The good news: The Trump Justice Department has told a federal court that ICE agents won’t be deployed as election monitors at polling places in Tuesday’s midterm elections.

The bad news: Employees of the federal prison system will be.

And so will personnel from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).

Why on earth are these federal law enforcement agencies involved in monitoring Americans casting their votes?

All of this came out in a federal court filing Wednesday night, in a case brought by the NAACP seeking records about the Justice Department’s election-monitoring plans. The NAACP has also filed a lawsuit to block federal prosecutors and law enforcement personnel from serving as election monitors.

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The government confirmed that ICE and FBI employees won’t be poll monitors—although that doesn’t mean they couldn’t be sent near polling places in some other capacity—but then revealed that personnel from other federal law enforcement agencies would be acting as poll monitors.

They just won’t be “acting” in their capacity as law enforcement, the government said, but as poll monitors.

What?

As Reuters reports, “The poll monitors will mainly observe polling places, take notes and will be prohibited from carrying firearms, the filing said. The Justice Department said monitors have been trained not to interfere in voting and to follow state and local rules, consistent with past practice.”

Does that make you more comfortable? Me neither.

The administration has claimed its plan to send 1,000 poll monitors is no different from what it’s done previously. But the scale is unprecedented, and election officials and voting rights advocates are concerned that the focus has changed. As Democracy Docket notes:

In addition to the size of the DOJ’s monitoring plans, observers fear the scope has changed. In the past, monitors sought to ensure that election officials did not improperly prevent voters from casting their ballots. This year, officials worry the focus will be the exact opposite.

And the concerns aren’t coming only from Democrats. Wyoming’s Republican governor, Mark Gordon, called the behavior of two Justice Department monitors during his state’s August primary “a bit aggressive” and “irregular.” (The monitors, who were DOJ attorneys, had asked about examining voting machines. Gordon asked the state attorney general to investigate, while the Justice Department claimed that the monitors had done anything improper.)

And now we know that some of these monitors will come from federal law enforcement agencies, rather than from the ranks of experienced civil rights attorneys and professional staff who have traditionally monitored elections.

What expertise do employees of the federal prison system have in monitoring elections, or personnel from the ATF? Their presence, weapons or not, is all about voter intimidation.

Thankfully, those standing for democracy are not unprepared. Democrats and pro-democracy groups have been preparing and war-gaming possible Election Day interference. Trump’s federal monitors will have company, with a huge presence of people monitoring the DOJ’s poll monitors. And the number of volunteers being trained far exceeds the number the administration plans to deploy.

Let’s first put into perspective that more than 41 million Americans have already voted by mail or early in-person voting, according to the University of Florida Election Lab. But to make sure Election Day is not threatened, Democrats and nonpartisan watchdogs have organized a huge presence.

The Associated Press breaks down the organized response. State Democratic parties have trained an estimated 10,000 volunteers. Roughly 16,000 more volunteers have been trained by Common Cause. Tens of thousands more have been trained by a broader Election Protection coalition involving some 300 organizations.

Democratic leaders have put together a substantial legal team, preparing for possible federal interference, while a new Democratic Party cybersecurity unit will focus on online disinformation and AI deepfakes.

This will be an Election Day like no other, and again, that’s why it’s really encouraging that so many people have already voted. Trump will stop at nothing to interfere—we’ve discussed the various court cases, many of which have failed—and the potential for voter intimidation is high on the list of concerns, underscored by what the DOJ revealed in its court filing Wednesday night.

That’s why it’s important that those defending democracy have been planning for many months—and are prepared.

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Lots of people responded with a yawn to a 30-minute documentary video released online last week—The “CLOSETocracy”—in which three men claim they were paid for sex by now-deceased Senator Lindsey Graham.

To some extent, I was among them.

I think some of this response was inspired by the way The Young Turks network, which released the film, oversold it.

“We’re going to drop a bombshell documentary tomorrow morning called The Closetocracy,” TYT founder and host Cenk Uygur wrote on X. “Which US Senator did we catch using male escorts?” This implied, in the middle of a contentious election season that has us gripped by the here and now, that the senator in question was still alive, sparking all kinds of speculation.

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Was it Ohio GOP Senator Bernie Moreno, who was embroiled in a gay scandal in 2024 over a 2008 profile on an adult site seeking “Men for 1-on-1 sex” that was, as reported by the Associated Press, connected to his email account—and which surfaced again recently? Was it Arkansas GOP Senator Tom Cotton, about whom there have been unconfirmed rumors and lots of chatter in online spaces for years, even among conservatives back in 2023? Or was it Josh Hawley, who, based on an unsubstantiated report, was claimed to have been kissing a male date? Surely, any of these would be a “bombshell.”

