WE BLUES: "Everyone knows he's crazy?"

TUESDAY, JULY 28, 2026

Why haven't We Blues ever said it? Is something wrong with President Trump? Something that might be dangerous? 

As we noted yesterday, when we watched the hour-plus speech he delivered last Friday night, it seemed to us that no sane person could really dispute some such claim.  

The endless tedium of his meandering self-involvement, mixed with his endless stream of ugly insults and his inane counterfactual claims? That, plus the way he seemed to struggle to keep his eyes open, even when he was delivering his endless soul-crushing remarks?   

It seemed to us that something was plainly wrong, in a way no one could miss. But we also predicted that We Blues weren't going to come out and say so.  

Yesterday, on MS NOW, two anchors opened their programs by discussing last Friday night's speech. We were struck by a false impression Nicolle Wallace may have given at 4 o'clock, at the start of Deadline: White House.   

Wallace seemed to be stricken by what she had seen. She was angry at the president. She also seemed to be angry with the journalists who had attended the event.

At one point, she used a dangerous word—"they." Speaking of the journalists, she seemed to say that "they" applauded when the president made the inane declaration that he planned to seek a fourth [sic] term in 2028.   

("And then they applauded," she said. "The White House Correspondents Association, embracing a man seeking to destroy everything they are supposed to stand for.")

Did any journalists applaud that display of potentially dangerous madness? We can't exactly say. A smattering of applause was briefly heard, but there were Trump officials in the room, present there as guests of various news organizations.   

Also, journalists from Red American news orgs were in the room—news orgs like the Fox News Channel.

Who produced that smattering of applause? We have no way of knowing. But later, in an exchange with Jessica Yellin, it seemed to us that Wallace implied that the president received a favorable "response" from journalists to his gruesome, lengthy attempt at denigrating CNN's Kaitlan Collins. 

When we went back and checked the tape, we were reassured by what we heard and saw. With apologies for reprinting the president's text, this is what actually happened in the room that night: 

PRESIDENT TRUMP (7/24/26): But I want to personally congratulate CNN's Kaitlan Collins on receiving her award. It was all about me. It's a fake. She shouldn't get the award, it was a fake, But I didn't mind. 

I said, "Kaitlan, congratulations." But it was fake, there's no question about it. 

But she's a young, attractive woman. She never smiles. 

I said, "Kaitlan, do you ever smile? Smile! You have a nice position. You are at CNN fake news. You should be a happy person. So smile, Kaitlan, just smile."

But we attack, and I thought Kaitlan had really made it big with a major new sponsorship, but then I informed her that it wasn't her on the Bud Light can. It was Dylan Mulvaney. And Dylan Mulvaney cost Bud Light $35 billion in market cap. That was the worst commercial ever made, by the way.

AUDIENCE: [CRICKETS]  

Wallace read that entire text before her exchange with Yellin. In his gruesome presentation, the president was trying to fold our most forthright cable news journalist back into the grip of his old-world gender politics. 

The president's presentation was gruesome—but the audience responded with CRICKETS, exactly as they should have. Watching Deadline, it seemed to us that Wallace had conveyed an angry false impression.

Should journalists have attended this event at all? A person could teach it flat or round. 

Surely, it would be madness to invite this president to any such future event. But it isn't helpful when a major figure like Wallace starts misstating or inaccurately suggesting what happened at the event.  

Plainly, Wallace was appalled by what had happened, as she well might have been. But is something wrong with President Trump? 

Five hours later, at the start of The Last Word, Lawrence O'Donnell tried to answer that question. He also made a very strange favorable claim about the national press corps. 

O'Donnell had been on vacation last week. Last night, he started with this:   

O'DONNELL (7/27/26): ...We'll try to cover as many subjects, important subjects, as we can in this hour—important for this week's news and today's news. But we will begin with war... 

The one story that you know every historian will write about when looking at the year 2026 is Donald Trump's war. And in that war, historians will find everything they need to know about Donald Trump's incompetence, Donald Trump's laziness, Donald Trump's ignorance and yes, Donald Trump's madness.   

What happens when a madman starts a war?  

And so on from there, with O'Donnell discussing last Friday's address and referring to the president's "madness" and his "insanity" Eventually, he even said this:

"Everyone knows how crazy the president of the United States is."

Plainly, O'Donnell seemed to be saying that something is seriously wrong with the president. But he proceeded to offer a strange excuse for a very strange state of affairs:  

According to O'Donnell, everyone in the press corps knows how "crazy" the president is. But how strange! Right up to the present day, virtually no one has tried to report that dangerous state of affairs!

Everyone knows it; no one has said it! Tomorrow, we'll show you the very strange, favorable claim O'Donnell made about the press. 

Also, needless to say, on Fox the story was different.

Tomorrow: Saturday morning chyrons on Fox: 

TRUMP MAKES TRIUMPHANT RETURN TO WHCA STAGE

Also this:  

CAN'T TAKE A JOKE 
MEDIA CRITICIZES TRUMP'S HILARIOUS WHCA DINNER SPEECH

 

MONDAY: Wily Odysseus, now wracked with guilt!

MONDAY, JULY 27, 2026

Megyn Kelly unchained: We haven't seen "The Odyssey" yet. We'll probably go next weekend.  

Many commentators have said that, for better or worse, the Christopher Nolan modernizes the ancient culture out of which the Iliad and the Odyssey emerged. In a new critique for The Atlantic, Peter Wehner offers this:   

An Odyssey for Our Own Time 

[...] 

Part of what makes The Odyssey so appealing to a modern audience is that it takes civilizing aspects of Greek culture—hospitality and magnanimity—and adds later concepts, some of them influenced by Jewish and Christian ethics that were, to varying degrees, alien to ancient Greek culture: deep introspection, even confession; humility and empathy; sorrow and guilt for the harm one has done, even in victory; the conviction that the conquered count and have worth; and vengeance tempered with mercy. In the film, Odysseus emerges as a figure haunted by his victory [at Troy] in a way that no ancient Greek would have been.   

According to Wehner, the Odysseus of the ancient poem wasn't a man wracked with guilt. We'll return to that general characterization at some later point.

As he continues his critique, Wehner contemplates our own society's ongoing loss of some of "the more humane virtues" on display in the film:

Much of life in the ancient Greek world was harsh, even barbarous—mass executions in conquered cities, torture, the weak discarded at birth, chattel slavery—which is precisely why the Greek commitment to honor and hospitality was remarkable then and still resonates today. So, too, do the later, more humane virtues the film weaves in.

Those virtues are now under assault. Movements and voices in our own country hold them in open contempt, treat mercy as weakness, and feed on vengeance and grievance. Theirs is a Nietzschean ethic, a “master morality,” the code of the strong that Christianity overthrew when it took the side of the slave, the stranger, and the destitute.

[...]

The world that this ethic is creating is harsh and barren, raw and uninviting. It exists in the daily coarseness, in the anger and the ugliness, and in the isolation. There is a weariness in us, and a sadness, at what we have become...   

Wehner may have written that shortly after watching the White House Correspondents Dinner last Friday evening. Or shortly after reading some of the copy Megyn Kelly is now bringing forth on the podcast beat.  

All reports come from Mediaite. You'll have to assess them yourself:

Megyn Kelly Takes Aim At Ex-CNN Anchor For Writing About Her Sex Life—Falsely Claims the Ex-Anchor Said She Was ‘Banging Four Men in a Month’ 
(for full report, click here)

Megyn Kelly Melts Down in Bonkers Rant Against ‘Scripted and Artificial’ Michelle Obama
(for full report, click here)

Bill And Hillary Clinton’s ‘Weird Marriage’ Slammed By Megyn Kelly
(for full report, click here)

‘Go Back to F*cking Haiti!’ Megyn Kelly Goes on Wild Rant Over Supreme Court Ruling 
(for full report, click here)

There's more where that came from. For the record, some bilious Blue American podcasters are basically like this too. 

Regarding Kelly's false claims about former anchor Brooke Baldwin, her lack of concern about her false statements is simply astounding. As for Baldwin, she may perhaps be on the verge of a lawsuit:

Baldwin Fires Back at Megyn Kelly for False Claims on Her Sex Life: ‘Talk About a Reckless Disregard for the Truth’ 
(for full report, click here)

Kelly has become unchained in these (recent) latter days.  The rise of the new technologies—the so-called "democratization of media"—has created this new world order:

Every venomous podcaster a king or a queen or a royal!

