Its such a bizarre thing. Elon Musk has owned Twitter for roughly three weeks and as of this morning the site seems to be limping forward, with widespread but inconsistent outages, because the inner functioning of the company has essentially imploded. Or rather Musk blew it up. Pretty much on a whim. Musk had already fired roughly half of the company’s workforce and at least temporarily scared off many of its corporate advertisers. Earlier this week he issued the remaining staff an ultimatum in which they had to choose between becoming truly ”hardcore,” working longer hours and weekends, or taking a small severance and leaving.
Apparently an unexpectedly large number chose to do the latter. Last night hundreds, perhaps more than a thousand of the remaining employees signed off for good, often with messages on Twitter itself, toasting their former workplace in a digital equivalent of a New Orleans funeral.
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.
The Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted
Lighting $44 billion on fire would be so much easier, no?
The billionaire man-child has temper-tantrumed his way into a death spiral that seems almost impossible to recover from.
Twitter offices are closed until Monday, the workforce is resigning in droves, and this morning there are real questions about whether the platform will survive the weekend without fundamentally breaking down.
Dystopian late capitalism has a mordant sense of humor:
The Verge: Hundreds of employees say no to being part of Elon Musk’s ‘extremely hardcore’ Twitter
NBC News: Twitter to temporarily close offices amid wave of new resignations after Musk’s ultimatum
MIT Technology Review: Here’s how a Twitter engineer says it will break in the coming weeks
Lauren Boebert May Be Forced Into A Recount*
The Democratic challenger to Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) cut the gap between them in half as counties finalized their vote totals. With nearly all the votes in, the race remains too close to call, but the current vote spread is narrow enough to trigger the state’s automatic recount provision.
New: we're headed to an automatic recount in #CO03, where Adam Frisch (D) more than halved Rep. Lauren Boebert's (R) lead from 1,122 votes to 557 votes.
Still, extremely rare for a lead of that size to be overturned in a recount.
Kari Lake Refuses To Concede: ‘Our Elections Are A Circus Run By Clowns’
This is choice. On the same day she made a pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago, Kari Lake (R) made it clear she’s not conceding the race for Arizona governor, even though the race has been declared for Democrat Katie Hobbs.
Lake continued to cast baseless doubts on the election: “What happened to Arizonans on Election Day is unforgivable,” she said.
Lake is making noises about mounting a legal challenge, but it’s not clear she has any proper basis to challenge the results in court.
“Rest assured I have assembled the best and brightest legal team, and we are exploring every avenue to correct the many wrongs that have been done this past week,” Lake said. “I’m doing everything in my power to right these wrongs.”
Not conceding it too on brand for Lake.
Trump’s Legal Arguments In Mar-a-Lago Case Are Just Epically Bad
The Justice Department has filed its reply brief to the 11th Circuit, which the department is asking to short circuit the unwarranted special master review of its search of Mar-a-Lago.
It’s rare to see the justice Department argue a case with such unabashed confidence in its own position and undisguised scorn for the opponent’s, but it keeps happening over and over in the Mar-a-Lago documents case.
Here’s my favorite part:
DOJ points out that Trump’s latest arguments in the Mar-a-Lago documents fight completely undercuts his argument. If the documents at issue are his “personal” property, nothing prevents investigators from seizing them pursuant to a warrant. https://t.co/1NjqHxgh7Ppic.twitter.com/cBaUkZAzWc
The good folks at JustSecurity have published a model prosecution memo for Trump’s improper retention of government documents. This is the kind of memo the Justice Department would prepare internally before making its prosecution decision, assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the case.
Trump Org Monitor Given Extraordinary Powers
Barbara Jones, the former federal judge appointed to monitor Trump Org finances during the massive civil lawsuit against the company by the New York attorney general, has been the authority to keep Trump’s business under a very close microscope for any unusual, suspicious, or fraudulent activity.
Two new developments in the Fulton County grand jury probe of 2020 election interference:
The testimony of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) was supposed to happen yesterday but has reportedly been delayed until Nov. 22.
