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Rick Stengel

@rickstengel.bsky.social
9.6K followers 35 following 668 posts

Former Under Secretary of State in Obama admin & Editor of TIME. Author of “Information Wars: How We Lost the Battle Against Disinformation” & the audiobook, “Mandela: The Lost Tapes.” Analyst @MSNOW

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Rick Stengel @rickstengel.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
The Global Engagement Center was started by a bi-partisan act of Congress to investigate and fight foreign disinformation and propaganda. It engaged with foreign mis-and-disinformation, not domestic voices. Its destruction is damaging to American interests, as this powerful piece shows.
thehill.com
We need accountability for federal employee purges made on false pretenses
I was grilling chicken on a sweltering summer night in the Washington, D.C. suburbs, when I peeked at my phone and saw that a senior official in the administration had just accused me of lying to C…
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Rick Stengel @rickstengel.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
The worst negotiator in the world tells his adversary that arms sales to Taiwan are "a very good negotiating chip" thereby nullifying the value of that chip.
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Rick Stengel @rickstengel.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
No one wants non-citizens to vote. But the administration would rather harm the rights of actual naturalized citizens in a dangerous quest to find the almost non-existent illegible voter. Dangerous and undemocratic. Vote!
nytimes.com
Supreme Court Allows Use of Trump Administration’s Expansive Database for Voter Screening
Critics of a citizenship database built by the Trump administration have raised alarms about privacy and improper voter purges.
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Rick Stengel @rickstengel.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Conservatives and Republicans used to zealously try to shield voters from the federal government invading their privacy. Now they are authorizing the government to abuse privacy to try to catch some phantom ineligible voters. Dangerous, risky, irresponsibl. www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/...
democracydocket.com
Supreme Court revives DHS use of flawed immigration database for voter purges
The decision lets the administration move forward with a key provision of President Trump’s first anti-voting executive order.
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Rick Stengel @rickstengel.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Judge essentially says the White House's claims of national security concerns is just an after-the-fact mask for the president's dislike of his coverage.
nytimes.com
Court Blocks Trump’s White House Ban on CNN, MS NOW and Politico
Judge Timothy J. Kelly issued a temporary restraining order and told the White House to immediately restore the press credentials for the employees of the three news outlets.
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Rick Stengel @rickstengel.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Trump at UN: "To the victor belongs the spoils." General Colin Powell: "The only land we have ever asked for in return is enough to bury those who did not return."
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Rick Stengel @rickstengel.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Going back to the Sedition Act of 1798, administrations have unconstitutionally tried to criminalize dissent. Mostly this happened during wartime, but this administration is falsely claiming national security in order to suppress free speech in violation of First Amendment protections.
nytimes.com
How Trump Has Cracked Down on Dissent Since the Killing of Charlie Kirk
The White House has labeled critics terrorists, attributed violence to a left-wing conspiracy and investigated unions, nonprofits and other groups in a battle over free speech.
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Rick Stengel @rickstengel.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Classic Trump. Make absurd, extreme, maximalist demands and then settle for less than he would have gotten in a civil negotiation.
nytimes.com
Trump Once Vowed to ‘Own’ Greenland. He Settled for Something Much Less.
President Trump signed a Greenland security deal that falls well short of his demands to turn the island into a U.S. territory.
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Rick Stengel @rickstengel.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
The member nations of the UN are looking at the post-Trump world and the post-American world he is hastening. People wonder who the audience for his speech is? Himself. The boasts, the falsehoods, the hyperbole, all to make himself feel better.
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Rick Stengel @rickstengel.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Bravo to the networks—and especially Fox—for invoking their own Article 5 (an attack on one is an attack on all) and collectively suspending pool coverage. Government cannot abridge freedom of speech or of the press—that's the First Amendment.
nytimes.com
Networks Suspend Pool Coverage of Trump After White House Bars CNN (Gift Article)
The move was an escalation of President Trump’s showdown with the White House press corps after he moved to bar journalists from CNN, MS NOW and Politico.
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Rick Stengel @rickstengel.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Everything he touches he destroys.
nytimes.com
How President Trump Broke the Kennedy Center
Internal emails and documents demonstrate the political capture of the institution, including how officials once pursued a plan to unload much of the art collection.
