From TPM Reader PT …

I can’t help wondering if the Trump Administration’s “negotiations” with the Speaker of the House are real and good-faith, or whether they’re some kind of theater and posturing.

The thing is — Kevin McCarthy can’t negotiate on behalf of the House, and everyone knows it. In this regard, the situation is exactly analogous with 2011, when John Boehner was negotiating with the White House, made a deal, but then couldn’t get the rest of the House to support it (IIRC he got shivved by his deputy, Eric Cantor, who then hilariously lost a primary challenge a year or two later). In 2011 a lot of people didn’t understand the dynamic, but in 2023 I’m pretty sure everyone does.

From TPM Reader MM …

We established long ago that my, shall we say imperfect, political instincts are high on the list of reasons why a career in politics was never in the cards for me. Nevertheless I’m not always wrong (e.g., broken clock / twice a day).

You also know that I’ve been a supporter of Joe Biden since the 2020 Dem primaries, and remain a supporter today. No one’s right all the time (though some insist, absurdly and laughably, that they are), but Biden has been doing a pretty good job of getting the job done despite the fact that he doesn’t seem to get much love (or, more importantly, political credit) from voters for it. If he’s calling it a “negotiation”, then so it is, as you pointed out this morning, while noting that in a negotiation you give something in the expectation of getting something. I believe that Joe Biden understands the MAGA House GOP and the weakness of the Speaker perfectly, and has zero illusions about the House GOP’s intention (not willingness: intention) to cause chaos (Trumpism 101: If you can create chaos, create chaos: it drives your enemies crazy, and while they’re busy trying to fix what you just broke, you’re working on the next phase of your treason).

From TPM Reader DB …

I don’t think elected Democrats, especially tenured ones, realize how fucking disheartening it is to voters that they never fight especially over the debt limit which everyone knew was going to be a problem and once again our only strategy is to concede. 

This probably doesn’t require much saying. But I think we need to say it anyway in the context of the low-energy but still petulant “Durham Report.” Trump diehards like Durham and most Republicans have now spent years claiming that the Trump/Russia investigation was some kind of Deep State plot or “collusion” between the FBI, the Clinton campaign and the Obama administration. The kinder, gentler version of this attack is that the FBI, whatever its motives, never should have opened an investigation in the first place.

This is all absurd.

It’s too early to say definitely. But initial indications suggest the assailant in the bat attack on Rep. Gerry Connolly’s (D-VA) office staff is a person who suffers from schizophrenia and who stopped taking his medication months ago and has been in a downward spiral since. Two staffers were hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries after being struck with a metal bat.

Connolly suggested mental illness was at the root of the attack rather than a specific grievance or political motivation. CNN interviewed accused assailant Xuan Kha Tran Pham’s father whose account mirrored Connolly’s. “He is in a really bad condition,” said the father. “All day and all night, he mumbles … he talks and looks like he talks with someone in his brain, and suddenly, he is shouting angrily.”

As we watch the unfolding fiasco of the debt ceiling standoff, now, in fact, a negotiation and a source of gnashing of teeth down through the ages, there’s an additional point and question I wanted to address. Over recent days I’ve had a large volume of emails asking pretty close to the same question: “Josh, can you remind me why the Democrats made the decision not to raise the debt ceiling at the end of the last Congress? I can’t understand why they decided not to do it when they had the chance.”

First, the tl;dr version: That’s not what happened.

Let me preface all this by saying I take a backseat to no one in opposition to the whole clearly anachronistic and unconstitutional debt limit regime. I was banging the drums about the absolute need for the Democrats to do just this — raise the debt limit during the lame duck session last fall and winter — at the time. In fact, there’s a video I’m about to link where I talked to a couple true experts about this last fall.

But pretending they decided not to is just false.

After months of insisting that the White House would not negotiate over debt-ceiling hostage taking, the White House now appears to be doing just that. Reports from numerous news organizations tell us that the White House is now looking for a deal to avoid a calamitous debt default. Yesterday President Biden told reporters, “I really think there’s a desire on their part, as well as ours, to reach an agreement, and I think we’ll be able to do it.” Of course, we haven’t seen any deal or its terms. So we can’t be certain we know what’s coming on that front. But in case there was any uncertainty on the process, the President provided clarity (emphasis added). “I’ve learned a long time ago, and you know as well as I do: It never is good to characterize a negotiation in the middle of a negotiation.” In other words, it makes sense to call this a “negotiation” because the President says it’s a negotiation. That’s good enough for me.

A cardinal rule of politics is remembering that you never get everything you want. But we should also be clear whether what we’re getting is what we said we wanted. This clearly isn’t it. Perhaps this was inevitable. But they’re negotiating over raising the debt ceiling even as they say maybe, somehow, that they’re not, even as they say they are?

Definitely take time this morning to read Hunter Walker’s big exclusive which we published last night. Hunter discovered that a leading member of neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes “Groyper” movement — who operates under a series of pseudonyms — actually works as a staffer on Capitol Hill. Fuentes calls Wade Searle, a staffer working in Rep. Paul Gosar’s office, “one of our strongest soldiers.” If you’re not familiar with it, Fuentes movement is explicitly racist and anti-Semitic and is probably best seen as the modern day, digital equivalent of the late 20th century Aryan Nation neo-Nazi groups.

In recent years, Gosar has flirted with the group and its leader — alternatively expressing agreement with him and then blaming misunderstandings or scheduling snafus when he comes under scrutiny for it. But as Hunter shows, the movement members are actually working in Gosar’s office — a fact that is understandably viewed as a coup and a fact of great value within the movement itself.

Let me say a few words about the piece. While the reporting is Hunter’s, a piece of this scale, complexity and sensitivity is a group effort. It’s also the product of many hours of work by Executive Editor David Kurtz and Managing Editor John Light. Your membership and support for TPM is what makes exclusives like these possible. So thank you for making this possible.

More to come.

Russia is building a planned expat village outside Moscow for right-wing Americans and Canadians who want to live under a regime of “traditional values.” Timur Beslangurov, a Russian immigration lawyer who helps MAGA-loving Americans resettle in Russia, said, “The reason is propaganda of radical values: Today they have 70 genders, and who knows what will come next.”

Does CNN have a scandal on its hands?

According to tonight’s edition of Tara Palmeri’s PuckNews newsletter (sub.req.), CNN set audience ground rules for the Trump town hall which allowed audience members to cheer Trump but not boo him.

Here’s the key part of the interview with Matthew Bartlett (emphasis added)…