🚨 Senior White House official: "I’ve never been more ashamed. I’m really honestly disgusted. I’m sick to my stomach. And they’re all celebrating it. They’re very very proud of themselves."
🚨 scoop - McConnell leans toward convicting Trump in an impeachment trial - one of the most shocking and damning votes in the history of American politics
🚨 🚨 More than 100 million people viewed part or all of the “Axios on HBO” interview between
@realdonaldtrump
and
@jonathanvswan
@axios
on all platforms. We offer this same interview opportunity to
@joebiden
and hope he accepts.
Astonishing. The story moved markets, set off a media frenzy, suggested worst possible outcome. This is called a massive correction, or retraction, not clarification.
🚨🚨 Trump’s loyalty-first cabinet. EXCLUSIVE details: 1. Melania wants
@tuckercarlson
for VP. 2. Stephen Miller 4 Attorney General. 3. Tucker pushing Steve Bannon as Chief of Staff. 4. JD Vance up for a big gig, on VP short list…
Either the White House spokespeople or the president's chief of staff is lying. It's a stunning display of incompetence that five days after the initial story broke, they still can't get their stories straight.
🚨 via
@jonathanvswan
Senior White House and Trump campaign officials are complaining bitterly about poor internal communication, blaming colleagues, pondering what jobs they might try to get next year, and lashing out at their new enemy: Fox News.
🚨 🚨 scoop: McConnell, if he keeps the Senate majority, plans to prevent Joe Biden from stacking his Cabinet with liberals and force him to go with centrist options, like Lael Brainard 4 Treasury, Tony Blinken for State, sources tell
@mikeallen
🚨 It feels like August of ‘16 all over again. Polls show Trump losing big. Pundits proclaim he can't win. Reporters sneer at Trump voters on Twitter, cable. Why it matters: There are several signs that should give the Trump-is-toast self-assured pause.
🚨 President Trump is pinning his hopes — and presidency — on a wild, relentless war against reality and truth, falsely claiming several states are stealing the election by adhering to their laws, rules, and long precedents.
🚨 🚨 Top officials tell
@jonathanvswan
officials Trump is spending too much time with people they consider crackpots or conspiracy theorists and flirting with blatant abuses of power.
@ratemyskyperoom
I refuse to succumb to your peer pressure. Next show: I will wear a shirt cut from those curtains with a flag made of those curtains flapping in the dark wind behind me and dare you to downgrade me to a zero…game on 😃
This is one of the reasons America hates the media. Our entire industry lit itself on fire because a troubled Trump hanger-on made an ass of himself — live.
🚨🚨Some White House officials say it's difficult to schedule public or private events with the president in the morning, in the evening, or on weekends: The vast majority of Biden’s public events happen on weekdays, between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m.
🚨 🚨 Democrats privately fear that going too hard on Judge Amy Coney Barrett in her confirmation hearings could wind up backfiring if senators are perceived as being nasty to an accomplished woman.
🚨 🚨 scoops -> President Biden’s advisers are discussing a possible visit to Saudi Arabia this spring to help repair relations and convince the Kingdom to pump more oil, Axios has learned.
🚨 🚨 Trump thinks everyone around him is weak, stupid or disloyal — and increasingly seeks comfort only in people who egg him on to overturn the election results. We cannot stress enough how unnerved officials r by the conversations unfolding inside WH.
🚨🚨scoop -> DNC covered Biden legal bills in special counsel probe ** Why it matters: The payments are at odds with the Biden campaign's recent attacks on Donald Trump for spending his campaign funds on legal fees.
Exclusive: President Trump's top trade adviser, Peter Navarro, recommended appointing Stefan Halper, an academic and suspected FBI informant on the Trump campaign, to a senior role in the Trump administration, Axios has learned.
@alexi
You will always be part of the
@axios
family.
@alexi
admited her mistakes, repented (years ago and again of late) and showed during her four years with us she was a strong woman with a big heart. She was a great colleague who often stood up 4 others. Sad outcome
@TeenVogue
.
🚨 🚨 Charles Koch, in first TV interview in years, tells Axios on HBO he"screwed up by being partisan" and hits GOP officials for going more radical than promised
🚨 Top Republicans want to bury President Trump, for good. But they are divided whether to do it with one quick kill via impeachment, or let him slowly fade away.
Exclusive poll: GOP turns on FBI bigtime. Never underestimate Trump’s power to reshape GOP views. He did it on Russia. Then Mueller. Now the FBI. Not long ago: the GOP loathed Russia, loved Mueller, celebrated the FBI...
🚨🚨Top WH officials privately concede things have never been worse politically since the 80-year-old took office.Biden’s dual horror shows threaten his re-election campaign
🚨 via
@jonathanvswan
- President Trump no longer doubts the basic intelligence assessment that Russia interfered in the 2016 election — he just seems incapable of taking it seriously, and tells staff that is simply what nations do.
