Editors’ Blog

Keep an eye on how the national press covers this. The White House, as you know, has been under immense pressure to offer concessions to address the continuing large number of migrants coming to the US-Mexico border. Now there’s a bipartisan compromise bill in the Senate. Last night Majority Leader Steve Scalise said that bill in DOA in the House. But Speaker Johnson said something more specific and revealing. He refused to bring up the bill and according to Jake Sherman of Punchbowl said “Congress can’t solve border until Trump is elected or a republican is back in the White House.”

We hear a lot of fears these days about civil war or major political unrest in the United States. It’s less clear precisely how something like this would happen. There’s no lack of polarization and anger. But how precisely does it come about? Despite the blue and red maps we show on TV screens US politics is highly polarized by region even within most states. Something happened in Texas yesterday that struck me as a possible leading edge of some form of it.

Under the direction of Gov. Greg Abbott (R) has made recent moves to try to take over certain aspects of patrol and enforcement along the US-Mexico border. This is of course primarily a political move. It’s for show. But the actions assert new rights or powers which are fraught with the potential for abuse and possible use for a sort of slow motion direction insurrection. This weekend things went to a new level.

I want to flag this post from Barak Ravid, writing in Axios. Much of it is important detail on a general story you know if you’ve been following things: The Biden White House is out of patience with Benjamin Netanyahu. While Biden’s steadfast support for Israel has been transformative within the broader Israeli body politic, Netanyahu himself is still the same man: taking everything offered with pro forma gratitude and stiffing most things, if not everything, asked in return.

This is anything but surprising. We’d be wrong to imagine the White House is terribly surprised either. Joe Biden knows this man. What is always important to remember is that almost everyone working these questions in the Biden White House was working them, usually one or two rungs down, in the bad old Obama days when Netanyahu notoriously plotted with the president’s domestic political enemies but added the deeper indignity of doing it publicly, not even doing him the courtesy of concealment. They all know this guy.

One thing we learn is that Netanyahu and Biden haven’t spoken in almost three weeks, the last time being on December 23rd when Biden cut off the conversation and hung up on him.

I hope you get a chance to read this piece by Josh Green that we published yesterday. It’s an excerpt from his new book The Rebels: Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and the Struggle for a New American Politics. But we’ve packaged it here in a way that you can definitely read in its own right. The book is about the revival of an electoral American left in the years since the Great Financial Crisis — Warren, Sanders, AOC, etc. But this piece is about the deep back story of these events and how critical parts of our current world got their start during the presidency of Jimmy Carter. It’s not unknown history certainly. But it’s little known in our current political conversations. Definitely give it a read.

I don’t generally have much time for scene-setter pieces — not a criticism exactly, just not a form that I have much use for. But this piece from Iowa by Lisa Lerer does manage to capture a sense of foreboding that is very much part of this election cycle. And it fits particularly for Iowa Republicans, the particular flavor of darkness and pessimism. Iowa is a very old state and obviously a very rural one. But what’s interesting in this piece is that there are very few voices that are just straight up for Trump, despite the fact that Trump is completely dominating the race. That’s key.

A new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast is live! This week, Kate and Josh kick off 2024 by discussing oral arguments over Donald Trump’s immunity defense, eyebrow raising decision-making by Fulton County DA Fani Willis and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and the upcoming early state primaries.

You can listen to the new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast here.

This hot mic story-lette with Chris Christie perfectly captures the current GOP: anguished maneuvering and contretemps all amounting to more or less nothing, Trump eagerly feasting on his rivals’ clumsy mistakes, all of it hilarious and yet leading to a very dark place.

If you didn’t see this yet, just before announcing the end of his campaign — kinda/sorta to clear the way for Nikki Haley — this happened …

Mr. Christie caused a stir before his remarks when he was caught on a hot microphone candidly discussing two rivals, Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis, before making the announcement.

“She’s going to get smoked, and you and I both know it,” Mr. Christie could be heard saying of Ms. Haley. “She’s not up to this.” He added of Mr. DeSantis: “DeSantis called me, petrified.”

This is all 110% true.

There’s no shortage of stories these days about conflicts, suspensions or resignations of journalists or editors over the Israel-Hamas war. But this one has a twist that made it interesting to me. The topline story is that Kevin Merida, executive editor of the LA Times, is stepping down from his post after only three years. His departure is reportedly based on a dispute with the family of Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong over his decision to restrict the coverage of several reporters who signed an open letter condemning Israel’s response to the October 7th massacres and calling on publications to use terms like “apartheid,” “ethnic cleansing” and “genocide” to describe it.