Josh Marshall
Big Normie Energy 
We seem to have moved on, for the moment at least, from the Replace Biden!/Thunderdome Convention discourse. But a new poll out today reminds us of a key issue about Biden. Earlier this year a lot of people were operating on the assumption that the Democratic policy agenda is more popular with Americans and that President Biden is unpopular and old, both literally and metaphorically. So basically any other Democrat under 60 who’s got a little electoral success under their belt would be on course to defeating Trump, or at least doing substantially better than Biden.
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Was Ronna X Trump Bait for a Scaredy-Cat-NBC?
In response to yesterday’s post on Ronna X TPM Reader JG said I may be missing the true elephant in the room, and by that he means something a number of others have suggested over the last 48 hours or so. That idea is that this doesn’t have anything to do with having Ronna on the air at all. She’s there to prepare for Trump’s possible return to power, an insurance policy, as it were. There’s an additional layer of this. NBC is a big corporation with a bunch of channels and entertainment brands. But it’s part of Comcast which is a huge media and telecom conglomerate with interests across various sectors of the economy. If you’re Comcast this isn’t just a matter of NBC News or NBC. You have to worry about whether Trump is going to go to war with Comcast itself, which is vulnerable on numerous business and regulatory fronts, if he gets mad at NBC News.
I guess I thought this was implicit in what I wrote yesterday. But it definitely wasn’t my emphasis. What I was focused on yesterday was how this works when you don’t have a lawless authoritarian in the White House. But when you do, well … yes, that introduces a whole new dimension to it.
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Late Update: Currently at 499!!!!!!!
The Lonesome Tale of Ronna X
We’re seeing an ongoing — and to me, pretty comical — garbage fire at NBC News over the hiring of Ronna McDaniel (or who I guess we might call Ronna X, since her last name may be subject to ongoing contract negotiation) as a paid contributor. I’ll assume you’ve seen at least some reports on the controversy. I want to add three things. First a personal aside, second a guess about what happened and third something about the structural roots of “bothsidesist” news coverage.
Read MoreSo we have another on-set rewrite on the Saving Private Trump movie.
Today was the day Trump’s 30-day grace period ran out and the State of New York, in the person of NY AG Tish James, could start collecting on the $464 million judgment. But now a New York appeals court judge has stepped in and given Trump a significant reprieve. He now has ten days to come up with a significantly reduced bond of $175 million. Remember that the judgment was actually $355 plus almost $100 million in interest. So the logic of the number seems to be cutting the main judgment roughly in half (that’s my speculation) and making that the amount of the bond. The judgment itself stands. This is just about the bond.
Needless to say, this is a big, big win for Trump, at least for now.
But he’s not necessarily out of the woods.
Read MoreThis is a quick update on our very important membership drive. Tuesday will mark the end of the first week of the drive. Our goal is to sign up 1,000 new members during the drive. As of this moment we’re at 422. That’s getting close to half way there. So that’s great. Thank you! We’d really like to get half way to our goal by tomorrow evening. So if you’re a TPM Reader but not currently a TPM Member please make this the moment by clicking right here. We’re even running a special 40% discount. So it’s a great time to join.
Big News in New Jersey
To my great surprise and seemingly to the surprise of almost everyone else, New Jersey First Lady Tammy Murphy announced today that she is ending her campaign for Senate. That almost certainly clears the path for Rep. Andy Kim to become the Democratic nominee for the seat currently held by Sen. Bob Menendez. New Jersey isn’t quite in California sure-thing territory. But this makes it very likely that Kim will be elected to the Senate in November.
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We Have Met the Enemy and He Owns the Valet Booth at Trump Tower
As we can see, the New York State civil judgment against Donald Trump, totaling roughly $450 million, and Trump’s seeming inability to post a bond for the amount in order to appeal the judgment, is the real deal. But it has also reminded us, brought us back to the Russian nesting doll, the infinitely layered onion of Donald Trump not being real. The effort to collect the judgment spins us right back around to why there is a judgment in the first place. Trump is now fundraising off threats to “seize Trump Tower.” The New York Post is headlining the same basic idea. But as a friend reminded me yesterday evening, Trump doesn’t own Trump Tower.
Read MoreDon’t miss Josh Kovensky’s review, reminder, survey of just who Paul Manafort is and what he was up to and probably still is up to at the nexus between the politics of Ukraine, Russia and the United States. Newly relevant with Donald Trump saying he wants to bring Manafort back into his campaign. But really it never stopped being relevant since it’s part of an ongoing and still only half-understood story going all the way back to 2015. Read it.