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Rick Stengel @rickstengel.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Trump’s lack of understanding of the First Amendment is so extreme as to be comical. He doesn’t understand that it bars government from abridging freedom of the press. He thinks freedom of the press is for the news that he likes.
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Rick Stengel @rickstengel.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
America First means American isolated and America poorer. I know people don't vote on whether the US is the world's reserve currency, but the current administration is damaging the economy in ways that will take years to repair. Vote for change in November.
nytimes.com
The World Economy Is Becoming Wary of the U.S.
America’s position of global economic stability is starting to look shakier as the Trump administration piles on debt and doubles down on sanctions.
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Rick Stengel @rickstengel.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
He doesn't just say the quiet part out loud, he says the depraved part. Reps have rightfully been running away from the racist Willie Horton ad for 35 years, but the president of the United States embraces it to try to make crime an issue in North Carolina, where it is down in every single category.
wapo.st
Trump emphasizes crime in midterm push in North Carolina
The president made violent crime the central issue in his first large-scale outdoor rally this year and cites the GOP’s 1988 “Willie Horton” attack ad on Democratic nominee Michael S. Dukakis.
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Rick Stengel @rickstengel.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
America First means American Alone. He has alienated our largest trading partner (the EU) and our third largest (Canada). Canada is the largest trading parter of 27 of our states. If you were actually trying to wreck the economy, this is what you would do.
nytimes.com
E.U. Offers to Make Canada ‘Associate Member’ as U.S. Ties Weaken for Both
Canada and the European Union have been confronting an increasingly challenging relationship with the United States under President Trump.
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Rick Stengel @rickstengel.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Bravo to the high court, but corruption does not have an off switch. They have no regard for law, so have a back-up plan to vote in case.
nytimes.com
Trump’s Effort to Assert Control Over Elections Continues Despite Supreme Court Loss
President Trump has launched a broad, governmentwide effort to take more control of state-run elections and sow doubt about the outcome.
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Rick Stengel @rickstengel.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
You know who else looks at the polls? Putin. With a Democratic Congress in 2026 and a Democratic president in 2028, resistance will build to Russian aggression. Look for him to test Article 5 before the Democrats re-take the House.
nytimes.com
The Risk of Russian Sabotage in Europe: A Fight That Spirals Out of Control
Europe’s options are limited in responding to an unnerving series of plots and provocations. But the odds of unpredictable consequences are rising.
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Rick Stengel @rickstengel.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
A whistleblower reveals the "risky, haphazard" effort of the Postal Service to implement Trump's effort to federalize mail voting, saying it will lead to "catastrophic failure" in the midterms. That is the real goal, not a safer voting system, which is why courts, Congress, states need to intercede.
nytimes.com
Whistle-Blower Says Trump Officials Are Defying Court Orders on Voting by Mail
A report detailed “grave concerns” that a new system being rushed into use by the U.S. Postal Service could imperil millions of mail ballots ahead of the midterm elections.
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Rick Stengel @rickstengel.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
We have a serious problem when the civil rights division of the Justice Department is using its enforcement authority against the very people whose rights the division was created to protect.
nytimes.com
Leader of DOJ’s Civil Rights Unit Spars With Harvard, the Left and Her Colleagues
Harmeet Dhillon, who leads the Justice Department’s civil rights unit, has extracted flashy agreements and personnel moves from big universities and sought to force states to turn over confidential vo...
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Rick Stengel @rickstengel.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
Their goal is not to eliminate fraud or make elections safer, it is to make them more chaotic and raise doubt about them, so they can nullify or change the results.
nytimes.com
Postal Service Rule Could Bar Millions From Voting By Mail
A judge temporarily blocked the agency from refusing to deliver ballots in noncompliant states, which could disproportionately affect Democrats and many battleground elections.
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Rick Stengel @rickstengel.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
In 2025, Trump made more money by a huge margin than in any year in his half-century as a businessman & much of it came from businesses that didn't exist before he became president. I can understand Americans wanting a businessman as president, but no one wants the presidency turned into a business.
