Good morning, everybody, and welcome to another edition of TNR Daily. Iâm Jason Linkins, editor of The Soapbox, TNRâs political vertical. Soon it will be Friday night, and we can free ourselves of the burden of our workweek.  Itâs been an especially busy week for the January 6 commissionâthat wide-eyed group of House lawmakers tasked with getting to the bottom of who knew what, and when, and did how, and why, during the Capitol riot. Just a few days ago, the commission dropped a load of piping hot subpoenas (or is it âsubpoenaeâ?) on a host of Trump luminariesâincluding Bill Stepien, whom our own Daniel Strauss singled out as a key figure of interest. But the hot action may lie elsewhere: the documentary record of the calls Donald Trump made and the actions he took that day.  Trumpâs attorneys have been fighting to keep these records under wraps, which of course only makes them more interesting. Earlier in the week, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan ruled that executive privilege no longer applies to this material and ordered that the documents be handed off to the commission. But as The Washington Post reported yesterday afternoon, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit âgranted a temporary injunction while it considers Trumpâs request to hold off any release pending appeal, and fast-tracked oral arguments for a hearingâ on November 30.  Good news for Trump? Letâs not get ahead of ourselves. As BuzzFeed reporter Zoe Tillman was quick to point out, this was just an âadministrative injunction and not a decision on the merits.â TNRâs Matt Ford tells me that this is absolutely to be expected in a case like this. The real news from yesterday is that the three-judge panel that will decide this case includes two Obama appointees and a Biden appointee. As Reuters legal reporter Jan Wolfe put it, Trump âfaces long odds here.â  Of course, if things donât go his way, Trump could appeal his executive privilege case all the way to the Supreme Court. But Matt told me that he feels that âthereâs a pretty strong chance SCOTUS doesnât bail him out.â Why would they? When it comes to talking about Trumpâs relationship to the Supreme Court and the judges he appointed, a lot of peopleâincluding Trump himselfâbadly misconstrue who was the âmeansâ and who was the âend.â  In other news, if youâve been keeping up with the Lincoln Projectâthat ragtag band of Never Trumpers who have for some reason expanded their original purview into rabid Terry McAuliffe fandomâyou may remember how, in the waning days of the Virginia gubernatorial race, the group dispatched a quintet of operatives to Charlottesville, Virginia, to stand in front of Glenn Youngkinâs bus while cosplaying as neo-Nazis, in an effort to tie the GOP candidate to Trump.  The boneheaded stunt went sideways almost immediately, bringing shame and embarrassment on the group. Thursday night, one of the Lincoln Projectâs top members, Steve Schmidt, appeared on a YouTube show called America at a Crossroads, where he decried the action as ârecklessly stupid ⦠dishonest and cheap.â âIt showed appalling judgment by the day-to-day leadership, management of the Lincoln Project,â Schmidt opined, having apparently missed this weekâs reminder that his Lincoln Project colleague Rick Wilson was behind a very famously dishonest and cheap political ad that compared war hero Max Cleland to Osama bin Laden. Maybe Google the names of the terrible people you work with, Steve!  Hereâs something I didnât know about this yearâs celebration of Veterans Day until I read Michael Shearâs piece in The New York Times late Thursday night: With President Biden finally bringing the Afghanistan War to a close, this marks âthe first Veterans Day in two decades without troops engaged in an active war overseas.â Of course, âactive warâ is a term that neatly excludes drone wars, dirty wars, covert operations, and other military-industrial-complex chicanery, but letâs try to think positively about this moment in time: A 20-year-old scam is over, and thatâs a good thing. In further news to mark the occasion, TNRâs Walter Shapiro recommends we all read a lovely piece by the Editorial Boardâs John Stoehr, recommending that we switch back the November 11 commemoration to its original name, Armistice Day.  Today at NewRepublic.com: Remember Chris Christie? He parlayed a ton of media hype earned from yelling at teachers unions into a brief career as a Republican presidential also-ran, which subsequently led to his governorship ending in disapproval and scandal, eventually landing him the plum job of Donald Trump burger-fetcher. Well, now heâs back in the headlines because heâs taking shots at Trump. Can Christie reclaim the GOP from Donaldâs clutches? Hellllll no, writes Alex Shephard. Fans of Booker Prizeâwinning novels can rejoice: The 2021 winner has been announced, and itâs Damon Galgutâs The Promise. TNRâs Jo Livingstone runs down this yearâs banner book. And Kate Aronoff files another dispatch from the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, in which we learn that the higher-ups at the planetâs premiere fossil fuel concerns are ever so pissed at the media, because of its tendency to ⦠you know, apply scrutiny to their claims!
âJason Linkins, deputy editor |
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