Tuesday, June 09, 2026

Junior and Lindsey

 Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Lady Bird Chump"


ladybirdchump



Lady Bird Chump, busy with a beautification program.  How sweet.

Meanwhile, news from THE BALLER ALERT: 


Robert F. Kennedy Jr. came into Washington selling medical conspiracies, but now, it seems he may be ready for early retirement.  Kennedy, known widely as RFK Jr., now listed by HHS as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, oversees one of the most consequential portfolios in the federal government. HHS says its divisions work across public health, health care, research, safety, and human services, while its FY26 budget proposal called for $94.7 billion in discretionary authority. That is not a symbolic job. That is a national machinery job.

According to a New York Times report provided in the source material, colleagues described Kennedy as isolated from much of his department’s top staff and focused heavily on food policy, pesticides, and vaccine-related priorities while showing limited engagement with the broader HHS portfolio. The report says several people in attendance at leadership meetings described him as “checked out.”

That phrase is doing a lot of damage because it lands during a tense stretch for public health. The World Health Organization declared the 2026 Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda a public health emergency of international concern on May 17, citing the Bundibugyo strain. The CDC later announced enhanced travel screening, entry restrictions, and other public health measures tied to the outbreak. 

Kennedy’s public answer when asked about Ebola was short: “Yeah, we’re working on it.” The Times report said he had made little public comment on the outbreak after that, while CDC officials handled much of the response.


Junior's an idiot and a disgrace.  David Edwards (RAW STORY) reports on another disgrace: 

With Donald Trump's endorsed candidate facing a potentially embarrassing primary Tuesday, some of the loudest voices in MAGA world are rooting for him to lose — and they're not whispering about it.

On Monday's edition of Steve Bannon's War Room, Bannon and Noel Fritsch — a conservative campaign consultant working for GOP Senate candidate Mark Lynch — gleefully torched Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on the eve of South Carolina's Republican primary, warning the four-term incumbent could fall below the 50% threshold required to avoid a runoff.

"This would be the most humiliating thing that would ever happen to Lindsey Graham," Bannon said.

Trump formally endorsed Graham in April and, with the primary hours away, announced a last-minute tele-rally Monday evening in a scramble to push Graham over the line. It didn't stop his own base from celebrating the incumbent's struggles.

Fritsch, who identifies himself as a consultant for Lynch — a Greenville businessman self-funding his challenge to the tune of $5 million — was withering.

"Lindsey Graham is an embarrassment," Fritsch said. "These phony — they're counterfeit Republicans. It's not even fair to use the word Republican in the same sentence with a lot of these guys. They are going to sell out the country to the lowest bidder, and everybody knows it now, Steve."


"The Snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS): 

Monday, June 8, 2026.  Chump MEETS THE PRESS and it does not go well, Markwayne Mullin flies the friendly skies on the same private jet Kristi Noem once did, Pete Hegseth rules that Mormons are not members of a religious faith, and much more. 

As Ben (MEIDASTOUCH NEWS) notes this morning, Chump's in hiding after his disaster MEET THE PRESS appearance. 


Jane C. Timm (NBC NEWS) offers a fact check of Chump's MEET THE PRESS appearance:


Gas prices

Asked about rising gas prices that have resulted from the war, Trump said they would go down once a deal is reached.

“If we sign an agreement, it’ll go down now. Otherwise, they’ll go down after we’re finished,” Trump said.

But oil executives have said it will take time to restore oil production in the Middle East and bring down gas prices, even if the Strait of Hormuz is reopened immediately.

Exxon Senior Vice President Neil Chapman said at a Bernstein Research conference late last month that it is “going to take time to rebalance the global markets” once the strait reopens due to dwindling inventories.

“You can estimate four to six weeks before we get into a normal supply chain,” he said. “And it all depends on whether the strait opens — at what time it opens. And then the question for the world and every country and every commercial organization is how quickly do you rebuild those inventories?”

Meanwhile, Sultan Al Jaber, chief executive of the United Arab Emirates state oil group ADNOC, recently said: “Even if this conflict ends tomorrow, it will take at least four months to get back to 80% of pre-conflict flows and full flows will not return before the first or even second quarter of 2027.”

Jan. 6 riot

Trump defended the Justice Department’s proposed $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund, saying that allies who “have been hurt so badly by radical left lunatics” deserve payment. While the Justice Department told a court that the fund is “not going forward,” there’s nothing to stop the Trump administration from giving payouts to Trump allies in the future, even without the fund.

Asked by Welker whether anyone who attacked police officers on Jan. 6 should receive funds, Trump said he “wouldn’t be inclined to say so, but I have to see it.”

When Welker again brought up the roughly 170 Jan. 6 rioters who pleaded guilty to assaulting police officers, Trump said: “They pled guilty because they were frightened. They went down. They were ushered into a building. Many of them were arrested without even going into the building.”

This needs context, as some of the most violent rioters from that day never entered the building. The Biden Justice Department’s sprawling Jan. 6 probe mostly focused on individuals who either entered the Capitol itself or engaged in some sort of aggravating conduct outside the Capitol, such as assaulting police officers.

For example, one of the longest sentences went to David Dempsey, who was ordered to serve 20 years in prison. Prosecutors said he swung makeshift weapons and hurled objects at officers, sprayed them with chemicals, and stomped five times on an officer’s head — acts committed outside the Capitol building itself.

Trump also claimed the FBI brought people into the Capitol on Jan. 6.

“They had FBI agents ushering them into the building,” Trump said.

As Welker noted during the interview, there’s no evidence that any FBI special agents ushered anyone into the building, and no on-duty FBI special agents were on the grounds until after the riot broke out and some responded to assist with crowd control.

There were four FBI confidential human sources, or informants, who entered the Capitol building, but they weren’t directed to do so by the bureau, according to a report from the Justice Department’s inspector general. The report also found that the FBI tasked three informants to report on domestic terrorism suspects who were possibly attending events in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6. The FBI did not provide tasks for the other 23 informants in Washington that day.



That's an excerpt.  Garret Downs (CNBC) notes:

President Donald Trump stormed out of a taped interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” after being pressed on his controversial “weaponization” fund and on evidence of his persistent claims of election fraud.

Trump sat with NBC’s Kristen Welker for a taped interview on a Wisconsin farm that touched on the Iran war, potential interest rate hikes, and the $1.776 billion “weaponization” fund that could financially compensate convicted violent rioters who attacked police officers on Jan. 6, 2021. Thousands of people stormed the Capitol that day, attempting to disrupt the certification of former President Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory.

