A favorite JFK quote: "The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.'
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Larry Sabato
@LarrySabato
Director, UVA . Author, The Kennedy Half Century bit.ly/3hSzJp5. Read the Crystal Ball every week: linktr.ee/c4puva
Larry Sabato’s Tweets
CANCEL THE REMAINING PRESIDENTIAL DEBATES. It is impossible to have an orderly, productive exchange with Donald Trump. Stop pretending otherwise. #Debate2020
I’m old-fashioned but treason seems like a serious crime. I’m not a lawyer but the PowerPoint seems like real evidence that a treasonous coup was planned.
This was NOT an especially close election. #PresidentElectBiden won 306 EVs plus a 4-5 million-votes plurality. You want close? Look at 1960,1968,1976,2000, among others. NETWORKS—Stop feeding this false storyline.
I'm no John F. Kennedy (thanks, Lloyd Bentsen), but if I were writing a book today, it wouldn't be "Profiles in Courage", it would be "Profiles in Cowardice"--and every chapter would feature a Republican in high office. The GOP's enabling of Trump has turned into pure sycophancy.
Dear Pundit Friends, please stop attributing this D landslide in VA to "changing demographics". VA hasn't changed that much since last Nov. 8 (Hillary by 5%). The bigger explanation is a backlash to Trump and Trumpism, pure and simple. #VAGov
As a Virginian (and damn proud of it), I'd remind the President that his order to "LIBERATE VIRGINIA" was already tried when his friends visited Charlottesville in August 2017.
Ban Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) from Twitter immediately and permanently.
Biggest loser this week was unquestionably Trump. But Josh Hawley was a runner-up. Many Senators now despise him, the public saw a craven opportunist giving the mob a clenched-fist salute, his top sponsor Jack Danforth denounced him & a publisher canceled his book. More to come.
You know what I heard that weekend? Not one single comment about Robert E. Lee. But I did hear racial slurs and the chants, "Jews will not replace us!" and "Into the ovens!" Very fine people, indeed.
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Trump defends his “very fine people” comments on Charlottesville: “People were there protesting the taking down of the monument of Robert E. Lee. Everybody knows that.” Fact check: There were many neo-Nazis and white supremacists.
Hold the Presses! Trump has just ruled out picking Mike Pence again for his 2024 ticket. Who would have guessed?
Yep, it's #sedition. Let's hope the Secret Service and military leaders have a serious, detailed plan to remove all trespassers from the White House at noon on January 20.
Just watched #MeetThePress, whole hour on climate change, with deniers excluded. Real science matters. Message: We’d better act fast. Hey do this more often.
January 31, 2020: Britain withdraws from Europe and America withdraws from the Constitution.
Look around. Youngkin's "snitch line" on teachers is backfiring badly.
Please, please don't EVER bring back a live audience. Without verbal interruptions and the candidates playing to the crowd they see, the debate became the kind of serious exchange the voters need. #DemocraticDebate
Congratulations to , one of 5 winners of the 2022 John F. Kennedy Profiles in Courage Award. Just announced. So well deserved.
If you think the revelations in John Bolton’s book are shocking, just imagine what is going to come out after Trump leaves the White House. Every aide and maid will have mind-boggling stories to tell.
POLL NUMBERS ARE NOT VOTES.
Also...
POLL NUMBERS ARE NOT VOTES.
Overconfidence has ruined many a victory party.
The Republican Party is no longer salvageable—at least a sane center-right version the country needs as an alternative. I resisted accepting this for a long time. But Trump, Jan 6, Greene et al made me face it. Not sure what’s next & best, or how to get there. #RepublicanParty
Every one of the 126 GOP House members who signed onto Texas’s ridiculous lawsuit to overturn Biden’s election (just DENIED by the Supreme Court) should hang their heads in shame. Same with the 18 state AGs, most of all the AG of TEXAS.
