This post includes links to articles and commentaries by Jeffrey Goldberg, Michael S. Schmidt, Ben Parker, Stephanie Steinbrecher, Kelsey Ronan, John McMurtrie, Sophia DuRose, Rachel Villa, Amy Sumerton, Anne Applebaum, Tom Dreisbach, the Marshall Project, John D. Miller, Thom Hartmann, Parker Malloy, Brandy Zadrozny, Philip Bump, and the United States House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol.
Here’s what I’ve found interesting:
- Former generals are warning us with stories about Trump wanting generals like Hitler had;
- McSweeney’s catalog of Trump’s worst cruelties, collusions, corruptions, and crimes;
- Trump is speaking like Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini;
- Trump’s more than 100 threats to punish enemies;
- Fact-checking Over 12,000 of Donald Trump’s Statements About Immigration;
- An apology from the publicist who created the Trump television fantasy;
- Trump’s 2024 blueprint for stealing the election;
- Media’s failure to cover Trump’s Potemkin photo op;
- How Russian propaganda reaches and influences the U.S.; and
- Remembering what happened at the January 6, 2021, insurrection.
Here we go. I’m glad you’re here.
#1
Trump: ‘I Need the Kind of Generals That Hitler Had’ (Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic, Link to Article)
In their book, The Divider: Trump in the White House, Peter Baker and Susan Glasser reported that Trump asked John Kelly, his chief of staff at the time, “Why can’t you be like the German generals?” Trump, at various points, had grown frustrated with military officials he deemed disloyal and disobedient. (Throughout the course of his presidency, Trump referred to flag officers as “my generals.”) According to Baker and Glasser, Kelly explained to Trump that German generals “tried to kill Hitler three times and almost pulled it off.” This correction did not move Trump to reconsider his view: “No, no, no, they were totally loyal to him,” the president responded.
This week, I asked Kelly about their exchange. He told me that when Trump raised the subject of “German generals,” Kelly responded by asking, “‘Do you mean Bismarck’s generals?’” He went on: “I mean, I knew he didn’t know who Bismarck was, or about the Franco-Prussian War. I said, ‘Do you mean the kaiser’s generals? Surely you can’t mean Hitler’s generals? And he said, ‘Yeah, yeah, Hitler’s generals.’ I explained to him that Rommel had to commit suicide after taking part in a plot against Hitler.” Kelly told me Trump was not acquainted with Rommel.
WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING:
While these comments had been reported previously, former Trump White House Chief of Staff Gen. John Kelly has now gone on-the-record confirming a series of incidents in response to former President Trump’s threats to use the military against political enemies.
Kelly also confirmed that Trump has called American soldiers who died in service of our nation “suckers and losers.”
Trump’s spokespeople deny these stories, but given how retired generals face the prospect of being recalled to active duty and court-martialed should Trump win, they don’t have any incentive to lie.
Goldberg’s article is a comprehensive review of Trump’s disdainful attitudes toward the military and its values—beyond obedience to the Commander-in-Chief. Kelly’s on-the-record conversation with the New York Times (As Election Nears, Kelly Warns Trump Would Rule Like a Dictator) enhances this latest warning from a former general about Trump’s attitude toward democracy or checks on his power from people who saw the former president up close during his first term.
I hope voters listen now that we have a former White House Chief of Staff saying on-the-record that the person from he worked “certainly falls into the general definition of fascist.”
Yeah, that’s bad.
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#2
Lest We Forget the Horrors: A Catalog of Trump’s Worst Cruelties, Collusions, Corruptions, and Crimes (Ben Parker, Stephanie Steinbrecher, Kelsey Ronan, John McMurtrie, Sophia DuRose, Rachel Villa, and Amy Sumerton, McSweeney’s, Link to Article)
Early in President Trump’s term, McSweeney’s editors began to catalog the head-spinning number of misdeeds coming from his administration. We called this list a collection of Trump’s cruelties, collusions, and crimes, and it felt urgent then to track them, to ensure these horrors—happening almost daily—would not be forgotten. This election year, with the very real possibility of Trump returning to office, we know it’s important to be reminded of these horrors and to head to the polls in November to avoid experiencing new cruelties, collusions, corruption, and crimes.
Various writers have compiled this list during the course of the Trump administration. Their work has been guided by invaluable journalistic resources, including WTFJHT, NPR, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and other sources, to whom we are grateful.
WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING:
We need to take what actually happened during President Trump’s first term out of the memory hole into which so many have apparently placed it.
It’s not just that many have forgotten what was actually happening four years ago when they answer the perennial election-year question: “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?”
The unemployment rate was 6.9 percent. COVID-19 was killing thousands of people a day. There were shortages in critical necessities. Families were preparing Zoom meetings for the holidays. Professional sports contests were being held in bubbles or in front of stands filled with photos of the fans who could not attend.
But it isn’t just the pandemic that we have forgotten. And that is why I am thankful the people at McSweeney’s have compiled this list of 1,056 horrors inflicted on the nation. It comes with a helpful atrocity key with categories including Sexual Misconduct, Harassment, & Bullying; White Supremacy, Racism, Homophobia, Transphobia, & Xenophobia; Public Statements / Tweets; Collusion with Russia & Obstruction of Justice; Trump Staff & Administration; Trump Family Business Dealings; Policy; and Environment.
It takes about four and a half hours to review the entire list. I had forgotten much of it. This is a valuable resource for people who are wondering what the stakes of this election are, especially given Trump’s fondness for Hitler’s generals and retribution.
#3
Trump Is Speaking Like Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini (Anne Applebaum, The Atlantic, Link to Article)
In the 2024 campaign, that line has been crossed. Trump blurs the distinction between illegal immigrants and legal immigrants—the latter including his wife, his late ex-wife, the in-laws of his running mate, and many others. He has said of immigrants, “They’re poisoning the blood of our country” and “They’re destroying the blood of our country.” He has claimed that many have “bad genes.” He has also been more explicit: “They’re not humans; they’re animals”; they are “cold-blooded killers.” He refers more broadly to his opponents—American citizens, some of whom are elected officials—as “the enemy from within … sick people, radical-left lunatics.” Not only do they have no rights; they should be “handled by,” he has said, “if necessary, National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military.”
In using this language, Trump knows exactly what he is doing. He understands which era and what kind of politics this language evokes. “I haven’t read Mein Kampf,” he declared, unprovoked, during one rally—an admission that he knows what Hitler’s manifesto contains, whether or not he has actually read it. “If you don’t use certain rhetoric,” he told an interviewer, “if you don’t use certain words, and maybe they’re not very nice words, nothing will happen.”
His talk of mass deportation is equally calculating. When he suggests that he would target both legal and illegal immigrants, or use the military arbitrarily against U.S. citizens, he does so knowing that past dictatorships have used public displays of violence to build popular support. By calling for mass violence, he hints at his admiration for these dictatorships but also demonstrates disdain for the rule of law and prepares his followers to accept the idea that his regime could, like its predecessors, break the law with impunity.
WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING:
Many of Trump’s enablers try to explain away these extreme statements by encouraging us to take the former president seriously and not literally.
But that isn’t how politics and elections work—especially given what we know about Trump’s record in office.
To get the American people to accept mass deportations now, Trump needs to dehumanize the targets of that atrocity. As Applebaum explains, it is a time-tested strategy used by autocrats worldwide.
So, again, we need to take Trump seriously and literally. He is making promises. We need to come to terms with it now while we still have votes that can respond to it.
This dynamic is one of the reasons why the Harris-Walz campaign is right to embrace former Rep. Liz Cheney (R) and the other Never Trump Republicans who have placed the protection of our democracy ahead of their careers or ideological preferences. Democrats don’t have to agree with Never Trumpers about anything other than the danger Trump presents to our democratic experiment. But we should be grateful they have been willing to take this step experts believe is vital to turn back an attempted authoritarian capture.
I am.
#4
Trump has made more than 100 threats to prosecute or punish perceived enemies (Tom Dreisbach, National Public Radio, Link to Article)
With just two weeks remaining until the presidential election, former President Donald Trump has used his most recent appearances on podcast and cable interviews to escalate attacks on fellow Americans whom he calls “the enemy from within.”
In one recent interview, Trump said that if “radical left lunatics” disrupt the election, “it should be very easily handled by — if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military.”
That statement, on Fox News, was not the first time Trump has expressed support for using government force against domestic political rivals. Since 2022, when he began preparing for the presidential campaign, Trump has issued more than 100 threats to investigate, prosecute, imprison or otherwise punish his perceived opponents, NPR has found.