The president said he would like to see the weaponization fund proceed despite setbacks that prompted acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to say it was permanently halted.

[. . .]

Trump suggested Jan. 6 rioters were ushered into the Capitol by the FBI, a claim that he did not provide evidence for and which has been widely refuted by video of rioters beating Capitol Police officers who were trying to defend the building.

 Pressed by NBC for evidence on those claims, Trump shifted to claims of election fraud, which he has long claimed but has been unable to prove in a court of law.

“The election was rigged, it was a dirty election and it’s happening again right now in California,” he said, referring to primaries for mayoral and gubernatorial elections in the state, where votes are still being counted.


He continued to lie until storming off the set, throwing the microphone to the ground and stepping on it.    Chad de Guzman (TIME) notes:


“Let’s call it quits because I’ve had enough,” Trump said, ending the interview. “Thank you darling. Have a good time.” On his way out, he appeared to step on the microphone.

The President has clashed with the press for reporting critically on him and his Administration, and he has also had a pattern of targeting female journalists in particular.


The MEET THE PRESS transcript of the interview is here.  Today on MS NOW's MORNING JOE, Mika addressed the interview.






President Trump, who campaigned on a central promise to keep the United States out of overseas wars, denied in an interview aired on Sunday that he’d ever made the pledge.

“I didn’t guarantee no war,” Mr. Trump said in a lengthy interview with Kristen Welker, the host of NBC’s “Meet the Press,” taped during his trip to Wisconsin on Friday. “Why would I have built the strongest military in the world?”

Speaking about the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran, he continued: “So when you say I promised, I didn’t promise anything. I don’t like these endless wars. This is not an endless war. We’ve been doing this for three months.”

He did promise. As a candidate in 2024, Mr. Trump repeatedly pledged not to involve the United States in war, including on the night he won the election. “They said, ‘He will start a war,’” Mr. Trump said during his victory speech. “I’m not going to start a war. I’m going to stop wars.”


Chump is a liar.  He is a very sick person.  

Speaking on MEET THE PRESS, he spoke of how he wants to revive the slush fund.  The one Blanche has sworn is dead.  Permanently.  That would be the same slush fund that is currently causing legal problems for Chump.  David McAfee (RAW STORY) reports: 

President Donald Trump's decision to abandon his $1.8 billion IRS settlement didn't defuse the legal crisis surrounding it — it just shifted the target, according to a federal trial attorney who has been tracking the case.

Sabrina Haake, a 25-year federal litigator and political analyst who writes the Substack newsletter The Haake Take, argues that Trump dropped the so-called anti-weaponization fund not because of political pressure ahead of the midterms, but to avoid forcing the appointment of a third attorney general. The real threat, she writes, came from an extraordinary intervention by 35 retired federal judges.

On May 27, those judges — spanning both parties — filed a motion to reopen Trump's IRS case on suspicion of fraud against the court. Their motion accused the Department of Justice of deceiving U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams by announcing a settlement publicly without notifying the court, then using that settlement as legal justification for transferring $1.776 billion in taxpayer money to Trump, his family, and his businesses while purporting to release all federal claims against them.

The judges called it "most egregious conduct involving a corruption of the judicial process itself," writing that the parties "used the proceedings before this Court as a legal pretext" while working to prevent the court from determining whether a legitimate case even existed. If Trump controlled both sides of the same case and personally profited from the outcome, the judges reasoned, there was no legal controversy — only theft.


Todd Blanche, the idiot who doesn't understand the law.  The idiot who thinks the Senate should confirm him as Attorney General.  Todd Blanche who doesn't understand the term "public servant" and instead sees his role as Deputy AG and now as AG as "public defender for Chump."  No, that's not what the Attorney General is supposed to be.  


McAfee also reports that US House Rep Ted Lieu is warning Blanche:


Rep. Ted Lieu is done being subtle about Todd Blanche.

The California Democrat delivered a blunt message to the acting attorney general late on Saturday night after Blanche announced the DOJ would not be releasing the 2.5 million remaining Epstein files in its possession, saying the department had "moved on."

"Dear Todd Blanche: You don't get to decide to 'move on' from the Epstein Files or from following the congressional law," Lieu wrote. "That decision can only be made by the American people and Congress. You will be disbarred. The files will eventually be released."

Lieu added, "November is coming."

It wasn't Lieu's only shot at Blanche this weekend. The congressman also responded to a report that Blanche had said that he was putting "roadblocks" in place to make it harder for Democrats to hold Trump accountable in the future.

Lieu's response: "Dear Todd Blanche: So what illegal actions by Trump would compel you to think a future Administration would hold Trump accountable? Please do share."


Blanche apparently doesn't understand what it means when Congress passes an act and the act is signed into law by the president.  It means it's a law and that the government is compelled to obey it.  But Blanche insists that he-- not even yet made Attorney General -- can reject a law.  That he has some power not granted in the Constitution that allows him to determine which laws must be obeyed ad which he can ignore. 


 Let's move over to Markwayne Mullin.  Markwayne Mullin replaced Kristi Noem as Homeland Security Secretary.  on March 24th.  Kristi?  Chump had to call in Tom Homan to fix things.  It appears to be going the same way with Markwayne.  Tom Boggioni (RAW STORY) reports:


Violent clashes between protesters and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents at Newark's Delaney Hall detention facility forced the Trump administration to deploy its top immigration official for emergency de-escalation after newly appointed DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin made the situation dramatically worse.

According to Politico reporting by Myah Ward, tensions that had been escalating nightly cooled only after border czar Tom Homan was dispatched to meet with state and local officials and negotiate a resolution to the standoff.

The crisis began when images and videos surfaced showing violent clashes between pro-immigrant demonstrators and ICE agents outside the 1,000-bed, privately run detention facility. The unrest followed allegations of poor conditions inside the facility and a detainee hunger strike. Democratic lawmakers descended on the site to condemn detention conditions and accuse federal agents of violence against protesters.

Mullin's response made matters worse. The new DHS secretary threatened to pull customs staffing from Newark Liberty International Airport—a threat that shocked administration officials and sparked airline industry fears of travel chaos across the region.


Is Markwayne unqualified for the post he's been given?  Or is he just a slow starter?  Robert Davis (RAW STORY) reports:


Markwayne Mullin may have been brought in to straighten out the Department of Homeland Security following former Secretary Kristi Noem's tenure, but a new report shows that Mullin may be more of the same, according to one legal expert. 