🚨🚨Scoop: Biden “obsessed” with
@morningjoe
. Staff plot 7 am appearances to reach POTUS…Biden calls Joe for advice, to vent, and aides are in regular contact with his panel…lots of great
@AlexThomp
details…
🚨 🚨 Squad politics backfire: The push to defund the police, rename schools and tear down statues has created a significant obstacle to Democrats keeping control of the House, the Senate and the party’s overall image.
New: This strategy is working better than you think. Trump portrayed Hillary Clinton as an enemy of the state, and she lost. He turned the media into an enemy of the state w GOP. And he's trying to make the FBI look like an enemy of the state.
🚨 It is an ironic, poetic ending to the raucous reign of Donald J. Trump: Enabled — and enabling — Republicans put the final knives in their beloved, besieged, beaten president.
🚨 🚨 Can you imagine joking about John McCain dying and then accusing your boss of leaking in front of the President of the United States. Kelly Sadler did BOTH. And still has a job. Stranger than fiction.
🚨 President Trump is considering a made-for-TV grand finale: a White House departure on Marine One and final Air Force One flight to Florida for a political rally opposite Joe Biden's inauguration, sources familiar with the discussions tell Axios.
🚨🚨Exclusive: Biden adviser Susan Rice referred to HHS Sec. Becerra as a "bitch-ass" and privately called him an "idiot," according to multiple sources.
•During one meeting when Biden was tearing into Becerra, Rice passed DHS Sec. Mayorkas a note that read: "Don't save him,"…
🚨 A growing number of Democrats are ringing the alarm that their party sounds — and acts — too judgmental, too sensitive, too "woke" to large swaths of America.
🚨
@jonathanvswan
PART 2 Trump's revenge — Rep. Jim Jordan, his close ally, “'Fire everyone you're allowed to fire. And [then] fire a few people you're not supposed to, so that they have to sue you and you send the message.' That's the way to do it."
Lots of Democrats are in full panic that Bernie Sanders will win the nomination and get clobbered in the general election — and bring the party down, too. But the evidence, particularly the polling, doesn't back those doomsday warnings.
🚨 There is no bigger crisis for media, politics and society than the growing number of people who do not believe facts and verifiable figures. If we do not collectively solve this, we are all screwed.
There are no heroes here — courage brimmed only at the precipice. But a few people who watched the system breach, in the end, did not allow it to break. Only in time will we learn the reward or consequences of their actions.
🚨 🚨 Joe Biden is the luckiest, least scrutinized frontrunner. ->Biden has answered < half as many questions from media as Trump — 365 compared with 753
🚨 Trump’s GOP relies almost exclusively on a shrinking demographic (white men), living in shrinking areas (small, rural towns), creating a reliance on people with shrinking incomes (white workers without college degrees) to survive.
We have had many of the same conversations with the same sources Wolff used. We won't betray them, or put on the record what was off. But, we can say that the following lines from the book ring unambiguously true:
three ways to get Trump to do something, all of which we're seeing this week (with his tariffs announcement as well):
- Tell him it’s never been done before.
-Tell him the lawyers would never allow it.
-Tell him the establishment would go crazy.
🚨🚨NEW -> Biden's reluctance to acknowledge his physical limitations at age 81 is causing some tension on his team, as senior aides and First Lady Jill Biden push him to rest more and be vigilant about his health going into 2024.
🚨 🚨 Exclusive: Law enforcement agencies are investigating social-media threats to burn down or storm the Supreme Court building and murder justices and their clerks, as well as attacks targeting places of worship and abortion clinics.
🚨 Congrats to all
@axios
employees, past and present: You built the foundation of something very meaningful & generational. The next chapter will be even bigger and better. Blessed to work w/ the Best.
🚨 Exclusive must read: Inside Trump '25: A radical plan for Trump’s second term -
@jonathanvswan
meticulously details a planned purge of anyone deemed disloyal to Trump…deep into jobs most people don’t know exist…
🚨🚨New
@Axios
: Top US officials worried about FIVE war threats; most dangerous moment in 78 years, Bob Gates say; every threat could spiral into bigger one. New column with
@mikeallen
🚨🚨Biden's Hunter trigger: In private, no issue is more likely to anger or sadden Biden than Hunter, according to people close to the president who have seen his moods shift when there's bad news re:Hunter…strained Biden/Attorney General bond…much more
🚨 🚨 Scoop airing 2 nite on “Axios on HBO”: Democrats to probe Trump for abusing power to punish CNN, Washington Post and using “ the instruments of state power to punish the press.” .
🚨 We often celebrate those who break things, invent things or build things with bravado. But I have learned more studying two men of uncommon modesty:
@mikeallen
and the late Fred Rogers, a.k.a. Mister Rogers.
🚨 🚨 Scoop: Biden considers delaying Title 42 repeal. Why it matters: Biden is looking to buy time to avoid a massive influx of migrants that would add to already-historic border numbers. Some Democratic incumbents worry topic puts races at risk