Every furious flyweight a monarch! 

Can a modern society function this way? In our weariness and in our sadness, do we possibly have a need for a new (secular) Awakening, for a "politics of meaning" to which various tribes can subscribe?

WE BLUES: Can anyone deny that something is wrong?

MONDAY, JULY 27, 2026

We Blues almost surely will: In fairness, his first remark, taken in context, was a bit self-deprecating. You could possibly call it good-natured.

The comment was actually funny. To our ear, it got an honest laugh.

The fellow had just been introduced by Weijia Jiang, the head of the White House Correspondents Association, at last Friday night's restaging of the association's annual dinner. 

As part of her introduction, she made a reference to the cancellation of the first attempt. Below, you see what the sitting president said:

JIANG (7/24/26): ...President Trump, I've covered you for a long time and so have many reporters in this room.

When we ask questions, you push back. You give us answers, and we push back. You have always been a "deal" guy. Well, that's the deal—and the First Amendment is a done deal. 

And that's what we toast tonight—the freedoms that brought us back together, even after they were threatened. So let's raise a glass to what makes ours a beautiful country.

[Jiang leads the toast]

And now, ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming the 45th and 47th president of the United States, President Donald J. Trump.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Wow! That was very beautiful, but this has not been an easy evening—all these awards.

 AUDIENCE: [Laughter]

PRESIDENT TRUMP: [Grimaces, shakes his head]

As you can hear on the videotape, he got a very good laugh. We've been in many rooms where joking comments were offered. To our ear, the laughter he got was both authentic and earned.

In the earlier part of the evening, he'd sat in his seat at the head table as awards were given to various journalists who had challenged his endlessly disordered behavior. The awards were deserved, but the comment was rueful—and his rueful comments was rewarded with laughter, as you can hear on the tape.

His first comment received a good laugh. His presentation went downhill from there, screaming as it did. 

(For Roll Call's transcript, click here.)

He started with endless, tedious recollections built from his astonishing degree of self-involvement. From there, he proceeded to long strings of inane, inappropriate insults, driven along by his standard array of absurd, long-corrected misstatements.   

Governor Pritzker was "a fat pig." Governor Newsom's name was "Newscum." Jake Tapper was really "Fake Tapper."

Senator Schiff was said to have a "big fat ugly head." ("I call him watermelon head, because he has the largest head I've ever seen with the smallest neck.") 

Rosie O'Donnell is "a sick older woman, I guess now I have to say."  

We're omitting reams of other insults, not wishing to drive certain images and certain bogus claims forward. Pathetically, though, he even went with this embarrassing mess at one point: 

PRESIDENT TRUMP: And I know Dumocrats—and the word "Dumocrat" is something that's come into fashion. I changed the E with a U. And most people don't know that "dumb" has a B. So, we don't have to worry about that.

It's very quiet [in the hall]. I thought it was quite good, but I haven't gotten much credit for that. 

We'll offer a guess—most people do know that "dumb" is spelled with a B. This seems to have been a recent revelation to the sitting president, though perhaps to no one else.  

The insults and the self-involved tedium went on and on and on. At roughly the 50-minute mark, C-Span's cameras began to pan to frozen faces in the audience, as you can see on the official tape. 

As you can see on the tape, it panned to frozen faces in a silent hall at 10:22 p.m., then again at 10:23. 

Out in that audience, there seemed to be nothing except frozen faces, many looking down. At 10:28, as the droning continued, C-Span even panned, for the first time, to frozen faces at the head table. 

At 10:29, it showed another frozen face at the head table, along with a second person who was now sitting with his back turned to the president.   

He had now been droning for 56 minutes. At the one-hour mark, he finally said it:  

"It was a rigged election." 

Roughly five minutes later, he closed with an unhappily accurate statement:  

"Our country's doing things that no one's ever seen before."  

The accuracy was unintentional as the gentleman finally stopped. With that, we pose this morning's question:

At this point, can any serious person really doubt it? Can anyone doubt that something is severely wrong with the president?

He had seemed to be sleeping about half the time as he sat through the earlier speeches and the aforementioned awards. Later, he seemed to have trouble opening his eyes even when he himself was speaking. 

Can anyone doubt or deny that something seems to be wrong? The answer we'll give you today is this:   

We Blues are going to do just that! We Blues aren't going to speak!

David French and David Brooks aren't going to say it. Nicholas Kristof isn't going to say it. Neither is Michelle Goldberg or Peter Baker or anyone else from the New York Times news division.

Rachel Maddow isn't going to speak, and neither is Nicolle Wallace. Joe and Mika aren't going to say it. Neither is Lawrence O'Donnell.

No one at The Atlantic is going to speak. Jeffrey Greenberg isn't going to give anyone that assignment.

Anderson Cooper isn't going to speak, and neither is Jake Tapper. We're sorry to say that the same is almost surely true of Kaitlan Collins, whose character we've admired since the first Covid year, when she alone was willing to challenge the endless blather being performed at the president's televised bullroar and blather events.  

Is something wrong with President Trump? At this point, what sane person could really deny it? Consider:

As you probably know, the president tried to insult Collins at Friday night's event. The insult he tried to aim at her got more attention than any of the million additional insults which froze the faces of an entire ballroom that night.  

He tried to insult her, but neither she nor CNN was bowing to his pathetic attempt. And so, inevitably, what did he do? 

Of course! Turning to Truth Social, he went ahead and did it again! Over at Mediaite, here's the start of Joe DePaolo's report:

Trump Doubles Down on His Attack Against CNN’s Kaitlan Collins By Posting a Shocking New Meme

President Donald Trump doubled down on his attack against CNN’s Kaitlan Collins by posting a shocking new meme to his Truth Social account.

In a Sunday morning Truth post, the president shared a doctored photo depicting Collins in place of trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney in a 2023 Bud Light promotional campaign.

Trump’s new meme comes on the heels of his attack on the CNN anchor Friday night at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in which he compared Collins to Mulvaney.

Joe DePaolo's report for Mediaite continues along from there. To see the president's Truth Social post, you can just click here.

Just to be clear:

The president's Truth Social post says nothing "shocking" about Collins. With great valor, she led the way in the first Covid year. 

We've been grateful ever since. The president's post says nothing "shocking" about her.

To the extent that the post is "shocking," it's shocking because of what it makes clear about the president himself. Simply put, it's no longer possible for reasonable observers to doubt the fact that something seems to be badly "wrong" with the sitting American president.

Now for the rest of the story:

No one could doubt or deny the fact that something seems to be wrong. No sane person could doubt or deny it, but We Blues almost certainly will!

Other parts of his recent conduct make this problem even more obvious. That said, We Blues are going to look away from this dangerous state of affairs.

In fairness, this is all part of the human condition. It's part of the imperfect wiring of our imperfect human species.

The Fox New News Channel is a giant slag heap, but We Blues are a piece of work too. Faces were frozen all through the hall.

We Blues aren't going to say that.

Tomorrow: "Other parts of his recent conduct make this problem even more obvious."

SATURDAY: The president spoke for over an hour!

SATURDAY, JULY 25, 2026

A politics of meaning: Did the president really speak for over an hour?

Yes, he actually did! Beyond that, also this:   

We've told you, quite a few times, that (severe) mental illness is always a human tragedy. The same is true of serious cognitive decline, which joins mental illness is robbing its victim of his or her human capacities.    

We've also said that, as far as we know, serious mental illnesses are actual illnesses, often with physiological bases over which the afflicted individual has no control. We've suggested that, as a political matter, pity for an afflicted public figure might tend to move more votes, as opposed to the hostility and loathing to which we humans are all inclined.   

(Hostility and loathing harden tribal positions.)

That said, the person to whom we refer spoke for over an hour! King Lear wandered on the moors. Last night, the sitting president went to the Waldorf Astoria. 

Here's what the AP saw:   

Trump returns to correspondents’ dinner for a rambling, insult-filled speech 3 months after shooting   

President Donald Trump returned to the rescheduled White House Correspondents’ Association dinner Friday night, delivering a rambling, hour-long speech that praised some journalists, took potshots at others, made jokes about public figures’ weight and intellect, and quipped about a third presidential term.  

[...]  

Trump’s sometimes off-color speech, which lasted just over an hour, was full of vague potshots directed at individuals he doesn’t like—from Jane Fonda to Bruce Springsteen to “Barack Hussein Obama.” The audience, reacting at first with some friendly laughs, slowly quieted to scattered titters as the insults piled up.   