The Independent reported in late May that Mullin regularly uses a controversial $70 million Gulfstream jet to fly home to Oklahoma on Thursdays and doesn't return to work until Monday afternoon, meaning he works at most three days a week in Washington, D.C. The aircraft includes a queen bed, a bar, and showers, according to the report. It was one of nine jets the Trump administration approved to purchase with funds meant for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, it added.

Legal expert Shant Karnikian discussed the report during a new episode of the podcast, "Civil Action," on Sunday.

"We'll see how long this lasts," Karnikian said of Mullin's tenure in the Trump administration. "This is apparently the swamp draining that Donald Trump had in mind."

Mullin was brought in to replace Noem after the former secretary publicly undercut President Donald Trump about funding for advertising campaigns featuring Noem. While Mullin told Senators during his confirmation hearing that he would help get Homeland Security back on track, some of his actions seem to suggest otherwise.

For instance, Mullin has called for ICE to return to its old training methods that were curtailed following months of violent clashes between federal agents and protesters. Mullin has also been combative with lawmakers who have questioned his leadership at the department. 


Still on ICE, Sophie Hurwitz (MOTHER JONES) reports:

Early Saturday morning, a woman whose husband is detained at ICE’s Delaney Hall in Newark, New Jersey, drove nearly two hours to visit him. She was turned away at the gate. 

GEO Group—the multibillion-dollar ICE contractor that runs Delaney Hall—had cancelled family visitation for the day. She sat on a curb, cried, and drove home. Throughout the morning, I saw half-a-dozen women and children arrive: all were told they would not be seeing their loved ones that day.

More than two weeks since detainees began a hunger and labor strike inside Delaney Hall—and their allies outside answered with near-daily protests—it’s still incredibly difficult to find out what’s going on inside the facility. Often, family members find their visits rescheduled or canceled, and journalists have not made it in, either. 

Members of Congress are allowed by law to conduct unannounced oversight visits to ICE facilities like Delaney. But politicians have been turned away, too. New Jersey congresswoman LaMonica McIver is facing assault charges after she was arrested alongside Newark mayor Ras Baraka trying to conduct an oversight visit last year. New Jersey governor Mikie Sherrill tried to visit the jail in late May, and was denied. 


And then there's Pete.  Pete Hegseth who was so obviously wrong from the moment Chump nominated him for Secretary of Defense.  Hegseth was never qualified and that's only become even clearer as he has remained the Secretary.  For example, CK Smith (SALON) reports:


The Department of Defense has significantly reduced the number of recognized religious affiliation codes used across the military, consolidating roughly 200 categories down to 31 in a broader administrative overhaul of how service members’ religious identities are recorded.

Of those 31 categories, 22 are variations of Christianity, most major Protestant denominations.

Social media is also pointing out the list’s inconsistencies. Catholicism is now listed under a single designation under Christianity without similar distinctions of their denominations. Atheists will now be grouped under “Agnostic” — despite each category representing very different beliefs. Jehovah’s Witnesses are categorized under Christianity, while the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons) isn’t. All of Judiasm is under a single category. And it’s odd to see Quaker listed so prominently as their doctrine is famously nonviolent and anti-war.


Who put Hegseth in charge of determining what was a religion and what wasn't one?  Whomever did that might need to explain to the Mormons how the US government has now declared them a non-religion.  And it hasn't gone unnoticed.  Alexander Willis (RAW STORY) notes:


Sen. John Curtis (R-UT) lashed out Saturday at Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s office over a “significant change” it instituted regarding the classifications of religions, one he argued was “unacceptable” and that he was actively working to correct.

This week, the Department of Defense announced that it had significantly reduced the number of recognized religions within the agency, down from more than 200 to 31. The change, according to Sean Parnell, Hegseth’s assistant for public affairs, was to allow “religious support personnel" to better provide "spiritual care to our warfighters.”

The issue, Curtis claimed, was that in whittling down the number of recognized religions, Hegseth’s office had declared the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints – commonly referred to as the Mormon Church – to not be a Christian religion.

“Latter-day Saints are among the most patriotic, service-oriented individuals in our country. They are also unequivocally Christian – just look at who is in the name of the Church,” Curtis said in a statement published on social media Saturday. “It is unacceptable for a government entity to characterize a faith in a manner that contradicts the religion’s own foundational tenets. I am working now to ensure a correction is made.”


Let's wind down with this from Senator Ron Wyden's office:

Washington, D.C. — U.S. Senator Ron Wyden, D-Ore., called for Republican leaders to negotiate on real reforms to warrantless government surveillance, instead of insisting on repeating their failed effort to extend FISA Section 702 without a single meaningful reform. The Senate voted 47-52 early Friday morning against taking up a FISA extension bill.

“Americans aren’t going to stand for law-abiding people being spied on. There’s bipartisan agreement in Congress that the status quo isn’t good enough to protect Americans’ rights against abuse by the government,” Wyden said. “Bill Pulte’s appointment as acting Director of National Intelligence is a symptom of the larger problem: Warrantless FISA surveillance depends on a handful of government officials to choose not to misuse the most powerful spying apparatus the world has ever seen. Firing Pulte won’t solve the real problem. Americans are demanding real protections written into the law, not promises that the next guy will be trustworthy.

“Republican leaders have failed three times this year to pass a long-term extension of warrantless FISA surveillance without a single new meaningful protection. Instead of trying a fourth time, they should put real surveillance reforms on the table.” 

Wyden has authored bipartisan surveillance reform legislation to reform Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and has spent decades leading the fight against the expansion of unnecessary government surveillance.

###




The following sites updated:

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Friday, June 05, 2026

Saikat Chakrabati loses

Saikat Chakrabarti lost.  He will not move on to the general election for Nancy Pelosi's seat.  Kevin Rector (LOS ANGELES TIMES) reports:

Even on her way out, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) — 86 and retiring — held sway.

Last month, in the final stretch of the race to replace her, Pelosi endorsed Connie Chan, a member of the San Francisco board of supervisors and a candidate who had until then struggled to gain traction. The move clearly had an effect, with Chan advancing out of Tuesday’s primary to the general election in November, according to the Associated Press.
Political observers were quick to note that Pelosi’s famed political influence was alive and well, as made clear as of Wednesday morning by Chan’s bounding past the third-place finisher, tech millionaire and Democratic political operative Saikat Chakrabarti, who self-funded his campaign to the tune of nearly $10 million.
But cast another way, the race’s early results also showed the limits of Pelosi’s influence — in the form of state Sen. Scott Wiener, who as of Wednesday morning was clearly the race’s front-runner, holding a double-digit lead over both Chan and Chakrabarti.