A review of Trump’s rally speeches, press conferences, interviews and social media posts shows that the former president has repeatedly indicated that he would use federal law enforcement as part of a campaign to exact “retribution.”
Vice President Kamala Harris “should be impeached and prosecuted,” Trump said at a rally last month.
WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING:
As this story explains, Trump has been increasingly talking about punishing his opponents as the campaign enters its final weeks. But it isn’t new. The McSweeney’s article I feature in the second story of this newsletter includes among its 1,056 entries threats against elected officials, media outlets, and even the National Football League’s nonprofit status (#352).
We cannot brush this away as Trump being Trump. We have to take him seriously and literally—especially now that the Supreme Court has granted him criminal immunity for any official acts.
We are fortunate that Trump isn’t hiding his plans. We even can see how some of the threats can be implemented within the 922 pages of Project 2025’s extreme agenda.
No one should pretend it is a surprise if Trump acts on what he is promising.
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#5
Fact-checking Over 12,000 of Donald Trump’s Statements About Immigration (The Marshall Project, Link to Article)
Donald Trump knows how important his words about unauthorized immigrants are.
“Migrant criminals.” “Illegal monster.” “Killers.” “Gang members.” “Poisoning our country.” “Taking your jobs.” “The largest invasion in the history of our country.”
Repetition has been core to Trump’s speech throughout his political career. The Marshall Project used text analysis to identify 13 major claims about immigration in over 350,000 of Trump’s public statements from Factba.se, some of which Trump has made 500 times or more. All of them are untrue or deeply misleading.
Research has shown that as someone hears a statement more times, it feels more true.
Millions of Americans and people worldwide have heard these claims. Here they are, fact-checked by the staff of The Marshall Project.
WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING:
Repeating a lie never makes it true. But it can make people wrongly believe it is.
The Marshall Project has done the work compiling Trump’s speeches and statements to see what he repeats and why what he says isn’t true.
This story fact checks the claims Trump is most likely to repeat. Knowing the truth may help you when having conversations with family and friends.
#6
We Created a Monster: Trump Was a TV Fantasy Invented for ‘The Apprentice’ (John D. Miller, US News & World Report, Link to Commentary)
I want to apologize to America. I helped create a monster.
For nearly 25 years, I led marketing at NBC and NBCUniversal. I led the team that marketed “The Apprentice,” the reality show that made Donald Trump a household name outside of New York City, where he was better known for overextending his empire and appearing in celebrity gossip columns.
To sell the show, we created the narrative that Trump was a super-successful businessman who lived like royalty. That was the conceit of the show. At the very least, it was a substantial exaggeration; at worst, it created a false narrative by making him seem more successful than he was.
In fact, Trump declared business bankruptcy four times before the show went into production, and at least twice more during his 14 seasons hosting. The imposing board room where he famously fired contestants was a set, because his real boardroom was too old and shabby for TV.
WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING:
Better late than never. Mark Burnett and the producers of The Apprentice have been complicit in creating this era of our politics. It is about time we heard from some of them.
Miller is another person who worked closely with Trump who is warning us about him. His first Vice President, Mike Pence, won’t vote for him. More than half of his cabinet officials have refused to endorse him.
The list of Republicans who oppose Trump election is quite long. Is a tax cut really worth the risk the nation would take putting him back behind the Resolute Desk?
#7
Does Trump Have a 2024 Blueprint for Stealing the White House? (Thom Hartmann, The Hartmann Report, Link to Article)
Sometimes I hate being right.
Donald Trump is campaigning in Blue states right now, including California, Colorado, and New York. It has pundits scratching their heads: is it just all about his ego? Is he crazy? Or crazy like a fox?
I’d argue the latter: that this is part of a strategy to legally seize the White House after he’s lost both the popular vote and the Electoral College vote, much like Republican Rutherford B. Hayes did in the election of 1876.
Eight months before the 2020 election, I wrote a largely-ridiculed article for Alternet.org predicting that Trump would lose the election but would then use multiple phony slates of swing-state electors to try to get the Electoral College count thrown to the House of Representatives where, under the 12th Amendment, the Republican majority would crown him president.
I noted that I’d first heard of the plan that month from a Republican insider I knew from my days living and doing my radio/TV program from Washington, DC.
