The Brief will be off tomorrow and early next week for a family vacation. I’ll see you Thursday Aug. 20!

Trump Administration Tries to Set the Terms of Post-Midterms Congressional Oversight

With the prospect of a possible Democratic-controlled House and/or Senate drawing near, the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice has provided the White House with an opinion declaring that a “private adviser” — defined as “anyone the President consults outside the Executive Branch” — may be covered by executive privilege if they play a role in “official presidential decisionmaking.” This, among other things, gives the White House the green light to attempt to flout congressional subpoenas for such individuals.

Asked about the OLC opinion by TPM yesterday, Democrats in Congress scorned it, and insisted it would not hamper their efforts. “This Mafia State Code of Silence has nothing to do with the American Constitution and it won’t stop Judiciary Dems from investigating this Administration’s rank corruption,” the Democrats on that committee said in a joint statement.

The OLC opinion is non-binding and is, merely, the administration’s position. Judges may, and likely will, disagree if executive privilege fights make contact with courts. Still, it may slow down accountability for a historically corrupt administration: Democrats had been planning to get individuals outside the administration to engage swiftly with their investigations, given Trump’s tendency to assert privilege over everything and anything involving White House aides in his first term.

The opinion is not solely aimed at blunting congressional oversight, however. As Lisa Rubin notes at MS NOW, the American Bar Association is seeking documents from Trumpworld figure Boris Epshtehyn to find out more about his role in the early Trump II effort to pressure law firms into cutting deals with the administration; ABA has challenged that pressure campaign, arguing it impinged on law firms’ First Amendment rights. The DOJ has argued those communications are covered by executive privilege. If reports about Epshtehyn’s role in the deals are correct, he fits the DOJ’s extremely broad description of a “private adviser,” as does anyone else who speaks with the president.

The OLC has laid the groundwork for various administration attacks on the law throughout this second term. In April, it released an opinion finding that the White House did not need to comply with a law requiring it to turn certain records over to the National Archives. (A judge said the opposite, and ordered the administration to do so.)

“OLC has lost all credibility and should be abolished,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) told us.

Hard-core Election Denialists Want an ‘Emergency’ Ahead of 2026

With right-wing activists beginning to abandon hope and acknowledge the SAVE Act’s poor chances of passing the Senate, various influencers have begun to consolidate around another big idea: Trump should declare a national emergency, allowing him to do … something.

• This possibility surfaced this week when radio host Wayne Allyn Root urged Trump to do so, and Trump, in classic form, declined to rule anything out. “Stranger things have happened,” he said. “I’ll leave it at that.”
• Trump’s dud of a speech in July about supposed issues with the 2020 election also stoked these fears, with his former lawyer Ty Cobb telling PBS that all Trump’s claims were intended as the “predicate that he needs to declare an emergency at or about the time of the elections.”
• A draft executive order claiming to do just that surfaced earlier this year, obtained by TPM and other outlets.
• As with all schemes by Trump and his allies to use the executive branch to screw with elections, this one runs up against the reality that the executive branch has no authority over elections. Various emergency orders could allow Trump to stoke a lot of chaos. But they do not empower him to seize election administration from the states.
• Those who are rattled by this talk are not off base, however. Trump often says in public what he intends to do, the villain at the end of a spy thriller unnecessarily explaining his entire evil plan. Even if this specific scheme is half-baked, that Trump is entertaining it — and that he has entertained similar schemes before — should have us all ready for something.
• “The nearer danger was never the proclamation,” writes James Sample, a professor of law at Hofstra University, as he picks apart Root’s understanding of the law. “It is counting and certifying, in a handful of counties, if control of a chamber comes down to a margin thin enough to litigate.”

Tabs

• Mike Lindell has not yet conceded his bid for governor. On election night he was insisting the numbers were fishy.
• The Trump DOJ has added a longtime critic of hate groups to its SPLC indictment.

People of the Hour

It’s White House deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino, “human printer” Natalie Harp, and director of Oval Office operations Walt Nauta, who got to come with Trump in the catering-crate-to-plane scheme, and were not left on the decoy with all the other White House officials and the press.

Are We at War?

We have, apparently, won? “Iran is all talk and no action, the Bully of the Middle East No Longer,” the president writes.

A Very Important Story (With Some Wonky Details)

TPM’s Layla A. Jones and Josh Kovensky published a major story yesterday outlining a new, draft Commerce Department rule that is circulating within the Trump administration. Our story includes documents that TPM is the first outlet to make public.

The rule aims to do two things: exclude undocumented immigrants and other types of non-citizens from the census (in violation of the Constitution), and stop the census from collecting most demographic data on Americans.

These changes would have several impacts, the enormity of which is hard to overstate:

• They would likely change allocations of power in Congress, shifting it toward red states. After the decennial census, the federal government apportions congressional seats to states. A census that doesn’t count many categories of non-citizens would see fewer congressional seats apportioned to blue states, and, as a result, more apportioned to red states.
• They would likely change the Electoral College, again shifting power toward red states. The Electoral College is based on each state’s congressional allotment. Fewer seats for blue states in Congress would mean blue-state voters have less power to elect the president.
• They would eliminate a crucial source of data. By not collecting data on race and other demographics, the administration would eliminate information that is critical both for the government, as it distributes congressionally allocated funds to various communities meant to receive those funds, and to researchers trying to better understand America.
• They would make it harder to challenge maps that are gerrymandered based on race. Data on race is a critical tool for plaintiffs looking to prove that state governments have illegally carved up their congressional districts to dilute the power of minority voters. “You have to prove discrimination, you have to prove the fact that you have been discriminated against,” Walter Schwarm, a California state demographer, told TPM. “But if you don’t have race and ethnic data on the ground, how can you prove that you’re being discriminated against?”

Another Big Primary Night

Last night saw voters pick candidates in several states, including Minnesota, South Carolina, and the swing state of Wisconsin.

• Primaries are very hard to poll, in part because pollsters try to model a comparatively small and shifting electorate. It’s effectively taking a guess about who might vote in the primary, which can change a lot from year to year. Even so, this year has seen some headline-grabbing polling misses, including in Michigan last week, where Haley Stevens came much closer to Abdul El-Sayed than polls were predicting. Last night saw that phenomenon repeat again, in the closely-watched Wisconsin Democratic gubernatorial primary, and also in the Minnesota Republican gubernatorial primary.
• In Minnesota, Mike Lindell lost his bid for governor! More on that below.
• In Wisconsin, Milwaukee County executive David Crowley squeaked out a victory in the Democratic gubernatorial primary over the DSA-endorsed Francesca Hong, who has become a kind of media obsession. Gov. Tony Evers (D) campaigned for Crowley, believing him to be a more competitive candidate against Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-WI), the very right-wing member of Congress Republicans are running for governor. The race, in which over 600,000 votes were cast, came down to about 3,000.
• Rebecca Cooke, a Democrat endorsed by figures in both the party establishment and the left, won a primary to face Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R) in Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District, which covers a large, western chunk of the state.
• Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC), the man who called for “Marshall Law” after Jan. 6, yet has had a hot and cold relationship with Trump, beat out a very crowded field and advanced to a runoff against Sen. Darline Graham (R) in South Carolina.