Secret Service protection must be given to the top candidates ASAP. The invasion of the stage at the Biden rally could have had a tragic ending. It's happened to Sanders too. In memory of RFK, do it immediately. RT if you agree. #supertuesday2020
Big change: Americans want term limits for Supreme Court justices by 66% to 21%, and favor expanding the Court by 55% to 36%. (Morning Consult poll for ) When I tested public appetite for Court reforms in 2007 (part of "A More Perfect Constitution") resistance was great.
Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA)'s victory is significant. She was dealt a bad hand by redistricting, but her campaign was top-flight and her energy and savvy were extraordinary. More Democrats across the nation should study how she did this. #Virginiaelections
Horror stories about Trump will continue as more books and memoirs are published. How can anyone be surprised by the revelations? Trump was and is a maniac—the single greatest mistake ever made by the American electorate.
That sound you hear isn't just Democrats cheering, it's the air going out of tomorrow's GOP clown show in Congress. The Fools on the Hill have picked the wrong cause and bet on the wrong horse. #GASenateRaces #SeditionCaucus
Poll numbers are not votes. Poll numbers are not votes. Poll numbers are not votes.
Poll numbers are not votes.
Poll numbers are not votes.
Poll numbers are not votes.
Poll numbers are not votes.
Poll numbers are not votes.
Poll numbers are not votes.
Poll numbers are not votes.
Donald Trump is as guilty as sin itself, testimony or no testimony. He is one of the great villains of American history, joined in the rogues gallery by his enablers as well as the cowards who refused to speak out against him. #January6thCommittee
Last night’s Trump rally proved again that vulgar antics thrill his base. The office hasn’t made the man; instead, Trump has re-made the office, lowering standards of acceptable presidential behavior so far that it will take great efforts by his successors to repair the damage.
You rarely if ever see near-unanimity like this: new Quinnipiac poll shows, by 95-4%, Americans favor universal background checks. Highest % ever. Broad support for other gun reforms too. Crickets in DC, as usual.
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“I have confidence in the security of this election… Any attacks on the election were not successful,” says Chris Krebs, former head of CISA, a federal agency charged with election security. POTUS fired Krebs after CISA called the 2020 election secure. cbsn.ws/3o8tbjT
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199 Republican congressmen refused to punish a dangerous loony tune in their ranks.
Only 11 did so. The Republican Party is not salvageable. But I repeat myself. #MarjorieTaylorGreen
Win or lose, may be drafted to run for the D POTUS nomination. No one else in the D field seems to come close to matching his appeal to the grassroots.
Never in my 60 years around politics have I encountered this many people so tense, so full of dread and foreboding about an election--and what comes afterward. Of course, we've never before had a president undermining confidence and predicting fraud & mayhem--if he doesn't win.
Those of you who insisted the Quinnipiac poll was an outlier (Biden job approval 38%) have a stronger case. New CBS poll (50% approval) and Ipsos (48% approval) suggest Biden either was never at 38% or has recovered lost ground.
Things are so bad we’ve reached the point where Republicans won’t agree to investigate the Jan. 6th insurrection—America’s first real attempted coup. The GOP fears (and knows) what a commission would find—more traitors to the Nation in their own Capitol Hill ranks. #January6th
Everyone expected Trump to be a poor loser. He is, inventing nonexistent fraud & making flimsy excuses. But GOP “leaders” are coddling him, indulging his stubborn delusions. A predictably disgraceful ending to the worst presidency in U.S. history. #Shame
Sen. Ron Johnson is a disgrace. But only 1 Senator has voted against every single Biden Cabinet nominee so far: the infamous Josh Hawley(R-MO), last seen giving a fist salute in solidarity w/ the insurrectionist mob on Jan. 6. Why are the good people of #Missouri tolerating this?
New poll from () shows 70% of Republicans still believe Trump's Big Lie that Biden is not the legitimate winner of the White House. It still shocks & disgusts me that millions of Americans would embrace such a dangerous untruth.