But no, it was tired old Lindsey Graham, about whom we’d heard stories and rumors for eons—as had seemingly everyone in Washington—with the speculation surfacing in the media several times over the years. And it was coming at a time when we’re consumed with the still-living Republicans who are voting against us and who back Donald Trump and his authoritarian agenda as we face the midterm elections.

My first reaction was actually frustration that the men had not come forward while Graham was alive, still standing by his horrendous anti-queer record while denying that he was gay. But people have to make their own decisions about speaking out, and one of the men in the film, Cory, had actually spoken out in 2020, using his porn name of Sean Harding, lighting up Twitter and speaking about his and other male sex workers’ interactions with “Lady G.” He soon faced violent threats against him and his family and disappeared from social media.

It’s fair to wonder what good it does now that Graham can’t be forced to respond and his backers can’t be forced to defend the vile anti-LGBTQ movement they’ve fostered. Nonetheless, it’s still a major story that raises questions about the closet in Washington and the dangerous combination of the closet and power, something I’ve been reporting on for over 30 years as a journalist.

It took me back to my first book and all of the controversy surrounding it, 1993’s Queer in America, in which I reported on closeted Washington politicians, including senators, who voted against gay rights. Their secrecy left them compromised, open to blackmail at a time when exposure could certainly destroy their careers. It had them voting anti-gay, overcompensating as they trembled in fear. And it also had them harming those who worked for them, with some engaging in male-on-male sexual harassment in the workplace, because it was one of the few ways they could pursue sex or some semblance of intimacy, unable to live openly.

When politicians are lying—Graham repeatedly said he was not gay—and voting in a hypocritical manner, it should be big news. Graham voted against repealing “don’t ask, don’t tell” while he himself served in the military amid longstanding rumors about his sexuality. He opposed marriage equality, bowing to Christian nationalists in the GOP base. It’s still news even when allegations about a senator emerge after his or her death, as investigating them can correct the historical record and expose a larger pattern. And it raises questions about how many more such closet cases there may be who are working against LGBTQ people.

To its credit, The New York Times reported on The CLOSETocracy last week, even as other major news organizations haven’t yet covered it, and the story goes through the important details:

A video released on Thursday by a left-wing online news channel features three men who claim that Senator Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican who died suddenly in July, paid them for sex.

In the 30-minute video released by the Young Turks network, titled “The CLOSETocracy,” one man who identifies himself only by a first name, Kelvin, claims that Mr. Graham paid him for sex when he was 17 and surreptitiously taped him during the encounter.

Another man said he was picked up by a chauffeured car that delivered him to the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, where he said he was paid to have sex and spend the night with Mr. Graham. That man, who is identified in the film as Cory, said he did not realize it was Mr. Graham until months later when he recognized the senator on television during the 2016 presidential race.

A third man said he was paid to have a sexual encounter with Mr. Graham.

Yes, Cory says he was a minor, 17 at the time, when Graham paid him for sex. In the film, he describes Graham as apparently figuring out he was under 18—though Cory denied it—and anguishing over it but still going along with the encounter, taping him claiming he was 18.

If true, this itself would tell us a lot—again, how a closeted, powerful politician who fears exposure within his homophobic party might go to great lengths, even possibly committing a crime, in order to have intimacy because he sees no other choice, not with the closet he believes he has to protect at all costs. I’ve always hated the word “outing,” and just see it as “reporting.” Public figures’ lives are open for dissection by the media and, when it’s relevant, their sexual orientation should be reported on, just as their religion, their gender or any other aspects of their lives are reported on when relevant.

Had Lindsey Graham’s sexual orientation been investigated and documented early in his career by the media, perhaps the alleged encounter with a minor might not have happened. And perhaps we wouldn’t have had a closeted senator voting against LGBTQ rights.

And that gets me to not giving The New York Times too much credit. True, it reported on the video last week, which is light-years from when I reported on business tycoon Malcolm Forbes’ homosexuality after he died in 1990—and it took The New York Times (unlike other news media at the time) almost six years to acknowledge it, and only in the context of his son, Steve Forbes, running for president.

But the paper—and all of the media—could have investigated Lindsey Graham’s denials decades ago. It’s clear to me that Washington reporters, like the rest of us, had heard the stories for many years. Yet they thought it was an “invasion of privacy” to go there, even as he was harming the community. It shows how much they still are squeamish and fear the backlash, and don’t see the LGBTQ community as a priority or certainly something worth risking an attack over.