And so on from there.

"Insults" was by far the more accurate term, as opposed to the misleading "potshots." The Washington Post was perhaps a bit more direct:  

Trump’s insult-laden speech to press dinner draws mostly stunned silence   

President Donald Trump attacked a slew of journalists and some of his favorite political foils at a slimmed-down redo of the White House correspondents’ dinner on Friday, comparing one female reporter to a transgender social media star, mocking politicians’ physical appearances, and bringing his audience to mostly stunned silence for more than an hour before pulling out a red Trump 2028 cap and declaring he was running for another term.   

[...]  

He said that he had once mixed up CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins, whom he said “never smiles,” with a transgender social media personality, Dylan Mulvaney, after he called the 34-year-old cable news star a “young, attractive woman.”   

He said he planned to host twice-weekly fights at the White House.

“We will have sloppy Chris Christie, one of the sloppiest human beings, fighting,” Trump said to silence. “I could mention the governor of Chicago, but I’m going to mention instead Jerry Nadler. Oh my God! They’re fighting for a big piece of cheesecake, big fat piece of cheesecake.”  

For our money, the instant reports don't capture the pitiful squalor of what we saw as we watched the event on TV. 

Regarding the latest of the president's never-ending comments about Collins, Mediaite reports his remarks in sad full detail. To see that report, click here.

We expect to have more about last evening's event when transcripts become available. We haven't seen a report which captures how awful and sad the president's hour was.

For today, we'll link you to what Democracy Now once said, a long time ago, about the suggestion that we Americans need to develop a "politics of meaning."  

It was May 23, 1996. If you were willing to squint a bit, the shape of our current failing political culture had already come into view.

Democracy Now is an organ of what gets called "the left." Here's what Democracy Now said at that long-ago, distant time:   

Politics of Meaning  

There’s no doubt that we’re in a period of great cynicism about what government does or can do to improve our lives. Psychotherapist Michael Lerner believes this cynicism and the alienation that Americans feel are a direct result of the ethic of selfishness that pervades American politics, from the White House on down. 

Lerner is the author of a new book called The Politics of Meaning: Restoring Hope and Possibility in an Age of Cynicism. Michael Lerner gained national exposure when Hillary Rodham Clinton used his phrase “Politics of Meaning” in a speech; the media then started calling Lerner “Hillary’s Guru”. 

Nonetheless, Lerner’s ideas are the foundation for a growing social movement in the U.S. that blends humanist politics with spirituality, and aims to provide a progressive answer to the power of religious right. Last month, over a thousand participants attended a first national conference in Washington D.C.

We’ll now hear an excerpt of a speech by Michael Lerner in which he explains his concept of a politics of meaning and its importance in this era of conservative domination.   

The audio is no longer there. Our comment would be this:   

Democracy Now was looking for a "progressive answer" to the culture then current on "the right." There's no reason why the people at that site shouldn't have felt that way, but in our view, we really need a new politics in which people from all major points of view can accept certain basic precepts.  

At present, we're all stuck within a failed state. We desperately need a new politics. 

Some current behaviors will have to go. What we're doing now isn't sustainable.

Next week: We Blues

FRIDAY: Tarlov cited the new Fox poll!

FRIDAY, JULY 24, 2026

One-way interruption: Our guess turned out to be right.

Yesterday afternoon, we told you this about that new SHOCK POLL:

"We'll guess that viewers of The Five will not be told, later today, about that SHOCKING new poll, the one with the Dems plus-11."

That was a reference to the new Emerson College poll—the poll which had the Democrats up by eleven points in the "generic ballot" race for control of the House.

Early yesterday afternoon, we guessed that it wouldn't be mentioned on The Five. We were correct about that:

On Wednesday, the tools had hyped a (possible outlier) poll which placed the Democratic lead at a mere three points. On Thursday, the tools didn't mention the (possible outlier) poll which tilted in the other direction.

Yesterday, we also mentioned the new Fox News poll, which had placed the Democratic Party's lead at 7 points. On Wednesday, the tools didn't mention their own new poll! 

Yesterday, though, the new Fox poll was mentioned right away! At 5:01 p.m., Jesse Watters said this:

WATTERS (7/23/26): New Fox poll, showing that a majority of Democrats actually have a favorable opinion of the DSA, and socialism in general. 

Democrat kingmaker James Clyburn also fuming over the Commies...

And so on from there. 

(Three hours later, on Jesse Watters Primetime. Watters said "Commie" or "Commies" at least a dozen times. At 8 o'clock sharp, he opened with a pseudo-discussion of the "Commie Catfight"—or as chyron had it, the GIRL FIGHT!—which has broken out, or so he said, between AOC and Kamala Harris. If you think we must be making this up, you can just click here.)  

Sad! Back to yesterday's edition of The Five:

At 5:01, with the day still young, Watters selected the part of the new Fox poll which showed that 59% of Democratic respondents had voiced a favorable view of the DSA (AKA "the Commies").

On The Five, that's equivalent to a finding of terminal ptomaine poisoning. Watters mentioned no other findings from the gloomy Fox poll.

Later, because Jessica Tarlov was in the Democratic Party chair instead of Harold Ford, the new Fox poll was mentioned a! Given the opportunity to try to speak, Tarlov offered this:   

TARLOV: There was a lot more to that Fox poll, and it was absolutely brutal for Republicans...

Democrats up 53 to 46.  In counties where the presidential vote was close—so, decided within 10 points—Democrats up 59-41. Up on inflation and prices and the economy. Young people, old people, women, independents—the only group that Donald Trump was up with was white voters, and that was just GOP plus one.

With Tarlov, not Ford, in the Democratic Party chair, the Fox survey did get mentioned. Now for the rest of the story:   

We'd offer Tarlov's attempt to speak this day as an example of the pitiful "interruption culture" which pervades this "cable news" program. By our reckoning, the interruptions went like this:   

As the program started, the four (4) pro-MAGA co-hosts were discussing the segment's basic topic—President Trump's critique of the way "the crazy Commies" are "trying to burn down the [Democratic] Party." (We're quoting the language of Watters, who was moderating the segment.)  

The four went on until 5:09. Everyone got his or her say. There were no interruptions.    

Then, at 5:09, Watters finally threw to Tarlov. By our calculation, this is the way it went:

Tarlov spoke for almost two minutes before the first set of interruptions occurred. Inevitably, they came from Greg Gutfeld. You can see the muttplay here.   

After the interruptions and the laughter subsided, Tarlov attempted to start again—and now she mentioned the Fox News poll! This time, it was Brian Kilmeade who stepped in to contradict and interrupt, with Gutfeld soon jumping in with more of his useless thoughts. 

"This is so nerdy," Gutfeld finally said as Tarlov tried to resume. "Yeah, you're in the weeds a little bit, Jessica," the idiot Watters now said, and with that astute assessment the segment was brought to an end.

Full disclosure!  Tarlov is frequently mugged in more aggressive ways on this baldly ridiculous program—by more extensive interruption and group over-talking. But as we cite our accurate guess about that Dems plus-11 poll, we thought we'd invite you to see one of the ways this massively successful imitation of life operates when Tarlov is on the program.   

Tarlov doesn't interrupt or challenge the pro-MAGA four as they take their turns to speak. The interruptions run all one way on this sad, embarrassing show—on this pitiful messaging program.   

Dems were up by 7, Tarlov actually managed to say. In the midst of the cable cage match, the Fox News poll—Dems plus-7—actually did get cited!

FAULTY: Why did David Brooks say what he said?

FRIDAY, JULY 24, 2026

What Yevtushenko said: Last Friday night, on the PBS NewsHour, David Brooks seemed to say that he wasn't concerned.   

One night before, the sitting president had made a self-ballyhooed national address. How had the speech been received? 

By the time the NewsHour aired, it was already clear that the Fox News Channel was ghosting the president's speech—was pretending it hadn't happened. As we noted in Monday's report, Brooks himself had this to say about the satrap's assertions:   

BENNETT (7/17/26): President Trump once again putting false claims about the 2020 election at the center of the national political debate is where we start, as we turn tonight to the analysis of Brooks and Capehart. 

[...]

BENNETT: So, David, what did you hear in that speech last night? What do you think President Trump is trying to accomplish here?   

BROOKS: Oh, subtle. I couldn't figure it out.

(Chuckling)

He was— He's got to get more original in his confabulation. I mean, he's just stuck on this 2020 thing. There's never been any evidence. There's no evidence.   

