Friday Round Up! 5/10/24

It's Groundhog Day for the Trump campaign...Paul Manafort is back.

Every now and then I have a moment of lucidity about how dumb the time we are living in is right now, and earlier this week was one of them. I mean, does it ever hit you that the presumptive nominee for the Republican party — a party that claims to be for “law and order” — is sitting in a courtroom in the first of FOUR criminal cases that have been brought against him, and that a central piece of the allegations is that he cooked up a cover-up scheme to pay off an adult film star with whom he had an affair from releasing her story and is on the precipice of being sent to jail because he literally cannot stop himself from attacking the jurors and witnesses in the trial? What. Is. Happening.

Don’t answer that question too quickly, because I have another one for you. Trump plans to bring back one of the characters from Season 1, Paul Manafort, into his campaign. Yes, that Paul Manafort. The Paul Manafort who was a foreign agent for a pro-Russia political party and who helped engineer a change in the Republican platform at the RNC to dilute the party’s commitment to providing weapons. The Paul Manafort who owned a $15,000 ugly ostrich jacket and owed about $10 million to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska — while working for the Trump campaign for “free.” The Paul Manafort who, according to a bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report, was working closely with a Russian intelligence officer, Konstantin Klimnik, and passed election polling data to him. The Paul Manafort who floated the conspiracy that Ukraine, not Russia, interfered in the 2016 election, which later formed the basis for Trump’s quid-pro-quo to President Zelensky for Ukraine to investigate the claim. The Paul Manafort who was indicted by Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller, and convicted of bank fraud, tax fraud, money laundering, acting as a foreign agent, false statements, and witness tampering. The Paul Manafort who was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison but was inexplicably allowed to serve it in the comfort of his home after two years thanks to one Attorney General Bill Barr. The Paul Manafort to whom Trump dangled a pardon if he didn’t flip, and then eventually received one when he stayed loyal. The Paul Manafort who is back for a second round.

I haven’t even gotten to Judge Aileen “Loose” Cannon, who this past week put Trump’s classified documents case on hold, indefinitely. I’ll be writing a piece on that for Cafe Insider, so stay tuned. Meanwhile, here’s my and Renato’s recap on the Stormy Daniel’s testimony for last week’s poscast:

Articles worth reading:

• If there is one thing you read today, it is this excellent and comprehensive piece by Anne Applebaum for The Atlantic on the goals of Russia’s global propaganda war, in which China and other autocracies have joined in. Hint: We’re losing. (It’s never too late to jump in to my Substack course, Democracy in the (Dis)Information Age, in which I cover the tactics and goals of Russian disinformation, why it works, and what we can do about it. This lesson in particular, on asymmetries between Russia and the West, dovetails with Applebaum’s analysis — check it out!)

Upcoming events:

• NEXT WEEK: Guest Speaker, Jacob Hacker, May 15, 4-5 p.m. EDT. Yale professor and co-author of Let Them Eat Tweets: How the Right Rules in an Age of Extreme Inequality will join us to discuss some of the driving forces behind asymmetrical polarization, a topic we are currently covering in our Substack course. (You can enroll in the course at anytime, and this topic is new — check out the short assignment to jump in!) The talk will be recorded and posted for anyone who can’t make the live event.

• Wine & Fries Happy Hour with CNN National Security Analyst Juliette Kayyem, Sunday, May 19, 8 p.m. EDT. I’m so excited to be hosting my friend and colleague Juliette Kayyem for the next Wine & Fries Club! We’ll have lots to talk about, some serious and some not-so-serious. Link will be sent to founding members at 5 p.m. This will not be recorded.

• NEW! Zoom Office Hours, Tuesday, May 29, 4-5 p.m. EDT. We’ll discuss the latest. Link will be sent to paid subscribers three hours prior. Office hours are not recorded.

• Freedom Academy Book Club, Date/Time TBA (likely June/July). I’m very excited that my former CNN colleague, Jim Sciutto, will be joining us to discuss The Return of Great Powers: Russia, China, and the Next World War. I love Jim’s work and insights into national security issues and this is a discussion you won’t want to miss!

  Happy Mother’s Day to all the mamas out there — I hope you get some pampering tomorrow!

  

  Like mother, like daughter!