So, on the one hand, we’ve come pretty far if the revelation about a dead senator could be met with a yawn by many. But on the other hand, we’ve not come nearly far enough if closeted public figures are still considered an open secret but not worthy of being investigated and reported on while they are alive.

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It’s safe to say there have been dozens of October surprises in this election—including the non-surprise that the late Lindsey Graham allegedly paid male hustlers for sex, one of whom says he was underage at the time—but the one that jarred many this week was the latest Department of Justice lawsuit. On Donald Trump’s orders, the DOJ filed a lawsuit to stop the certification of the Alaska Senate race should GOP Senator Dan Sullivan lose. The premise is that there’s another Dan Sullivan on the ballot, and that has caused confusion. For several reasons, legal experts think this is dead in the water in federal court. But the Justice Department, ordered by the White House, likely had other reasons to file the case now…

We are finally seeing the Epstein files, and Trump’s refusal to release them all, being used by Democrats in campaigns against Republicans, particularly in ads. And beyond Epstein, other cases of sexual abuse or enabling it are being used by Democrats against their opponents. It’s caught the GOP off guard as Republicans struggle to stay afloat, at a moment when stories like the Cornell gang rape allegations are in the media, and as Ohio Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has come under fire for a brutal ad attacking Democrat Amy Acton in the close governor’s race over her account of her childhood, including allegations of sexual abuse…

A new intelligence memo suggests Iran is in the advanced stages of plots to kill Americans overseas. It’s chilling to think about, and it’s not a surprise to see more ramifications of the Iran war. At the same time, we’ve seen reports that Trump has been planning to resume bombing Iran after the midterms. It’s hard to know if the memo is trying to provide a rationale for that—or is depicting Iran’s response to the reports of further bombing of Iran—as we cannot trust our own government…

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We’ve heard this one many times, usually from people who are MAGA but don’t want to say it. And that came out when he called the Democrats and the DSA “communists.” I had to school him on all that and more.

What infuriated me was when we discussed the Iran war. The caller claimed “the fucking Jews” started the war, not Donald Trump.

This is antisemitic, and I called him on it. There’s obviously a difference between all Jews and the Israeli government. He responded with the classic “I have relatives who are Jews.”

And, of course, his premise that Israel started the war—even setting aside his conflation of all Jews with the Israeli government—is bullshit. Netanyahu pressured Trump to bomb Iran. But Trump, unlike any other president before him, took the bait. He was stupid enough to be conned, and he’s fully responsible for the war.

By the end, the antisemite had to admit he agreed with me on that point.

Watch and let me know your thoughts!

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After attacking Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for targeting Russian oil refineries, Donald Trump just signed an executive order exempting Russia from most of the sanctions in a Russia sanctions law he signed just last month. You heard that right: Trump signed the Russia sanctions law named after Lindsey Graham to put pressure on Moscow. This came after he cut a deal with the bloodthirsty dictator Vladimir Putin to allow more Russian diesel onto global markets, hoping to bring down prices amid the midterm turmoil—which he helped create. And Reuters reports that an order to restrict Starshield, the Pentagon-funded satellite communications service used by Ukraine, came from inside the White House—another development showing Trump betraying Ukraine for his own ends…

As anxiety over possible election losses for Republicans mounts, Trump has threatened California over mail-in ballots—with jail time for election officials—demanding that officials not count mail ballots from more than 20,000 people the federal government claims are probably noncitizens. The Justice Department has sued California, but whether the federal government has authority to block those ballots is disputed. The acting deputy attorney general warned of potential criminal exposure, while Trump claimed on social media he’s ready to put elections officials in jail…

And today is another No Kings Day—the least before the midterms—but with a different theme. Rather than uniformly planning marches across the country in cities, states and localities, No Kings is urging people to also organize events focused on voting rights and getting the vote out, whether they are educational events, helping people register or actually walking people to the polls to vote, as early voting has begun in many states. Thousands of events are planned across the country…

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I discuss it here. There’s a free pr…

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Desperate to save the Republican Senate majority, JD Vance decided to take an ugly homophobic swipe at James Talarico, the Texas Democratic Senate candidate.

Vance also tried to smear Talarico with the age-old trope that gay men are pedophiles, trying to indoctrinate children— a smear that goes back most prominently to Anita Bryant’s “Save Our Children” crusade in the 70s. This is sickening, but let’s not forget how Vance helped Trump push the lie that Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, were eating people’s pets.