You'd never know it from the TV coverage we're watching, but President Biden's address on #Afghanistan was effective because he stressed that America's longest war must end and there will never be a good time to do it. That connected with most people--70% of whom want out now.
Press & pundits have now progressed to flat predictions of Dem tsunami in Nov. midterms. Quite possible given Trump...but also premature. Fine to be motivated by good polls, but let 2016 be a cautionary tale. Overconfidence about an election 10 months away can be deadly.
Disgusting, disgraceful, and unworthy of anyone who respects the First Amendment—not to mention basic manners. POTUS and his crew refuse to put a stop to this. Future generations will wonder why we the people let this happen, and there’s no good answer. Mob rule, pure & simple.
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This is what’s happening at the Trump rally in Tampa as @Acosta does a live shot. Folks booing, shouting “traitor,” and “you’re a liar.”
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TRUMP'S JOB APPROVAL has fallen to 33% (60% disapprove)--matching his ALL-TIME LOW from August 2017. Gee, what happened then? I'll ask around here in Charlottesville. (Quinnipiac Poll, released today, 1,239 registered voters, MOE 2.8%)
Over and over again, this most disgracefully authoritarian, narcissistic, and purely selfish President makes statements like this, and those in the GOP hierarchy refuse to condemn it. History will not forget or forgive.
I’m not permitted to endorse candidates, but I’m going to make an exception.
The media will never admit it, but they've been waiting for an opportunity to harshly go after Biden to prove anew how "balanced" they are. "See, it's not just Trump!" #Afghanistan
OK , you owe all of us a DETAILED explanation of how this audience was picked--who did it? who pre-screened the questions? why weren't more diverse participants selected? how did the Trump team influence any of this? ETC ETC ETC. #CNNTownhall
The Republican Party hasn’t been the party of Lincoln for decades. The GOP has become the party of Jefferson—Jefferson Davis, that is.
At least Nixon never read his "enemies list" on national TV. #CPAC
If you are not watching on live TV, you should be. Absolutely devastating for Trump--even FOX hosts were texting Meadows, demanding Trump do something. EVEN DONALD JUNIOR texted, demanding the same. Crickets from the White House for hours. #January6thCommittee
Longtime major GOP donors and campaign workers in VA have told me last night and today that with Corey Stewart’s nomination, they are “done” with the party. Last straw, they say. Hard to know how widespread this is, but it’s not good news for Republicans.
10 pizzas for the 5 students from my Campaigns class who actually showed up tonight. All the others, see what you missed? Happy Pizzagiving!
What ex-Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, fired by Trump after he lost, issues a stark warning to Americans in a new book that Trump shouldn’t even be allowed into the Oval Office as a visitor, much less as President again. A flashing neon sign for all patriots not blind to truth.
Now I see why Trump has never before given an Oval Office address. Just...bloody...awful. #TrumpAddress
THIS IS DISGRACEFUL VOTER SUPPRESSION: Texas Gov. Abbott restricts absentee ballot drop-off locations (one per county)
Donald Trump just endorsed incumbent Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) over the GOP primary challenger, George P. Bush—who sold out his own family to kiss Trump’s ass. No hero in this tale, just a reminder that there’s no honor among thieves—and a deal with the devil can backfire.
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The left’s out of control policies are eroding the fabric of our nation. It was great to see Pres. Trump today & discuss how we must come together as a party to restore America First Priorities. I appreciate his friendship & kind words as we work together to Keep America Great.
Louisiana appears to have re-elected Gov. John Bel Edwards (D). Significant achievement in a very Republican, pro-Trump state. Another off-year feather in the cap for Dems to accompany winning KY Governor and VA General Assembly. #Louisianaelection
Just one poll in May...but 's home basement might turn out to be the best campaign HQ since Wm McKinley's front porch. NEW Quinnipiac Poll (national): Biden 50% - Trump 39%. +11 Biden, was +8 Biden in early April. Bigger D margin than other recent polls, though.
Donald Trump is so manifestly guilty as charged that only members of his cult and GOP Senators afraid of this cult come down on the other side.