Even in his role as moderator, Bennett spoke of the president's "false claims." In his reply, Brooks referred to the presidents ongoing "confabulation." 

"There's never been any evidence," he rather imprecisely said. Following which, he said this:   

BROOKS (continuing directly): I think the good news is, he doesn't have any policies to actually ruin our election system, as we heard from the secretaries of state. So we're going to have fair elections in this country.

"We're going to have fair elections," he said. The analysts screamed and tore at their hair. They had no idea why he'd said that.   

Are we going to have "fair elections" this year? The young analysts couldn't imagine why a person as smart as David Brooks would play Pollyanna that way. 

Bennett may have been puzzled too. Eventually, he returned to Brooks with a new question, generating this exchange:  

BENNETT: David, we spoke on this program last night with Ty Cobb, who was the special counsel during the first Trump administration, and he offered an extraordinary warning. He said that he believes that President Trump is laying the predicate for an emergency declaration around the elections.

Do you see the guardrails holding if President Trump tries to use the apparatus of the federal government to intervene more directly in how elections are administered?

BROOKS: I think so. A lot of people have thought that this is a predicate for some future action.

I think, if you look at the things he's tried to do, we're helped by the fact that these are mostly state-run things, so he does not have control. And what isn't state run is usually congressionally run. And so he has tried. The thing he's done successfully is the gerrymandering in Texas. He has rigged elections and Democrats have helped in California.

So that part he was successful at in degrading our elections. But pretty much everything else he's done, through executive order and other things, courts have overruled him. And so I do not believe he will have the power to actually affect our elections.   

A lot of people believe that Trump may try to interfere with the elections, Brooks now said—but the courts would overrule him. And so, in effect, there's nothing to worry about.  

That struck us as an extremely strange assessment. When Bennett turned to Capehart, he somewhat meekly voiced an obvious point of concern:  

BENNETT (continuing directly): How do you see it, Jonathan?

CAPEHART:  Although I am a little concerned about what happens on Election Day.

Congressman Jim Himes was on with my colleague Lawrence O'Donnell last night, and he warned that, yes, what the president is doing is laying the predicate for stealing the election. And he said, for instance, "What happens if they seize the ballot boxes from particular jurisdictions? What happens to the chain of custody?" 

That is when democracy will be at its most tenuous. And, sure, you can race to court and try to get them back, but the action's already done. 

And so I hope you're right that we are going to have a free and fair election this November. But I have a healthy imagination, and I hope that folks who care about free and fair elections also have a healthy imagination and are prepared for any and every scenario that could happen.  

Capehart said he was "a little" concerned about the president's possible actions. Then, he referred to what Jim Himes had said on Thursday's edition of The Last Word, a program which aired right after the president's speech.

Full disclosure! We too had seen Rep. Himes when he appeared on O'Donnell's program. 

In our view, Himes is one of the sharpest members of the House. He'd been followed on The Last Word by Senator Elissa Slotkin, who we regard as one of the sharpest members of the Senate. 

Speaking with O'Donnell, Himes and Slotkin had each voiced grave concerns about what the president might do come November:

Might the sitting president "deploy federal officers to seven states to seize ballot boxes" at midnight on election night? On Election Day itself, might he "send uniformed military or federal law enforcement to take care of alleged security threats around our polls," or to seize voting machines?

"These are things the president refuses to rule out, as does his cabinet," the very alert Senator Slotkin told O'Donnell that night. "The president has made it clear that this is not a joke to him."  

To see the full interview with Himes, you can just click here. For the interview with Slotkin, you can start by clicking here. 

Slotkin and Himes voiced deep concerns about what November might bring. Slotkin described meetings she's held with Michigan officials to gameplan the way to react to various scenarios on Election Day. And no, the courts couldn't stop a determined president from doing such things, not until Election Day was over and massive damage had been done.

Slotkin and Himes voiced specific deep concerns. One night later, Brooks was happy to report that we're going to have fair elections. We thought his presentation was extremely strange.   

David Brooks is a good, decent person. He's done a lot of excellent work. He isn't just a good, decent person, he's also perfectly sharp. 

That said, it seems to us that he may tend to hold himself back in the face of concerns like this. As our nation develops its new politics—the politics which will save us from the downward spiral we're currently in—we'll learn to be sympathetic to possible shortcoming of this and other types. 

We think of Yevtushenko's portrait of who we (all) are as people:

Who we knew as faulty, the earth's creatures...

So Yevtushenko said. 

THURSDAY: Concerning the picking and choosing of polls!

THURSDAY, JULY 23, 2026

Who's going to win in November? Today, we have the reading of polls—for example, of the new SHOCK POLL described below. 

The report comes from David Gilmour of Mediaite:   

SHOCK POLL: Democrats Open Up Stunning 11-Point Lead on Republicans on Generic Congressional Ballot

Democrats have opened an 11-point lead over Republicans on the generic congressional ballot in a new national poll, underscoring the party’s growing advantage just over 100 days before voters decide control of Congress.

The latest survey from Emerson College Polling found 53% of likely voters backing the generic Democratic candidate for Congress, compared with 42% for the Republican candidate. The result represents a 3-point increase for Democrats and a 2-point increase for Republicans since Emerson’s June survey, widening the overall gap.   

The findings place Democrats well ahead of several other national polling averages, even as most continue to show the party holding a measurable advantage heading into the November midterms.

That's the way Gilmour starts. In the course of his report, he makes it clear that this encouraging result for Dems stands at present as a bit of an outlier. On the other hand, he also says this:

[continuing directly]
The Emerson findings are broadly consistent with other recent polling. A Fox News survey released Wednesday found Democrats holding a 7-point advantage on the generic congressional ballot, with 53% of voters saying they would back the Democratic candidate in their House district, compared with 46% for the Republican.  

Fox reported the margin was the party’s largest in its polling since 1996 and fell just outside the survey’s margin of error. 

Interesting! As of yesterday, a brand-new Fox News survey had Democrats up by 7! In fact, you can examine Fox Digital's report about that poll simply by clicking here. 

(Sub-headline: Latest survey shows Trump approval stuck near record low.)

We mention that poll for a reason:   

Late yesterday, on The Five, the tools spent a good chunk of their first two segments gushing about the latest poll from the Washington Post, which only had Democrats up by 3.  (For the first example, click here.)

No one mentioned the channel's own poll, the one which has Democrats up by 7. Also, no one mentioned the fact that the 3-point edge in the Post poll is the edge among registered voters. Among voters who say they're "virtually certain to vote"—68% of the survey's respondents—the advantage for Democrats rises to eight points.   

(For the Post's report on its poll, you can just click this.)

No one know how November's elections are going to turn out. That's especially true in the current circumstance, in which it's entirely possible that the sitting president will do something designed to interfere with turnout.   

(Or not.)   

No one knows how the worm will turn, but everyone knows how to pick and choose the data which favor their tribe's tribal preference. We'll guess that viewers of The Five will not be told, later today, about that SHOCKING new poll, the one with the Dems plus-11.  

Everyone knows that we can't continue this way as a nation. When we've established a "politics of meaning," will this picking-and-choosing of information continue to prevail?  

While we're at it, what the heck is a "politics of meaning?" Michael Lerner wrote the book on the topic. Tomorrow, we'll take a look there.

FAULTY: What did the president actually say?

THURSDAY, JULY 23, 2026

But also, the doomsday scenarios: Truly, it's been a "week that was."  

It has now been seven days since the sitting president, President Trump, delivered his televised national address—the televised address which wasn't televised by several networks and was then disappeared by Fox.  

Pretenders like Dana Perino have agreed to pretend that it never occurred! The speech has slid down the memory hole—but in the interest of preserving our flailing nation's history, what did the president say?   

For starters, he started by saying what you see below. Warning! As you can see on the videotape from the invaluable Rev, some of the things he said don't quite seem to parse:    

Trump Address to the Nation 7/16/26

Good evening. Before we begin, I'm proud to report that our country is safer, stronger, and far wealthier than it has ever been before. We are doing great. 

Less than two years ago, we inherited an economic and social disaster. After the worst inflation in 48 years, the wide-open borders with millions and millions of people pouring in from all over the world, including criminals of all types, and 11,888 murderers, many of whom killed more than one person. 

We had transgender for everybody, men in women's sports, crime ravaging our cities, and the whole world was laughing at us as a nation, but not any more. 

