Those ‘Where Were You When…’ Moments

Hello! It’s the weekend, this is The Weekender. ☕

I was bopping around some quiet little mountain town outside of Denver on Jan. 6 2021, shopping for nature girl shit I’d never actually use (think: fleece lined leg warmers and Camelbacks), sipping on some altitude-heavy IPA and not looking at my phone. I didn’t have service. 

It was one of those rare days where I was able to unplug without meaning to. I was in my last remaining hours of some precious vacation time before I headed back to the grind, refreshed by the mountain air. 

My friend and I stopped in a diner that was packed with the lunchtime rush. But something was off. The restaurant was dead silent. Everyone was staring at the TV, which displayed a CNN chyron and had its volume raised to the max. When I saw the scene on screen, I thought I might throw up. 

I turned on my heels and asked my friend to drive me back down to whatever qualifies as “sea level” in Colorado, grabbed my laptop and logged into work. It’s one of those decision you don’t consciously make, you just do. 

Obviously, you know how all of the rest went down. We immediately framed our coverage of the attack through the lens of what we knew it to be: the latest chapter in a months-long conspiracy aimed at subverting the results of an election, a lie-ridden movement that simply culminated in the events of Jan. 6, and stretched far beyond that day. This was all much larger than a violent few hours on Capitol Hill. It was an attempted coup. We’ve been expounding upon that line of thinking for the past year and a half, wondering if, when the big first hearing arrived for the Jan. 6 Select Committee, its members would acknowledge that same theory, that same line of thinking. They did. 

You’ve probably caught up on all of our coverage of the first night of proceedings Thursday, and how the depth of material presented and foreshadowed feeds into our understanding of this crucial moment in history. If not, I’ve listed out the headlines (from the great minds of Josh Kovensky and Matt Shuham) for you below. 

Like being part of TPM’s coverage of the attack as it unfolded, helping digest the hearing for readers Thursday night felt equally important. One of those rare moments when you know you’re watching history unfold in front of you. 

• Jan. 6 Committee Frames Attack As Result Of Months-Long Plot, Says Danger Is Ongoing
• The Jan. 6 Committee Gets It: Trump’s Attack On The 2020 Election Wasn’t About One Day
• What The Jan. 6 Committee Sought To Demonstrate In Its First Primetime Hearing
• Jan. 6 Panel Is Drawing A Straight Line From Trump To The Proud Boys And Oath Keepers
• Trumpworld Lied To Your Face About The Election
• Here’s The 7-Part Plan The Jan. 6 Committee Says Trump Followed To Steal Power
• What We Want To Know From The Jan. 6 Committee

More on other news below. Let’s dig in. 

— Nicole Lafond

What Would It Take For Guns To One Day Go The Way Of Cigarettes?

An object, cloaked in an aura of glamor and cool, is, or at least feels, ubiquitous in American society. The object is a clear threat to public health — though that fact often gets eclipsed by arguments emphasizing the rights of those who like to use the object. Powerful, monied and well-connected special interest groups stand behind the object, and work fervently to thwart regulation and restrictions on it.

Today, that object is a gun. In our recent past, it was a cigarette. 

Read more →

— Kate Riga

More Dominoes Fall In Michigan’s GOP Gubernatorial Primary

FBI agents have arrested one of the leading contenders for the Republican nomination for governor in Michigan over misdemeanor charges related to his actions during the Jan. 6 Capitol attack.

Ryan Kelley, a frequent right-wing protest leader who attended the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, was one of the few remaining gubernatorial candidates on the Republican side left standing after a massive signature forgery scandal wiped out the race’s previous slate of top contenders.

What does this arrest means for the already-scandal-plagued state GOP primaries? Time (and his impending federal court appearances) will tell. 

— Matt Shuham

Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) is on a very dignified mission to woo Trump to “#ReEndorseMo” after being forced into a runoff in the GOP Alabama Senate primary. Now, Brooks would really like Trump, who snatched his endorsement away before the primary, to please give him another chance.

In his message to “MAGA Nation” on Sunday, Brooks heaped praise on Trump for withdrawing the endorsement, which not only “gave our campaign the kick in the pants we needed,” but also may have actually been a brilliant strategy to get Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) off Brooks’ back.

“Part of me wonders if he also knew that in pulling his endorsement, he’d bait ol’ Mitch into thinking we couldn’t win and get Mitch to stop attacking us,” the Alabama congressman said.

But Trump gets credit either way!

“Whether that was the plan or not, it worked and we made it into the runoff,” Brooks declared.

• How much land does Putin need? Vladimir Putin suggested on Thursday that it’s time for Russia to remain in the business of territorial expansion — drawing direct allusion to long wars with the West from Russian history. It comes as the Russian army has spent weeks trying to take the Donbas — Ukraine’s eastern region that, according to Kremlin propaganda, should be full of ethnic Russians waiting for Moscow’s arrival. That hasn’t quite gone as planned. 
• President Biden signaled that he may take executive action to protect abortion access in the likely event that the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade this summer. The President indicated this week that executive orders are on the table if the high court’s leaked draft majority opinion overturning Roe ends up being the court’s final ruling on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization — the challenge to Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban.
• The voting rights legal community is holding its breath these days for the moment when the U.S. Supreme Court formally announces whether it will take a case that could fundamentally transform the way election laws work.

“We need somebody inspirational. We need somebody that is a doer, has been there and done it, so that it’s not a strange new world to him.”

– Future GOP New York House candidate Carl Paladino on Feb. 13 last year describing Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler as he explained how a leader can effectively galvanize the people to make change.

— Cristina Cabrera