So Weiner and Chan advance.  As for Chakrabarti?  He never stood a chance.  C.I. noted that at THE COMMON ILLS months ago.  Noted that this New Yorker showing up in San Francisco was neither wanted nor needed.  Reading  Joe Garofoli's piece at THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, I see some of the same points C.I. made a few months back:

But Chakrabarti, who finished third in the race to succeed Pelosi, didn’t account for the most important factor of all: San Francisco has its own set of rules when it comes to running for office. Candidates need to treat it more like a small town than New York City, where Chakrabarti masterminded Ocasio-Cortez’s 2018 upset of Joe Crowley, then the No. 4 Democrat in the House. Yes, it is a big city with big-city problems and characters, but it is also a 7-by-7-mile hothouse where politics are extremely relationship-driven. Chakrabarti didn’t do enough to forge the right relationships. 

Unlike Ocasio-Cortez’s primary victory, where about 12% of registered voters cast ballots, hyper-engaged San Francisco voters typically best the state’s turnout figures. The newcomer would have a lot of people to meet to beat state Sen. Scott Wiener, who served on the Board of Supervisors and represents part of the district in the Legislature, and Supervisor Connie Chan, who has lived here since immigrating as a teenager and is well known to the city’s Asian American community. 
[. . .]
But San Francisco Democratic Party Chair Nancy Tung added a telling detail to that description when we spoke Wednesday: “It’s a knife fight in a phone booth where you know everybody in the phone booth.” 
From Tung’s vantage point, Chakrabarti didn’t do enough outreach to the city’s 23 chartered Democratic Party clubs nor the city’s influential political class who are very engrossed in the city’s politics. While national organizations like Justice Democrats, which Chakrabarti co-founded, the Sunrise Movement and Stanford Democrats endorsed him, the only local club that backed him was the San Francisco Latino Democratic Club and it is not a chartered San Democratic Party club, Tung said. 

Tung pointed out that every candidate the San Francisco Democratic Party endorsed won or was leading in the latest count, including Weiner. “There are 200 people that you need to know in San Francisco politics in order to really have a handle on the political landscape,” Tung said. “That’s what is so unique about San Francisco. We are a big city, we have big-city problems, we have big-city budgets and money, and yet, quite frankly, this is the smallest big city you will ever find.”

Saikat, Tung said, “was not one of (those 200 people), and he was never one of them.” 

Nor did he apparently seek many of them out. Pelosi, who endorsed Chan, emphasized that point in an interview with KQED last month. 

“I’ve never seen him at a homeless shelter, or a food bank or an immigration center,” Pelosi said. “I’ve never seen him in our community. I don’t have any idea who he is.”


He thought he could buy the office and spent ten million dollars of his own money.  But he couldn't buy the office.  No one here cares about "Justice" "Democrats" and they didn't care about Saikat or Saikat's tendency to declare this person wasn't a Democrat or that person wasn't a Democrat or . . .  He was irritating and he was smug.  He thought he was going to show up a newbie and take the area by storm.  Didn't happen.   


"The Snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

Thursday, June 4, 2026.  Donald Chump continues the war against Iran and continues losing the war, he's gearing up to nominate Todd Blanche to be Attorney General, even four Republicans rebuke him in the House, in the Senate his ballroom doesn't get a vote, and much more.


Ben (MEIDASTOUCH NEWS) breaks down the latest on Chump's Iranian war. 
 





Four Republican lawmakers broke party lines Wednesday to pass a resolution curbing Donald Trump’s war powers in his military campaign in Iran.

The four Republicans who joined Democrats were Representatives Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Tom Barrett of Michigan, and Warren Davidson of Ohio.

The measure to remove U.S. armed forces from hostilities with Iran passed in the House 215–208.

As a concurrent resolution, the measure must be passed by both chambers of Congress. Democratic Senator John Fetterman, a staunch supporter of Israel, has single-handedly prevented previous versions of the measure from passing in the Senate, despite defections from three Republican senators.


Claudia Grisales (NPR) reminds, "The resolution had originally been set for a vote two weeks ago, but Republican leaders sent House members home early for a May recess when it appeared the largely Democratic-backed measure had enough Republican votes for passage. However, the extended break didn't shift GOP support to kill the measure."  Robert Jimison (NEW YORK TIMES) notes, "The measure they supported does not require a presidential signature but still faces long odds of being enacted — and even if it were, it would likely be challenged by the administration. But its adoption, along with a similar measure advancing in the Senate in recent weeks, was a clear repudiation of Mr. Trump’s handling of the war in Iran."  Miranda Jeyaretnam (TIME) quotes US House Rep Gregory Meeks stating, "I am thrilled that we;ve had the opportunity to have some members from the Republican side stand up. I'm really thrilled and proud of my Democratic colleagues, because every Democrat, every single one voted for this.  We're going to continue to do our constitutional responsibilities, that's what we're doing. We're going to continue and be a check and a balance when the administration doesn't follow the Constitution."  Travis Gettys (RAW STORY) notes:


President Donald Trump raged at the four "bad Republicans" who voted with the Democratic minority to end his war against Iran.

The 79-year-old president lashed out Wednesday morning after the Iran war powers resolution passed 215-208 in the GOP-led House after Republicans Tom Barrett of Michigan, Warren Davidson of Ohio, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania and Thomas Massie of Kentucky joined Democrats in the vote.


As Chump throws his tantrum, Sarah K. Burris notes:


President Donald Trump is panicking, The Atlantic's Vivian Salama, Jonathan Lemire and Nancy Youssef wrote on Wednesday.

According to the report, talks between the U.S. and Iran are on hold while Trump tries to build up to a kind of war "grand finale."

Trump decided that he wanted to combine the Iran deal with the Abraham Accords, a set of agreements between Israel and other Middle Eastern countries to normalize relations.

Trump wanted "those countries that hadn’t yet joined the Abraham Accords [to] get on board." The various leaders gave him a "less than lukewarm response."

One U.S. official told the reporters that a leader spoke up, calling the idea interesting, but then there was silence. During the 90-minute call, there were several times that Trump asked, “Hello? Hello? Anyone there?”

The story explains why there have been so many reports of an agreement with Iran, only for nothing to come to light. Trump reportedly became "irritated" about those comparing his deal to the one established under former President Barack Obama. Trump's was being mocked as "weaker." He wanted to find a way to make his agreement better than Obama's.



