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profsaunders.bsky.social
Professor of Political Science, Columbia; editor, Good Authority; non-res Senior Fellow, Brookings. New Book: The Insiders' Game: How Elites Make War and Peace (preorder: https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691215808/the-insiders-game)
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Posts 44 Comments 6

This is what Mark Esper, for all his acquiescence, refused to do in June 2020.

submitted 14 hours ago • 6 comments

The national security implications of DOGE was something @profsaunders.bsky.social and I worried about from the start www.foreignaffairs.com/united-state... and our worries should grow given how entrenched Musk’s people are in the systems.

submitted 22 hours ago • 5 comments

I just finished the first chapter of “The American Mirage” by @eunjikim.bsky.social and it is one of the most engaging works I’ve read in a long time. Eager to read the rest. Thank you, Eunji! press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...

submitted 2 days ago • 2 comments

Harvard’s lawyers did not come to play

submitted 2 days ago • 17 comments

This, a thousand times.

submitted 2 days ago • 5 comments

"The scientific research base of the United States of America *is* the research university. We made that decision 80 years ago. We don't have a Plan B." — Condoleezza Rice

submitted 3 days ago • 17 comments

The argument that Musk might face *personal* liability for some of the shit he did in government should get renewed interest right about now.

submitted 2 days ago • 28 comments

Mine and Julia Macdonald's new podcast on autonomy--from mines to missiles to drones--is now available! Follow the people behind America's unmanned arsenal from the revolutionary war to Afghanistan, Ukraine, and looking to the future. www.hoover.org/research/epi...

submitted 2 days ago • 1 comment

I'd put this a bit more sharply than @steveinskeep.bsky.social probably can: Trump simply does not understand any boundary between himself and the government. He has no sense of the public interest and believes the government is an extension of himself personally. open.substack.com/pub/steveins...

submitted 2 days ago • 44 comments

So much this.

submitted 2 days ago • 1 comment

The national security and cybersecurity impacts of this Trump-Musk fallout are out of this world. Musk and the DOGE boys have their tentacles all up in just about every system that supports US government function…

submitted 2 days ago • 43 comments

The definition of partisanship is when you can "finally say" what everyone knows only after you've fallen out with the leader.

submitted 2 days ago • 22 comments

Post of the day.

submitted 2 days ago • 23 comments

This is a really under reported part of this fallout and it is not good.

submitted 2 days ago • 3 comments

Please don’t make Elon Musk deportation, denaturalization, and disappearance to El Salvador jokes. Using state power to punish people you don’t like is never funny.

submitted 2 days ago • 5 comments

This! This! @jimgoldgeier.bsky.social the things we wrote in February seem so quaint now: www.foreignaffairs.com/united-state...

submitted 2 days ago • 1 comment

I'm just looking forward to the day when RFK Jr's ego finally collides with Donald Trump. Because you know it's coming.

submitted 2 days ago • 20 comments

Here's a simple one: FAA says "no" to all future Starship launches and all Starlink Falcon9 launches. Easy, effective, and far more legal than stuff the admin is doing to eg Harvard or CBS

submitted 2 days ago • 5 comments

Remember this? It was just 2ish weeks ago. Trump did this because Elon Musk wanted him too.👇

submitted 2 days ago • 2 comments

Now THAT is a headline.

submitted 9 days ago • 1 comment

All I was looking for was a reliable read out of the Trump/Xi call and, boom, MAGA insanity consumes everything, a veritable conflagration of idiocy. Some day something like normalcy will return.

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

AS I WAS SAYING

submitted 2 days ago • 4 comments

This is exactly right. There may be a split but the horrific damage has been done, and both sides of this high school farce should be held accountable. They’re both wretchedly terrible.

submitted 2 days ago • 1 comment

just thinking about this again

submitted 2 days ago • 6 comments

@annabower.bsky.social needs to ask Elon who the director of DOGE is before this fight is over.

submitted 2 days ago • 1 comment

I'm just glad one of these men has the nuclear codes and the other has all our personal data.

submitted 2 days ago • 1700 comments

Stopped clock gets its twice-a-day moment!

submitted 2 days ago • 1 comment

must be incredibly frustrating and disheartening to have federal funding that was promised to you for important work suddenly and arbitrarily ripped away

submitted 2 days ago • 644 comments

DOGE is a sabotage risk to any administration and likely already did irreversible damage.

submitted 2 days ago • 15 comments

A reminder that the damage Trump and Musk did to U.S. state capacity was immense, some of it likely illegal, and they should be held to account for it. They won't, but we should keep repeating that they should.

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

So, does everyone who was DOGEd get their jobs and grants back now, or no?

submitted 2 days ago • 5 comments

So much about our political and constitutional life has its roots right here. We’ve never had a full reckoning.

submitted 2 days ago • 5 comments

If this was Biden, media would be going crazy saying he has no clue what is going on.

submitted 2 days ago • 1 comment

Someone should tell Trump that Elon would feel very owned if he fully funded USAID and the CDC.

submitted 2 days ago • 37 comments

This

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

This is yet another good example of why men are too emotional to be in leadership.

submitted 3 days ago • 57 comments

Remember the whole thing started because Biden didn't invite Elon to the White House once. Kids are dead, USAID is no more, our essential government systems likely compromised by DOGE, all because of these guy's egos and appetite for cruelty.

submitted 2 days ago • 2 comments

Probably the most truthful and evidence-based statement Trump made is that he and Elon are fighting.

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

Today in Things Trump Claimed on Live TV: that all is good with China & he/Xi will exchange visits soon; that not just Russia's full-scale invasion but also the Hamas attack wouldn't have happened if the 2020 elex wasn't stolen from him; that UKR-RU war is like two kids on a playground; 1/2

submitted 3 days ago • 1 comment

German Chancellor Merz sets the record straight after Trump tries to draw moral equivalence between Russia and Ukrainian actions: "Ukraine is only targeting military targets. Not civilians, not private [property], not energy infrastructure. This is the difference."

submitted 3 days ago • 61 comments

Judge Burroughs will likely enjoin Trump's proclamation for the same reasons she granted the temporary restraining order, but the damage is done. Brilliant students who would otherwise have come to Harvard will go to Oxford or the Sorbonne or McGill instead. www.nytimes.com/2025/06/04/u...

submitted 3 days ago • 13 comments

That'll do it

submitted 3 days ago • 1 comment

The Jewish community organized relentlessly against Trump's first Muslim ban. It's a cruel insult that he'd use our community as an excuse for harming others who simply share hope to exist in peace and safety in this country.

submitted 3 days ago • 2 comments

KENNEDY: Harvard is in many respects violating federal law SCARBOROUGH: What federal law is Harvard violating? KENNEDY: Harvard practices ideological capture

submitted 3 days ago • 2165 comments