A South Carolina judge ruled that former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows must testify to the grand jury.
GOP Operative Convicted Of Funneling Russian $$$ to Trump’s 2016 Campaign
Jesse Benton, the former campaign aide to Kentucky Republican Sens. Rand Paul and Mitch McConnell who was pardoned by President Trump for campaign finance violations, has been convicted of new campaign finance violations.
Benton becomes the second Trump pardonee, after Steve Bannon, to be convicted of an *entirely new crime* less than two years after receiving a pardon. https://t.co/D6w0r4EIJi
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) announcement on Thursday afternoon that she will not seek a leadership role in the next Congress has paved the way for a new, younger generation to lead House Democrats. Pelosi had served as her party’s leader in Congress since 2003. According to a pair of senior Democratic staffers, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) is likely to be named the party’s leader in a vote set for November 30.
“It looks like it will be zero competitive races for upper leadership. We expect Jeffries will win by acclamation,” one of the staffers said.
Kyrsten Sinema has been a thorn in the side of Democrats for the last two years. Unlike, co-thorn Joe Manchin, there’s no obvious reason why she insisted on being one. (As Eric Levitz notes, Mark Kelly’s victory is an indictment of Sinema’s politics.) Manchin is from the most pro-Trump state in the country. Sinema’s not.
In recent weeks, Rep. Ruben Gallego has been signaling more and more clearly that he may challenge Sinema in a primary in advance of her reelection campaign in 2024. Normally in such circumstances partisans try to find a balance between disciplining or displacing an errant elected official and the risk of losing the seat altogether. But that mistakes the challenge Democrats actually face. Because Sinema is already unelectable.
Let’s start with the fact that 2024 is going to be a very challenging year for the Democrats to hold the Senate. The pick-up opportunities are challenging at best. Democrats must defend seats in Ohio, Montana and West Virginia. In other words, Democrats can’t afford to lose a seat in Arizona if they have hopes of retaining Senate control.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) announced Thursday she will not seek reelection to Democratic leadership in the next Congress, but will continue serving in her role as a representative.
Pelosi’s announcement marks a long-awaited generational sea change in the House Democratic leadership. Moments after Pelosi wrapped her speech, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) announced he would not seek reelection in the next Congress either. Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC) released a more ambiguous statement shortly after Pelosi’s speech, expressing his support for new leadership, but he has since indicated he will run for assistant leader. All three Democrats are over 80 years old and have held down the top leadership slots for most of this century.
Key soon-to-be House Republican committee chairs, flanked by members with funereal expressions and unintelligible visual aids, unveiled their big investigatory plans for January: something something Hunter Biden.
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.
Get Ready, Folks
The bullshit has already begun.
The GOP won the House yesterday, and the first order of business is to tee up the Hunter Biden “investigations.”
At 9:30 a.m. ET, the incoming chairmen of the House Judiciary and Oversight committees will hold a press conference on Capitol Hill to preview their bogus probes into the President’s son.
Let me repeat: These are the new chairmen of two major House committees, not some fringe backbenchers angling for airtime.
The culprits are Reps. Jim Jordan (R-OH) and James Comer (R-KY). But it’s not just them. It’s the whole right-wing apparatus rolling out the B-E-N-G-H-A-Z-I playbook.
It was on full display on Sean Hannity’s show last night. First, presumed incoming Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) had his own segment talking up various investigations of the Biden administration. Then Jordan and Comer immediately followed with their own lengthy segment on the Hunter Biden nonsense.
“We are going to make it very clear that this is now an investigation of President Biden,” Comer told Hannity about their focus on Hunter.
Media coverage of these manufactured scandals is so painful to watch: taking them seriously, amplifying the bogosity, making them part of the national political agenda. For our part, we’re going to be vigilant in telling you a toxic circus has come to town without trafficking in elephant manure. Onward.
How Tiny Will The House Margin Be?
