Midday Open Thread: Things We Don't Want To Talk About

“I think the world’s going to behave, and I think I will settle Russia-Ukraine while I’m president-elect.” — Donald Trump, in an interview with Scripps News on October 17, 2024.

Paul Krugman: “Even though he will take office in just a few days, we have almost no idea.” “That’s not because the Trump team is keeping its plans closely held, nor is it because there are major factional fights. All the evidence suggests, instead, that Trump’s economic team still doesn’t have any plans, or even concepts of plans.

The Florida lobbying firm Rubin, Turnbull & Associates is opening an office in Washington, DC that will be led by Caroline Wiles, the daughter of President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming chief of staff Susie Wiles, Politico reports.

“President-elect Donald Trump’s long-standing threats to place conditions on California wildfire aid are gaining traction with Republicans, looming over the government’s response to the devastation in Los Angeles and infuriating Democratic leaders who said such actions would be unprecedented,” the Washington Post reports. “Some Republicans have suggested tying the aid to government funding or an increase in the debt ceiling, which Trump tried to pressure lawmakers to do last month but struggled to sell to House Republicans.

Meta staffers “responsible for ranking content in the company’s apps” have been told “to stop penalizing misinformation,” the Platformer reports. “The result is that the sort of viral hoaxes that ran roughshod over the platform during the 2016 US presidential election — ‘Pope Francis endorses Trump,’ Pizzagate, and all the rest — are now just as eligible for free amplification on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads as true stories.”

NOTUS: “Halfway into the 137-page report, Smith described how prosecutors considered criminal charges holding Trump directly responsible for the attacks but concluded it would add too much ‘risk’ to their case.” From the report: “The office recognized why courts described the attack on the Capitol as an ‘insurrection,’ but it was also aware of the litigation risk that would be presented by employing this long-dormant statute.” “One barrier was that Trump didn’t neatly fit into the widely recognized definition of an insurrectionist leading a rebellion from the outside.