Yes: what this means, in brief: the Articles of Confederation preceded the U.S. Constitution. The independent states needed some document of agreement and it was approved by 1781. There was a problem with the Articles, however; 1/ https://twitter.com/chrislhayes/status/1245885692984659974

*It was a WEAK NATIONAL GOVERNMENT." There was a national Congress, but with limited powers-including no way to regulate interstate commerce. No federal judiciary and no executive. Not surprisingly, it didn't work. States *competed against one another* in harmful ways 2/

The Constitutional Convention you all know about was convened *to fix the Articles.* Obviously that didn't happen and we have our current Constitution, which was meant to create a much stronger *NATIONAL GOVERNMENT* rather than just assemble a confederation of states. 3/

So the shorthand "this is an Articles of Confederation" response is another way of saying that the Administration is pretending as if it was meant not to have robust authority to help all of the states, as if it was not meant to have a coordinating role. 4/

Call BS on that one. FFS, Article IV has a Guarantee Clause that promises the states that the federal government will protect them from "invasion." UGH. end/