Tabs

• A U.S. District Court judge expanded a ruling blocking the Trump administration from implementing one of the president’s executive orders on voting ahead of the midterms. Judge Indira Talwani of the District of Massachusetts had previously ordered the administration not to move forward on figuring out how the U.S. Postal Service would implement the directive that it only send mail ballots to administration-approved voters. Her initial order applied to 23 states that were plaintiffs in the case; yesterday she expanded it nationwide. Trump has appealed this case to the Supreme Court, which should weigh in any day now.
• The MIT Technology Review has a fascinating deep dive on how conspiracy theories about the “censorship-industrial complex” became endemic among right-wing influencers and the Trump administration.

Man of the Hour

It’s Mike Lindell, who polling showed to be a strong contender in his bid for Minnesota governor, even as state Republican leaders strongly opposed his candidacy. Alas, he wasn’t. We’ll see if he understands a global conspiracy to be at fault here.

Are We at War?

Yes, with Iran preparing for the long haul.

Mike Lindell’s Big Moment

Amid the wall-to-wall coverage of Wisconsin Democratic gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong’s personal evolution or possible lack thereof on the topic of Thanksgiving, you may have missed that the Republican Party is on the cusp of picking two quite extreme gubernatorial nominees on the same evening.

U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-WI) faces little opposition and will become Republicans’ nominee for governor in his home state tonight. As Khaya Himmelman writes for TPM, he is an election denier who has put in the work, not just objecting in Congress against certifying the results of the 2020 election and signing onto Ken Paxton’s lawsuit that year to throw out the results, but continuing to insist that the 2020 election saw “improprieties.” (If you’re curious where he stands on such “Woke I” issues as “Thanksgiving,” he was also one of only 14 Republicans in Congress to vote against making Juneteenth a federal holiday.) This is, to be fair, why Democrats in the state are so concerned about the fate of their own ticket.

I am really here, however, to talk about Minnesota, where Mike Lindell, the man who visited Trump with a proposal for martial law in the days after Jan. 6 and who continues to boost the most outlandish conspiracy theories about the year in which our politics has become forever trapped. Tonight, Lindell has a real shot at becoming Republicans’ Minnesota gubernatorial candidate.

This is in part the result of the field splitting three ways. Minnesota state House Speaker Lisa DeMuth has the money behind her, but the state GOP endorsed another candidate, businessman Kendall Qualls.

Trump, however, endorsed Lindell, and primary voters’ hearts appear to be with the pillow salesman and conspiracy theorist. Poll after poll has shown him ahead, though it is unclear how reliable each of these surveys is. Lindell has faced a series of bizarre and sometimes dumb scandals given that he is, after all, Mike Lindell. The latest is an accusation that he violated campaign finance law by handing out MyPillows on the campaign trail. More seriously, the state GOP continues to question whether Lindell, who previously lived in Texas, even meets the residency requirements for the ballot.

“We’ve never had a party challenge the residency of one of its serious candidates,” Steven Schier, a political scientist at Carleton College, summed it up for the local ABC affiliate. “And then you add the fact that this candidate has been endorsed by the president of that party. It’s really an extraordinary situation.”

Whoever wins this race will face Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) after current governor Tim Walz (D) decided not to run again. The Minnesota primaries so far have seen record-breaking turnout, the secretary of state said yesterday.

Darline Graham Gets a Challenger

South Carolina will hold a special election today to replace Sen. Lindsey Graham (R), whose sister, Darline Graham Nordone, has filled his seat after his death and is running to fill it for a full term. She faces a crowded field of other candidates. Two — presumably the Trump-endorsed Graham and one other — will advance to a runoff. The field contains some familiar names.

• Ralph Norman, who — TPM broke the news — privately urged the White House to invoke “Marshall Law” following the 2020 election, is one. He was crushed in his bid to become the state’s governor earlier this year.
• Former state governor, congressman, and hiker Mark Sanford is also running.
• As is Rep. Russell Fry, who in 2022 unseated Rep. Tom Rice, a Republican critic of Trump who was among the 10 to vote to impeach him.
• Whoever wins will run in November against Democrat Annie Andrews, a pediatrician who has previously run against Rep. Nancy Mace (R).

Tabs

• Donald Trump was smuggled out of a UK-bound plane and onto another in a catering crate, leaving Turkey in a military jet last month amid an attempt on his life from Iran.
• After supporting some industry priorities last year, a handful of pro-crypto Senate Democrats have balked at its latest demand.
• The DOJ’s bid to get states’ voter roles has lost in court 21 times in a row, Reuters reports.

Man of the Hour

It’s Max Miller, who we’ve covered a lot here, and who, in the face of abuse and domestic violence accusations is now running in a seat that the Cook Political Report has shifted all the way from “likely Republican” to “toss up.” Democrats are now spending seriously on his opponent, Brian Poindexter. The White House urged Republicans not to criticize Miller after it became clear he wasn’t going to quit, Politico reported yesterday.

Are We at War?

Yes, with Trump attempting to one-up Iran by demanding it pay damages to the U.S.

MAGA’s Ohio Albatross

The deadline for the Republican Party to certify a replacement for Rep. Max Miller (R-OH), who has been accused by his ex-wife of domestic violence and abuse, on the ballot does not officially come until 4 p.m. today, but it’s effectively too late for the Republican Party to get him out. Now we’ll see how much the allegations against Miller can impact his bid for reelection in a district President Trump has repeatedly, comfortably won.

Under state law, Miller would have had to withdraw last week in order for a primary to be held to replace him; he would have had to drop out this weekend in order for the party to give the required 48 hours of notice of its intent to replace him. At this point, should he drop out, it’s unclear what would happen, but he has continually said he won’t. A campaign spokesperson told the New York Times Saturday he is staying in. He has denied the allegations against him.

The seat isn’t a sure pickup for Democrats. Trump won the district, which sweeps up a large swath of suburbs and small cities surrounding Cleveland, by 10 or more points in each of the last three elections for which he was on the ballot. Cook Political Report moved the race — in which Miller faces ironworker and city councilman Brian Poindexter (D) — from “Solid Republican” to “Likely Republican” in June; Sabato’s Crystal Ball moved it from “Likely Republican” to “Leans Republican” in July. Ohio’s Senate race is also, apparently, up for grabs in a state that has long trended red; polls show both Sherrod Brown (D) and incumbent Sen. Jon Husted (R) with small leads.

I remain interested in the contrasting abilities of the Republican Party and Democratic Party to take seriously and muscle out of the race a candidate with credible allegations against them that the candidate claims are false.

The Democrats, of course, managed to get Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner to drop out by the deadline to swap him on the ballot. Republicans’ pressure campaign against Miller has not achieved the same thing, which may speak both to Miller’s sense of what Republican voters want, and the comparative tepidness of the efforts mounted by his colleagues. Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH), the father of Miller’s ex-wife, has pushed aggressively for Miller to exit the race, but many of his colleagues in the Senate have simply framed their opposition to Miller as a testament to their relationship with Moreno and the necessity of keeping a messy family matter out of the public eye. “I don’t know Mr. Miller’s story, but I trust Bernie so much as a good friend, and his family has such high values,” Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS) said in one representative statement. Husted cast his appeal as personal advice, calling last week for Miller to “step aside as a candidate and resign from Congress to focus on what is in the best interest of his daughter.” Trump reportedly asked Miller to take a hard look at his polling numbers.

