Abbreviated Pundit Roundup: New Jersey sees the good guys win, and so do NBC journalists

Abbreviated Pundit Roundup is a long-running series published every morning that collects essential political discussion and analysis around the internet.

David Dayen/The American Prospect:

The Machine Crumbles

Andy Kim has not only pulled off a major upset. He may have transformed the political culture of an entire state.

But it’s not a stretch to suggest that polling was available to [rival Tammy] Murphy showing that she could not succeed. In her farewell speech, she admitted that she would have to go negative to win, something you do when you’re losing. The edge in ballot position—a more modest edge than at first suspected because Kim won so many of the contested conventions­—would not survive voter opinions on Murphy, a first-time candidate who was a Republican for much of her adult life with little to recommend but her family name and the support of political bigwigs trying to win whatever favor they could out of Trenton.

There was probably an element of “lose the battle, win the war” here. Lurking in the background of this race was a lawsuit to end the county line, which gives party bosses their power. Kim, while trying to win the Senate race despite the built-in disadvantages, had launched the lawsuit and sought an injunction against the county line, arguing that the ballot system is “fundamentally unjust and undemocratic.” The party bosses might have figured that, if Murphy were to drop out and they all endorsed Kim (which is what appears to have happened), Kim would drop the lawsuit, and they would retain the ballot weapon for future use.

The modern Tammany Hall lost.

Check out the sequence, starting with Politico:

NBC’s McDaniel mess threatens to explode

Network insiders are watching to see if more hosts and contributors speak out about the ex-RNC chair’s hiring.

The uproar inside NBC over Ronna McDaniel’s hiring spilled into Monday morning as more of the network’s top personalities denounced the deal with the former RNC chair, escalating a battle over the relationship between powerful media companies and Donald Trump’s loyalists.

The decision to hire McDaniel, which was unanimously supported by top network executives, has already divided and destabilized one of America’s most storied news organizations, with internal dismay flaring on text chains and Slack channels since the deal was announced late last week.

Philip Bump/Washington Post:

Ronna McDaniel quickly demonstrates that her view isn’t worth the cost

Of course there’s no reason to grant McDaniel a baseline assumption of honesty, much less consistency. But this top-line conflict between past and current statements obscures the real issue.

McDaniel did say Biden won “fair and square,” yes, but also insisted that “it’s fair to say there were problems in 2020.”

And finally, Axios last night:

Ronna McDaniel out at NBC News following backlash

State of play: [NBCU News Group Chair Cesar Conde] apologized in the memo NBC News staff for hiring the ex-RNC chair saying, "it has become clear that this appointment undermines" the goal of a "cohesive and aligned" newsroom.

• Conde wrote that the decision to drop McDaniel was made after "listening to the legitimate concerns of many of you."
• Carrie Budoff Brown, who leads NBC News' politics and elections reporting, had previously announced McDaniel would offer an "insider's perspective" on national politics and the Republican Party.
• However, NBC journalists were "uncomfortable" with the hiring because their interactions with the RNC while McDaniel was chair were "met with gaslighting" and "character assassination," NBC News Chief Political Analyst Chuck Todd said on Sunday's "Meet The Press."

Scientific American shows there’s more bad things in Project 2025 than just immigration policy:

Trump Allies Plan to Gut Climate Research if He Is Reelected

Dozens of conservative organizations have banded together to provide Trump a road map—known as Project 2025—to boost fossil fuels and limit government climate science

Trump has already said that boosting fossil fuels would be one of his top priorities. A proposed executive order in Project 2025 offers him a path for that goal, laying out a total restructuring of the U.S. Global Change Research Program to diminish its role across more than a dozen federal agencies.

Project 2025 also calls for replacing the White House climate adviser with an "energy/environment" adviser who would pivot to serving the needs of the fossil fuel industry.

David Lat/”Original Jurisdiction” on Substack:

Clerking For Judge Cannon: A Behind-The-Scenes Look

A tale of two clerkships: it was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

What went wrong? Based on her academic credentials and what I’ve heard about her from mutual friends, I disagree with criticisms of her as unintelligent; to the contrary, I believe she’s quite smart. But there’s a difference between intelligence and good judgment, and her ruling in Trump v. United States lacked the latter.

Many outsider observers dismiss Judge Cannon as a pro-Trump political hack. But sources of mine who know her personally push back on this, describing her as fair-minded and not particularly political. So while she definitely leans too far in Trump’s direction, giving dubious arguments from his legal team more consideration than they deserve, I think it’s oversimplifying matters to dismiss all her rulings as purely the product of “MAGA judging.”

Instead, I’d suggest that in her handling of Trump v. United States, Judge Cannon thought like a pointy-headed appellate judge, not a commonsensical trial judge.1 A seasoned trial judge would have seen Trump’s request for a special master and quickly ruled, “Hell to the N-O.” Judge Cannon—a former appellate attorney, with limited trial experience—received Trump’s unorthodox request, identified novel legal issues, and thought to herself, “How interesting!”

Grossly overthinking the matter, Judge Cannon ultimately issued a weirdly clever, creative ruling, leading legal commentator Chris Geidner to dub her “Trump’s best lawyer in years.” But the opinion was too clever by half—and just plain wrong—which is why the Eleventh Circuit made short work of it.2