Two years ago, our country was dead. Now we are the hottest country anywhere in the world. America is respected like we have never been respected before. 

Before he began, he said all that. He then added quite a few similar claims. 

That very evening, on The Last Word, Lawrence O'Donnell focused on the peculiar claim that, just two years before, we'd had "transgender for everybody." At this site, we googled the number 11,888, as we'd done quite a few times in the past, including the times when the president used to say that the bogus number in question was 13,099. 

(As everyone surely knows by now, we're now living in a post-fact, fact-free environment. There's no real point in trying to correct the president's endless misstatements, but for one of many factchecks of those twinned numbers, you can click here for a visit to FactCheck.org.)   

Before he began, he made those statements, many of which were clownishly bogus, a few of which can't exactly be said to be wrong. Then he began to say the things he'd promoted as being of prime importance. 

By now, the speech has disappeared—has been dispatched to the region where disregarded piffle dwells. But just for the sake of maintaining a record, these were his five main claims:

Tonight I'm announcing the immediate declassification and release of critical intelligence revealing shocking vulnerabilities in our election infrastructure...

The documents cover five major areas of concern. 

First, they show that, over a period of years, starting during the 2020 election cycle, the People's Republic of China carried out what is believed to be the largest compromise of election data in history, resulting in China's illicit acquisition of 220 million US voter files.   

[...]

Compounding the travesty, the second set of documents we are releasing reveals that members of the deep state, very, very famous group of people, many cases, in our intelligence agency, worked to actively suppress and downplay information about the extent of China's sinister election meddling, covering it up from both the President and the American people like nobody thought was possible.

[...]

The third set of documents we are releasing proves that for many years, Americans were blatantly lied to about the security of our election infrastructure, including electronic voting machines and ballot counting systems dishonest almost all. They're vulnerable, and they're easily compromised and people within our government knew that. 

[...]

The fourth set of documents reveals that, even when significant evidence of fraud has been detected, it has been buried and covered up. Among the disclosures tonight are FBI files detailing evidence of alleged fraud by a large-scale voter registration operation in Michigan.  

[...]

Finally, to reveal just how vulnerable our elections continue to be, we are releasing the results of a stunning investigation by the Department of Homeland Security. According to the DHS review, state voter rolls, and public records, they identified approximately 278,000 non-citizens who are registered to vote in federal elections. Since Democrat states refuse to share their voter files, the real number is actually much higher than that.   

Those were the basic claims, and those claims were accompanied by a profusion of lesser claims. Fact-checks were attempted by MS NOW and CNN, though everyone knows that we now live in an essentially post-fact environment. 

In truth, the ultimate fact-check was offered by the Fox News Channel, where Dana Perino and all the others agreed that the best way to deal with this presentation was to pretend that it hadn't occurred. On Fox, the messengers agreed to talk about the many "Commies" instead. 

On Fox, the various friends took a dive. But so it now goes within the Babel which the president decided to hail that night, for perhaps the ten millionth time, as "the hottest country in the world."

This very morning, just one week later, a new report by Vitali and Boudreaux appears at MS NOW. 

Given his obvious worries about our elections, what might the sitting president decide to do this fall? Democrats are preparing for a type of Doomsday, the MS NOW scribes report:

Schumer convenes Democrats to prepare for election doomsday scenarios    

For two hours Wednesday, away from the cameras, in a room just steps away from the Senate chamber, a group of powerful lawmakers rehearsed for some of their darkest fears about November’s midterm elections: disinformation triggering voter-roll purges in key states before Election Day, National Guard troops deployed to polling places as voters cast their ballots and the machinery of a free election seizing up in real time.

Almost a dozen senators, seated at long tables arranged in a U-shape, with notepads and water bottles before them, were walked through three hypothetical situations set before, on and after Election Day 2026. At points, screens displayed mocked-up graphics or artificial intelligence-generated videos that could be used to sow disinformation. 

The exercises are part of a broader effort by Democrats—both inside government and out—to prepare for anything ahead of November. Republicans often decry their fears as hyperbolic. They may yet be right. 

But multiple Trump administration officials have declined to rule out [sending] ICE agents or other federal law enforcement to polling places in the fall, though doing so would be illegal. And more GOP election deniers are rising into positions essential to safeguarding democracy in the 2026 midterms and 2028 presidential election. 

And so on from there.

(For the record, we have no idea what that last sentence means. The sitting president isn't the only person whose statements may sometimes be garbled.)

Democrats are said to believe that the sitting president may be planning to undermine November's elections. We can think of no serious reason to assume that this fear is misplaced.   

That said:

What, us worry? That's what David Brooks seemed to say, last Friday night, with respect to this widespread fear.   

Brooks is a good and decent person, and he's perfectly bright. Why in the world—why on earth—would he have said what he did?

Tomorrow: Jonathan Capehart's fears

WEDNESDAY: Michael Lerner got there first!

WEDNESDAY, JULY 22, 2026

It's time for Kelly to go: What might a "politics of meaning" look like? What does the term even mean?   

Yesterday, we linked you to the speech in which first lady Hillary Clinton first employed that term. That said, the term had originated with someone else—with someone whose view of the world the first lady admired.   

Shortly after the first lady's address, Daniel Schorr discussed the matter in the Christian Science Monitor:   

Behind the 'Politics of Meaning'  

On April 6, in Austin, Texas, Mrs. Clinton delivered what some are already calling "THE speech." It was a passionate appeal for Americans to develop a sense of community. She spoke of "cities that are filled with hopeless girls with babies and angry boys with guns." She spoke of a "crisis of meaning" and urged the remolding of society by "defining what it means to be a human being in the 20th century, moving into the new millenium." What is needed, she said, is a new kind of politics, "the politics of meaning."

The "politics of meaning" is a concept of Michael Lerner, editor of Tikkun, a liberal Jewish monthly. Did Mrs. Clinton get the phrase from him? Indeed she did. At a subsequent White House reception she said to him, "Am I your mouthpiece or what?" And, "It's amazing how we seem to be on the same wavelength." In a meeting in her office, she told Mr. Lerner that she and her husband had been reading him since 1988.   

And so on from there. In 1996, Lerner published a book on this theme: The Politics of Meaning: Restoring Hope and Possibility in an Age of Cynicism. 

More on Lerner tomorrow. As for Hillary Clinton, some people felt she'd (unwisely) gotten out beyond the traditional role of an (unelected) first lady by offering such a sweeping reassessment of the American scene in just her third month in the East Wing. 

We can't necessarily say they were wrong, at least as a political matter. Sensibly or otherwise, the first lady absorbed some major body blows in the wake of her speech.

Last week, that famous old term, "the politics of meaning," began to dance in our heads. Can any serious person really believe that our nation can continue in the current way, with poisonous podcasts from the left and the right—with every flyweight a king?   

The rise of those various new technologies has given every furious flyweight the chance to spread misinformation and fury and venom all around the town square. For an example of what we mean, check the part of this opinion piece at Mediaite which describes Megyn Kelly is mainlining venom about the Obamas' daughters—two young women whose views and feelings the routinely poisonous Kelly seems to know nothing about.

Yes, we agree—it gets worse! That said, no nation can survive as a Babel, especially if the competing voices come from people behaving like this. 

Wo what's an intelligent nation to do? An intelligent nation will seek a way to get back out of all this mess. They'll start looking for a way "back out of all this now too much for us."

Is it time for Megyn Kelly to go? A nation can't run on angry inanity. A nation can't run on paired venom.

FAULTY: Who's the most influential of all?

WEDNESDAY, JULY 22, 2026

Joe Rogan, one columnist says: Our nation is in a world of hurt. It's amazing to see how many people seem to be lingering in various forms of denial.

As we noted yesterday, we thought David Brooks—a good, decent person—was lingering there, last Friday night, on the PBS NewsHour. Before we return to his puzzling conduct, Bret Stephens is attempting to help us see part of the mess we're all in.

Rather, Stephens outlines two parts of the existential mess we're all in. 

Midway through his new column for the New York Times, Stephens describes the pair of titans who performed a three-hour podcast last week. No names are included in the passage posted below, though one titan will be easy to name. 

For the record, Stephens is a man of the center right. This is the truth as he sees it:

Call the Veep, Agent Mulder!

[...]

The truth—that the most influential media figure in America today, with tens of millions of followers on social media, is a jocular bro with an Everyman affect who seems never to have encountered an idiotic or despicable conspiracy theory he isn’t willing to promote (moon-landing denial) or platform (Hitler revisionism). We are a nation that has moved at speed from the realm of fact colored by opinions to a kingdom of delusion infested with fear.