Your Money Goes a Long Way With Us

You’ve probably seen that we’re doing our annual TPM Journalism Fund drive. We’re nearly there, with about 10% more to go. We’ve raised $450,000 of $500,000.

As part of my pitch to you that you either contribute or become a member (or both!), I wanted to detail some of what I did last week. I wrote this morning post that you’re reading now. I also helped writers shape their stories, some of which broke major news. I coordinated with Joe, our publisher, on a YouTube livestream we’ll be doing later today. I spoke with potential new reporters who might join TPM, and with freelancers whose reporting might appear on our site. I also broke down a bunch of old cardboard boxes in the office, and painted a wall in it that needed to be touched up.

My point here is that, in other newsrooms, some of this stuff might be someone else’s job. The painting and the boxes at least. But at TPM, everyone does everything.

And that gets to what I’m really trying to say: when you contribute to us or buy a membership, the money goes to the journalists and funds the journalism. We do not spend it on consultants or on chasing the new trend or on sending Josh Marshall to speak at thinkfluencer conferences. We don’t spend it on painters. We use it to pay journalists to do journalism. (We do, I guess, buy lunch for the team in the office on Wednesdays — but we keep it reasonable, usually takeout from the Cuban place around the corner. And feeding journalists helps keep them going.)

So if you want to support journalism that makes a difference, consider supporting us. You get more bang for your buck.

Trump Gets a New White House Counsel

Trump has appointed Will Scharf as his White House Counsel, he said on Truth Social yesterday.

• Scharf, Trump’s current staff secretary, is often seen standing behind Trump as the president signs executive orders.
• He ran unsuccessfully for attorney general of Missouri in 2024. (He lost to Andrew Bailey, now the deputy director of the FBI, the job podcaster Dan Bongino flunked out of.) During the campaign, Scharf embraced Trump’s 2020 claims that the election was fraudulent, saying “it was stolen. It was rigged. Call it whatever you will.” He then (lawyerishly) seemed to suggest that this rigging was because states’ pandemic vote-by-mail policies that year were invalid, eschewing Trump’s more outlandish conspiracy theories.
• Scharf has also served as a lawyer to Trump, working on cases including his challenge to Jack Smith’s indictment which led to the Court conservatives’ presidential immunity ruling.
• According to the Times, Scharf has pushed back on Stephen Miller’s more dramatic ideas (a low bar for a Trump administration lawyer to clear but a bar nonetheless), including suspending habeas corpus and invoking the Insurrection Act.

Tabs

• Black voters are highly engaged in Tennessee, where the Republican state legislature eliminated the only Black majority congressional district.
• American far-right figures have been stoking anti-immigrant unrest in the UK, with some of the most-read posts on X ahead of June riots in Belfast coming from the U.S., according to a new analysis in the Guardian.

Man of the Hour

It’s Mike Lindell, the staunch Trump ally, election conspiracy theorist, and pillow magnate who, if polls are to be believed, has a strong chance of becoming Republicans’ candidate for Minnesota governor in tomorrow’s primary.

Are We at War?

Yes, but low key.

I mentioned this in my morning post today, but one of the weirdest, Trumpiest, vehemently anti-immigrant and scandal-plagued members of Congress lost a primary yesterday. Goodbye Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN). Those seeking to pass legislation denaturalizing Zohran Mamdani or giving Trump a third term will have to find another congressional champion.

Russ Vought’s Power Play Sows Legal Chaos for Administration

Last month, the New York Times reported that the administration confessed, in federal court, to having blocked grants in October 2025 for clean energy projects in blue states simply because they voted against president Trump.

TPM discovered that the administration has in fact conceded this point in court multiple times.

Our story, by Emine Yücel and Josh Kovensky, does a few things. First, it notes that a negotiations tactic deployed by Office of Management and Budget director Russ Vought during the government shutdown last year — declaring that he was withholding grant funding to blue states in an effort to exert leverage over Democrats in Congress — has backfired, with the administration’s lawyers forced to make damaging admissions before judges and, in two cases, ultimately losing their case and being ordered to restore the grants.

Second, we know that the Trump administration regularly withholds funds to blue states, sometimes mustering an excuse about why it’s doing so — vague claims of “fraud,” perhaps. But while talk is cheap, our story shows that in court, DOJ lawyers were not able to muster a fig leaf for these October 2025 grant denials. They were, simply, political.

Third, our story shows that these concessions were made as part of an effort by administration lawyers to avoid discovery, which raises the question of why the administration was willing to go to these lengths to avoid discovery. What emails were sent, and what discussions were had, within the White House as these grants were withheld that lawyers hoped to keep out of the record?

There are big elements of this story still to come.

• First, the Trump administration has proposed a new rule to make it so that political appointees have final review over grants, and that grants can be more easily terminated, making standard the kind of control the administration has exercised over federal funding since the days of DOGE — and continuing through the example of the October 2025 grants that formed the core of Emine and Josh’s story. This assault on the separation of powers and federalism has led to urgent warnings, particularly from the scientific community, where researchers say it could decimate the U.S.’s advantage.
• As Emine wrote earlier this week, the Senate has for now proposed a temporary halt to this rule, which Sen. Susan Collins, chair of the appropriations committee and in a tight reelection fight in Maine, is touting as her work. Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the committee, said Republicans would not support a more fulsome ban on the rule. A fight over this legislation, which is part of a Senate effort to fund the government through December, will ensue when members return in September.
• We may also get some insight into what the administration was hiding as it sought to avoid discovery. This could come from the continuing, ongoing lawsuits in this space, from other litigation, from congressional oversight by a future Democrat-controlled legislature, or another avenue.
• In the meantime, there is a nascent effort in the House to impeach Vought over his October 2025 decision to withhold these grants.

Trump Comes for Birthright Citizenship Again

Trump is taking another run at restricting birthright citizenship through executive order.

• He signed EOs Thursday specifically targeting the children of parents deemed to be an “alien enemy” — a concept that has become a favorite of this administration — and purporting to end “birth tourism.”
• Targeting alien enemies plays on an idea that the administration has sought to get great mileage out of: that immigrants within the U.S. are actually representatives of an invading army.
• This justification was core to early administration efforts to render Venezuelan men to a Salvadoran prison camp, and to its attempts to send the National Guard and the military into American cities. Both encountered skepticism at the Supreme Court.
• The “birth tourism” thing loomed large during Supreme Court oral arguments for Trump’s last executive order on birthright citizenship. Justice Samuel Alito in particular latched onto it. Despite the insistence of right-wing media that there is a booming industry of foreigners coming to the U.S. to have their kids, the Washington Post notes data showing that “in 2024, fewer than 10,000 babies were born in the U.S. to people with foreign addresses, out of 3.6 million total live births.”

Tabs

• Trump has ordered a leak probe into reports that munitions were running low amid the Iran War, the Wall Street Journal reports.
• Will Sommer has a fascinating look in the Bulwark at a group of right-wingers who feel burned by the Trump administration and who are mulling establishing a third party. They include Tucker Carlson, former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Rep. Thomas Massie, and former counterterrorism official Joe Kent. Carlson seems perhaps the most invested in the project, and recently gave a long speech describing the ideas such a party should push.

