Ari Berman: Harry Reid’s Jedi Mind Tricks

Ari Berman: Harry Reid’s Jedi Mind Tricks

Ari Berman: Harry Reid’s Jedi Mind Tricks

All the appalled commentary about Reid’s so-called ethical lapse has crowed out the real question: What was he trying to achieve?

Copy Link
Facebook
X (Twitter)
Bluesky
Pocket
Email

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Citing an anonymous source, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid recently added the claim that Mitt Romney hadn’t paid his taxes for ten years to the Senate record. A flurry of appalled commentary about Reid’s so-called ethical lapse soon crowed out the real question: What was he trying to achieve?

Nation writer Ari Berman’s answer? “I think Harry Reid is playing Jedi mind tricks with Mitt Romney,” Berman said to comedian Lizz Winstead and Republican strategist Susan Del Percio on The Ed Show last night. Every day that Romney’s tax returns are in the news is a day of poor press for the GOP candidate. Plus, it keeps Romney’s incredibly extreme tax plan in the news as well: He wants to cut taxes for the ultra-wealthy, and pay for the difference by cutting benefits from the bottom. What he’s hiding in his tax returns is only the tip of the rapidly melting iceberg for the Romney campaign.

—Zoë Schlanger

Disobey authoritarians, support The Nation

Over the past year you’ve read Nation writers like Elie Mystal, Kaveh Akbar, John Nichols, Joan Walsh, Bryce Covert, Dave Zirin, Jeet Heer, Michael T. Klare, Katha Pollitt, Amy Littlefield, Gregg Gonsalves, and Sasha Abramsky take on the Trump family’s corruption, set the record straight about Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s catastrophic Make America Healthy Again movement, survey the fallout and human cost of the DOGE wrecking ball, anticipate the Supreme Court’s dangerous antidemocratic rulings, and amplify successful tactics of resistance on the streets and in Congress.

We publish these stories because when members of our communities are being abducted, household debt is climbing, and AI data centers are causing water and electricity shortages, we have a duty as journalists to do all we can to inform the public.

In 2026, our aim is to do more than ever before—but we need your support to make that happen. 

Through December 31, a generous donor will match all donations up to $75,000. That means that your contribution will be doubled, dollar for dollar. If we hit the full match, we’ll be starting 2026 with $150,000 to invest in the stories that impact real people’s lives—the kinds of stories that billionaire-owned, corporate-backed outlets aren’t covering. 

With your support, our team will publish major stories that the president and his allies won’t want you to read. We’ll cover the emerging military-tech industrial complex and matters of war, peace, and surveillance, as well as the affordability crisis, hunger, housing, healthcare, the environment, attacks on reproductive rights, and much more. At the same time, we’ll imagine alternatives to Trumpian rule and uplift efforts to create a better world, here and now. 

While your gift has twice the impact, I’m asking you to support The Nation with a donation today. You’ll empower the journalists, editors, and fact-checkers best equipped to hold this authoritarian administration to account. 

I hope you won’t miss this moment—donate to The Nation today.

Onward,

Katrina vanden Heuvel 

Editor and publisher, The Nation

Ad Policy
x