The truth—that the current vice president is by far the worst person ever to hold the office (move over, Aaron Burr, John C. Calhoun and Spiro T. Agnew). ...The prospect of this callow and sinister opportunist taking the place of the erratic buffoon now governing us may be the single scariest thought in world politics today.    

It's easy to see who he's talking about in that second paragraph. In Stephens' opinion, JD Vance is a "callow and sinister opportunist" who is "by far the worst person ever to hold the office" of vice president.

Opinions on that will differ. Opinion will also differ on Stephens' description of President Trump as "the erratic buffoon now governing us."  

Is President Trump an "erratic buffoon?" At present, opinions differ. In fact, they differ quite widely—but Vance is easy to spot in the passage we've posted. 

More interesting, in our view, is the first paragraph we've posted. In that paragraph, Stephens describes "the most influential media figure in America today."   

According to Stephens, who is that person? We'll give you his name:  

Joe Rogan! 

Is it possible that Stephens is right? Is it possible that Rogan—the former host of The Man Show—really is "the most influential media figure" in our flailing nation today?   

At the time of the Vietnam War, it was widely believed that Walter Cronkite—a deeply experienced war correspondent—was the most influential such person. 

(Before his work in World War II, he had served as Moscow bureau chief for CBS News.)

The deeply experienced Walter Cronkite was most influential then. Is it possible that Rogan—"a jocular bro with an Everyman affect"—holds that position today, as our flailing nation keeps starting and stopping its ongoing war with Iran?  

Is it possible? Yes, it probably is. Yes, we suppose it's possible, though it would surely be hard to say.

That said, is Stephens' unflattering description of Rogan accurate? Because we've never listened to Rogan's podcasts, we can't quite tell you that. 

We've never listened to Rogan! But on a daily basis, for years, we've watched the aggressive buffoonism performed on such corporate propaganda shows as The Five and Fox & Friends Weekend, mixed with the ugly aggression of the prehuman Gutfeld! program. 

No serious nation can expect to survive the culture created by such undisguised garbage can "cable news" shows—or the garbage which flows, on an hourly basis, from our failing nation's assortment of deranged podcasters of both the left and the right.  

What happened on last week's podcast, triggering this column by Stephens? Right at the start of his column, Stephens attempts to explain:   

Call the Veep, Agent Mulder!

Somewhere around the two-hour mark in JD Vance’s nearly three-hour podcast interview last week with Joe Rogan, the pair got into a serious conversation about supernatural and extraterrestrial phenomena. By serious, I mean it in the sense that Rogan seemed to take the subject seriously while Vance cynically, or cretinously, or cravenly, or credulously or conspiratorially—or perhaps it’s all of the above—played along with him. 

[...]  

By this point, the two men had already propounded one conspiracy theory—that the Los Angeles mayoral election had been rigged (a claim previously debunked by a Trump-appointed federal prosecutor); followed by Vance’s accusation that Joe Biden’s staff got him to eat ice cream “in the most ridiculous, suggestive way imaginable” (a remarkable way of turning naked mendacity into adolescent prurience into another conspiracy theory); followed by an exchange about eating corn dogs in public (because, you know); followed by an argument about whether the Ten Commandments should be mandated in Texas public schools, in which neither man appeared to be aware that the commandments are not originally Christian.  

We've omitted three examples of Vance's pronouncements concerning demons and the like. Regarding Vance's claim about the way Joe Biden ate ice cream, we'll tell you something Stephens probably doesn't know:   

Back in the day, the brain-numbing stupidity about Joe Biden's eating of ice cream sprang full-blown from the empty head of Jesse Watters on a regular basis (along with so much more). On The Five, the other children would titter and chuckle, pretending that this inane behavior made sense.

(After that, it would often be time to over-talk Tarlov again.)

Watters co-hosts The Five each day, then hosts his own program, Jesse Watters Primetime. They're the two most-watched programs in the American "cable news" firmament—and Watters, the most-watched person in cable news, is a gender buffoon and undisguised tribal clown well past all the way down.  

Out of madness of this sort, very bad politics grows. But on Friday evening's PBS NewsHour, David Brooks seemed blissfully unaware of the mess we're all in:

What, us worry? he said.

David Brooks is a good, decent person. Also, he's very bright. Tomorrow, we'll return to an ongoing mystery:  

Why is the world—why on earth—did David Brooks say what he said?   

Tomorrow: Jonathan Capehart's concern

TUESDAY: Hillary Clinton gave a speech!

TUESDAY, JULY 21, 2026

On balance, it didn't go well: What the heck is a "politics of meaning?" If we agree that our struggling nation needs a politics of that type, what kind of politics would we be talking about?

As anyone with eyes can see, our flailing nation badly needs a new type of politics. But what's a "politics of meaning?" 

Let's return to the first lady's speech, the one she gave in 1993.   

The first lady was Hillary Clinton. She was in her first year at that post. Perhaps unwisely, she delivered this address at the University of Texas n April 6 of that year. 

The governor of Texas was in the room, and that governor, the late Ann Richards, was actually a Democrat—and she was a woman to boot! Those were different times, but you could possibly squint and see the present day on the horizon. 

The first lady gave a speech in which she said that she could discern a "crisis in meaning" in our American lives. It probably wasn't wise to say that—especially for Hillary Clinton, who had already become a favorite punching bag of certain elements on the right and within the American press.    

She was moving out beyond the role our (unelected) first ladies had traditionally taken, and that may not have been wise. That said, how acute was this crisis—the shortfall of meaning in our lives? 

The crisis was fairly acute! Fairly early in her speech, the first lady even quoted the late Lee Atwater, a lifelong, extremely aggressive Republican strategist who had died in 1991 at just 40 years of age.

On his deathbed, he had famously referred, in a bit of a conversion, to "this spiritual vacuum at the heart of American society—this tumor of the soul.” 

That statement "to me will be Lee Atwater’s real lasting legacy," the first lady said, occasioning applause. By the end of the speech, she was quoting Albert Schweizer seeming to say that, while sleeping sickness is a real disease, there is also "a sleeping sickness of the soul." 

Along the way, she had described her own vision in the manner seen here:

CLINTON (4/6/93): And what we each must do is break through the old thinking that has for too long captured us politically and institutionally, so that we can begin to devise new ways of thinking about not only what it means to have economies that don’t discard people like they were excess baggage that we no longer need, but to define our institutional and personal responsibilities in ways that answer this lack of meaning.

We need a new politics of meaning. We need a new ethos of individual responsibility and caring. We need a new definition of civil society which answers the unanswerable questions posed by both the market forces and the governmental ones, as to how we can have a society that fills us up again and makes us feel that we are part of something bigger than ourselves.

We need a new "politics of meaning," she said. We need to fill ourselves up again, thereby defeating this crisis of meaning.

The first lady was surely well intentioned. On the other hand, as a general matter, it probably isn't politically wise to talk like that—to tell several hundred million people about the malaise in which they're trapped, whether that word is employed or not.  

On balance, fairly or otherwise, that attempt to define a "politics of meaning" didn't go especially well, but by last week, we suddenly found ourselves longing for a second bite of the apple, for a new and improved such politics.   

In truth, our flailing nation badly needs a critter like that—a critter you might call a politics of meaning. We badly need a critter like that, but what would some such critter look like? What would a less destructive political culture possibly entail?

"Here comes the sun," George Harrison wrote. "It seems like years since it's been here."

Tomorrow: The late Michael Lerner

FAULTY: Challenged by Bennett, Brooks held firm!

TUESDAY, JULY 21, 2026

The courts will protect us, he said: Why in the world did David Brooks say what he said last Friday?  

Brooks appeared with Jonathan Capehart for their usual Friday night spot on the PBS NewsHour. The night before, the sitting president had made a loudly ballyhooed national address.    

Thanks to the invaluable Rev, you can read the transcript and watch the videotape of the president's self-ballyhooed speech. Thanks to the invaluable Rev, you can do so by clicking here.

The president started with some familiar claims, most of which were inaccurate or misleading. (Some were hard to decipher.) After that, the sitting president stated his major thesis:   

PRESIDENT TRUMP (7/16/26): For many years, I've called for bold, swift, and decisive action to protect the integrity of America's elections. Every American deserves to know that when they cast their vote, that vote will be counted accurately in a system, and that is to make that system secure, one where cheating and interference are not just difficult but virtually impossible. 