To be clear, Talarico is not gay, has a girlfriend and seems completely comfortable in his skin as a heterosexual man, lacking the insecurity around masculinity that we see in so much of MAGA. And he’s been a supporter of equality for LGBTQ people. A seminary student who’s not a chest-thumping he-man, Talarico has been portrayed by Republicans as weak and girly—itself misogynistic—and now Vance is moving into equating that with being gay.

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At a rally for Ken Paxton in Tyler, Texas, this week, Vance responded to a supporter in the crowd who was lauding him. “I love you too sir,” Vance said. “In a totally platonic way, to be clear. I’m the vice president, not James Talarico.”

The crowd applauded as Vance got the desired effect—whipping up homophobic sentiment. Last month, Vance, coupling his attacks with the GOP’s obsessive demonization of transgender people, implied Talarico was a pedophile, saying, “He’s just a guy who shows a weird focus on transgender kids and drag queens…He says a lot of weird stuff, and I think typically people who say stuff like that tend to have some pretty unusual search histories. Maybe he doesn’t—just guessing, but I wouldn’t want to see it.”

At the rally this week, he continued in that vein, picking up on a 2023 interview in which Talarico said, “I love—and I’m just going to say this because it’s on my mind—the trans children who showed up yesterday at the State Capitol to advocate for their humanity. They shouldn’t have to, but it was an inspiration to watch.”

Vance, taking the interview out of context, told the crowd that Talarico had said he “loves” above everyone else “trans children,” adding, “You gotta wonder what the internet search history of a man like that looks like. Ladies and gentlemen, you don’t want to find out. Neither do I.”

This was grade-A demagoguery directed at both trans people and gay men. And yet, too much of the media is letting it slide as they once again lower the bar for MAGA figures.

The New York Times published a story in which the headline called it an example of Vance’s “Penchant for Personal Broadsides,” as if this is just another part of the acceptable political banter these days.

The backlash to Vance’s comments on social media was followed by a backlash to the New York Times story. The paper later changed the headline on the front page (though not on the story when you click through.)

The Times referred to Vance’s suggestion that Talarico was gay as something that was “criticized as homophobic.” Sorry, but if a politician made a pejorative joke suggesting a white person was Black or a man was a woman, they would respectively be called racist and misogynistic, not described with the qualifier “criticized as.”

There was no discussion in the media reports of the fact that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is gay, and what the administration was thus saying about his fitness to serve—nor even a request for comment from Bessent or from the White House about Bessent. And while the Times piece reported on Vance’s remarks about Talarico and trans people, like much of the rest of the media there was no discussion of the classic grotesque stereotype Vance was promoting, equating gay people with pedophiles.

This was a new low for an administration that, while vilifying trans people horrendously in its second term, has sought to portray itself as inclusive of some gay people—namely the gay men who have worked within it, such as Bessent and Richard Grenell. And let’s not forget that Trump, in his first term, unfurled a rainbow flag at an event, talked of his support for “LGBTQ” people and had Peter Thiel, a gay billionaire—who has bankrolled Vance—speak at the Republican National Convention and talk about being gay and how accepted he felt.

There was a much bigger story here about how low Vance and the Trump administration have sunk in their demonization of groups, and the Times, like much of the rest of the media, just let it go.

But we should not stand for it, particularly as Vance positions himself for a presidential run in 2028. This administration has been hostile to LGBTQ rights across the board. While its vile focus on transgender people has been most prominent, it has, with MAGA Republicans in Congress, defunded health care programs for LGBTQ people, cut aid for gay seniors, drastically cut funding for AIDS treatment and research and refused to even acknowledge Pride.

Now they’re overtly using “gay” as a slur, using it to smear people—just as Trump and Pete Hegseth are now using the word “trannie”—and promoting the idea that gay people are pedophiles. That needs to be underscored in a big way, and not just sloughed off as the now-acceptable MAGA political banter.

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He called in to push back on my thoughts on Pete Hegseth’s barbaric plan to livestream the firing squad execution of a mass shooter.

In addition to not knowing about the research that has failed to establish that the death penalty is a deterrent—but saying “you’d think” it is—he mind-bogglingly was forced to agree that showing an execution online would actually desensitize people to killing and thus could lead to more violence!

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He had also initially pushed back on my point that this shooter, Nidal Hasan, was being put to death in a livestreamed execution because he’s Muslim. Warren was forced to agree that if the shooter were an evangelical Christian extremist, this administration would not livestream his execution.

Watch and let me know your thoughts!