Let's note this from Senator Patty Murray's office about Secretary of State Marco Rubio appearing before the Senate Appropriations Committee yesterday and be asked about the war:

***WATCH: Senator Murray’s full questioning***

Washington, D.C. — Today—at a Senate Appropriations State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Subcommittee hearing on the FY27 budget request for the Department of State—U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, pressed Secretary Marco Rubio on whether he advised Trump to go to war with Iran, and she slammed Trump’s proposal to blow $1.5 trillion on his war budget instead of helping families afford groceries, gas, housing, health care, and child care.

[IRAN WAR]

Senator Murray questioned Secretary Rubio on his role in advising the president on matters of national security and what his opinion was on engaging in war with Iran.

MURRAY: Mr. Secretary, you are not only the Secretary of State—you are also the president’s National Security Advisor. Those are both full-time jobs when we’re at peace, let alone as we have troops deployed in multiple conflicts around the world and the president is threatening to invade Cuba. 

So, I want to just ask you specifically about Iran. You were one of just a handful of top aides with a seat at the table when the president ultimately did decide to launch the Iran war.

Did you advise the president against the war?

RUBIO: I’ll never tell anybody what I advised the president privately, but I will tell you that the president had before him all the information that he needed. I agree with the decision that he made, if that’s what you’re asking, because the President of the United States saw a threat of Iran developing a nuclear weapon behind a conventional shield that, in about a year, would have been impenetrable, and we could not allow them to develop that immunity, and then they could break out to a weapon.

MURRAY: So, you won’t tell us. you know, this is a question that millions of Americans are asking, how on earth did we get here? So, I wanted to know what did you advise the president? Were you for or against this war, or did you—the Secretary of State and National Security Advisor—have no opinion?

RUBIO: No, I just told you I support the president’s decision. I think he made the right decision, but I cannot tell you, and will never do. And you have to understand, nobody in my role has ever done is to go to you and say, “oh, I was in a meeting and I told the president this,” I just can’t do that, I won’t do that, it’s unwise to do that, and it’s unfair. But I am telling you, the president made the right decision, that’s my view, I believe in it strongly.

MURRAY: You do now, okay. Let me just—

RUBIO: I always have, I mean, in terms of my view of the challenge that it poses.

MURRAY: Okay, well back in March, you said this war would end in: “weeks, not months.” And here we are four months, hundreds of troops injured or killed, and billions of dollars later.

Trump promised everybody he was going to lower prices and no new wars. Now we have higher prices and a new war. Trump promised the American people this war would be fast and decisive. It has been slow, and secret, and endless.

And the majority of Americans do oppose this conflict. What my constituents are telling me is they want child care, they want health care to be more affordable, they don’t want Trump to have 1.5 trillion dollars for a defense budget to start wars around the globe. I hear that constantly from so many people.

[VALUE OF INVESTING IN DIPLOMACY & ASSISTANCE]

MURRAY: You know Secretary Rubio, let me just say this: diplomacy and development tools help keep us safe here at home by mitigating conflict, by mitigating disease, other global threats. But the budget that you are here to defend—which would slash this work to the bone, while sending war spending through the roof—makes clear that diplomacy is Trump’s last priority.

And by the way it’s not just the budget, or the unhinged rants attacking allies like Greenland and Canada, or threatening to “end civilizations,” or Trump treating war like a game—the White House posting literal video game edits as if he weren’t getting American soldiers injured.

It’s also the actions that you have taken over the past year to gut the State Department—deeply concerning, dismantle foreign aid, abdicate American leadership. Under your leadership, it is deeply concerning that State left 500 tons of food aid to rot in ports, and it had to be incinerated. Or pushing out thousands upon thousands of dedicated public servants—including families who put country first here, and left their home to serve around the world only to be sacked with no rhyme, no reason. I’ve heard from them.

Meanwhile, you are planning to put Trump’s face on U.S. passports. As if that is going to help our image when all that’s happening. And the hack-and-slash job that you have done to foreign assistance, and you’re asking for in this budget, has not only shattered America’s global leadership, it has led to millions of preventable deaths. Programs have been frozen, grants have been cancelled, lifesaving work utterly turned upside down.

I want to talk about global health—the stakes of life and death are here under global health. PEPFAR-supported testing reach[ed] nearly five million fewer people than the year before. In Zambia, babies born to HIV-positive moms used to be tested within hours of birth, and treatment started immediately for positive cases. Now babies are not being even tested until they’re six weeks old.

So you are not just cutting resources that I just reference—you are actually cutting the United States out of the conversation on global health threats and leaving all of us less prepared. We are in the middle of a deadly Ebola epidemic, we are seeing a worrisome hantavirus outbreak, this administration has halted funding to the World Health Organization. And you are currently withholding nearly two billion dollars in FY 25 Global Health funding that was appropriated with bipartisan support here, signed into law by President Trump, and expires in less than four months.

Now, I know that Ebola funding somehow miraculously started moving when we were seeing bad headlines—but what is moving right now Mr. Secretary is less than two percent of what is available. So my point is that the delay in mobilizing those resources has cost us valuable time and let this disease kill more people. And the fact is, we already had these support systems in place, they were in place, until this Administration destroyed them.

And even as we stare down a crisis caused by this administration’s incompetence in my opinion, you are here today to defend a budget that doubles down on that—that is what is really disturbing to me—with a 40% cut to Global Health Programs in this budget. So to my point of view, this budget doesn’t make America great again, it makes the world sicker and less safe.

And that I’m just talking about the cuts that you’re proposing with this budget, because we cannot ignore the biggest line item in the president’s overall budget that’s in front of us—which is war. 1.5 trillion dollars for war.

Not a cent [more] for child care. Not a cent to make health care more affordable. That is the budget that you are here today to defend, and it spends $1.5 trillion on war and slashes your Department to ribbons.

So that is what is concerning to me, as you come before our committee today to back this request up. It just seems to me we are cutting diplomacy and paying defense contractors, and I just believe from my point of view, and I know you disagree with me, but I just think this is the wrong way for our country to go. A budget is a statement of values. I’ve said it many, many times, and I think it is in big question where the values are in this budget. So that’s where I am.

RUBIO: Mr. Chair, Senator Boozman, can I respond? Because she touched a lot of topics. I don’t know if I can get all of them, you know, but, but I’m going to get to most of them.

CHAIR: Sure.

RUBIO: Because I strongly disagree with almost everything you’ve said,

MURRAY: I figured you would.

RUBIO: A couple points. First, let’s talk about the State Department. The State Department was actually one of the least impacted of all the agencies in government.

