Abdul El-Sayed has won and Haley Stevens called him to concede. El-Sayed's speech last night focused on unity. Stevens has released a congratulatory statement saying she's proud to offer her support to him. Their ability to unite the coalition will be the key to a general win.

Trump made at least $2.24B in 2025, including $1.44B in crypto. Trump makes moves that benefit companies he’s invested in, pardons his financial benefactors, enables foreign influence peddling, and appears to facilitate insider trading. He is the most corrupt president in American history.

There are quite a few candidates that need to go to the school of Zohran Mamdani for message discipline. Always pivot to your message. Self-inflicted wounds aren’t necessary. If you’re getting tripped up on easy cable interviews, you need to hunker down and train.

Senate Republicans know very well that they can’t trust Todd Blanche’s word on the DOJ Trump slush fund. He could easily revive it after he’s confirmed. They just wanted some vague cover to confirm. And they still agreed to the IRS immunity. Pure cowardice.

A good follow up question would’ve been - How much has Trump profited from his stakes in Chevron and ExxonMobil, and does he plan to sell stock in these companies his decisions are enriching? You can’t cover this without mentioning Trump’s unprecedented grift.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 2d ago

Trump angrily says that big oil companies like Cheron and ExxonMobil are "making too much money ... I'm not happy about it"

The Trump Admin’s affordability strategy is to pretend the problem doesn’t exist, actively make the problem worse, and try to gaslight the American people into disbelieving their own lived experience. It’s backfiring. I talked about this on MS NOW last week:

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 5d ago

CNN: 65% of Americans say Trump's policies have worsened economic conditions, that's 10% more than in the finals months of the Biden administration. What do you say to that person who's part of that 65%? KEVIN HASSETT: I just don't believe a poll like that

The pandemic radicalized the GOP even further into delusional conspiracism. They exploited the very real fear, confusion, and distrust of Americans for political gain. They brought nutjobs into their coalition and mainstreamed fringe anti-science, anti-vax beliefs. Despicable, really.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 7d ago

The Fauci hearing perfectly illustrated how living through a once in a century pandemic somehow made Republicans far worse on public health. God forbid we face anything like covid again during Trump 2.0. There will be no Dr Fauci around to try to talk sense to Trump.

Good. Fauci shouldn’t humor this farce. Republicans are clearly trying to set a perjury trap. A functioning Congress would be passing affordability legislation and holding Trump officials accountable for their Iran War lies. Instead, Republicans are wasting time smearing Fauci.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · last wk.

Fauci is taking the 5th in response to each of Rand Paul's questions

We are witnessing the largest, most blatantly corrupt grift in presidential history. Trump has exploited the White House as an asset on the Trump family balance sheet. All while unilaterally raising prices on Americans. Trump is the personification of the K-shaped economy.

My MVP of the week is Senator Jon Ossoff. Not only did he grill Pete Hegseth and dismantle his Iran War lies, he earned the absolute worst nickname Trump has ever given. Who tf is Pinky Herman?

Trump's Iran War is like the movie Groundhog Day, except the plot is about war crimes. We're stuck in the same deadly cycle: failed ceasefires, strikes, casualty cover-ups, Strait of Hormuz closures, repeat.

Trump is the personification of the K-shaped economy. He is grifting billions of dollars while directly raising prices on Americans. Now, he's compounding the war costs with even more tariffs. Republicans can't gaslight Americans into disbelieving these truths.

The Trump Admin has spent between $37.5B - $100B on the Iran War, but let enhanced ACA subsidies expire. Americans have now spent $1,100 more per household since the war began. Trump said the costs to Americans don't factor into his war decisions. This is what that looks like.

On my way to the @msnowreports.bsky.social studio to talk about the midterms, Trump’s Iran war, and the costs imposed on Americans with @stephruhle.bsky.social and a brilliant panel on @moneypowerpolitics.bsky.social. Will be on for the full 10 am ET hour. I’m back from paternal hiatus! Tune in 🙌🏾

I think we’re entering an anti-slop era. With so much AI content and soulless algorithm fodder, there’s a renewed rejection of half-assed content. In film, TV, news, and social media, people are yearning for a thoughtful human touch. We’re demanding better craftsmanship.

