What Trump Knew and 'Risky Business' at 40
What Trump Knew and 'Risky Business' at 40
Plus: History Has Its Eyes on Jack Smith
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WILLIAM SALETAN: What We Know About What Trump Knew.
WHEN DONALD TRUMP CONSPIRED to overturn the results of the 2020 election, as alleged in this week’s indictment, did he really believe it had been stolen?
The indictment charges Trump with “dishonesty, fraud, and deceit” in his efforts to impede certification of the results. It says his claims about the election “were false, and the Defendant knew that they were false.” The phrase “knowingly false” appears 33 times in the document.
This part of the case—what Trump knew or believed—might be hard to prove, because he routinely insists that he did win the election. And while Trump has a long record of spouting falsehoods, he also has a record of appearing to believe his own bullshit. If you watch or listen to Trump as he fumes that the election was stolen—for example, in his Jan. 2, 2021, phone call with Georgia of Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger—he seems quite delusional.
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ZANDY HARTIG: The Movie that Made Tom Cruise ‘Tom Cruise’.
I WAS OBSESSED WITH RISKY BUSINESS in the summer of 1983; I even bought a pair of Ray-Bans after my third viewing. Rewatching it forty years later, however, I’m struck by what a clever, dark, strange, and quietly subversive movie it is, a cut above other sex comedies of that era. And I found it fascinating to revisit Tom Cruise at the beginning of his career: to see the intimations of his meteoric rise to superstar status, yes, but also to see him acting a role I’m not sure he’d sign up for now.
Cruise plays Joel Goodsen, a regular, all-American high school senior from a wealthy Chicago suburb. He is neither a standout student nor a rebellious misfit. He is the dutiful, only son to his chilly and exacting parents. They expect him to excel, matriculate at an Ivy (preferably Princeton, where Joel’s dad is an alumnus), get a job in finance, marry an acceptable woman, and eventually become exactly like them. His life is mapped out for him.
BENJAMIN PARKER: History Has Its Eyes on Jack Smith.
BOTH OF SPECIAL COUNSEL JACK SMITH’S indictments of Donald Trump (or all three, if you want to count separately the superseding indictment in the classified documents case) have been so-called speaking indictments. By contrast with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s rather skimpy filing, which gives little information about what exactly Trump did to violate New York law, Smith’s indictments tell coherent, detailed, even engaging stories about Trump’s pattern of alleged criminality. But these indictments won’t be the final word from Smith.
🚨OVERTIME🚨
The Book of Charlie… Definitely worth a pick up from your local library or bookseller. David Von Drehle’s bestseller about his centenarian neighbor Charlie White reminded me, a bit, of my late grandfather, also Charlie (and 5 years younger), who also had to become the man of the house at an early age when his father died. Here’s the author on CBS Sunday Morning. It’ll make for a great movie, I suspect. "All memory is selective and every autobiography is abridged” Von Drehle writes, but lucky for White and his family, the author is a consummate story re-teller.
Are Democrats Tricking Republicans Into Nominating Trump? Jonathan Chait on how the anti-anti-Trumpers have been driven absolutely mad about the implosion of Ron DeSantis.
Ryan Goodman on Conversations… With Bill Kristol about the upcoming Trump / January 6 trial.
Teen Gamers Swiped $24 Million in Crypto… Then Turned on Each Other.
“Those theories, you know, proved to be unsubstantiated…” A half golf clap for Ron DeSantis? (Who still wants to pardon J6ers.)
Meanwhile, in the “Free State of Florida™…” A DeSantis appointee to the new Disney board taught a seminar claiming White people were slaves in America.
'Someone needs to get these people AND their children…" Wrote a Texas man, who went by “FreeSpeechMaster” on Patriots.win sentenced to three years in prison.
The Ghost of Privacy Past… Haunts the Senate’s AI Future, writes Matt Laslo in WIRED.
Falls and a Freeze-Up…. Mitch McConnell’s Health Scares Prompt Succession Chatter.
Jack Smith Has an Indictment… Trump Has a Massive Plan for Revenge.
The Trump folks… Are touting their lead in the “Catturd” poll. A sad reflection on the reality that is the GOP base. (I suspect it’s ahead of its time and DeSantis falls to ~10% around the GOP debate later this month.)
Meanwhile, at The Daily Wire… Matt Walsh is surmising that if Thomas Jefferson were to rise from the dead, he’d support killing everyone in Washington.
Nobody’s gonna take the mic… From the candidate’s wife. But really, they should in the case of Casey DeSantis.
The hidden pseudonym… Of Richard Hanania, rising conservative star.
RIP Mark Margolis… Dead at 83. The man had range.
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