MURRAY: I’m not talking about least impacted. You heard—

RUBIO: No, no, no, no. But let’s be frank, we didn’t—not a single, for example, overseas employee was RIF’d from the State Department. The vast majority of the reduction in forces came from the career civil service, not the foreign service, and that’s because we got rid of the functional bureaus and put all the power under the regional bureaus. It’s one of the best things we’ve ever done, and I think it’s going to prove to be very wise. And we already see the impacts of it.

Let’s walk through some of the programs you’ve pointed to. So, for example, our disaster response today around the world, because we combine those accounts, is faster than it’s ever been, and more effective than it’s ever been. These are not theories, it is the reality. We responded to hurricanes in the Caribbean, Jamaica, and Cuba, by the way, $3 million in aid to Cuba, faster at a record pace than ever before. We’ve responded to two typhoons in the Indo-Pacific faster than we’ve ever responded, because we combined and consolidated those accounts, and we’re able to move very, very quickly in that regard.

Beyond that, you mentioned the PEPFAR. The reality of it is, first of all, you have to combine it with all these other programs that we’re involved in, but if you look at the numbers for the last, well in the third quarter of 2026, 2025, the exact number of people that were receiving medications were receiving medications during that period of time. The exact number, and it’s going to even improve, because we’re adding innovation to it. There have been recent innovations in AIDS treatment, HIV treatments that are even more effective than some of the legacy programs that are available.

MURRAY: Mr. Secretary it is very clear why you are the secretary, because you’re very good at words.

RUBIO: No, but I’m giving you, I don’t know how else can I answer you other than words?

MURRAY: I will stand by my statement against yours. I just will.  

RUBIO: What was that?

MURRAY: I will stand by all of the facts that I gave.

RUBIO: Okay, but I get a chance to respond, right?

MURRAY: Well, my times out, it’s up to the chair.

CHAIR: You can respond.

RUBIO: Okay. So, on the other things you’re not talking about, those I think are very valuable to this, are these global health compacts that we’re entering with 32 countries, 27 of them in Africa. In which we’re basically going to the country to say, “okay, we used to give money for clinics, we used to give money for health care, we used to give money for maternal care,” and we used to have it in a bucket, and it was maternal care globally, and then we went out and dished out contracts for people to go into individual countries.

Now we’re entering into contracts, compacts, agreements with the country, and we’re saying to them, “okay, what are your needs?” And we’re doing this through the embassies. “What are your specific needs in this country?” And entering into a compact, not just to provide them aid for these things that they need, but to help them strengthen their national health care systems, so that long term they will be self-sustaining. Now, in some countries, it may take 10 years to get to that point, some it may take less. But for the first time, we are not just having these buckets that then are distributed broadly around the world. It is targeted at the highest needs of those countries based on their own domestic strategies and allowing us to become a value added to their strategy and to build their capacity. That’s something that hasn’t been talked about.

You look at what we’ve done with OCHA [United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs], we’ve signed the first humanitarian reset agreement in Geneva, and along with our anchor pledge of 2 billion in support for the 18 country-based crisis level pool funds. This is going to allow us to respond in a more effective way. With the Global Fund, we’ve entered into agreement with the Global Fund. They’ve put out repeated statements thanking the United States for the role that we are playing with the Global Fund, and we’re prepared to do more if donors match what we are providing, we’re prepared to do even more in that regard.

The list goes on and on. The point is, this is not about, first of all, this is not about denying and being punitive towards the world. This is about delivering aid, but delivering it in a more effective and concise and consolidated way that actually gets more aid to more people faster, that is the goal. And I think we’re well on our way to achieving it.

Now, as far as the budget is concerned, you know we operate under an OMB guidance that tells us, “this is how much you have, tell us what you would do if this is what you get.” We present this to you, having served here for a long period of time, I said this before you walked in, so perhaps you missed this point, is we always understand that there’s going to be a congressional process in which you’re going to look at our request and generally ignore it, but in many cases add to it or reframe it, and we’re prepared to work with you as we did last year in the passage of an appropriations bill, which we would like to see passed, because when you pass appropriations bills, it gives us the structure that we need in order to carry out these reforms.

MURRAY: Mr. Secretary, I just will tell you, I appreciate that you have words to explain everything from your point of view. I’m talking from reality on the ground, and from what I am seeing and hearing, and I fear deeply that we are losing our place and our value globally. So, you and I have a disagreement. Thank you.

###





Chump can't make a deal.  Not a good one.  He's the failure his father always told him he was.  But this time?  Daddy's not around to bail him out.  He's exposed as the fraud he is.  With the entire world watching.  And registering.  THE DAILY DIGEST notes:

This war started on February 28, 2026, and those few days have turned into months; the general feeling is that time, money (a lot of money) have been lost, and above all, world leadership has been lost.
[. . .]
The latest polls of American citizens show that the public is tired of a war that was unpopular from the start.
But now, four months later, they doubt that the dispute's resolution will have any positive impact on their country.
Basically, Americans don't have much faith that Donald Trump can win anything in a conflict that he himself started.
Moreover, according to CNN, some of the most hawkish members of the Republican Party claim that the agreement being worked on by both sides could even leave Iran in a more powerful position than before the conflict.


Chump's destroyed the economy with tariffs and the Iran War and he's got more he's plotting.   Paul Farrell (INDEPENDENT) notes:

The Trump administration is proposing tariffs of 10 percent or more on products from dozens of major trading partners, following a probe into imports allegedly made with forced labor.

A report released early Wednesday by the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) stated that Canada, Mexico, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, and other countries would face 10 percent additional tariffs for allegedly failing to enforce a forced-labor import ban.
A 12.5 percent additional tariff would be imposed on China, Japan, India, South Korea, Brazil, Switzerland, and dozens of other countries.

The United Kingdom?  

Chump and his never ending lies.

Daniel Dale (CNN) fact checked Chump's interview for Miranda Devine's podcast:

Another softball interview. Another series of obvious lies from the president.

President Donald Trump’s conversation with conservative New York Post columnist and podcaster Miranda Devine, released on Wednesday morning, featured some of Trump’s longest-debunked false claims about elections, the economy and immigration. As with his inaccurate comments in a Fox News interview that aired on Saturday, which was conducted by his daughter-in-law Lara Trump, these assertions went unchallenged.

Here is a fact check of some of his remarks in the Post interview. This is not intended as a comprehensive list.
Elections 

Mail-in ballots: Trump falsely claimed, as he has on numerous previous occasions, “We’re the only country in the world that has mail-in ballots. No other country does it anymore.”