The Pentagon did not disclose that Iranian strikes have injured nearly 100 service members and damaged military equipment since the latest ceasefire failed. They only did so after news organizations, like The New York Times, revealed it. Cover-up?

In the aftermath of Nolan Wells’s disappearance, mainstream media coverage lagged behind independent and local media. Once social media pressure mounted, then coverage ramped up. Don Lemon and I talked about why media diversity matters to ensure these stories get covered with urgency they deserve.

Trump's midterm interference plan runs into a structural problem: Elections are decentralized. He would need buy-in from thousands of local officials. Their refusal is why his 2020 plot failed. Thousands of Americans can volunteer at their precincts and ensure it fails again.

The Nolan Wells investigators have lost the trust of his family and the public. There’s a reason why. Nolan’s mother, Christine, tracked his phone down herself, using Life360. The sheriff speculated it was a drowning before a thorough investigation had occurred. The list goes on.

I would love to see political debates where all participants are operating from the same fact-based reality. How can any conversation be productive and build solutions when the right denies basic truths. It’s like working on a cure with a lab partner that denies the disease exists.

It’s impossible to move the debate forward when one side is committed to upholding a disinformation-fueled, dehumanizing false reality that leads to the state-sanctioned street killings of innocent people. There are not two sides to this particular story. Full stop.

Lorenzo Salgado Araujo and Joan Sebastian Guerrero were two hardworking fathers with no criminal record trying to pursue the American dream. Neither was the target of the ICE operations that killed them. The Trump Admin is criminalizing and killing immigrants who are trying to do the right thing.

Ossoff makes an important point here that accurately frames Trump’s election fraud lies as racist. Trump’s 2020 election lies and efforts to overturn its results always target Black voters as illegitimate. The localities Trump challenged were disproportionately majority-Black.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 3w ago

Ossoff: "We understand the president may be threatening to declare sitting senators illegitimate. If that's the course of action he pursues, he's calling GA voters illegitimate...he was humiliated as a committed lifelong racist that it was Black voters in Georgia who were instrumental in his defeat"

In the past week, ICE has killed 26-year-old Joan Sebastian Guerrero in Maine and 52-year-old Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston. Both were fathers trying to make a life in America. They weren’t even the targets of the ICE operations that killed them. There is nothing more authoritarian than this.

When Trump tries to claim foreign interference in the 2020 election in this speech, as reported, journalists need to reassert this truth: The biggest source of interference in the 2020 election was Trump’s multifaceted, criminal plot to overturn the election results.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 3w ago

it's even dumber than you think

The space I’ve taken during this semi-hiatus after my son was born has me thinking big picture about the kind of media I want to create: More journalism, analysis, and commentary meant to make you smarter. We have enough media that encourages simplistic thinking.

In an algorithm-driven era that incentivizes conformity and simplistic thinking, we need to create more room for healthy disagreement in the pro-democracy coalition. We shouldn't take every buzzword-spewing candidate we agree with at face value. Clearly, skepticism is an asset.

We need people to have better radars for egomaniacal grifters as badly as we need them to have better media literacy

Trump called Iran the Islamic Republic of Japan, called the JCPOA the "JCPOC," called Zelensky "Putin," and called TikTok "TikTak." He's tremendously cognitive. No one has cognitived better than Trump is cognitiving in the history of cognition.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 4w ago

Trump: "We had 11 missiles shot by the Islamic Republic of Japan"

Trump bragged about grabbing women by the pussy, over two dozen women have accused Trump of sexual misconduct, and Trump was found liable for sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll. Platner is being rightfully condemned by Dems but Republicans, sit down. The hypocrisy is mind-boggling.

Acyn@acyn.bsky.social · 4w ago

Kevin McCarthy on Platner Allegations: That one thing I know about Republicans is when we had a very bad candidate, we didn't vote for that person. We walked away.