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Rick Stengel @rickstengel.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Nothing quite says "third world," to use the President's phrase, as the head of state and his family making billions while in office. www.axios.com/2026/08/19/t...
axios.com
Trump's profits irk Americans as Dems test anti-corruption message
Most Americans say the president has profited inappropriately from crypto, a new poll found.
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Rick Stengel @rickstengel.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Bravo to ABC for suing the FCC for its violation of the First Amendment. As the Court said in 2024: government may not "use the power of the State to punish or suppress disfavored expression." Translation: the Trump admin is trying to repress speech it doesn't like and that's illegal.
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Rick Stengel @rickstengel.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
It's the child's view of the world that nations are their leaders and if the leader likes the president, well, he likes them back. NK is a true totalitarian state, the very opposite of everything we stand for. SKorea is one of our great success stories, a nation we aided who is now aiding others.
apnews.com
Trump's slight of South Korea in favor of the North raises broader US security concerns
Trump explained his decision by citing South Korea’s refusal to join his war against Iran and pointing to what he said was his good relationship with North Korea’s reclusive dictator, Kim Jong Un.
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Rick Stengel @rickstengel.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Florida man votes by mail after calling it cheating.
politico.com
Trump votes by mail again in his home state of Florida
Voting records from Palm Beach County show the president requested his ballot in late July and it was returned on Aug. 13.
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Rick Stengel @rickstengel.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
When Trump leaves office in '28, he will leave America weaker militarily than it has been in a generation. He touts that he's rebuilt the military. In the last 5 months he has seriously depleted our supply of smart weapons. These will take years and many billions to replace. We are weaker w/out them
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Rick Stengel @rickstengel.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
Does it seem right that a guy we elected president in part because he was a supposedly successful businessman would have by far his most profitable year as a businessman—$2.2 billion—in the first year of his second term?
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Rick Stengel @rickstengel.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
Gee, maybe it would be better to spend that money figuring out why these candidates appeal to Democratic voters? And then figure out how the left and the center can work together because they have much more in common than a party that shreds the Constitution every day.
nytimes.com
Moderate Democrats Prepare for ‘War’ Against an Ascendant Left
One moderate group says the progressive wins are “deeply troubling” and is planning a $15 million effort against democratic socialism.
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Rick Stengel @rickstengel.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
If only GOP senators would show political courage when they are seeking office and not just when they are leaving it.
nytimes.com
Defying Trump, Cornyn Uses His Lame-Duck Power
In standing in the way of Todd Blanche, President Trump’s choice for attorney general, a liberated Senator John Cornyn is wielding his leverage.
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Rick Stengel @rickstengel.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
Americans feel otherwise.
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Rick Stengel @rickstengel.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
There are forever wars and world wars. Trump seems to be maneuvering us into some combination of the two.
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Rick Stengel @rickstengel.bsky.social · 26/07/2026
Yes, there is always tension between security and openness, but of all the agencies that need to try to level with the American people, the defense dep't is No. 1: because it puts the sons and daughters of American families in harm's way. It is not being transparent enough.
theguardian.com
‘Shameful’: Pentagon accused of cover-up over US military casualties in Iran war
No press briefing has been held for months, as the defence department belatedly or inaccurately releases figures
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Rick Stengel @rickstengel.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
Dora Damatta-Rodriguez is one of only 86 people the Trump admin has prosecuted for illegal voting. She’s a 72-year-old Panamanian-born grandmother who registered using a driver’s license that said she was a non-citizen. In the 2016 election, she voted for Trump. She was deported to Panama in June.
reuters.com
Trump claims voting by noncitizens is rampant in America. The numbers tell another story.
Federal prosecutors have charged just 129 people under a federal “voting by aliens” statute. Many of these incidents appear to stem from voter confusion, miscommunication with election officials or ad...
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Rick Stengel @rickstengel.bsky.social · 18/07/2026
On #MandelaDay, let's remember his words, that fighting poverty & inequity is not a form of charity but an act of justice. And as Mayor Mamdani said at the Mandela global leadership forum, "Madiba lives in every protest for justice, every call for democracy, every march with a righteous demand."