Man of the Hour

Anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant, scandal-plagued and performative pro-Trump representative Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN) lost his primary fight last night to former state agriculture commissioner Charlie Hatcher. Hatcher won roughly 53% of the vote.

Are We at War?

Yes. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), who gets it, accused Trump in a speech yesterday of “gaslighting” Americans on this topic. “The essential gaslight,” he said, “is that the war is about to end. Don’t worry. Yet it appears that there is no end.”

Introducing America to ‘Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed’

It’s not at all surprising, but it was nonetheless quick: With the Michigan Democratic primary over, Republicans are trying to reap whatever they can from drawing an opponent in a crucial state for Senate control who has a foreign-sounding name.

“I spent years hunting terrorists and bringing Osama bin Laden to justice,” said his opponent, Mike Rogers, in a statement. “Never in a million years did I think that I would be running against someone who believes America deserved 9/11.”

It’s unclear where exactly Rogers hunted terrorists — though he served in the military in the ’80s, he was in Congress in the years after 9/11. Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, not El-Sayed, said America “deserved 9/11” before apologizing.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee made a point of calling him by his full name, “Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed,” and put out a statement by Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) claiming El-Sayed supports “terrorist organizations.” “An alliance of communists and Islamists is taking control of the Democrat party,” the Senate Republican Conference posted on social media.

In an interview last night with MS Now, El-Sayed was asked directly about the attacks and offered an optimistic take on the electorate. “Of course, he’s going to do the same thing that MAGA always does, which is try to divide us,” he said of Rogers.

“I know that Michiganders are open-minded,” he continued. “They’re big-hearted. They’re less interested in how you pray than what you pray for. And we all pray for the same things. We want what’s good for our kids and our families. We want clean air, clean water, healthcare we can afford.

“So they’re going to use Islamophobia because their ideas are tired, their economy sucks. They’re taking us to a war we shouldn’t fight. And we have an opportunity to actually focus on bringing us together.”

As Nicole LaFond noted last night and Khaya Himmelman will have more on today, another predictable aspect of the GOP’s response to Tuesday’s election has been to undermine its validity. As much as the election denial-tinged freakout around California seemed half-baked — did reality star turned Los Angeles mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt ever really have a path? — the Michigan discourse on the right is transparently aimed not at any particular outcome (it’s a primary contest between Democrats, after all) but more broadly at sowing distrust. “Anyone want to bet that when the mail in ballots come in in Michigan there will be a HUGE surge for Haley Stevens?” Sean Spicer said in one representative social media post echoing the president. It was an assertion that Democrats somehow manipulate elections to reach their preferred outcomes, a necessary conspiracy theory to breathe life into ahead of whatever Trump may try in November.

One of the Weirdest, Loudest Members of Congress Faces a Primary Challenge

Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN) — who you may know for his legislation seeking to denaturalize and deport New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, or for his lies about a six-figure personal loan to his campaign that drew comparisons with George Santos, or as the man seeking to amend the Constitution so Trump (but not Barack Obama) can run for a third term — is facing a primary challenge today.

• Former Tennessee Agriculture Commissioner Charlie Hatcher (R) has raised more money than Ogles and has the endorsement of Governor Bill Lee (R), The Downballot reports. Ogles has Trump’s endorsement.
• There is scant polling of the race, but Ogles seems to have a small lead.
• Trump’s subservient Department of Justice did Ogles a favor, too: Immediately before a new gerrymander of the state — primarily seeking to deny Black voters the ability to pick their own candidate, but also drawing Ogles a largely new district with a different electorate — it said it would drop an investigation into whether he committed campaign finance fraud and return or destroy the evidence it had collected.

Tabs

• Perhaps surprisingly, the U.S. greenhouse gas emissions are projected to fall — not, of course, because of anything the federal government is doing, but due to increased reliance on cleaner (if not always entirely clean) fuels.
• Trump speaks often with his new Fed chair, Kevin Warsh, the Wall Street Journal reports — an encroachment on the Fed’s independence.

Man of the Hour

It’s Tom Smith, who won his primary race in Michigan despite having suspended his campaign in July; Trump’s preferred candidate, Amir Hassan, came in second. The candidate Smith endorsed, Al Lemmo, came in third. Lemmo speculated to the New York Times that Smith won because of his “plain-Jane American name.”

Are We at War?

Yes, and Trump is mad that we’re running out of munitions. And mad that we know he’s mad that we’re running out of munitions.

Three Republicans were running in Michigan’s 8th Congressional District primary. Trump in June endorsed Amir Hassan, a Navy Veteran, former Guantánamo guard, and Department of Homeland Security official. Hassan was up against Thomas Smith, a retired engineer, and Al Lemmo, an anti-abortion activist. In July, Smith suspended his campaign and endorsed Lemmo, who had decried Hassan as a “possible Trojan Horse candidate and lifelong Democrat.”

On Tuesday, Smith, who was no longer running, won a pretty clean victory over his Trump-endorsed former opponent.

Chuck Edwards Gets Out, Max Miller Stays In

Two Republican representatives under scrutiny for allegations against them have made different decisions over the last 24 hours.

Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-NC) is dropping his bid for reelection. The congressman was accused of sexual harassment, and an investigation by the House Ethics Committee found he made repeated, aggressive and cringe-inducing advances toward two subordinates, including sending one more than 30 cartons of ice cream on one occasion. In another case, Kate Riga wrote, he printed out his text messages with one of the women and drew hearts on them.

Edwards is a staunch Trump supporter and gave the president a “French Fries Certification” pin as he toured damage from Hurricane Helene, seemingly a reference to Edwards’ past as a McDonalds executive. Edwards also got into a confrontation with a constituent in a bizarre incident covered by TPM last year.

Ohio congressman Max Miller is a different story. Facing a deadline today to drop out, he has seemingly been trying to shore up voters’ and/or Trump’s faith in him, demanding the House Ethics Committee investigate allegations of domestic abuse and violence lodged against him and going on CNN last night in an attempt to rebut various allegations. (He claimed, for example, he had not used illegal drugs in “several years,” and that needles seen by his bed were for testosterone replacement therapy, something he noted Pete Hegseth approves of for “our entire military who are males.”) Nicole Lafond covered that bizarre cable appearance here.

Both are in tight races. Election prognosticators had in recent days given Democrats a better chance in Edwards’ NC-11, the district covering most of Western North Carolina. His exit may give Republicans time to replace him on the ballot with a stronger opponent to face Democrat Jamie Ager, a farmer.

Republicans have the opposite problem in Miller’s district, OH-7. Though Trump won it by 11, a June poll showed him leading Democrat Brian Poindexter, an iron worker, by just one point.

Right-Wing Ballot Measures Flame Out

While we don’t yet have results in the most closely-watched race of the evening — the Michigan Democratic primary — an important theme emerged far down the ballot on Tuesday: Voters in red states rejecting ballot measures designed to give conservatives more control.