And, as we all now know, that’s pretty much exactly what happened.
WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING:
Hartmann did warn everyone about what was likely to happen with the 2020 election. So, it is worthwhile to take heed of his renewed warning.
His article briefly gets into the many different ways Trump and his supporters are preparing to steal the election. And yes, Trump visits to blue states are a key part of the plans.
Congress took tentative steps to improve the Electoral Vote certification process after what happened on January 6, 2021. Capitol Hill will be more secure this time because Congress’s vote-counting session has been declared a National Security Special Event.
But that was the last battle. Hartmann explores what could happen this time, why Trump needs Republicans to hold the House of Representatives, and how little we are prepared for what could be coming.
(A hat tip and my thanks to Jeff K. for forwarding to me this story.)
#8
“You Want Lies With That?” News Media Struggle to Cover Trump’s Potemkin McDonald’s Photo Op (Parker Malloy, The Present Age, Link to Article)
Over the weekend, you may have seen photos of former President Donald Trump “working” at a Pennsylvania McDonald’s location. Clad in an apron, Trump was photographed manning the fry station and handing out bags through the drive-thru window. It was a picture-perfect moment that quickly made the rounds on social media and news outlets alike.
But did you know that this McDonald’s was actually closed to the public during his visit? That the people Trump “served” in the drive-thru were hand-selected supporters? That no one actually placed any orders—they just received whatever Trump handed them in a bag? And that this entire stunt lasted all of 15 minutes?
You’d be forgiven if you didn’t, because that’s certainly not how a large swath of the press covered the event, especially on social media.
WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING:
Our media outlets have still not figure out how to cover Donald Trump over nine years after he came down the Trump Tower golden escalator and announced he was running for president.
Yes, political candidates do political stunts. But reporters and media outlets should share context with their readers. And they often do!
That context also needs to be included in headlines given that is all most people will see the stories in social media or push alerts.
Malloy provides many examples of the media once again failing at the task of informing the public. We should want reporters—not stenographers. Alas, far too many of our media outlets took the bait once again.
As Malloy writes, “It’s frustrating to watch journalists react to these sorts of stunts like babies with keys jingling in front of their faces. The lack of critical reporting not only misleads the public but also plays into the hands of politicians eager to manipulate media narratives.”
#9
The Pipeline: How Russian propaganda reaches and influences the U.S. (Brandy Zadrozny, NBC News, Link to Article)
The fake whistleblower videos started popping up last fall, the work of a small but prolific Russian group that researchers call Storm-1516.
Much remains unknown about Storm-1516 — one prong of Russia’s propaganda operation — but it has produced some of the country’s most far-reaching and influential disinformation.
The Storm-1516 campaigns rely on faked primary sources — audio, video, photos, documents — presented as evidence of the claims’ veracity. They are then laundered through international news sources and influencers to reach their ultimate target: a mainstream Western audience.
At least 50 false narratives have been launched this way since last fall, according to a count NBC News assembled with researchers. The narratives aim to diminish Western support for military aid in Ukraine following Russia’s invasion, a contentious issue in Congress. The videos also back the re-election of Donald Trump, who has pledged to halt military aid to Ukraine, while painting the former president as a victim of a “deep state.” And they attack Vice President Kamala Harris.
WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING:
Disinformation is a growing problem, and Russian groups continue to lead the way in spreading lies designed to benefit former President Donald Trump’s campaign.
It doesn’t help that Elon Musk has made it easier for people to spread lies since purchasing the X/Twitter social media network and announcing his support for Trump’s election.
Zadronzy explores how Russian influence operations use social media networks to spread their lies in an attempt to influence elections toward the outcomes Russian Presidnet Vladimir Putin prefers.
Russian influence on our elections is not a hoax. It never has been. And Trump continues to benefit.
Watch to Remember What Really Happened During the January 6, 2021, Insurrection
Post-Game Comments
Today’s Thought from my Readwise collection:
“Keyboards were weaponised, trolls emerged from under bridges, and somewhere along the way free elections turned into free-for-alls, as if democracy were a shaggy dog story to which a joke president was the punchline. All those decades of the arms race, and it turned out there was no greater damage you could inflict on a state than ensure it was led by an idiot. Somewhere, someone, probably, was laughing.” (Mick Herron, Bad Actors, Slough House Book #8).”
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