Unfortunately, the system we have today falls catastrophically short of that standard. Tonight, I'm announcing the immediate declassification, and release of critical intelligence revealing shocking vulnerabilities in our election infrastructure.  

The situation is catastrophic, he said—but how catastrophic is it? Quite catastrophic, he claimed: 

"There's no third-world country that has elections like we have," the president now said. 

By that, he meant there's no country whose election system is as bad as the American system. He described our system in this somewhat garbled presentation:  

PRESIDENT TRUMP (continuing directly): This evidence shows that the election system we have dangerously exposes, and really exposes like levels never thought possible, to hacking, exploitation, and foreign interference. [sic]

Just as disturbingly, this vital information has for many years been covered up and hidden from you, the American people—our beautiful, our great American people—but that all changes right now.   

As the president read from a teleprompter, he may have skipped part of his text in the first chunk of that presentation. But even where his words didn't parse, his overall claim was clear: 

According to the sitting president, we Americans are beautiful people and we're also great. But according to the sitting president, our election system leaves us exposed to the world:

Our systems are open to hacking by foreign entities—to exploitation and "interference." Or so the president said.

As he continued, the president attempted to defend, and to further explain, that startling representation. 

The sitting president had made a startling accusation. But one night later, as he started to speak with Geoff Bennett of PBS, David Brooks made a remarkable statement of his own.

As we noted yesterday, he started off like this:

BENNETT (7/17/26): So David, what did you hear in that speech last night? What do you think President Trump is trying to accomplish here?   

BROOKS: Oh, subtle. I couldn't figure it out.

(Chuckling)

He was— He's got to get more original in his confabulation. I mean, he's just stuck on this 2020 thing. There's never been any evidence. There's no evidence.    

There's never been any evidence, he said. The president has been relentlessly pushing a confabulation over the past six years.

At one time, a statement like that, by a major journalist, would have qualified as a startling event. But in this age of endlessly weird misstatements by President Trump, Brooks' statement passed without notice—and then, he added this:   

BROOKS (continuing directly): I think the good news is, he doesn't have any policies to actually ruin our election system, as we heard from the secretaries of state. So we're going to have fair elections in this country.   

We're going to have fair elections, he said. As we noted yesterday, we thought that statement—that assertion by Brooks—was just remarkably odd.   

Why did he make that confident statement? We have no idea, in part because no one directly asked.    

On the other hand, Bennett did suggest, a bit later on, that the situation wasn't as simple as Brooks had said. When Bennett offered that suggestion, this exchange occurred:   

BENNETT: David, we spoke on this program last night with Ty Cobb, who was the special counsel during the first Trump administration, and he offered an extraordinary warning. He said that he believes that President Trump is laying the predicate for an emergency declaration around the elections.

Do you see the guardrails holding if President Trump tries to use the apparatus of the federal government to intervene more directly in how elections are administered?

BROOKS: I think so. A lot of people have thought that this [speech] is a predicate for some future action.

I think, if you look at the things he's tried to do, we're helped by the fact that these [elections] are mostly state-run things, so he does not have control. And what isn't state-run is usually congressionally run. 

And so he has tried. The thing he's done successfully is the gerrymandering in Texas. He has rigged elections and Democrats have helped in California. So that part he was successful at in degrading our elections. 

But pretty much everything else he's done, through executive order and other things, courts have overruled him. And so I do not believe he will have the power to actually effect our elections.  

Good grief! What a remarkable statement:

There's really nothing to worry about. The courts will overrule him!

Before the week is done, we'll revisit one particular comment by Yevtushenko. ("Who we knew as faulty, the earth's creatures.") 

We'll go there by the end of the week. Tomorrow morning, we'll continue pursuing this immediate question:   

Brooks said we have nothing to worry about. Why in the world, why on earth, would he make that remarkable statement?  

Tomorrow: Jonathan Capehart's concern

MONDAY: The nation's first lady delivered a speech!

MONDAY, JULY 20, 2026

George Harrison wrote a song: It occurred to us some time ago:

If a person spent his entire life as a songwriter, and he only came up with "Here Comes the Sun," that would have been a case of fifty years just extremely well spent.

("And if a person lived in obscurity / Making his friends in that obscurity / Then obscurity is not uninteresting?")  

Stating the obvious, the late George Harrison (1943-2001) didn't live in obscurity. Also, he wrote many more songs than just "Here Comes the Sun."

That said, what out there, well-past-perfect simplicity! Our favorite rendition is here. 

(We'll go with "Colours" as our purest substitute off the bench. It's hard to do something this simple.)  

That said, do songs like those point the way toward a "politics of meaning?" Not toward that specific "politics of meaning," the "politics of meaning" Hillary Clinton described, perhaps unwisely, very early in her very first year as first lady.   

Under the mandated rules of the day, Clinton was savaged for what she said in that speech, delivered at the University of Texas in April 1993. And we don't even mean that we need that general type of a politics of meaning. We're looking for a new politics which both major tribes could endorse.  

"It seems like years since it's been clear?" In our view, Harrison wrote one of the world's most perfect songs.

In this country, we're badly in need of some modernized sort of "awakening." Barring the latest bizarre event, we'll advance our search tomorrow.

FAULTY: The president continued his "nonstop talk!"

MONDAY, JULY 20, 2026

The next night, Brooks reacted: Last Thursday night, the president delivered his major address about our scary elections.   

The next morning, Manohla Dargis described the speech in the New York Times. She even made it a CRITIC'S PICK. Here's part of what she said:

The speech consisted of 12,109 lines of nonlinear, nonstop talk and action featuring gods, mortals, monsters, weird doings, hospitality rituals and oceans of blood, tears and wine.   

No, wait! Actually, that was part of Dargis' review of the new feature film, "The Odyssey." With apologies for the error, here's the actual passage in question:

‘The Odyssey’ Review: Passion in Every Frame   

Throughout his career, Christopher Nolan has taken on big stories—though especially those of men, their struggles and their wars...  

[...]

It seems inevitable that Nolan would eventually take on “The Odyssey,” one of the foundations of Western literature. And why not? The story is a trippy, far-out blast, and has the kind of sinuous, complex layering that has become one of his signatures. Credited to Homer, the original poem consists of 12,109 lines of nonlinear, nonstop talk and action featuring gods, mortals, monsters, weird doings, hospitality rituals and oceans of blood, tears and wine. Whatever the adaptation, the tale is so ingrained in our cultural DNA that even those who haven’t read the original...will be familiar with it. 

That's what Dargis actually said. But as with Homer's endless tale, so too with the sitting president's! 

By now, everyone is familiar with the "nonlinear, nonstop talk" driving its ever-shifting stream of allegations. Everyone is familiar with its "monsters, weird doings and oceans of blood," even though the president's tale has only been around for six years!   

What actually happened, or didn't happen, in the 2020 presidential campaign? Tomorrow, we'll try to fashion a list of the various claims the president made in his 26-minute address.

That said: 

One night later, on Friday night, David Brooks offered his assessment of the address on the PBS NewsHour. As always, he was paired with Jonathan Capehart on the program which occupies the highest end of Blue American journalism.   

David Brooks is a good, decent person. But we thought you should see what he said.   

Full disclosure! In the immediate aftermath of the address, politicians and journalists in Blue America fact-checked the rambling effort within an inch of its life. 

Over in Red America, the Fox News Channel essentially disappeared the address. Fox chose not to discuss it at all, pretended it hadn't occurred.   

One night later, out came Capehart and Brooks for their weekly session with Geoff Bennett. We thought the assessment offered by Brooks was remarkably strange:    

BENNETT (7/17/26): President Trump once again putting false claims about the 2020 election at the center of the national political debate is where we start as we turn tonight to the analysis of Brooks and Capehart. 

That's The Atlantic's David Brooks and Jonathan Capehart of MS NOW. Good evening, gentlemen.

CAPEHART: Hey, Geoff.

BENNETT: So, David, what did you hear in that speech last night? What do you think President Trump is trying to accomplish here?   

BROOKS: Oh, subtle. I couldn't figure it out.

(Chuckling)

He was— He's got to get more original in his confabulation. I mean, he's just stuck on this 2020 thing. There's never been any evidence. There's no evidence. 

I think the good news is, he doesn't have any policies to actually ruin our election system, as we heard from the secretaries of state. So we're going to have fair elections in this country.

