Taking Matters Into Our Own Hands

The Salty Briefing: a new daily messaging brief that our leaders should be doing - but aren't

Friends, I am frustrated.

No, actually, I am angry. Angry at our Democratic leaders in Washington who should be doing what I am about to do.

But the truth of the matter is that the people we elected to lead us are hiding under their desks, picking and choosing when to engage, even as Donald Trump burns down our constitutional republic every single day, in every single way.

Here’s Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer: “We’re not going to go after every single issue. We are picking the most important fights and lying down on the train tracks on those fights.”

Here’s House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries: “One of the reasons that [Aaron Judge is] a great hitter is that he does not swing at every pitch. He waits for the right one and then he swings. We're not going to swing at every pitch. We're going to swing at the ones that matter for the American people.”

Did Jeffries confuse Trump with Tarik Skubal? Trump is pitching lobs on the daily that anyone can hit, especially someone who knows that swinging and hitting them can win the game (and maybe save the republic from ruin).

Is Schumer serious about lying down on the train tracks? Because the train is going 200 miles an hour and the unhinged conductor is only too happy to run over whoever is on the tracks. The key is to stop the train before it’s left the station.

In any case, Schumer, Jeffries and most of our Democratic leaders are not showing Democrats how to communicate. It’s been a long time since I served as anyone’s press secretary but I have spent quite a bit of time on tv debating the issues with everyone from George W. Bush’s former press secretary to President Trump’s third-favorite son to Donald Trump Jr.’s former girlfriend to Mitch McConnell’s guy. Believe me, I know how to respond to nonsense quickly and concisely, even when it’s a firehose of bullshit coming at you from Trump enablers (and sometimes from Trump himself).

So today, I am launching The Salty Briefing here on Substack. It is going to be the daily briefing that our Democratic leaders should be holding to warn the nation about the dangers of the Trump administration. They’re not doing it, so I am.

Unlike a podcast, this briefing will be short and concise, a way to diagnose the problem and address it. If it resonates with you, feel free to send it to your friends and or to the MAGA people in your lives. Hell, take credit for it word for word as your own, if you want. We just need to get the message out there about what Trump is doing to this country. There’s no pride of authorship.

As you can imagine, this is going to be a fairly labor-intensive project, so unlike much of the content in this newsletter, The Salty Briefing will be paywalled. For the next week, I am running a 20% discount on paid annual subscriptions to Salty Politics, which automatically gets the Salty Briefing in your inbox as well. Assuming we get a critical mass in the next few weeks, I will also launch a weekly chat for paid subscribers, where we can figure out the most effective messaging together.

Thank you all for your support. Stay Salty.

Julie