Senior staff writer, POLITICO, POLITICO Magazine. michaelkruse.bio
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“You cannot have a nation half prosperous and half in economic decline. And I think a lot of people who voted for President Trump said, ‘Look, for 40 years, 50 years, we’ve been seeing our kids have less opportunity. The system isn’t working. We’ve got to blow the system up.”
Massie: “What are you going to do, tell a woman she can’t stand up for survivors of sexual abuse? The White House can’t do that as far as they have with the men.”
Massie: “I think the administration did a 180 on this because they discovered not that Trump would be implicated, but some of their biggest donors and friends would be implicated and/or embarrassed.”
“Thirty-five years of talk radio, you have to be entertaining too, it’s not like you just spew your political ideology. You are a radio personality, and that’s part of who you were. Now that I’m running for office, there’s little if any of that.”
“Of course I prefer his endorsement, but if it’s not an endorsement, neutral is probably the next best thing.”
“The problem for our branch is that we have a very tiny megaphone, and if we use our megaphone too often, we risk losing what I would say is the long game, and the long game is to preserve our independence.”
Trump Is Trying to Blackmail the Supreme Court.
“They can rebrand all they want,” says @chrismurphyct.bsky.social. “The facts are the facts. They screwed working people to help their billionaire and corporate donors.”
“... you’re going to have children who come to school with measles and infect other people who either have not been vaccinated or have some sort of disease, like cancer.”
Bill Cassidy: “We’re going to start having vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks at school.”
Halle Berry wants to talk to Gavin Newsom about menopause.
Norm Eisen: “The Trump-Epstein story is the story of the Trump administration—corruption benefiting his rich and powerful cronies at the expense of vulnerable people.”
“What I think they need to do is get rid of all those older people. They need to retire, and we need some young blood. I think that’s what we need — young people.”
“They need to just look younger and be really, genuinely more engaged with their constituents and with their party. It’s a lot of just kind of, like, superficial engagement at this point. And that’s why I think they just don’t have the same level of impact.”
“There’s always been this wishful-thinking industry around Trump’s health and Trump’s legal woes,” says @rothschildmd.bsky.social. “There’s been this far-left influencer sphere that is constantly pumping up the idea that Trump is about to go to prison or the walls are closing in.”
Trump denies he’s dead.
"... to phone or not to phone?"
“Admittedly, such a suggestion will generate comparisons to Dr. Strangelove’s doomsday machine, WarGames’ War Operation Plan Response, and the Terminator’s Skynet, but the prophetic imagery of these science fiction films is quickly becoming reality.”
Judge rules Trump can't act as national police chief.
To read before tonight's game.
“We would essentially be handing him even more power. And who knows when they’ll reopen the government? They don’t even care about the government being open.”
“That chorus of ‘everyone needs to get off their ass and do something’ is growing louder and louder. And more and more elected Democrats who are seen as doing nothing — their commitment to our country is going to be questioned.”
“The gilding of the Oval seems to be about creating an imperial or royal setting for the performing of the duties of the presidency and a powerful executive branch. This is clearly a president who wants the attention and power concentrated on him.”
“He cares a lot about the fountains.”
“... grappling with an ascendant far right that looks on the cusp of power unless politicians can address what’s fueling the rise, which is immigration and cost of living.”
“Spanberger is the future of the Democratic Party if we intend to reclaim the White House from MAGA and be viable again in the Senate.”
“We’re the president’s patrol, ma’am.”
“I’m not a simp. I’m a soldier.”
Trump, writes @fotoole.bsky.social, has a problem: fascism bends inexorably toward war, but much of his appeal lies in his promise to end America's foreign conflicts.
“Democracy is not just under attack from authoritarianism from the outside. It’s also under attack from a withering faith on the inside of its ability to deliver on these material challenges in working-class people’s lives.”
Poor and low-income people make up a third of the U.S. electorate—more than 40% of the electorate in the swing states that will decide the 2026 midterms.
"... right now the only thing I want to see is a story that I can relate to. And the only thing that matters is the emotional. The emotional comes from the story of a family. It comes from the way we love and hate."
“We are going to unleash righteous hellfire on them until the cheating scheme ends,” @hakeem-jeffries.bsky.social tells @anniekarni.bsky.social.
“He’s like a drag queen. He’s outrageous, he’s transgressive, he’s catty, he’s a narcissist the likes of which we haven’t seen since Alexander the Great.”
“Serenida y pacencia.”
“There’s a lot of folks who are doing the jobs that three people used to do. Summers, in particular, our high season, really just crush people ...”
“Another part is, how much is the consumer willing to tolerate pricing increases?”
“But if, for some reason, in Philadelphia, let’s say a fan festival is only open for 20 days. Well, then you know what? They can go on the other side of the fan festival and run the Rocky Steps. Yeah, they can go to Constitution Hall and learn about American history.”
America Tips Into Fascism.
From 13 years ago tomorrow.
“The last person who asserted the authority to use military personnel for routine law enforcement anywhere in the country for any reason was King George.”
“Over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.”
“That’s why we’re elected every two years—to be back in the district to listen to people. I may not win them over, but I’ll be able to sleep at night knowing that I at least listened to them.”
“Even though I’m Black, I don’t think it’s about Blackness.”
“What we would really love is just some clarity around it ...”
“I get tired of myself at times.”
“No administration has seen more chaos in its leadership ranks than the Trump administration other than Trump one. He begins by being right, and if anyone challenges his worldview, they need to go away.”
“What are the implications of entering an era of two governing classes — divided by party and lacking common educational bonds — for governance, policymaking and the future of American democracy?”
