WTF Just Happened Today?

I didn’t grow up saying the “F-word” but, well, a lot of things have changed over the years.  It still embarrasses me a little, though.

Matt Kizer began his daily newsletter, WTF Just Happened Today?, on January 20, the first day of the Trump administration.  He describes his work as “Today’s essential guide to the daily shock and awe in national politics.”  He adds the warning: “Read in moderation.”  He has written the newsletter every weekday since then, providing a day-by-day account of the Trump and Biden years.  More than 250,000 people subscribe to his newsletter, which is funded totally by voluntary contributions.

This is, by the way, a mammoth operation on a shoestring budget.  Matt encourages people to subscribe to the tune of a few bucks a month, but only 1-2% of his readers subscribe.  I don’t subscribe, but I’m thinking of changing that.

He has also curated collections of new articles if there’s a topic the reader is interested in.  He has a category for “Impeachment.wtf” and “Random.wtf.”  He produces a daily podcast and hosts a member forum where members can talk to each other about the news of the day.  He produces a second newsletter, Current Status, which purports to provide a consensus view of the current top US political stories from a cross-section of the news media ecosystem.

So, what will you learn from WTF Just Happened Today?  Well, you’ll certainly learn WTF just happened today in American politics.  One good thing about this newsletter is that Matt always provides links to sources for the news items so readers can follow up if something is interesting to them.  Here are the newsletter headlines for Tuesday, May 10, 2022 (Day 476 of the Biden Administration):

1. Biden said that tackling inflation is his “top domestic priority” as the average price for a gallon of gas nationwide hit $4.37 – the highest price since 2000 when AAA started keeping track.

2. A group of House and Senate Democrats are introducing legislation to tighten judicial ethics laws, which would require more disclosure, a Supreme Court code of conduct, and a judicial recusal process.

3. An administrative law judge in Georgia ruled that Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene can stay on the ballot despite claims by a group of voters that she engaged in insurrection due to her support for the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

4. A federal judge dismissed Trump’s lawsuit seeking to reinstate his Twitter account, but Elon Musk nevertheless said he would reverse Trump’s permanent ban if his deal to buy the social network goes through.

5. The Earth has a 50-50 chance that the planet’s temperature will temporarily reach 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels in at least one of the next five years, a new report by the World Meteorological Organization finds.

If you’re wondering about what happened in previous years, you can always find that out.  Each day, Matt provides a specific link to what happened a few years back.  You can access an archive if there’s a specific date that interests you https://whatthefuckjusthappenedtoday.com/archive/).   Here’s what you find if you peruse these links.

On May 10 of last year (Day 111 of the Biden Administration), here were the news items:

1. The Biden administration announced new protections against discrimination in health care based on gender identity and sexual orientation.

2. The FBI confirmed that a Russian criminal group was responsible for the ransomware attack that closed a U.S. energy pipeline that transports 45% of the East Coast’s fuel supply.

3. Three Republican governors plan to cut enhanced jobless benefits in their states in an effort to force people to return to work.

4. The WHO reclassified the highly contagious triple-mutant Covid-19 variant spreading in India as a “variant of concern.”

5. Mitch McConnell suggested that the “proper price tag” for Biden’s infrastructure package is between $600 billion and $800 billion.

6. The Department of Homeland Security is implementing a warning system to gather intelligence and detect security threats from public social media posts.

7. The Biden administration launched the Scientific Integrity Task Force to ensure that the federal government’s scientific policies are free from political influence.

8. Air pollution from U.S. farms accounts for more than 17,000 annual deaths, according to a first-of-its-kind study that linked thousands of premature deaths per year to methane, ammonia, and hydrogen sulfide emissions by U.S. farms.

This didn’t feel like a dramatically newsworthy day, although President Biden’s approval rating stood at 63%, with 71% approving his handling of the pandemic.  I think it’s fair to say that Biden has had a rough year since then.

It doesn’t take much digging into this day in 2020, (Day 1208 of the Trump Administration – actually May 11 because May 10 was on a Sunday) to remember how different that time felt.