What became inevitable over the weekend turned semi-official late in the day Wednesday as the AP declared Republicans had captured a majority of House seats.
The exact size of the GOP majority isn’t fully determined yet, but here’s the best estimate from a leading expert on such things:
Not final, but right now the single most likely House outcome is 222R-213D – a mirror image of Democrats' current slim majority.
Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) fell short in his challenge to McConnell’s leadership.
Big Swing And Miss Vibes
Credit: Gisele Fetterman’s Twitter
You’ll want to read TPM’s Emine Yücel on Fox News and others faceplanting in their eagerness to turn Gisele Fetterman into a target of ridicule and scorn.
Quite A Turnout, Sir
The Mussolini of Mar-a-Lago, as Dana Milbank puts it, was only able to draw a single member of Congress for his BIG ANNOUNCEMENT: lame-duck Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC), who of course did not survive his own primary. Or at least Cawthorn was the only member reporters spied there.
Lindsey Graham’s Turn In the Barrel
After taking his case all the way to the Supreme Court – and losing – Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is set to testify today before a Georgia grand jury investigating Trump’s 2020 election meddling.
In related news, former Mark Meadows aide Cassidy Hutchinson apparently testified to the grand jury yesterday.
What Price For Insurrectioning?
There’s been a lot of interest in vigorous application of the Insurrection Clause (a.k.a. Disqualification Clause) of the 14th Amendment to root out Jan. 6 types serving or attempting to serve in public office. The Project On Government Oversight has a new report out on the Insurrection Clause.
So far only one officeholder has felt the bite of the Insurrection Clause, and this week the New Mexico Supreme Court shot down his appeal because it was procedurally defective.
Mar-A-Lago Probe Update
Don’t sleep on this one! It remains for my money the most serious criminal culpability former President Trump currently faces. Or perhaps more precisely the most immediate threat of criminal prosecution.
One development this week to flag for you: The 11th Circuit has scheduled oral arguments for Tuesday, Nov. 22 in the Justice Department’s appeal of the whole special master mess the lower court judge unleashed.
In the meantime, the special master – himself unsullied by the district judge’s dubious decision to even have a special master – continues to do his work. He has set a status conference for Dec. 1 for the parties to make their arguments to him over the documents seized by the FBI at Mar-a-Lago. He has said that his report and recommendations to the judge will be completed by Dec 16.
This means there remains the possibility that the 11th Circuit will short-circuit the whole special master process before it is complete and allow the Justice Department to proceed with its investigation and potential prosecution unencumbered by the restrictions so flagrantly imposed by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon.
One additional note for the most obsessive observers: The Justice Department has added a former Scalia clerk on loan from the Office of the Solicitor General to its team handling the case.
Same-Sex Marriage Protection Advances In Senate
The Respect For Marriage Act cleared a key hurdle in the Senate. A final vote has not yet been scheduled.
Hate To See It
(Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
Defeated in her race for Arizona governor, Kari Lake (R) now must decide whether to remake herself yet again. The Democrat-turned-Republican, Buddhist-turned-Christian, local-TV-anchor-turned-media-hater now must decide whether to flip from election denier to gracious conceder. It’s a close call!
I watched Donald Trump’s special announcement speech last night. I don’t think it was quite as low energy as some have suggested. I’d describe it more as a greatest hits show from an old band. Some have noted that the crowd seemed not always to know when to clap. They were into it but not overwhelmed. This raised a question in my mind. This is not really Trump’s crowd. Trump’s crowd is at those red state rallies. He did himself a disservice by not holding the event at one of those venues. It’s possible that his handlers thought this was a venue where they could keep him more on script. More likely, he’s reacting in a panicked fashion to the DeSantis boomlet and didn’t have the time.
But let’s set the atmospherics aside. I think this is likely the beginning of the end of Donald Trump. But I say this with a different emphasis from most. When I say “beginning of the end” I put the emphasis on “beginning.” There can be a long time between the beginning of the end and the end of the end. I suspect in this case it may play out over a few political cycles.