It can’t be stated often enough: If Trump reclaims the White House, the American Republic dies. We came close enough the first time.
I sincerely apologize for looking so much like this insane man.
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After nearly 50 years of association with Thomas Jefferson's University, I believe I know Mr. Jefferson. Thomas Jefferson has become a friend of mine. And one thing is certain: Donald Trump is no Thomas Jefferson--not in any good way that matters.
Q: How stupid is the Arizona GOP? A: Very stupid. They just censured their GOP Governor (Ducey), their ex-U.S. Senator (Flake), AND--here's the topper--the widow of Sen. John McCain (Cindy McCain). It's becoming easy to see why lost BOTH Senate seats AND President.
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Here are the margins on the censures of Cindy McCain, Doug Ducey and Jeff Flake, per @AZGOP:
Flake: 64-36
McCain: 62-38
Ducey: 59-41 twitter.com/yvonnewingett/…
I’ve watched many a congressional hearing. Rarely have I felt as drained and outraged. Justice must be done all around, and that includes Republicans who’ve tried to sabotage an investigation into Donald Trump’s #January6th. #SelectCommitteeHearing #InsurrectionHasConsequences
My nominee for best, most statesmanlike speech of this long day: Majority Leader Steny Hoyer.
45 GOP Senators just voted that Trump's trial is unconstitutional since he isn't in office now. Those who thought 17 R Senators would somehow vote to convict Trump have presumably awakened from their dream. As guilty as Trump is, Rs still cower before him. #ImpeachAndConvict
Roy Blunt is part of a trend. No D Senators have announced 2022 retirement. Five R Senators are retiring, one each in AL, MO, NC, OH, PA.
H.L. Mencken may have come closest to defining Donald Trump as well as the devious Republican politicians and media phonies who promote Trump’s Big Lie: “The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots.” #MarkMeadows
U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Alabama), "whose military background consists of using war metaphors to inspire his teams during three decades coaching college football," has bravely taken up the cause of WHITE NATIONALISTS in the U.S. military.
Spurning golf, Biden attends Mass weekly. Not everyone thinks this is the best use of his time.
Trump pushed every button to illegally seize a second term. Shame on all those who conspired with Trump or enabled him! Extra shame on those Rs in Congress who still defend him despite a mountain of damning evidence.
Just got another hot tip on Biden's VP. Most of the letters in the surname of the nominee are contained in this word series: Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV. VP.
Three years ago tonight, hundreds of neo-Nazis & white supremacists marched on 's Lawn, shouting racist slogans + "Jews will not replace us!" On this August 11, a Black & Asian-American woman, with a Jewish spouse, was chosen to be VP. What a telling contrast.#BidenHarris2020
Grateful recipient of a Pfizer booster! You probably won’t believe this, but I’m over 65. No side effects, just like the first two shots. If you haven’t been vaccinated, please do so. Protect yourself and others.
RIP Senator John W. Warner, who served Virginia and the nation from 1979-2009. Veteran of both WWII and the Korean War. He was 94 and passed peacefully last evening in his home in Alexandria, VA.
Blaming just Biden for the fall of #Afghanistan is like blaming just Gerald Ford for the collapse of South Vietnam. Each owned by 4 Presidents. Vietnam: JFK, LBJ, Nixon, Ford. Afghanistan: Bush, Obama, Trump, Biden.
VA Dems got a 55-45% majority in all House of Delegates contests combined in Nov. '17. 10% majority=landslide. They will get either 49% or 50% of the actual seats. And it looks like Rs will get Speaker's job and all committee chairs, regardless. Democracy, American style, 2018.
Donald Trump richly deserves his distinction as the only President ever impeached twice. It’s a message to future generations about the heavy penalty America pays when it elects a person of terrible character to the highest office. #ImpeachmentDay
Georgia's GOP says new law prevents "voter fraud". It actually prevents the crime of VWB--Voting while Black.