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Rick Stengel @rickstengel.bsky.social · 18/07/2026
The thing I've never understood is why would an undocumented immigrant or non-citizen want to risk being arrested and deported by voting illegally? The answer is, they don't, and that's why they don't try to vote.
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Rick Stengel @rickstengel.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
A US president has done more damage to American elections than any foreign adversary.
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Rick Stengel @rickstengel.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
When you falsely attempt to damage confidence in elections you damage democracy.
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Rick Stengel @rickstengel.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
As wacky as most of his claims will be tonight, the danger is that he's laying the groundwork for the federal government to interfere in the midterms.
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Rick Stengel @rickstengel.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
We finally see the president's vision for "his" military; not a protector of freedom and democracy at home and abroad, but a mercenary force that extorts 20% for its services. So, his definition of the US Army's motto, "This we'll defend," is international oil tankers.
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Rick Stengel @rickstengel.bsky.social · 12/07/2026
To those on the right freaking out about the birthright citizenship ruling: The truth is, we've had it from the beginning, we just didn't have it for enslaved people or people of color. The 14th Amendment simply extended it to those who had been unfairly denied it. Is that what you wish to reverse?
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Rick Stengel @rickstengel.bsky.social · 11/07/2026
At all of these international summits, I always think Trump behaves like an elderly maître d' with Tourette's syndrome.
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Rick Stengel @rickstengel.bsky.social · 11/07/2026
The reporting that the Times journalists have been subpoenaed for is exactly the kind of journalism the First Amendment is designed to protect: matters involving national security and taxpayer dollars. Reporting that embarrasses a president is protected speech.
nytimes.com
Times Journalists Subpoenaed as Trump Escalates Pressure on Media
The Justice Department is seeking to compel testimony from reporters who wrote about the new Air Force One. The Times called the move a “brazen act.”
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Rick Stengel @rickstengel.bsky.social · 10/07/2026
Literally everything he does is done shoddily, without thought or planning, for performative reasons or simple self-aggrandisement. Our republic is the casualty.
nytimes.com
New Air Force One Lacks Defensive Countermeasures of Previous Model, Officials Say
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Rick Stengel @rickstengel.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
What the rest of NATO saw was an irrational and undisciplined head of its “dominant” member who is struggling in a war against a much smaller nation while the other military hyper-power, Russia, is unable to defeat an even smaller adversary. Time for a new strategy. Time for Europe to step up.
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Rick Stengel @rickstengel.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
On eve of the NATO summit, let's remember Trump has repeatedly called NATO a "paper tiger." Does he know that he's using a saying popularized by the arch Communist Mao Zedong who famously said, "All reactionaries are paper tigers"?
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Rick Stengel @rickstengel.bsky.social · 05/07/2026
Excited that Balogun is going to be able to play. But let’s remember, he plays for America because of birthright citizenship. Go USA!🇺🇸
nytimes.com
Trump Asked FIFA to Review U.S. Player’s Suspension. Now He’s Eligible to Play.
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Rick Stengel @rickstengel.bsky.social · 04/07/2026
It's amazing that the crack White House staff discovered a July 4th Joseph McCarthy speech from 1952 that had never been given just in time for the 250th.
cbsnews.com
Trump warns of "communist menace" in speech at Mount Rushmore on eve of July 4th
The president kicked off America's 250th anniversary celebrations with a speech at Mount Rushmore where he warned of a resurgence in communism.
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Rick Stengel @rickstengel.bsky.social · 04/07/2026
I still think what unites is greater than what divides us. We were born in a revolt against tyranny and we must continue to fight it where we see it. That's an American value. Happy 250th. rickstengel.substack.com/p/they-say-i...
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Rick Stengel @rickstengel.bsky.social · 03/07/2026
It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to celebrate our birthday on July 4, 1776. Here's why and why th eDeclaration is a playbook in how to defeat a tyrant. rickstengel.substack.com/p/they-say-i...
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Rick Stengel @rickstengel.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
It took 250 years, but we finally have a chief executive who understands the full money-making possibilities of the Oval Office. Another thing the Founders did not count on. #Happy250th
nytimes.com
Trump Pulled in at Least $2 Billion After Returning to the White House
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