Michael Kruse

“Republicans are scared.”

"Trump has many bases. And football is one of them, college and pros. The response is good. And the president loves the atmosphere. So why not?"

Shane makes me think (again?) I should start watching ads.

“There’s a way to be constructive and progressive and a way to be divisive and come across to your colleagues as self-serving. She took a number of steps in the first weeks, months, years and soon found how things worked.”

Trump said no fewer than 10 times in Wichita that “nobody appreciates me.”

Guess we'll see!

“If Abdul and the Democrats win, they will open the floodgates and invite hordes of jihadis to our shores, creating a nightmare of violence and terror until you cannot even have a Christmas.”

It really is quite surprising what bags of candy cost.

Super interested, as always, in the districts in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa that touch the Mississippi River.

“It was typical Milwaukee; we had five breweries at that time — not anymore — but I said, ‘Why don’t we just call it the Milwaukee Brewers?’”

“The whole information ecosystem right now is based in some sense on blurring the lines between who are legitimate sources, if you want to call them that, and shadier, more nefarious sources.”

I was a history major.

“Higher wages! Lower costs! Save health care! Save hospitals!”

“Instead of wanting to be tyrants, they can just become really rich. Little did I know that just getting rich wouldn’t be enough for him.”

"For all we know, there could be something swimming under the ice crust on Jupiter's moon Europa, and we just can't see it yet because we don't know how to probe through 10 kilometers of ice on a radiation-blasted moon."

“We are seeing an increasing Americanization of the way in which people are financing politics in the U.K., and we kind of point to the U.S. as the system of worst practices.”

"If there weren't media witnesses in the execution, we would have whatever the state says and what the defense attorneys say."

This past week was such that I'm just now getting to last Sunday's paper. Did everybody read this? Golly.

The most popular Democrat and pretty close to the most popular Republican too: Don’t know.

“Every single one of the Senate races is on a knife’s edge,” says @thirdwaymattb.bsky.social. “The results could be super weird.”

“He’s got the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory.”

“Democrats aren’t dead here in Florida. Not yet.”

Ben Ginsberg: “Boy, they are scraping the bottom of the barrel. It feels like a real desperation play to me, because it has got zero basis in the law.”

“That’s the thing about apples — they’re both totally ubiquitous and really personal. When you see a variety that has been around since the 1500s, you have to remember that it’s because someone cared enough to keep it going.”

Good first paragraph: It started as a work trip to Las Vegas in March. So how did a man end up shirtless in a hotel carrying a flamingo by the neck? One possible reason was the 30 to 40 beers he drank.

“Are you too dumb to see James Talarico for who he is?”

“Users are drifting toward TikTok and YouTube for the attention Netflix used to own ...”

“I want to go like Rupert Murdoch mode if he wasn’t like a tiny little Australian chud.”

“Employers are paying the equivalent of buying an economy car for each employee who has family health insurance coverage, and in 2026 they offloaded more of that cost to workers.”

“I work at a newspaper that exists in a world where there are constraints of time, resources and knowledge. The wonder of the paper is that knowing the everyday limits to our ambitions doesn’t prevent us from trying to exceed them.”

In today's paper.

The @nytimes.com's @michaelkruse.bsky.social is a stellar, humane political reporter, as his article on Michigan's U.S. Senate race once again shows. No paywall.

On today's front.

New this morning.

“Iowa is basically lagging the rest of the U.S. pretty much across the board. I believe that there are few states that have been more disadvantaged by Trump policies than Iowa.”

“The term ‘Shylock’ is rooted in a longstanding antisemitic stereotype.”

“I see in him the qualities I admire most in public servants: integrity, civility, humility, and a willingness to listen to those with whom he disagrees.”

"I'd tell my younger self to cultivate younger friends, stay interested in everything, volunteer until you can't anymore, read at least two newspapers daily. I read two online and one as a 'real' newspaper delivered to my driveway."

“... one part Annie Oakley, another part Gracie Allen, a dash of Erma Bombeck, a little bit of Betty Boop and maybe a little Lesley Stahl.”

Can't wait to watch this.

“Some of the local papers put the pressure on by demanding that they give this little Negro from around the corner a chance to play.”

“... a journalist who knew more than most of the experts she interviewed.”

“We play to visuals. And if we’re in a congressional district that’s next door to a competitive congressional district, what difference does it make? It’s all the same people, it’s all the same media.”

The first sentence here: In the past year, I’ve seen toddlers working in gold mines.

“The centerpiece has to be creating jobs and wage growth and career paths for people without college degrees and diverse skills. There must be an agenda for shared prosperity, which is why artificial intelligence and how it is used is critical.”

“Also, I’m hoping this stops all the hate mail in many languages that has been sent my way over the past decade.”

New this afternoon.

Says here J.K.T.'s pelmeni-eating is legendary.

“I’m very disillusioned with the Republican Party and how they can continue to support Trump. He’s turned into a politician just like the rest of them and it’s a lot of empty promises.”

When I asked my 12-year-old if she wanted to watch tonight’s Michigan Senate debate, she said no. When I told her one candidate’s been calling the other an NPC, she said maybe.