🔥 Daily Damage Report. (Matt began this feature during the pandemic)

🌍 Global: Total confirmed cases ~4,160,000; Total deaths: ~285,000; Total recoveries: ~1,434,000. (Johns Hopkins University)

Vs. U.S.: Total confirmed cases ~1,345,000; Total deaths: ~80,100; Total recoveries: ~216,000

💰 Markets: Dow 📉; S&P 500 📈; Nasdaq 📈

👑 Portrait of a President.

o    Trump sought a reopening but found the virus in the White House instead

o    As deaths mount, Trump tries to convince Americans it’s safe to inch back to normal.

1. Three members of the White House coronavirus task force will self-quarantine after possibly being exposed to the coronavirus.

2. Pence will not self-quarantine after his press secretary tested positive because he “has tested negative every single day.”

3. The White House encouraged staffers to come into the office, including the aides who travel with Trump and Pence.

4. The White House directed most officials – but not Trump – to wear masks at all times inside the building except when sitting at their desks.

5. Emails show that top White House officials buried CDC guidance for reopening communities during the coronavirus pandemic.

6. Obama warned that the Justice Department’s decision to drop its prosecution of Michael Flynn puts “our basic understanding of rule of law is at risk.”

7. Trump spent Mother’s Day sending 126 tweets, retweets, and quote-tweets about the Russia investigations by the FBI and the House Intelligence Committee.

Here’s what we were talking about on May 10, 2019 (Day 841 of the Trump Administration):

1. The House Ways and Mean Committee subpoenaed Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin over Trump’s tax returns.

2. The House Judiciary Committee introduced the “No President Is Above the Law Act” that would “pause the statute of limitations for any federal offense committed by a sitting president.”

3. Robert Mueller won’t testify in front of the House Judiciary Committee next week, but “he will come at some point,” committee chairman Jerrold Nadler told reporters.

4. Trump escalated his trade war with China, raising tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods and moving ahead to tax nearly all of China’s imports.

And the old days, May 10, 1018 (Day 476):

1. Mike Pence: It’s time for Robert Mueller to “wrap it up” because it’s “been about a year since this investigation began.”

2. Rudy Giuliani: Trump “wasn’t aware” that Michael Cohen pitched his access to the President to potential clients following the 2016 election in order to land consulting deals.

3. The Russia-linked company that hired Michael Cohen registered a number of alt-right websites during the 2016 elections.

4. Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee released 3,500 Facebook ads purchased by a Russian troll farm from mid-2015 to mid-2017.

5. National security adviser John Bolton wants to eliminate the top White House cybersecurity job.

6. John McCain gave the Steele dossier to then-FBI director James Comey.

7. Trump’s pick to lead the CIA, Gina Haspel, claimed during her Senate confirmation hearing that the CIA “never did” interrogations “historically.”

8. Trump will meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on June 12 in Singapore.

And finally, May 10, 2017 (the first year this newsletter was written, Day 111 of the Trump Administration).  Here’s what was going on:

1. Trump met with Putin’s top diplomats at the White House. The talks came one day after Trump fired the FBI Director, who was overseeing an investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election.

2. Trump defended firing Comey and said both parties will thank him in an early morning tweetstorm.

3. Days before he was fired, Comey asked for a significant increase in money and personnel for the Russia investigation.

4. Trump also met with Henry Kissinger, Richard Nixon’s national security adviser, less than a day after firing Comey in Nixonian fashion.

5. Mitch McConnell rejected calls for a special prosecutor or independent commission to investigate Russia’s election meddling in the wake of the firing of FBI Director James Comey.

6. Federal prosecutors have issued grand jury subpoenas to associates of Michael Flynn seeking business records.

7. Rudy Giuliani is visiting the White House, but says he’s not a candidate for FBI director.

8. Senate Russia investigators asked the Treasury criminal investigation division for financial information related to Trump, his top officials and his campaign aides.

9. The Senate failed to revoke Obama-era methane rules.

10. The Census Bureau director resigns as the agency faces a funding debate over the 2020 Census.

11. A West Virginia journalist was arrested after asking HHS Secretary Tom Price a question.

12. Students booed and turned their backs on Betsy DeVos as she gave the keynote address at a historically black university.

What do you remember about these events?  If you’re like me, some of them evoke clear memories, but others have faded over time.

Future historians are not going to have any difficulty writing histories of this time in American politics. Their biggest problem is going to be deciding what to leave out.