We're going to have fair elections, he said. We thought that remark by Brooks was amazingly strange.  

As you can see, Bennett began the session by saying that the president's speech had been driven by "false claims." 

As far as we know, that statement is fundamentally accurate—but it represents a new way of doing journalism, an approach which sprang full-blown from the head of Zeus in reaction to the endless counterfactual wanderings of the sitting president.   

Bennett referred to "false claims;" Brooks went with "confabulation." Tomorrow, we'll try to list the various presidential claims they were talking about—but what in the world, what on earth, led Brooks to say something like this:

The good news is, he doesn't have any policies to actually ruin our election system...So we're going to have fair elections. 

Why in the world—why on earth—would Brooks say something like that? Tomorrow, we'll show you why we ask.

In the Odyssey, sacred Homer fashioned a tale full of "monsters, weird doings, and oceans of blood." The sitting president has done something similar in the course of six long years of nonlinear, nonstop talking.

Last Thursday night, we saw two of the brightest bulbs in the Congress express their fear about what President Trump might decide to do this fall to undermine our elections. One night later, up jumped Brooks with a very strange statement. 

There's nothing to worry about, he said. Why is the world did he do that?

Tomorrow: Confabulations and fears

SATURDAY: Who in the world was he talking about?

SATURDAY, JULY 18, 2026

Yevtushenko, Watters: You're right! There was no mention of the president's ballyhooed national address on yesterday's edition of The Five.   

Answering yesterday afternoon's question, the Fox News Channel's apparent disappearing of the president's speech continued! In place of any such discussion, the normal standards of The Five prevailed:   

The program's first segment was dominated by Jesse Watters' mocking presentation regarding Ashley Webb, a visibly awkward transgender woman who somehow got onto the undercard up in Maine this past Thursday night.  

What "undercard" are we talking about? We'll let CNN explain:   

Maine Democrats’ first debate laid bare their difficulty in replacing Graham Platner   

As Maine Democrats prepare to replace Graham Platner as their Senate nominee, eight candidates pitched themselves as best prepared to take on Republican Sen. Susan Collins over two hours of debates Thursday night.

The first hour featured four candidates who were on the primary ballot in different races this year. All lost—but all earned at least 20% of the vote in their contests.

Former public health official Nirav Shah pointed to his performance in the gubernatorial primary (he earned the most first-place votes, but finished second once ranked-choice votes were tabulated). Former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson touted his state-level accomplishments. Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows highlighted her attempt to disqualify President Donald Trump from the 2024 ballot...

The second hour was an undercard of sorts, with four lesser-known candidates looking to break through in the abbreviated race...

And so on from there.

How had this collection of candidates been assembled? We aren't entirely sure.

According to the New York Times, "twelve Maine Democrats ha[d] signed up to run to replace Graham Platner." We've seen no one explain why eight potential nominees, not twelve, took part in Thursday's two-tier event.   

At least three debaters in the first group possessed traditional qualifications. (We saw Shah do a town hall event on C-Span last weekend. We thought he was quite sharp.)

By way of contrast, Webb does not have traditional qualifications. Her performance was extremely uneasy—and as we mentioned, she identifies as transgender. 

Inevitably, this invited the extended ridicule from Watters which came at the start of yesterday's The Five, with a mocking lead-in from Kayleigh McEnany. Inevitably, producers had decided to direct the program's focus to the least polished, least qualified, of the possible nominees.

Plus, she was transgender! Watters took over from there.

After Watters finished his several minutes of mugging, no one, including Jessica Tarlov, found it within him- or herself to challenge what he had done.   

We'll suggest that you watch the way yesterday's program started, with a "disclaimer" from the clown star-adjacent McEnany that "this is not a skit from SNL."  To do so, just click here.

The Five is our rapidly failing nation's most-watched "cable news" program. Its audience is roughly three times the size of primetime programs on MS NOW. Yesterday's imitation of life is very much the way the program is typically designed to run.   

The president's Thursday night address was once again disappeared! Instead, the gang settled on the least capable of the eight Democratic hopefuls, then let the mockery of that transgender person flow.   

"No people are uninteresting," Yevtushenko said, long ago. Along the way, in that eternal poem, he even offered this: 

People   

No people are uninteresting.
Their fate is like the chronicle of planets. 

[...]

In any man who dies there dies with him
his first snow and kiss and fight.
It goes with him

There are left books and bridges
and painted canvas and machinery.
Whose fate is to survive.

But what has gone is also not nothing:
by the rule of the game something has gone.
Not people die but worlds die in them.

Whom we knew as faulty, the earth’s creatures
Of whom, essentially, what did we know?   

Who we knew as faulty. The poem continues from there.

"No people are uninteresting," Yevtushenko plainly said. But who in the world was he talking about right at the start of his poem? 

Could he possibly have been talking about people like those you see on The Five? People like the unnamed people who produce that show?   

You're asking an excellent question! He was likely talking about the millions lost under Stalin—or about the thirty-three thousand, and after that the thousands more, described by the leading authority:  

Babi Yar 

Babi Yar is a ravine in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv and a site of massacres carried out by Nazi Germany's forces during its campaign against the Soviet Union in World War II. The first and best documented of the massacres took place on 29–30 September 1941, in which some 33,771 Jews were murdered. Other victims of massacres at the site included Soviet prisoners of war, communists and Romanies. It is estimated that a total of between 100,000 and 150,000 people were murdered at Babi Yar during the German occupation.   

The decision to murder all the Jews in Kyiv was made by the German military governor Generalmajor Kurt Eberhard, the Police Commander for Army Group South, SS-Obergruppenführer Friedrich Jeckeln, and the Einsatzgruppe C Commander Otto Rasch...Sonderkommando 4a and the 45th Battalion of the German Order Police conducted the shootings. Servicemen of the 303rd Battalion of the German Order Police at this time guarded the outer perimeter of the execution site.

The massacre was the largest mass-murder by the Nazi regime during the campaign against the Soviet Union, and it has been called "the largest single massacre in the history of the Holocaust" to that particular date...  

With much, much more after that. Because Yevtushenko's most famous poem is Babi Yar (or Babiyy Yar), that may be who he was talking about at the start of People. 

We're sure there are different views about the poem, Babi Yar. The leading authority says this:   

Yevgeny Yevtushenko 

[...]   

Yevtushenko was one of the authors politically active during the Khrushchev Thaw. In 1961, he wrote what would become perhaps his most famous poem, Babiyy Yar, in which he denounced the Soviet distortion of historical fact regarding the Nazi massacre of the Jewish population of Kyiv in September 1941, as well as the anti-Semitism still widespread in the Soviet Union. 

The usual Soviet policy in relation to the Holocaust in Russia was to describe it as general atrocities against Soviet citizens and to avoid mentioning that it was a genocide of the Jews. However, Yevtushenko's work Babiyy Yar "spoke not only of the Nazi atrocities, but the Soviet government's own persecution of Jewish people." 

The poem was published in a major newspaper, Literaturnaya Gazeta, achieved widespread circulation in numerous copies, and later was set to music, together with four other Yevtushenko poems, by Dmitri Shostakovich in his Thirteenth Symphony, subtitled Babi Yar. 

Of Yevtushenko's work, Shostakovich has said, "Morality is a sister of conscience. And perhaps God is with Yevtushenko when he speaks of conscience. Every morning, in place of prayers, I reread or repeat by memory two poems by Yevtushenko: 'Career' or 'Boots'."   

We're sure that there are other views. Along the way in Babi Yar, Yevtushenko, in translation, is able to offer this: 

Babi Yar 

[...]

O, Russia of my heart, I know that you
Are international, by inner nature.
But often those whose hands are steeped in filth
Abused your purest name, in name of hatred.

I know the kindness of my native land.
How vile, that without the slightest quiver
The antisemites have proclaimed themselves
The “Union of the Russian People!”

It seems to me that I am Anna Frank,
Transparent, as the thinnest branch in April,
And I’m in love, and have no need of phrases,
But only that we gaze into each other’s eyes...  

And so on from there. At this site, as we've noted before, we consider Anne Frank to be a sacred being, though others may have alternate views. 

(Very happy, very young.) 

For a different translation, through PBS, you can just click here.   

That's who he may have been thinking about when he made his remarkable statement. That said, he quite explicitly went beyond that. Quite explicitly, Yevtushenko claimed that no people are uninteresting. 

He stated that view about everyone. We'll offer more musings next week.

Next week: "The politics of meaning?"