But The GOP Has Supported Restricting Contraceptives For Years

Yikes

The Daily Beast discovered a pattern of outrageous spending by the 2022 Senate primary campaign of Royce White (R-MN), whom the Minnesota GOP just endorsed for Senate in 2024:

The Daily Beast reviewed White’s 2022 primary campaign reports and found numerous items that boggled legal experts. The unusual expenses include a total of more than $100,000 in mysterious wire transfers and checks reported as paid to the campaign; hefty tabs at spicy nightspots; getaways at posh hotels in at least seven states; thousands of dollars in limousine services; unexplained cash withdrawals; eye-popping purchases from electronics, sporting goods, clothing, and musical instrument retailers; and the DribbleUp smart basketball training app that White himself admitted might be personal use.

^That doesn’t include the $1,200 payment to a strip club in Miami.

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Senate Republicans Are Mad They Got Forced To Vote Down A Border Bill That They Like Again

Posted on by Nicole LaFond

The reason that Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) is mad today is very convoluted, so bear with me.

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They’ve Got a Plan?

Posted on by Josh Marshall

Below I noted that one obvious way to steal the election for Republicans, if we have a 270-268 Biden win, is to reallocated Biden’s (probable) Nebraska elector to Trump. But TPM Readers ED and JP noted that when Republicans tried to change the law in advance, Maine Democrats made clear they’d do the same to even the score. I didn’t realize they’d been so public about it. But it’s very good that they did. Changing the law in advance is very different from illegally doing it after the fact. But this gives me some confidence that if Nebraska Republicans tried this and got SCOTUS to say it was okay then Maine would say “count us in too.” As they should. Still worth keeping an eye on. But this gives me a bit more peace of mind.

Big, Huge, Golf: How Trump’s Lawyers Used The Trial To Flatter Him

Posted on by Josh Kovensky

NEW YORK — Stormy Daniels was almost done testifying. She was showing signs exhaustion after hours of withering cross-examination from Trump attorney Susan Necheles, who prompted Daniels to describe her open hatred of Trump, her encounters with the paranormal, and her “Make America Horny Again” strip tour.

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