I keep encountering Dem voters who like Mike Bloomberg because he’s been endorsed by Barack Obama. Fake news and the power of saturation TV ads.
Why are so many news organizations still afraid to call #January6th what it was? Unquestionably it was an attempted COUP D’ETAT, planned for weeks, built on lies, and plotted by Trump and his henchmen. The goal: Theft of an election and a Republic.
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"WH COS Meadows emailed VP Pence's top aide a detailed plan for undoing Biden's election victory."
It wasn't just Trump and some wacky outside lawyers.
The Trump White House tried to overturn the election.
The Trump White House tried to engineer a coup.
abcn.ws/3HkT6zh
The fact that extremist Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has “clout” and is a “close adviser” to tells you what you need to know about today’s GOP. She’s bizarre and utterly irresponsible. Forget her idea of a national divorce. We need a divorce from HER. #60Minutes
Big Polling Day for Biden--NEW FOX POLLS:
Arizona: Biden 49% (+9) Trump 40%
Wisconsin: Biden 50% (+8) Trump 42%
North Carolina: Biden 50% (+4) Trump 46%
No one will forget the week that Georgia slowly turned blue. Biden up 917.
Most people are laughing at Kanye West's "candidacy" for POTUS, being pushed by GOP operatives to drain votes from Biden. But this is not funny. It's FRAUD.
President for Life Trump? No POTUS should ever EVER even joke about ignoring the Constitution to make himself dictator--if it was a joke. Couldn't you see Trump trying it under certain circumstances? I can.
The chances that Comey is telling the truth and Trump has lied are close to 100%. Partisanship shouldn't blind people to the obvious.
BREAKING: Surprise Announcement for POTUS: VA Gov. Ralph Northam(D-VA) in his State of the Commonwealth address, just stunned the legislature by saying, “I am running for President [long pause] of the Eastern Shore Antique Car Club.” His wife and Terry McAuliffe almost fainted.
True constitutionalists—and every civil person—is with you in spirit, Jim.
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Replying to @LarrySabato
Thank you Larry.
Excellent idea. Parents of ALL races should flood Youngkin's tip line.
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Black parents need to flood these tip lines with complaints about our history being silenced. We are parents too twitter.com/rmc031/status/…
New CBS poll shows essentially the same thing as new NBC poll. Biden has 50-50% job approve/disapprove. Approval down 8 points in a month but hardly the massive drop much of the Beltway bunch expected. And 63% still support US leaving Afghanistan.
In U.S. history only Thomas Jefferson and John Quincy Adams have had productive post-Presidencies to rival that of #JimmyCarter. And no ex-President has ever devoted himself to charity as much as Carter. What a remarkable life at 95 today—with chapters yet to be written.
This rambling Trump press conference is being sponsored by Friends of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment.
As PART of the consequences for his incitement of a riot/coup/domestic terrorism, Donald Trump must be stripped of all the usual post-presidential perks & honors. No taxpayer $$ should be spent to help ex-Prez Trump in any way. #Sedition #ImpeachTrumpNow #TwentyFifthAmendmentNOW
Told you so. Sarah Huckabee-Sanders admitted to Mueller investigators she made up this claim and lied from her official White House perch to the press and public. WE pay her salary.
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"Countless" FBI agents contacted the White House to support Comey's firing, says @SarahHuckabee. Wouldn't you love to know the real number?
Hooray for Glenn Youngkin in his courageous battle against Toni Morrison’s “Beloved”. Next up: “Catcher in the Rye” by dirty-minded J.D. Salinger. Then ban a book overflowing with sex and violence, the Bible. #VAGov
Think of the abuse #MittRomney will have to endure from Trump and rank-and-file Republicans. But Romney should remember that his vote of conscience, far more then being a presidential nominee or a Governor or a Senator, has guaranteed him an honored place in history. #impeach
Pearl Harbor was an attack on our country. 9/11 was an attack on our country. The raid on President Trump’s lawyer is the pursuit of justice.