• In Kansas, voters opposed by a healthy margin a push by conservative activists, including the state’s notorious attorney general Kris Kobach, to switch the state to electing judges.
• As Kate Riga writes, this was the latest sneaky attempt by Republicans to overturn a 2019 ruling protecting abortion rights in the state. They continue to fail.
• In Missouri, meanwhile, voters resoundingly rejected two ballot measures: one designed to make amending the state constitution through a voter initiative virtually impossible, and one that would have done away with the state’s income tax.

Tabs

• The Missouri secretary of state waited until the last minute to reject an effort by hundreds of people in the state to put Republicans new, 7-1 gerrymander of the state’s congressional map up for a voter referendum. The decision — which, Kate writes, “seemed to mostly rest on the fact that the ability to challenge a map is not explicitly written into the state constitution” — was immediately challenged in court. TPM obtained the lawsuit, which you can read here.
• Texas Governor Greg Abbott has a Stop the Steal-promoting “election integrity” advisor who is engaged in spiritual battle against demons, Texas Monthly writes.

Woman of the Hour

It’s Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), who has concerns about Todd Blanche and will not be voting for him. Blanche needs one of two still-undecided Republicans — Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) — in order to have enough votes for confirmation. The whole thing with Collins is that she usually only votes “no” on Trump administration priorities when there are enough “yes” votes that hers isn’t needed. We’ll see if, in this tough election year, anything is different this time around.

Are We at War?

Yes, as we run out of defensive weapons.

Tighter than we expected based on the polls, at least!

NBC has called the Democratic Senate primary for Abdul El-Sayed. TPM tends to go with the AP for calls, or wait for multiple networks to call it.

Seemingly based on the NBC call, Mallory McMorrow, a third Democratic primary candidate who sought to occupy the middle ground between El-Sayed and Haley Stevens before dropping out, congratulated and endorsed El-Sayed early this morning.

Update, 6:41 a.m.: With the vast majority of the votes now in, El-Sayed and Stevens are separated by less than 20,000. El-Sayed still leads by roughly a percentage point.

Two Elections to Watch Tonight

One critique of Democrats that has stuck with me — lodged by fellow Democrats against their colleagues and themselves — is that they vote in primaries not for who they want to elect, but for who they think their neighbors will elect.

In the face of crushing increases in the cost of living and the rise of right-wing authoritarianism, left-of-center voters’ desire to engage in such mental gymnastics has stated to fray in recent years. Today is the key one for the biggest such experiment this year.

As you’re no doubt aware, public health official Abdul El-Sayed will face Rep. Haley Stevens in Michigan’s Democratic primary for Senate. Stevens has many of the party’s endorsements, but, as Josh Marshall noted last night, the energy in the primary appears to be with El-Sayed. Polls show he may well trounce Stevens this evening.

The outcome then sets up a test for the general election, the result of which, Kate Riga wrote last week, we’re going to be hearing about for years. Mike Rodgers, the Republican candidate, is a fairly run-of-the-mill figure in Trump’s Republican Party, and he’s lost this race before, in 2024. (He of course baselessly claims it was stolen from him.) If El-Sayed wins tonight, and Rodgers wins in November, cable news pundits will harangue Michigan’s Democratic primary voters about their choice until the next such test emerges. If Stevens pulls off an unlikely upset tonight only to lose to Rodgers, the left’s ascendancy in the Democratic Party will, no doubt prematurely, be declared all but assured.

At the end of the day, the voters pick who they pick. It’s then the campaign’s and the party’s job to consolidate the electorate and win.

Tuesday will also see primaries in Virginia, Missouri, Kansas, and Washington State.

We’ll have our eye on a Republican-backed ballot referendum to switch Kansas to judicial elections, the first of what both supporters and opponents see as a growing conservative push nationwide to remake courts so that they are more likely to support Republican policies. Its the latest effort by right-wing operatives in the state to undo a 2019 decision by the state Supreme Court protecting abortion — a wall they’ve been banging their heads against in various ways ever since.

Time Is Running Out For Republicans to Swap Out Max Miller

Trump on Tuesday declined to publicly call for his staffer-turned-member of Congress Max Miller (R-OH) to resign in the face of multiple allegations of abuse and violence, including domestic violence against his wife and two-year-old daughter. But on Monday night, according to an Axios report, Trump called him to share the insight that things “aren’t looking good.”

• Miller would need to drop out by tomorrow in order for Republicans to be able to replace him on the ballot. If he does, a special election would be held to pick a new candidate.
• Miller has insisted he is not dropping out.
• The situation invites comparisons to Democrats’ imbroglio with Graham Platner in Maine, though Platner was never accused of domestic violence. A difference, of course, is that Democrats, including most of Platner’s high-profile allies, spoke in a nearly unified voice to pressure the candidate off the ballot in the face of a sexual assault allegation.
• By contrast, the task of muscling Miller off the ballot has largely fallen to Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH), the father of Miller’s ex-wife. The handful of Republicans who have also called on Miller to quit have framed their perspective as support for Moreno, not a policy of zero tolerance for the kind of allegations repeatedly made against Miller.

Tabs

• TPM’s Emine Yücel looks at a new attempt by the Trump administration to tighten its control over grants distributed by the executive branch, and a nascent attempt by the Senate to (at least temporarily) stop it.
• A second man in less than one year has died at Delaney Hall, a federal detention center in Newark, New Jersey, the New York Times reports.
• NPR looks at the Trump administration’s use of a charge that was most recently widely used to prosecute January 6 insurrectionists to go after the left: conspiracy to impede or injure an officer.

Man of the Hour

It’s Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-NC), who, in a Congress full of men accused of doing awful things, has become the first in years for whom the House Ethics Committee has recommended censure. That’s in part due to the extensive evidence of sexual harassment mustered against him, including odd gifts and reams and reams of corny messages documenting what appear to be attempts at romance with his subordinates. Kate sifts through it here.

Are We at War?

Trump called off strikes this weekend claiming their will be new negotiations, but both sides now say none are planned.

The ‘Depraved Essence of Insider Trading’

An API built by Truth Social, offering financial institutions faster access to the most influential posts on the platform — Trump’s — for $100,000, has gone live. The company has struggled for years to find a business model that works. Now it proposes to distribute early access to the thoughts of the president, which move markets and which he makes exclusively available on the platform, which his family also has a stake in.

In a letter to Truth Media and Technology Group, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MA) called the program the “depraved essence of insider trading.” “A public official with access to the ultimate insider information — his own next actions and policies as the Chief Executive of the United States — is selling advance access to that market-moving information to the high bidders,” he wrote.

This story has captured our attention because it compounds the corruption that has become endemic throughout the executive branch with a new, ridiculous feature of our economy — Trump manipulating the markets through his bespoke social media platform, prompting sell-offs and rallies with his statements about the status of such things as tariffs or the Iran war, regardless of those statements’ grounding in fact.

The problem, however, is not limited to big global issues. The Truth API also compounds Trump’s ability to manipulate the market as it relates to specific companies he favors or disfavors, prone as he is to attack firms and individuals via social media with little notice.

The program appears targeted at the world of computerized, high-frequency trading, where firms take new positions rapidly in response to emerging information, aiming to do so before other actors in the market can catch on that something has changed. Even milliseconds can make a difference.

The Truth API has attracted attention from both the House and Senate. Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Adam Schiff (D-CA) have urged the SEC to investigate. But under the Trump administration, that prospect seems unlikely.