“MANY PEOPLE ARE SAYING THIS IS THE GREATEST MERCHANDISE EVER MADE.”
“Jesus crackers — these people voted for the president.”
“We are not NPR. We are an independent nonprofit that’s providing a super-localized service to a very small community very, very, very far away from Washington.”
“We have a lot of muscle in American society. It’s a very wealthy society and a lot of highly skilled lawyers, and it is well organized. The United States has the raw materials to push back. It’s just not doing it.”
“We need to think: What brought the Third Reich down? What brought liberty to Europe? It wasn’t talking with Hitler for 10 years.”
Germany’s Army Is Rebuilding. What Could Go Wrong?
“Trump doesn’t come out of that tradition. He’s a tough, street-fighting politician. That’s his brand, and it’s worked for him. So maybe there’s a point to JB trying to get into some fighting shape.”
Democrats pounce in reliably red Iowa, fueled by special election hopium.
“I think having a federal law, plus an EO, plus Trump’s signature on the federal law, these things would sort of change the game, and I think ultimately set us back.”
I flew to Tallahassee and rented an SUV and lashed gas to the top. All those cars, and couches, and fridges, on the sides of I-10. Headed for the Gulf and found Waveland. That place wasn’t wrecked. It was gone. Houses slabs scrubbed clean. I filed my story by sat phone while standing on the beach.
“He’s kind of a rogue actor. He talks to all these people, but no one knows what he says in any of these meetings. He will say things publicly but then he changes his mind. It’s hard to operationalize that.”
“... he has the president’s ear, which is evident, but there has been some confusion about what has been said and agreed.”
Five years ago.
“You know, I’m a frame person. Sometimes I like frames more than I like the pictures.”
“If people don’t feel safe, they don’t feel safe. No amount of yelling at them or lecturing them changes that,” says @mikenellis.bsky.social. “He plays right into the heart of the Democratic Party’s biggest weaknesses, which is that we care about reality.”
“It didn’t have to be true crime or romance or celebrity profile. It was history for the sake of telling history, and the idea that American history in and of itself is something that can be entertaining.”
Published seven years ago today.
"I will say, though, that for younger people of all races and ethnicities, I think they don't really believe in any of the people in power. I think they feel alienated from both political parties. And so I think they're all completely up for grabs."
"... the key for us is understanding we’re in a country in which 60 percent of the people don’t have a four-year college degree, the key for us is going to be whether we can attract non-college-educated voters to support us ..."
POLITICO Weekend.
“I thought he would help the economy—he’s a businessman. I regret it.”
“It’s now a vulgar, gold-leafed, and gaudy professional wrestler’s dressing room.”
“Donald Trump, you have poked the bear, and we will punch back.”
Ran two years ago today.
Bob Costas: “‘Stick to sports ’almost always means stick to sports unless you’re saying something I agree with. ‘Stick to sports’ is just a way of not considering what the other person has to say.”
“The most likely scenario is that you just start seeing things get chipped away, chipped away, and then eventually it just kind of blows up. Eventually it’s too much, and the right domino falls and it’s not something you can control.”
“These are all real components of why people would trust the United States, and if you start taking them apart, you start eroding that trust. At some point you’re no longer the thing that gives people confidence. You’re just another third-world country.”
“I see it fitting into his use of threats of questionable legality — but very practical implications of risk for the person at the receiving end of the threat — to twist people’s arms and get them to do what he wants.”
“I know a number of folks who are activists who are just thinking that possibly protesting can be risking your life.”
“What he’s doing is basically about power and not public safety. He’s turned certain areas of the city into runways for his fascist fashion show.”
THE FRIDAY READ.
Who are the people who are the normal people and who gets to decide?
“We are doing our best to get Democrats to talk like normal people and stop talking like they’re leading a seminar at Antioch,” says @thirdwaymattb.bsky.social.
A lovely piece of writing.
“Joseph McCarthy was right.”
Here's this sentence from @dgraham.bsky.social: Even as voters keep telling pollsters that they find the Democratic Party inauthentic, some of its leaders are looking for cheap, left-of-center knockoffs of existing products.
Inside the Dems' fight to be "the new Iowa" and hold the first 2028 primary.
Need to read.
“Jake is emerging as a major policy thinker among the Democrats,” @jonathanhaidt.bsky.social says of @repauchincloss.bsky.social.
This sounds fun.
“They are looking to exploit issues for political gain, not to solve them.”
Kara Swisher: “... is this what it now takes to be president?”
“We’ve seen it for a long time, his entire life.”
“We cannot unilaterally allow one of the two major parties to rig the game. And California is one of the states that has the capacity to offset a large state like Texas.”
“The real divide isn’t about whether it’s fair. The real divide is whether to fight fire with fire or hold the line on principle.”
“Our founders would be embarrassed by the fact that we don’t talk to each other.”
“It would be naïve to call 2024 anything other than a reckoning on the Democratic brand,” says @torygavito.bsky.social. “To solve a brand problem, you need people talking about that brand — and that requires partisan dollars.”
“Trump is trying to grab power ahead of the 2026 election,” says @jenagriswold.bsky.social. “This is a direct attack on democracy.”
“... a perversion of what the Constitution seems to require.”
“There’s affection for her, but maybe less confidence that she would be a strong candidate.”
“Five years ago, AI video was nonexistent to complete garbage. One year ago it was okay, not very usable, sort of just beginning. And today it’s virtually indistinguishable from reality.”
“We’re not bringing in woke indoctrinators into the classroom.”