Yesterday I was reading this piece from Status about the agreement between Paramount and the states suing the company on anti-trust grounds to halt the Time Warner merger for up to a year. (The piece is paywalled. But I think you can read it without a subscription by giving them your email.) Reporter Natalie Korach spoke to a handful of antitrust experts to evaluate what this agreed upon delay means, who it’s good or bad for and what it means for the future of the merger deal itself.
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Perhaps I’m flattering myself or my country. But the language and mindset of great replacement and of race armies overrunning a primarily white, Christian country seems much more widespread, entrenched and pervasive across a wider swath of the political spectrum in the United Kingdom than it is here in the United States. I don’t really have an argument here or a even a question here. And this may seem like quite a lot to say given that the federal government here in the U.S. fairly openly propagandizes with white nationalist imagery and is more than a year into a campaign of mass deportation. But it is still my perception based on reading the language of statements from people across the political spectrum in the UK, the reaction to pogrom-like incidents in the UK and so forth.
We need to get to $325,000 today to stay on track for our goal in this year’s Annual TPM Journalism Fund Drive. Can you help us get there? We don’t need that many contributors this afternoon to get us to this benchmark. Can you help us? A contribution in any amount is a big, big help. Just click here and be part of the drive, part of TPM’s resilience, growth and vitality. Click right here. And then if you have an extra moment, drop me a line and let me know why you did. I’ll keep our club updated.
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The Journal has an article today about the increasing unreality of the strategy, if one can call it that, the U.S. is using to approach Trump’s war with Iran. The headline tells the story: Trump is Losing Patience Over an Iran War with No Clear End in Sight. The article appears to be based on accounts from various advisors who’ve been present at planning meetings with Trump. It’s filled with quotes about how he’s out of patience, mad, fed up, has lost confidence in diplomacy, etc. One advisors says he’s moved into “revenge mode.” He’s telling advisors he thinks he can “break the Iranians’ will through an aggressive bombing campaign.”
A constant through-line in the article (and based on this account of Trump’s private White House rants) is that the Iranians can’t be trusted and that Trump keeps making deals with them that they simply break. I certainly don’t see the Iranian government as very trustworthy either. But this whole set of claims is a fantasy. Trump has never had any agreements or deals with the Iranians. What he’s had is a series of notional ceasefires in which nothing of substance or consequence is actually agreed to — you might sum them up with the famous Bill & Ted’s maxim to “be excellent to each other.” The point of these deals has been to calm international oil markets and give Trump space to moonwalk away from his totally self-inflicted debacle. But since these ceasefires are only “deals” to begin negotiations the actual war aims and demands of each side eventually seep through. Then they go back to fighting. Each deal really amounts to a temporary or contingent U.S. surrender. Trump needs them to calm oil markets and lower the U.S. price of gas. Iran wants it to consolidate its gains and get a break for aerial bombardment.
Another take on the governor’s race in Wisconsin, from TPM Reader BC …
Just listened to this week’s podcast and read the reader’s commentary on the race, which I largely agree with and mostly want to add on to. Like JB mentioned, Francesca Hong is really hustling in a way the other candidates are not. I live in the Madison area and at first thought that was the reason why I only noticed her campaign. Our kids even attend the same taekwondo studio, which I only learned in the last week. So I live on her home turf.
Perhaps some of this is by design. But Donald Trump adding Israel normalization to an apparently already signed nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia is an example of a recurring issue. Trump seems only loosely connected to the people who are negotiating foreign policy deals on his behalf — something at least somewhat odd coming from the purported avatar of unitary executive authority. We saw this again and again with his “deals” with Iran. A deal gets initialed and he’s out the next day claiming that agreements are in the deal that clearly aren’t. As I said, some of this may be by design. Some of it may be Trump’s need to hold attention and demand post-signature fluffing to keep him on board. In private business, he was notorious for coming up with new demands or needs after finalizing deals or simply never making payments the deals required. But at least part of it seems to be a feature of the bubble environment of the second term White House. Difficult issues are kept from him; he’s yesed or reassured that things are in agreements that are not (“Oh that one agreement is definitely in there, Don. Don’t you worry!”)
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The Brief: Trump Admin Concedes a Blunt Truth About Russ Vought’s OMB
Here’s a look at a few things TPM is following this morning.
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