Sarah Posner

@sarahposner

Contributing writer, TPM: Host, Reign of Error podcast: Author, Unholy More:

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Sarah Posner@sarahposner· 27d

talkingpointsmemo.com/news/the-bri...

The White House did release a bunch of pdfs that Trump described in his speech as recently declassified intelligence. In fact, much of it was also familiar. That aspect of this episode was reminiscent of the early efforts by the administration to make a show of “releasing” the “Epstein files” by handing over already-public information to gullible conservative influencers.

Sarah Posner@sarahposner· 27d

Rick Hasen: electionlawblog.org?p=157434

What Trump did NOT do was even purport to show a single ineligible voter voted in the 2020 election, or that any voting machines were actually compromised, voting machines or voter registration databases breached, or election results inaccurately reported.

Overall, this was an underwhelming announcement delivered with low energy that changes nothing about how state and local election administrators should run elections.

Sarah Posner@sarahposner· Jun 26

britmonkey.com/2020s-politi...

Sarah Posner@sarahposner· Jun 4

Ahem www.nytimes.com/2026/06/04/u...

Some of the women also raised questions about his trustworthiness. Mr. Platner’s insistence that he did not know that his tattoo was a Nazi symbol until it became a campaign issue last fall was simply not true, Ms. Fifield said. After all, she said, he had taught her the word for it years earlier, referring to it as “my Totenkopf.”

Sarah Posner@sarahposner· May 14

such an interesting juxtaposition of posts!

Sarah Posner@sarahposner· May 13

I swear to you not the Onion Eating Healthy? No, They’re Eating Biblically. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/13/s...

bbie Stasior, a Christian dietitian who lives in Nashville, said much of her work looked, at first, like standard nutrition guidance. She often starts with clients by talking about the importance of breakfast. But then she’ll reference Bible verses, pointing, for example, to a scene in the Book of John in which Jesus eats a balanced breakfast of bread and fish with his disciples. “He’s got carbs and protein,” Stasior, 31, said.

Sarah Posner@sarahposner· May 13

This is such an important observation by @jamellebouie.net about how the GOP thinks/operates, and it's highly informed by decades of the religious right aiming to "transform" communities to (their) Christianity by imposing it. Crucial read more broadly, as per usual www.nytimes.com/2026/05/13/o...

It is not, to look back to Representative Ogles’s comments, that Tennessee voters are represented in the House and many of them happen to be Republicans, but that Tennessee is Republican. The delegation must match the supposed general will of the state, even if large parts of the voting public back the other side.

Sarah Posner@sarahposner· May 13

Given that Mr. Trump oversees the I.R.S., the agency that he is suing, the judge in the case has taken a series of novel legal steps to probe whether there is a genuine controversy between the Justice Department and Mr. Trump. For a lawsuit to be valid, the two parties must actually be on opposite sides, otherwise the judge can throw out the case. The judge has ordered Mr. Trump’s personal lawyers — along with the Justice Department, which represents the I.R.S. in federal court — to submit briefs by May 20 explaining whether they are in conflict with one another.

White House and Justice Department officials have in recent days been exploring ways to potentially settle the suit before that deadline, according to the people.

Sarah Posner@sarahposner· Apr 28

Trump massively underwater on cost of living www.reuters.com/world/us/tru...

Only 22 percent of Americans approve of how Trump is handling the cost of living, according to Reuters/Ipsos poll

Sarah Posner@sarahposner· Apr 17

Do you miss Reign of Error now that our first season is concluded? Next week you can tune in for a special event: a live taping with me, @bradleyonishi.bsky.social, @julieingersoll.bsky.social, and @matthewdtaylor.bsky.social Register--> www.axismundi.us/register-roe...

Sarah Posner@sarahposner· Apr 13

Good catch from @nicolelafond.bsky.social, suggesting that these folks convinced him to delete it. talkingpointsmemo.com/where-things...

The post was reportedly taken down while Trump was in a meeting with his Religious Liberty Commission, according to WaPo. The commission includes prominent evangelical figures like Paula White-Cain and Rev. Franklin Graham,

Sarah Posner@sarahposner· Apr 8

Amazing. At a Budapest Scruton Café www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/ap...

For Orbán and his allies, much is at stake beyond losing political power. Fidesz leaders and cronies like to live like 19th-century magnates; there’s a lot of money in landed estates. A commitment to English aristocratic cosplay helps explain why Scruton became such a cult figure.

Sarah Posner@sarahposner· Apr 8

Trump's evangelicals focused not on the threats, but on the profanity: afn.net/politics-gov...

AFN sought comment from Dr. Robert Jeffress, the pastor of First Baptist Dallas. The well-known Southern Baptist leader, who has supported Trump since he launched his White House campaign in 2016, said he won’t criticize the president.

“If President Trump were a third-grade Sunday School teacher in my church, I might be concerned,” Jeffress said. “But he's not. He is our commander in chief.”

Jeffress likened the profane post to George Patton, the famous World War 2 general, who used pretty salty language but won battles.

Sarah Posner@sarahposner· Apr 7

NYT: Trump “desperate” www.nytimes.com/2026/04/07/w...

In this case Mr. Trump appeared desperate for a way to escape his own threats and rhetoric, and to engineer a Pakistani proposal that he would then sign on to. Just two days after calling the Iranian leadership “crazy bastards” and telling them they would soon be “living in hell,” he praised them on Tuesday as “a different, smarter, and less radicalized” class of leaders, predicting “something revolutionarily wonderful can happen, WHO KNOWS?