“When you don’t have enforcement of the rules and regulations, when there are different legal outcomes for the president than there would be for any other market actor that acted this egregiously,” Corey Frayer, former senior advisor at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, told TPM’s Layla A. Jones, “it becomes hard to hold anyone accountable.”

Trump’s Reflecting Pool Prosecution Implodes Gradually, Then Suddenly

The Trump administration dramatically dropped its troubled case against Olympian David Hearn amid a flood of finger pointing.

• In a Friday filing, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for D.C. said the Interior Department had provided new documents that showed the damage to the pool to not be the result of vandalism, but instead the product of a botched installation by the contractor. (Kudos to former TPMer Ryan Reilly, who wrote for NBC that the DOJ concluded the allegations did not “hold water.”)
• The remarkable filing also blamed “the rush to complete the project prior to events associated with the America 250 celebration in the weeks surrounding Independence Day 2026.”
• This left Trump raging throughout the weekend at D.C. U.S. attorney Jeanine Pirro. “I disagree 100% with Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, on the Reflecting Pool. I don’t know what she was thinking? To me, it was a pure case of VANDALISM,” he wrote, comparing it to a large “86 47” that was etched into the National Mall.

Tabs

• The Tate Brothers, and Trump world’s connections to them, should be a second, more reality-based Epstein scandal, Brian Beutler writes.
• Rep. Mike Collins (R-GA), who is Republicans’ nominee to run against Jon Ossoff (D-GA) for Senate, is avoiding questions about his white supremacist son in law.

Man of the Hour

It’s Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), who finally has his off-ramp! He’s ready to greenlight Todd Blanche for attorney general after receiving “assurances.” A vote on the nomination will be scheduled for Tuesday after a weekend of angst. David Kurtz will have more on what to make of this deal in Morning Memo.

Are We at War?

A question with an evolving answer. After Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman spoke with Trump this weekend, urging him not to attack Iranian infrastructure out of concern that the country would retaliate against Gulf States, Trump suddenly claimed a deal with Iran to be at hand, and later said talks would begin Monday. Iran said there are no talks. Regardless, whether we are at war or not at war, we are never at war, per Trump.

The Vibe Shifts Again

After the 2024 election, there was quite a bit of focus on the increasingly right-wing ecosystem of podcasts, streaming video and social media clips in which a vast number of Americans were stewing. But a fascinating New York Times analysis published this morning finds that world fraying, with right-wing influencers feuding with one another and audiences declining from early 2025 through today.

The article highlights the role that unpopular issues for Trump — the Iran war, the continually increasing cost of living — have played in making the whole thing less fun. Though the Times article does not go here, it strikes me too that Israel and Gaza have also confused this world, with various reactionary celebrities sorting themselves among those who are more antisemitic and those who are more Islamophobic and critiquing one another accordingly.

Much of this crew has tried to find an edge by continuing to criticize those with power — which now include many former ideological allies. Alex Jones, somewhat comically, called for Trump to be impeached over Iran this week. Tucker Carlson has been similarly critical of the war as he makes dark insinuations about Israel’s control of the U.S. government. Nick Fuentes has become deeply critical of Trump. And Candace Owens, famously, has spun up new narratives about how Charlie Kirk’s killing was an inside job orchestrated by Israel or fellow right-wing activists.

Part of what’s been hard for Democrats in recent years is the party is one supportive of institutions and, more broadly, the power of government to be a force for good. This can be a tough sell during a time when institutions racked up a long record of repeated failures and as many Americans see themselves backsliding. It’s a problem politicians from Chuck Schumer to Zohran Mamdani have had to contend with (and have done so with wildly different degrees of success).

But Trump has ironically now put right-wing podcasts in a similar position: Their guy runs the institutions, and he has used them to invade American cities and launch an unpopular and deepening quagmire in Iran. He refused to make public, and then only begrudgingly, sloppily and selectively released, the Epstein files. Podcaster-turned deputy FBI director-turned podcaster Dan Bongino illustrates this trajectory especially comically; he made his career boosting conspiracy theories, entered the government and declared many of his former ideas to be ill-founded; and now is attempting to establish himself, without much success, on the outside again. He “has seen his livestream views shrink by about half from their peak in 2024,” the Times writes.

Blanche Still Stuck

The latest development in the Blanche confirmation saga came midday yesterday, with Trump threatening to pull the nomination until after the midterms, when Sens. John Cornyn and Thom Tillis, the two Republicans who want more reassurances from Blanche, will be gone from the Senate, thanks in large part to Trump. “I have no objection to temporarily withdrawing Todd’s name, if they do not do the right thing, and putting him back after Cornyn and Tillis are out of office,” he wrote.

• While surely a bummer for Blanche, this whole thing remains more about how the Senate functions under Trump than the future of the DOJ: Blanche can continue to serve as acting attorney general for the duration of Trump’s term.
• True to form, Trump’s attempt to exert leverage over the Senate isn’t all that logical. Whose to say he’ll have the votes for Blanche after the midterms, when the chamber stands at least a chance of falling under Democratic control?
• As David Kurtz has written, Cornyn’s demands are fairly narrow: better defining Trump’s IRS immunity under his settlement agreement, and making sure that the slush fund for his allies is “dead.” The first would still seemingly grant Trump retroactive immunity, and the second would not foreclose other ways of the DOJ paying out Trump’s allies, as it continues to do. Given all this, it is telling Trump does not want to yield and provide Cornyn and Tillis an excuse to vote “yes.”
• For procedural reasons, even if Trump does not pull the nomination, and even if Cornyn is mollified, it now looks unlikely to progress to a full Senate vote before September.

Tabs

• Tina Peters and TPM interview subject Clay Parikh have signed a document calling on the Trump administration to transition the U.S. away from ballot marking machines toward hand-marked paper ballots and for the 2026 midterm elections to not be certified until a full hand count of ballots is completed. The push was first flagged by Media Matters. In an interview about the document noted by Media Matters, Peters also said she urged Trump to fire the heads of the Election Assistance Commission, which he did.
• Emily Moreno filed a new request for a restraining order against former husband Rep. Max Miller (R-OH) yesterday, the Washington Post reports, alleging that Miller physically grabbed one of her attorneys during a hearing Tuesday. Miller faces multiple allegations of abuse and domestic violence. (Miller contends Moreno, who is the daughter of Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH), is lying and is herself dangerous.)

Man of the Hour

Whichever AI enthusiast at the State Department is behind this headline: “US government map of Africa mislabels every country at global conference”

From the Reuters report:

The state ‌department said it took “full responsibility” ‌for the confusion caused and that the map had been produced by a team member who hastily changed ‌the slide deck before the event.

Are We at War?

Still at war.

Correction: This article originally erroneously stated that Tina Peters was advocating to transition away from, not toward increased use of, paper ballots.

Good morning. It was great to meet all of you who came out to our event in New York last night with Marisa Kabas of The Handbasket.

Trump Tries to Raise the Stakes on SAVE Again

President Donald Trump made a show yesterday afternoon of preparing to throw Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) to the wolves out of frustration that the SAVE Act is not yet on track to pass in any form. The latest push is to jam parts of the bill through using budget reconciliation, which requires 51 instead of 60 votes, though Trump also continues to agitate for Thune to nuke the filibuster and pass the full voter suppression package.