In fact, dozens of countries  -- including Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, Germany and Switzerland  -- allow some or all voters to vote by mail, though the specifics of their policies vary.

The 2020 election: Trump repeatedly uttered his familiar lie that the 2020 election was “rigged,” this time adding that “it’s been proven to be rigged.” Trump lost fair and square to Joe Biden, the election wasn’t “rigged,” and – five-and-a-half years later — there is no proof for Trump’s assertion.

Trump also said of Biden: “Should have never been president. He lost the election in a landslide.” Biden actually won the election 306 to 232 in the Electoral College, and he earned more than 7 million more votes than Trump did.

Trump’s election performance: Trump lied of his election performance: “I won it three times.” Trump won the 2016 and 2024 elections and lost the 2020 election.

The 2024 election: Trump described the 2024 election he won as “a great election,” but then said, “They had a lot of rigging going on there too,” adding, “There were areas that were just rigged. I could see it. In other words, rigged against me.” There is no basis for these claims, either; Trump won the election legitimately but lost some communities and states legitimately.
Democrats and elections: Trump repeated his lie that Democrats “couldn’t win” without cheating, also saying, “If they didn’t cheat, they could not win because their policies are so bad” and that “if they didn’t cheat you wouldn’t have them in.” This is simply baseless; Democrats, like Republicans, win elections legitimately.
Ballots in California: Reprising a false claim he made in May, Trump said, “You know, in California, they mail out 38 — I think 38 million ballots.” He added, “And some people get three, four, five ballots. Republicans get, oftentimes, none.” Both of these claims are incorrect. California had about 22.6 million voters registered as of about two weeks prior to the last presidential election and about 23.2 million voters registered as of about two weeks prior to Tuesday’s primaries; there is no basis for any suggestion that some 15 million excess ballots are distributed in any California election. And every active registered voter in the state, no matter their party affiliation, is sent a mail-in ballot; there are occasional administrative errors by counties or the postal service, but there is no basis for Trump’s suggestion that there is some sort of general anti-Republican bias in distributing the ballots.

He can't stop lying.  It's a character defect.  He lies about everything.  He lies about himself and he lies about others.  He lies about the economy.  He lies about things people can see with their own eyes. 

He's a Convicted Felon and he loves to hire other convicts even though their convictions should prevent them from a job interview, let alone a position.  Tara Copp and Salvador Rizzo (WASHINGTON POST) report:

A convicted Jan. 6 rioter who later said that he regretted his participation in the U.S. Capitol attack has been hired by the Trump administration to work inside a Pentagon office that manages highly classified military operations, according to four people familiar with the matter.
The appointment of Elias Irizarry, who was 19 at the time of the riot in 2021, to a post in the Defense Department’s Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict office has raised alarm internally among staff who question how anyone convicted in the assault on American democracy could be trusted for such a sensitive role in the U.S. government, these people said. All spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing a fear of retaliation.

Irizarry is assigned to the office’s irregular warfare and counterterrorism section, the people familiar with the matter said. The team comprises about 40 people, and its portfolio includes operations such as embassy security, personnel recovery and hostage rescue.

Two people characterized the work as among the most delicate that the Pentagon performs. All positions, they said, require a top-secret security clearance.

MS NOW covered this story yesterday.




President Donald Trump’s approval rating among independents has slipped to an all-time low, a new poll from YouGov/The Economist released on Tuesday shows.

Shifts in approval and disapproval ratings could signal broader erosion and complicate the Republican Party’s midterm strategies this year, especially as multiple trackers show Trump significantly underwater nationally. Independents often determine close elections.
According to the poll, Trump’s overall approval rating was 35 percent versus a 61 percent disapproval rating, for a net of -26. Among independents, his approval was 21 percent versus a 71 percent disapproval, a net -50.

YouGov’s Allen Houston, in an emailed release to Newsweek on Tuesday, said in part: “That’s a record-low among Independents for either term. At this point in Trump’s first term, he had a -3 net job approval among Independents.
“Trump’s job approval among Independents has fallen so low that the closest first-term comparison isn’t to Independents, whose net approval of Trump in his first term never fell below -30. Rather, Trump’s approval among Independents is close to how Democrats viewed Trump at the start of his first term, when he had a -54 net approval among Democrats [13 percent approve and 67 percent disapprove].”

And this as MSN notes, "Pope Leo XIV’s +37 net favorability in the Economist/YouGov poll far exceeds Trump’s -17, creating a 54-point difference."

Popularity?  Chump no longer has any.  Pope Leo is beloved.  Chump is despised.  He can slap his name on everything he wants, it won't stop his name from being a joke.  He's a con man and the world has caught on.  David Kurtz (TALKING POINTS MEMO) points out:

A confusing mishmash of reporting Monday afternoon inadvertently revealed that Donald Trump can still play Congress and the press like fools.

The flurry of reporting, mostly from Capitol Hill, was about whether the political heat around the corrupt “Anti-Weaponization Fund” had become too much to stomach, especially for GOP senators. The vague news, largely attributed to unnamed White House sources, was that Trump was signaling he “plans to drop,” “pause,” “retreat,” “backtrack,” and “back off” from the slush fund.
Adding an absurdist twist to the afternoon, the Trump DOJ put out a meaningless statement that it would abide by a court order blocking the slush fund.

Note that all the uproar yesterday only dealt with the slush fund — and only with the political furor over the slush fund. That represents only part of the corrupt scheme to settle Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS, which has three main elements:

the slush fund;
the IRS’ release of Trump et al. from any tax claims that predate the settlement (I should note there’s also an argument that the loose language of the settlement releases Trump et al. from any civil and criminal claims by the U.S. government prior to the settlement date);
the fraud on the court for some combination of bringing a frivolous claim, collusively settling it, and using the court to launder public funds for Trump’s slush fund.
Despite all the talk on the Hill about the politics of the slush fund, it’s never been clear exactly what Republicans in Congress were going to do about the slush fund and whether it would be sufficient. My understanding is that Trump wanted to include authorization for the slush fund in the reconciliation package (still no publicly available language on any such provision), and Senate Republicans were considering putting some guardrails to prevent payouts to people who assaulted police on Jan. 6, a noble enough but limited goal and hardly the only corrupt aspect of the $1.776 billion slush fund.

[. . .]

Even if the Republican Congress stands up to Trump on the slush fund, it doesn’t appear to be preparing to scrutinize, let alone unwind (if it’s possible) the corrupt release of the IRS’ claims against Trump and fam. It’s a huge giveaway — $100 million, by some estimates — under extraordinarily corrupt circumstances. The improper leaking of Trump tax returns by an IRS contractor isn’t a proper justification for dropping all of the IRS claims against Trump, let alone other civil and criminal claims the government may have had against him or his family members.