Sarah Posner@sarahposner· Apr 7

“President Trump has repeatedly threatened war crimes in Iran and now he is expressing genocidal intent,” said Sarah Harrison, an associate general counsel at the Pentagon’s Office of General Counsel, International Affairs during Trump’s first term. “Every single lawmaker and national security leader needs to stand against this and make clear to the U.S. military that these are unlawful orders and if carried out they will someday face criminal prosecution.”

Sarah Posner@sarahposner· Apr 6

I'm sorry, I'm not trying to be glib, but this juxtaposition

Watch Today's Videos

On left: "Trump Says Opening the Strait of Hormuz 'Should Be Easy.' Will It?"

On right: Ross Douthat: "Did Jesus Rise From the Dead?"

Sarah Posner@sarahposner· Apr 2

Metaphor alert? www.foxnews.com/politics/pam...

Trump is reportedly considering replacing Bondi with Environmental Protection Agency Director Lee Zeldin, according to the sources familiar with the matter. Trump held a meeting with Zeldin at the White House Tuesday to discuss wildfire and prevention, where talks of the transition also unfolded, according to an individual familiar with the meeting.

Sarah Posner@sarahposner· Mar 31

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

On Monday, he again threatened to target civilian infrastructure, including the desalination facilities that make water available in a parched region, while also claiming “great progress” in the talks that may or may not be happening.

The quest for a ceasefire, if sincere, is a worthy goal. But any peace deal is likely to conclude the conflict with most of Trump’s goals unmet. Again, his speeches keep digging a deeper ditch. At times, Trump has issued stern edicts that sound vaguely reminiscent of the second world war, demanding an “unconditional surrender” that Iran is clearly not offering. Then, when that doesn’t work, he simply moves on to declare that the war has already been “won”. Really?

Victory will come as news to the American people, who were just asked to pay $200bn toward an ongoing war effort. It will also surprise Iran, still lobbing missiles, and threatening to set invaders “on fire”. The two sides remain far apart, with tankers idling in the strait of Hormuz, while the regime ignores Trump’s threats. In advance of the negotiations, Iran is demanding reparations from the US and ongoing control of the strait – a long way from “unconditional surrender”. Their nuclear materials remain undetected, and it’s absurd to claim, as Trump has, that a “regime change” has already taken place.

Sarah Posner@sarahposner· Mar 30

There's a phrase, it's on the tip of my tongue... www.nytimes.com/2026/03/30/s...

Sarah Posner@sarahposner· Mar 27

this is practically a 2028 campaign contribution

Axios post: JD Vance is preparing to take on the most important assignment of his career: steering U.S. efforts to end a war he'd been concerned about waging in the first place.

Sarah Posner@sarahposner· Mar 27

Trump is bored, WH senior officials are embarrassed. (Finally?) WTF has all the death, destruction, and chaos been for?

Over the past few weeks, official White House social media accounts have leaned on internet memes to flippantly promote the conflict, using clips from movies like “Iron Man” and “Top Gun,” characters from cartoons like “SpongeBob Squarepants” and rap music overlaid on footage of unclassified videos of bombs striking Iranian targets.

“The war videos are cringe and disrespectful and gross,” the senior White House official told MS NOW. “It makes me feel embarrassed.”

Sarah Posner@sarahposner· Mar 27

He doesn't regret it, mind you, he's just bored of the war he started just a month ago www.ms.now/news/trump-i...

Trump calling the war already won is “mostly hyperbole,” said a senior White House official granted anonymity to speak candidly about the administration’s thinking. “It’s part [of Trump] just wanting to declare victory and move on.”

That impulse, the official said, has become more pronounced in recent days.

“[Trump] is getting a little bored with Iran,” the official said. “Not that he regrets it or something — he’s just bored and wants to move on.”

Sarah Posner@sarahposner· Mar 26

newrepublic.com/article/2081... Here is where @emilyhorne.bsky.social tells @gregsargent.bsky.social that the NBC News story we were all talking about yesterday may be a sign that Trump is getting ready to blame the Pentagon for giving him bad info:

You’ve got multiple sources, both current and former, who are all singing from the same sheet of music—which says to me, again, this is coordinated. This is a plan. So what does that tell us? That tells us that even though this is a story that on a casual read looks kind of embarrassing for the president—and is, I think, being treated as such on social media, like the president of the United States needs a greatest-hits compilation of CENTCOM strikes in order to understand how the war is going—I understand that reaction.

But to be clear, there’s a deeper message that I think they want planted in people’s minds, which is that this White House is now creating excuses for why the war is not going well and why the American people do not approve of this war. And one of the excuses that they are creating is, well, the president of the United States is not being fed good information by his military.

That is what they are trying to plant with this story, if—as I suspect—this is a planted story. They’re trying to create a paper trail and a narrative that says this is going badly not because Donald Trump made terrible decisions, but because his military leadership is not being honest with him about what is happening.

Sarah Posner@sarahposner· Mar 26

Read this post from @swin24.bsky.social and @andrewperez.bsky.social (zeteo.com/p/the-thug-o...) in conjunction with listening to @gregsargent.bsky.social's podcast this morning with @emilyhorne.bsky.social (link follows in thread)