Asked whether Thune is the right person to lead the Senate, Trump said, “We will find out, and I will let you know.”

“All right. Well, that’s nice of him, I guess,” Thune told Punchbowl. “I don’t know — what do you say on that? That’s a decision that’s made by my colleagues.”

Throughout Trump’s SAVE Act pressure campaign on his Senate allies, he has repeatedly made demands that misunderstand the reality of how the Senate functions, and how bills become law. He has seemed amenable to passing what everyone has taken to calling the “SAVE Act” through budget reconciliation, even though a SAVE Act done through reconciliation, while bad, would likely be without the nationwide voter-ID and proof-of-citizenship mandates that are core to what the SAVE Act is. It is unclear whether Trump realizes this. He has refused to sign a popular housing bill, though without his signature it simply became law after 10 days; in doing so, the president achieved nothing on the SAVE Act while robbing himself of an opportunity to claim a victory on “affordability.” His demands for the SAVE Act to be attached to various funding bills dramatically complicated his allies’ attempts to fund ICE over Democratic opposition in the spring, and look sure to complicate government funding fights this fall.

When we see legislators take bills hostage, an increasingly common phenomenon since the Obama era that has often led to government shutdowns, the more effective efforts involve lawmakers carefully finding legislation where they have maximal leverage. Trump hasn’t done this — perhaps he doesn’t have the attention to detail to do so — and is as a result unable to truly achieve anything beyond making life considerably more frustrating for his fellow elected Republicans.

That’s the case this week, too. Thune is, of course, right that, in the end, Trump does not select the majority leader, though he may wish he did. Other senators do. Trump can’t oust Thune. But he can elevate him as a target at which his activist base should direct their hate.

Trump’s Blanche Nomination Gets Stuck

John Cornyn (R-TX) has caused a vote to advance Todd Blanche’s nomination for attorney general, scheduled for today, to be postponed.

• Yesterday, Cornyn said he was canceling a meeting with Blanche, explaining that he wanted to see a written modification to the settlement between Trump and the IRS that would have created the “anti-weaponization” slush fund.
• The DOJ told us it sent a “written proposal to Senator Cornyn’s staff.” Cornyn told reporters, “I haven’t seen a single piece of writing that is responsive to what I’ve requested.”
• The vote could move forward whenever Cornyn gives the green light, though at this point that might not happen with enough time to confirm him before the Senate takes a month-long recess, beginning at the end of next week.
• The episode is more significant as a (perhaps short-lived) display of GOP Senate resistance to Trump than as an actual check on the DOJ: Even if Blanche isn’t confirmed, he can remain in the role as acting attorney general. And whatever the fate of the slush fund, settlements for right-wing activists continue, with the DOJ agreeing this week to pay more than a million dollars to an anti-abortion activist who was convicted in 2024 of conspiring to prevent access to a clinic, the New York Times reports.

Tabs

• Republicans may not end up following Trump’s endorsement and picking Darline Graham Nordone to fill her brother’s seat, the Washington Post writes. The Downballot gives a rundown of the many, many other candidates in the race, including some figures we’ve covered quite a bit over the years.
• Kash Patel has lost a defamation suit against an internet poster who called him a “googly-eyed Kremlin bitch” and a “chud,” the New Republic reports. U.S. District Court Judge for the district of Nevada Andrew P. Gordon found he did not have jurisdiction.

Man of the Hour

It’s Alex Jones, the onetime stalwart ally of President Trump who has now turned to demanding his impeachment over the Iran war to attract attention (which, admittedly, he is succeeding in doing). I used a gas station bathroom off I-95 the other day where someone had written “Alex Jones is right” on the soap dispenser — so make of that what you will.

Are We at War?

You bet.

How to Think About the SAVE Act

The SAVE America Act is playing a few roles in our politics right now.

On the one hand, it is a sweeping voter suppression bill, and one prong of Trump’s multifaceted assault on elections. Should it become law, it would add new hurdles for a wide range of Americans to participate in democracy, including voter ID for casting a ballot and proof of citizenship to register to vote. Republican supporters of the bill seem to have the impression that these restrictions would overwhelmingly hurt Democrats, and they are likely right: Recent polling by G. Elliott Morris at Strength In Numbers shows a greater number of Democrats — and Black Americans in particular — are likely to have trouble producing the documents needed to prove their citizenship. The law would hit Republicans, too — more than its supporters seem to realize. Among other things, women who change their names when they get married, a group that certainly includes many white, American-born, Republican voters, may have to provide additional documents to prove their citizenship under their new name.

So thats’s the reality of the SAVE Act, if it passes. Quite significant.

At the same time, the more expansive versions of the SAVE Act, including versions with national mandates around voter ID and proof of citizenship, have never had a clear path through the Senate — even as Trump sporadically attempts to up the pressure on his fellow Republicans to make it happen.

That, despite the seriousness of the legislation at hand, has led to an almost comic dynamic where everything the Senate, and much that the House, tries to accomplish is derailed by new Trump demands related to the SAVE Act. It has blown up primaries, too; Ken Paxton was able to prevent a Trump endorsement of Sen. John Cornyn (R), and ultimately win it for himself, by painting Cornyn as an insufficiently dedicated supporter of the legislation.

So we cover all this keeping two things in our mind at once: Should Republicans find a way to maneuver the SAVE Act through Congress — including by finally agreeing to nuke the filibuster for it, as Trump has demanded — it would create a sweeping distortion of the franchise. In the meantime, however, it has been a force for chaos, with Trump’s monomaniacal fixation on it leading to a far less effective Republican trifecta than we might have predicted in the early days of his second term.

Trump Gets His New, Permanent DNI

Jay Clayton was confirmed last night, Khaya Himmelman reports for TPM, replacing Acting Director of National Intelligence Bill Pulte.

• His confirmation hearing was defined by his alarming refusal to state plainly that Trump lost the 2020 election.
• While that has become a kind of standard operating procedure for Trump nominees before the Senate, it is particularly troubling given what the DNI job has become under Trump: Former DNI Tulsi Gabbard participated in the FBI raid on Fulton County, Georgia’s election hub. Current, acting DNI Bill Pulte headed up a largely ineffectual, new effort to again undermine the 2020 election, culminating in Trump’s big primetime speech earlier this month.
• Fittingly, Politico reports this morning that Pulte is agitating to stay in his acting role a little longer, pushing Trump to delay Clayton’s swearing-in.

Tabs

• Former FBI Director James Comey’s lawyers are seeking grand jury transcripts related to his seashell-photo indictment, Lawfare’s Anna Bower notes — raising fresh questions about the Trump DOJ’s dealings with grand juries as it seeks to punish its enemies.
• Trump said on Truth Social earlier this month that he would ask the Supreme Court to reconsider its ruling on birthright citizenship. The deadline to do so has passed, NBC reports, and he has not.
• Large majorities of Americans support term limits for members of Congress, greater restrictions on money in politics, and scrapping the Electoral College, new polling by Pew Research Center finds.

Man of the Hour

It’s Ross Douthat, leaving his job as a top New York Times opinion writer to become the face of Bari Weiss’ 60 minutes. Good luck in the new job, Ross.

