THE DAILY BLAST with Greg Sargent Greg Sargent

On Thursday, Donald Trump tweeted that Vladimir Putin will release Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter detained in Russia, after the election—“for me,” meaning for Trump. In other words, elect Trump president, and Putin will release him. We think this saga gets at a larger story about Trump’s approach to politics and foreign policy. So we talked to Nicholas Grossman, a professor of international relations who writes about Trump’s Putinist inclinations. He explains how Trump may be sabotaging U.S foreign policy to help himself politically, while aligning himself with the world’s autocrats and dictators.
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Trump and MAGA Republicans are floating the crackpot idea that President Biden’s FBI was ready to target Trump with lethal force when it searched Mar-a-Lago. This is based on a wildly absurd reading of FBI policy, but beyond this, we think this saga says something larger about the fascistic politics of Trump and his MAGA allies. We talked to Federico Finchelstein, an expert on fascist movements and author of a new piece in The New Republic’s issue on “American Fascism,” who explains why Trump is best seen as a “wannabe fascist.” 
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On Monday, the prosecution rested its case in Donald Trump’s hush money trial in Manhattan. This comes after Trump’s defense team concluded their efforts to destroy former Trump fixer Michael Cohen’s credibility as one of the chief witnesses against Trump. So has the prosecution proven its case? We talked to New York Law School professor Rebecca Roiphe, who has prosecuted cases like these in New York, about why she thinks a conviction is now likely—even as it still remains very possible that Trump could beat the rap.
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The GOP’s embrace of Donald Trump’s authoritarianism is growing more blatant. Republicans have joined him in attacking his criminal trials as illegitimate. Those angling to be his running mate say they wouldn’t have certified his 2020 loss. And many Republicans are echoing his refusal to say he’ll respect the 2024 outcome. We talked to Tom Nichols, a leading Never Trump conservative and staff writer at The Atlantic about why he is now arguing that his former party’s support for Trump has driven it into the abyss. Listen to this episode here.
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This week, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s running mate, Nicole Shanahan, dropped a bomb: She announced a donation of another $8 million to his campaign. That’s substantially more than her initial $2 million, and suggests much more is coming. Which is a reminder: It’s still very plausible that RFK Jr. will get on the ballot in many of the swing states that will decide the election. We talked to veteran Democratic strategist Stephanie Schriock, who explains why Shanahan’s wealth suggests it’s time to take the RFK Jr. spoiler threat very, very seriously.
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Earlier this month, Donald Trump refused to commit to accepting the outcome of the 2024 election, shamelessly declaring he’d only do so “if everything’s honest.” Translation: He’ll only treat the outcome as valid if he wins. Infuriatingly, Trump has crucial backing for this project: Fox News and other MAGA propaganda outlets are already laying the groundwork to treat the outcome as illegitimate, should he lose. We talked to Matt Gertz of Media Matters, author of a new piece detailing how these right wing media figures are “warning” that Democrats intend to steal the election, and why that could produce another Jan. 6th or worse. Listen to this episode here.
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