... “definitely caused a ruckus that I don’t think he was prepared for or that his team was prepared for.”

“There’s a sense he’s the sane one.”

"The other side is ruthless, and with respect, my party needs to be more ruthless about winning, because if we don't win back the House of Representatives, we may not have a fair and free election in 2028, and I really believe that."

“How do you replace all this gas, all this oil, helium?”

"We find that extreme candidates outperform moderates in primary elections. Specifically, we estimate that going from the most moderate to most extreme candidate in the primary predicts a 17 percentage point increase in vote share."

“I didn’t look.”

“I revere the state of Israel.”

“What we are seeing from all sides — the United States, Iran and Israel — is a race to the bottom in which threats against civilian infrastructure are becoming normalized.”

“President Trump cannot help himself and is using ICE as a political battering ram.”

The Times.

Thank you.

“The reason why I’m doing this is not for anyone’s political calculation — it’s because of the five-alarm fire that’s been ignited by Donald Trump.”

Poynter: Michael Kruse, the longest tenured reporter at Politico Magazine, is joining The New York Times. Kruse has been at Politico since January 2015. Before that, Kruse worked at the Tampa Bay Times.

“Why does this poor woman want to become a United States senator in her 80s?” @amandalitman.bsky.social tells @markleibovich.bsky.social.

“One could say, I think with a straight face, that guntube is more influential in that debate than the N.R.A. is today. They’re reaching large audiences. They’re reaching new audiences.”

“There was that meme that went around where everybody would stick stickers to gas pumps of Joe Biden pointing at the gas prices, saying, ‘I did that.’ Well, it’s the same thing with President Trump.”

Need to read this by @mckaycoppins.bsky.social.

Nobody does it quite like Wesley Morris.

Read @michellegoldberg.bsky.social on James Fishback.

“I’m a real purist about this. I tell people that I came to the Senate with 100 interests and passions, and one obsession. And this is my obsession — getting this decision correct.”

"We're getting into phase zero of Terminator, where autonomous systems are starting to win against humans en masse."

In yesterday afternoon's Playbook: Michael Kruse is joining the NYT at the end of March, Breaker’s Lachlan Cartwright scooped. He currently works at POLITICO.

POLITICO Weekend.

“I’m not the type of person that’s like, ‘you have to be a veteran — Iraq War veteran,’” says @gallego.senate.gov. “This is a democracy. We’re still one, and there’s a lot of people that can bring valuable experience and knowledge. But ...”

The Trump administration’s “memeification [and] gamification of war” ...

Why DOJ Hasn’t Charged Anyone Else From the Epstein Files.

This week's @politico.com Friday Read comes from @caldermchugh.bsky.social and @sambbenson.bsky.social.

Appreciate the nod here from @tommytomlinson.bsky.social.

Carol Moseley Braun: “Ego is a funny thing. Robin has cut into votes that Juliana should have had. Between the two of them, they’ll probably wind up electing Raja.”

Massie: “The president’s handing out endorsements like Pez Candy.”

“There’s a brutality and cruelty now even beyond what existed before. You can just feel it.”

Can't wait to read what you write!

Been following you since your time in Tampa, and have always greatly admired your work. Congrats, and can’t wait to keep reading.

Start March 23. Ready to get to work.

“Now you have an arena where you have a large number of legitimately qualified individuals running but there’s no apex predator.”

“A lot of general MAHA voters don’t necessarily have a strong party affiliation, they’re just going to pick who is going to get it done.”

“We tried it, it didn’t work, next person up,” says @edsutton.bsky.social.

“The excitement there was with the Hispanic community and the Republican Party is kind of waning.”

“It’s a good rule of thumb to never throw your boss under the bus and with him in particular I think it’s the cardinal sin and she certainly violated that.”

Daschle: “It is one of the votes that I most regret.”

... a 495-square-foot townhouse for $3,300 a month ...

“I feel confident that I’ve got the constitutional position right. And I’m hopeful that the politics will follow later.”

“Representation is not about telling people what they want to hear, it’s about telling them the truth. I can sleep easy with my record of service.”

“There was a lot of organic anger at folks’ power bills across the state. And so a few of us looked at that and said, ‘Well, if we can harness that anger into getting folks to recognize that where this happens is at the Public Service Commission level, we could really get a campaign going.’”

“It’s my personal home, so it’s not really any of your business.”

“When these events are awarded, they’re concepts. They’re ideas. They feel good. But between the award and the event itself, the world changes. Politics change. Leaders change.”

“You are a daughter. What would you think of your dad if you decided to do something and your dad didn’t support you?”

“I never thought honoring police officers would be this controversial.”

"There's a wonderful historian and scholar of nonviolence named George Lakey who says polarization is good. That's when you have clarity. Sometimes people have to pick sides," says @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social.

“I have a career on the internet doing comedy. If their strategy is going to be clutching their fake pearls, and they don’t know the difference between jokes and what I actually believe, then this is going to be a very annoying few months.”