Are We at War?

Yes, with a wave of missiles fired by Iran overnight and Saudi Arabia joining the U.S. in striking Iranian militias.

‘Yeah, That’s Not Going to Happen’

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) and other Senate Republicans are resisting two aspects of Donald Trump’s latest demand that they pass the SAVE Act voter suppression bill: they don’t want to give up or delay their August recess to do so, and they don’t want to nuke the filibuster.

Scrapping the filibuster would allow the SAVE Act to pass with 51 instead of 60 votes. “Yeah, that’s not going to happen,” Thune told ABC News yesterday.

“If the result is only achieved by nuking the legislative filibuster, we don’t have the votes to do that and so that’s not a — that’s just not a realistic option,” he reportedly added.

Trump in recent days has again demanded that both Houses of Congress turn their attention to the SAVE Act and the SAVE Act alone. He has threatened not to sign any legislation until the SAVE Act is passed. In a Monday Truth Social post, he insisted that the Senate delay its recess, and that it nuke the filibuster. “Stupidity always brings LOSING & DEATH!” he warned Thune. Other, vocal right-wing senators, including Mike Lee (R-UT) and Rick Scott (R-FL), are also calling for recess to be delayed.

Thune also dismissed the demands to nix recess, saying it was pointless for the Senate to stay in session without adequate votes for the SAVE Act.

All of this doesn’t entirely close the door on Trump’s push. The House and Senate still have some maneuvers they can try to advance the SAVE Act through budget reconciliation in the next few days, Punchbowl writes. And while the kind of SAVE Act that could be accomplished through reconciliation is not as dramatic as the sweeping election overhaul Trump has been pushing, it would still be ample reason for concern, as law professor and longtime congressional advisor Charles Teifer wrote for us last week.

Trump’s Attempt to Control Elections Through Executive Order Arrives at SCOTUS

A prong of Trump’s attack on the midterms has reached the Supreme Court, the first to do so. It has immediately become one of the most significant issues before the Court.

• Yesterday afternoon, the administration asked the Supreme Court to overturn lower court rulings that have blocked his executive order on elections from March.
• The March order was not his only attempt to seize control of election processes through executive action, but it was one of the most sweeping: it called for federal agencies to compile lists of eligible voters, and for them to exercise control over who can vote by mail.
• The Constitution gives the executive branch no role in setting election rules.
• There are other reasons the Court might be expected to turn the administration back. “If the Supreme Court followed its own guidance with any consistency, the Purcell principle — which prevents courts from changing voting procedures close to elections — would have some heft here, as the administration is demanding enormous and ill-defined changes when the midterms are already underway in many states,” Kate Riga wrote for TPM yesterday. “In recent years, though, the Roberts Court has tended to invoke or ignore Purcell in accordance with Republican preferences.”
• Not unrelatedly, a new Gallup poll finds the Supreme Court’s approval has hit a record low.

Tabs

• Trump recently urged RFK Jr. to do more to investigate supposed links between autism and vaccines, the Wall Street Journal reports.
• The political operative who recruited Graham Platner was himself credibly accused of sexual assault, Marisa Kabas reports for the Handbasket.
• The very extreme far-right candidate James Fishback beat an attempt to kick him off the ballot over questions of his residency, the Miami Herald reports.

Man of the Hour

It’s Sen. Mitch McConnell, not yet back in Congress and drawing demands from Kentucky’s governor Andy Beshear (D) that he “directly, verbally” address his constituents to explain what’s going on.

Are We at War?

Sort of. Trump claims there is a “good chance” for a deal with Iran during this lull. Hear that, stock market?

Hello there. We’re back after a week away.

Administration Explains to Court How It Has Weaponized Federalism 

It’s becoming a cliche, but this administration has the kind of scandal that took up years of the Nixon administration on a weekly, sometimes daily, basis. 

The latest emerges in a New York Times article flagging a court filing in a dispute between the federal government and researchers who work on grant-funded projects. In a stipulation, the administration admits that funds for various Biden-era clean energy projects were withheld from blue states, and blue states alone. 

“With one exception, the 284 terminated grants had a recipient location and/or at least one place of performance in a state that awarded its electoral votes to Kamala Harris in the 2024 election and has two Democratic-caucusing Senators (‘Blue State’ grants),” it confesses.  

Like much in this administration, the magnitude of the scandal is deadened somewhat by the fact that the White House Office of Management and Budget, under the direction of Russ Vought, has made a practice of finding creative and novel ways to impound congressionally appropriated funding, a topic TPM’s Emine Yücel has been diligently chronicling. Back in October 2025, Vought heavily insinuated what was going on with this specific funding by tweeting “$8 billion in Green New Scam funding to fuel the Left’s climate agenda is being cancelled,” adding that the projects “are in the following states: CA, CO, CT, DE, HI, IL, MD, MA, MN, NH, NJ, NM, NY, OR, VT, WA.” 

Elsewhere, the administration has withheld funds with the thinnest of justifications.  Just last week, for example, the Trump administration announced it was withholding $1 billion in Medicaid funds from California and Minnesota, alleging fraud. 

But the stipulation filed in court earlier this month contains no such fig leaf. It makes what is going on explicit. ”The inclusion of grants in the October notice tranche was based solely on the political identity of the grant recipient’s state, i.e., whether the recipient’s location and/or place of performance was in a Blue State or a non-Blue State,” it says. 

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MA) called it an “imbecilic deep betrayal of America.” 

“The illegally impounded funds must be restored and released immediately to the blue states,” he added.

Maine Gets Its Democratic Nominee

Maine has, as expected, nominated Troy Jackson as its Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate. He emerged from Saturday’s pop-up Democratic convention with 566 of 571 delegates voting for him. 

• Jackson, who campaigned with Graham Platner as he ran for governor, shares some of his politics and makes a similar, populist appeal to working-class voters. But he is not a carbon copy of him. He is a logger and former Republican. He also served as Maine Senate president.
• Also unlike pre-implosion Platner, he is less of a star in our attention economy. Put another way, some Maine Democrats are worried he lacks the charisma that boosted Platner’s campaign. 
• In appearances this month, Jackson has focused squarely on talking about defeating Sen. Susan Collins.
• That might be enough. As Kate Riga noted last week, one University of New Hampshire poll fielded earlier this month puts Jackson ahead of Collins by three points.

Tabs

ICE plans to target Haitians — including in Springfield, Ohio, the target of the Trump administration’s campaign smears about people eating pets — now that the Supreme Court has cleared the way for the administration to revoke Temporary Protected Status for hundreds of thousands of people, CBS News reports. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and some state-level Republicans are warning of a significant impact on the economy from losing so many workers, the New York Times reports.

Brazil denied visas to Trump State Department officials, fearing they were coming to undermine the country’s elections, the Washington Post reports.

Woman of the Hour

It’s Laura Loomer, who, after a visit to Ukraine, is now conceding she was “bamboozled by Russian propaganda” and “came to believe a lot of untrue things about Ukraine.”

Are We at War?

Yes, and according to a report in Axios, top military advisors believe our bombing campaign around the Straight of Hormuz “has reached the limit of its effectiveness.”