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Trump Administration In Denial Lashes Out At Incoming Government Prime Badge
This Week in the Swamp: A weekly dive into the muck of the Trump administration.
Where Things Stand: Trump Supporters Have Grown To Expect A Show. That’s All This Is Prime Badge
This is your TPM afternoon briefing.

At least, that’s all according to a growing list of anonymous White House and campaign aides.

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Miscellany Prime Badge

1) According to this article by Ron Kampeas from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump were asked to withdraw their children from the Jewish day school they attend in Washington, DC because parents became concerned the couple was flouting basic COVID mitigation protocols the school requires of parents. The Kusher/Trumps deny it but the reporting speaks for itself. It sounds like the school raised their behavior with the couple. They refused to change it. And then they were asked to leave.

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What’s Going On? Prime Badge

Over the last 48 hours I’ve had a number of people ask me, ‘What’s going on here? Is this a fundraising stunt? A coup? A protracted effort to protect Trump’s feelings? Just an effort to delegitimize Biden’s presidency?’ I think it mistakes Trump to think that he’s even decided or ever will, that it’s one and not another as opposed to all of the above. Donald Trump doesn’t do strategy. He does impulse. The most defining pattern of his life is to respond to reverses by seeking to throw his adversaries off balance with an audaciously aggressive play and then work it for all its worth.

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President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at Capital Region International Airport, Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2020, in Lansing, Mich. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) Don’t Be So Sure This is the Future Prime Badge

As we look out onto the terrain of the future everyone is trying to make sense of the post-Trump landscape. This is particularly so since the race was not a blow out and Democrats actually had reverses in the House and down ballot. But I think everyone is giving too little place to the uncertainty and instability of the electoral future.

The story of the Trump presidency is that the suburbs and the college educated trended hard to the Democrats while non-college educated, more rural voters went toward the President. Notably, in 2020 these patterns began to bleed outside of white America. The President made gains with some Hispanic Americans and to a degree with black men.

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WASHINGTON, DC - NOVEMBER 09: Attorney General Bill Barr leaves the US Capitol after meeting with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in his office on November 9, 2020 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Samuel Corum/Getty Images) *** Local Caption *** Bill Barr Where Things Stand: Very Few Want To Be Doing This Prime Badge
This is your TPM afternoon briefing.

And that, apparently, includes employees of the law firms representing the Trump campaign.

Around the same time that news broke that a Justice Department official — who oversaw the DOJ’s election crimes unit — resigned on Monday evening, the New York Times published a story detailing the angst within the law firms the Trump campaign has tapped to handle its various legal challenges to the election.

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Armed homeowners standing in front of their house along Portland Place confront protesters as they march to Mayor Lyda Krewson's house on Sunday, June 28, 2020, in the Central West End in St. Louis. (Laurie Skrivan/St. Louis Post-Dispatch/TNS) The Brittle Grip, No. Infinity Prime Badge

As this election blurred forward I was taking notes for more editions of our “Brittle Grip” Series, the phenomenon of the super powerful and super rich feeling increasingly insecure in their power and wealth even as both wax. One of the key features of this new Gilded Age is the ultra-wealthy and ultra-powerful arguing that their ultra-wealth and ultra-power opens them up to criticism and animosity which entitles them to unique and greater rights and powers to protect themselves. I was forced ahead of schedule this morning by news out of St. Louis from the McCloskeys, the husband and wife sixty-something lawyers who entered the campaign drama when they came out of their house brandishing firearms and threatening to murder protestors who happened to be walking by their house. The couple has filed a lawsuit in federal court against the photographer who took those iconic pictures of them with their guns.

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Trump Doubt-Sowing Aside, A Relatively Smooth Election Was A Big Win For Voters
This Week in Voting Rights: A weekly roundup of news on Americans' access to the ballot box
Where Things Stand: Winding Down Loudly Prime Badge
This is your TPM afternoon briefing.

Those closest to President Trump know he’s a powerful man, with a powerful, but brittle, ego.

And they knew if he lost the election, he would need something to cling to in order to maintain some cushioning for his inevitable belief that he didn’t actually lose.

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A man receives a H1N1 swine flu vaccine at XXXXX on October 27, 2009 in Seoul, South Korea. The Korea Food and Drug Administration approved domestically developped vaccines last week, the government plan to vaccinate 35 percent of South Korean population until next February. Biden Offers Preview Of COVID Response With Vaccine Statement Prime Badge
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