 

 
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, who signed the one-page agreement that blocks the federal government from investigating potential tax claims against the president, told members of Congress this week that “nothing has changed” about the plan.
It might not be up to him, however. The judge overseeing the president’s lawsuit against the IRS could sanction the parties if the court finds that Trump filed a “frivolous lawsuit for the sole purpose of forcing a settlement” that bails out his family members and their businesses, all on taxpayers’ dime.
Congress could also step in. Lawmakers and watchdog groups want the deal thrown out and legislation that would permanently dissolve any agreements that shield Trump from future audits.



Chump is said to be planning to announce that he's nominating Blanche for Attorney General.  Blanche is currently acting Attorney General.  






Chump's a con man minus a ballroom currently.  Travis Gettys (RAW STORY) reports:

Senate Republicans removed funding for security upgrades to President Trump's White House ballroom from their immigration package after the provision threatened the entire legislative effort, according to revised text released Wednesday

The Senate parliamentarian had determined the ballroom language violated specific budgetary requirements, which would have allowed Democrats to filibuster the bill and block $70 billion in ICE and border patrol funding, and Senate GOP leaders acknowledged the provision was procedurally problematic and politically risky, reported CNN.
Some Republican senators also expressed concern that allocating funds for the ballroom while Americans faced cost-of-living pressures ahead of midterm elections would project an out-of-touch image.

That's not a concern for Chump.  Ever.  He thrives on looking out of touch.  And on being out of touch.  

And he's got another US attorney who is not qualified for the job and who will not step aside but instead breaks the law.   Thomas Kika reports:


Sigal Chattah is an Israeli-born lawyer and a former RNC operative, who currently serves as the U.S. Attorney for the District of Nevada. According to a lengthy and scathing report published by Ben Penn for Bloomberg on Wednesday, during her tenure in the role, she has bucked numerous ethical norms, and "pushed to launch investigations at the behest of former clients and friends while repeatedly bypassing Justice Department orders recusing her from cases," according to several sources close to the matter.
"Chattah, a former Republican party official who took over the US attorney’s office in Nevada 14 months ago, also opened a probe targeting her past political foe, the three individuals said," Penn reported. "It is one of many circumstances in which she’s leveraged her role to advance personal interests."

He added: "The first-time prosecutor frequently sought status updates on cases despite warnings that she was disregarding recusals signed by the deputy attorney general’s office in Washington that barred her involvement in matters where she had conflicts of interest, said several individuals. Chattah also took calls from outside attorney acquaintances and intervened in their pending matters opposite her office — seeking favorable outcomes for their clients."

“It’s charitable to call it chaos,” Rick Pocker, who served as Nevada U.S. attorney under George H. W. Bush, told Bloomberg. “I don’t think she quite understands how you’re not supposed to use that office for personal or political purposes.”

Citing "interviews with two dozen Nevada lawyers and former law enforcement officials," Penn noted that Chattah's conduct in the role has "departed from longstanding department policies and traditions, unsettling her staff, law enforcement partners, and defense attorneys." Her appointment as acting U.S. Attorney is also among a few that have been deemed "invalid" in court, though she remains in office while she attempts to appeal the ruling.

Let's wind down with this from Senator Alex Padilla's office:

Building on their newly announced Election Protection Task Force, Senate Democrats met with election experts to safeguard voting rights

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, Senators Alex Padilla, Ranking Member of the Senate Rules Committee which oversees federal elections, and Adam Schiff (both D-Calif.), members of the Senate Democrats’ Election Protection Task Force, met with key election experts to stress-test responses to several threats to the 2026 midterms, including foreign interference and misinformation, the deployment of federal agents to polling places, and law enforcement agents seizing ballots from local election officials. The meeting was the second convening of the Election Protection Task Force since its April launch. Participants included former Attorney General Eric Holder, Marc Elias of the Elias Law Group, Ian Bassin of Protect Democracy, Skye Perryman of Democracy Forward, and election law expert Norm Eisen. 

“As millions of Americans exercised their right to vote yesterday, Donald Trump and his MAGA allies were working overtime — not to make life better for families who are struggling to make ends meet, but scheming to silence the voices of countless voters across the country. They have already moved to seize ballots, purge eligible voters from the rolls, dismantle the core protections of the Voting Rights Act, and now handed control of America’s most sensitive national security apparatus to a Trump loyalist whose only qualification is his willingness to do Trump’s bidding, including election interference. Between now and the November midterms, we expect these attacks will only intensify. That is exactly why this task force exists. We will fight back in the Senate, in the courts, and in the states, and we will ensure that Donald Trump can’t ‘takeover’ our elections. Our democracy is not his to take,” said Senator Padilla.

“Donald Trump and his enablers are not hiding their intention to interfere in the upcoming midterm elections — indeed they are already working to suppress the vote — and our Task Force is preparing for all the contingencies. In the specific scenario that I proposed for today, we confronted how this administration’s weaponization of federal law enforcement — including ICE or CBP — could be used to intimidate voters and depress turnout. This and the other scenarios we workshopped today will help ensure readiness across the country to confront these threats, combat attacks on our elections, and identify any gaps in our democracy’s defenses,” said Senator Schiff.

“Trump and Republicans are hellbent on rigging our elections and undermining our democracy. Democrats won’t let that happen,” said Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer.“ Our Election Protection Task Force, the most expansive effort to date to protect the 2026 midterms, is readying for the threats we know are coming – and today we gamed out how we can thwart them before Republicans can undermine our free and fair elections. Democrats will be ready with lawyers and response teams to respond the moment Trump or his allies try to interfere with our elections. Democracy is on the line. Democrats are going to fight like hell to make sure our elections belong to the voters – not Donald Trump.”

As their agenda grows more unpopular due to a worsening affordability crisis and mounting corruption scandals, the Trump Administration has worked to disrupt free and fair elections and tip the scales toward Republicans ahead of the midterms. Trump has said he’ll deploy an “election integrity army” to polling places across the country and is making it harder to vote-by-mail. His Justice Department sought to seize state voter rolls. FBI agents and the Director of National Intelligence raided election offices in Georgia. Republicans pressed election officials in Arizona to turn over documents. Poll workers are being threatened nationwide.

Over the coming weeks and months, the Senators’ Task Force will continue to announce additional steps in the fight to safeguard the right to vote and ensure that every American has fair access to the ballot box this November.

###




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