And here’s video with my take on what really went down after we were done with the show.

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Donald Trump’s repeated rants over the past 24 hours because he didn’t get the Nobel Peace Prize—again!—underscore his dangerous delusions. It’s clear that he was counting down, waiting, and perhaps even certain that his actions—including getting the U.S. into a forever war—combined with his repeated outbursts against the Nobel committee and threats against Norway would somehow net him a Peace Prize. When he didn’t get it, he attacked Norway (the government doesn’t give out the prize; an independent committee does) and viciously defamed the recipient of the prize, Navi Pillay, the South African jurist and former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights…

For months it’s been clear that people who were soft Trump voters had abandoned him. But now we’re seeing more indications, both in polls and in interviews, that some hardcore MAGA voters are done. Some are talking about voting for Democrats, while others have completely tuned out the election and don’t plan to vote at all. Most startling is how they see him as suddenly incoherent and unfocused, when he’s always been that way. It gives some clues about MAGA’s denialism as Trump stoked hate and racism…

The outrage over Pete Hegseth’s announcement that the execution of convicted Fort Hood mass shooter Nidal Malik Hasan, who is Muslim, will be livestreamed has included even some Republicans. This bloodlust for violence by Hegseth is shared by many in the Christian nationalist MAGA base, wanting to watch a Muslim man—whom Hegseth called “the enemy”—shot dead. But it doesn’t seem like the White House had planned the announcement for the December firing squad execution, with JD Vance saying he won’t watch it and expressing skepticism that the livestream will even happen…

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Donald Trump is doing something we’ve rarely seen him do: backtrack. Twice in recent days, Trump has been forced to retreat from his own outrageous actions and statements, underscoring how much the political climate has deteriorated for him and the GOP—and how much less he’s getting away with than he once did.

Since September, Trump has been running propaganda ads to try to boost his and the GOP’s ratings headed into the midterms, paid for by taxpayer dollars—which critics argue violates federal law. The ads have been outrageous, including one that declares, “This is the final battle,” and “Join President Trump’s fight to save America,” ending with the tagline, “Paid for by the U.S. government.”

The White House denied they are political ads—laughably calling them public service announcements—as did Trump. But on Monday, Trump announced his super PAC would pay for new ads moving forward—though his administration initially declined to commit to reimbursing the government for the ads that had already run. For Trump, this was a major public backtrack—even if we should all remain dubious that he’d actually pay for them—and an admission, in effect, that the ads are political.

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So, what happened? Democrats slammed him hard, many Republican politicians cringed and spoke out, and Trump’s own supporters were angry about it. One poll showed a whopping 86% of the public disapproved, including 80% of Republicans.

Now Trump has been hit with a lawsuit by the Democratic National Committee, and a second suit from Common Cause and other plaintiffs, challenging the use of taxpayer funds for the ads. This could push him to pay for the the ads that have already run.

Then came the uproar over Trump’s suggestion at a rally in Nebraska on Monday night that Iran should “take out” Los Angeles and San Diego. Here were his exact words:

I want to see a tremendous victory. You want to see a tremendous victory because it verifies all the things we did. And again, remember, with the war, it’s just artificial. It’s a little bit high. It’s a small price to pay for keeping the world safe, keeping our country safe.

They can take out a city. Let them take, let them take out Los Angeles; let them take out San Diego. That’s — this is a very small price to pay, and it’s going to be over with very soon. It’s essentially almost over with.

And they might keep going a little long. You know, they always say they have a big threshold for pain. They need it. Let me tell you, they need it. But it’s going to end very soon.

The White House claimed Trump’s quotes were taken “out of context,” insisting he was warning about the danger of a nuclear-armed Iran. But this is a dubious defense of what he actually said. Wherever Trump was going with his argument that Iran shouldn’t have a nuclear weapon and could “take out a city,” his words that followed specifically were, “Let them take out Los Angeles. Let them take out San Diego.” Last time I checked, “let them” meant allow them. And the crowd in Nebraska eerily cheered as Trump spoke of American cities in a blue state being attacked.

The fact that Trump was even in Nebraska said everything about his and the GOP’s desperation, as the Senate map for Democrats has expanded to deep-red states like Nebraska and Kansas, while Texas has already become a five-alarm fire for Republicans. Now the Senate Leadership Fund, the main Republican Senate super PAC, is even committing $5 million to South Carolina to shore up Darline Graham.

The uproar across California was deafening, as even Republican politicians spoke out. Trump may have appeared to be suggesting nuking L.A., but he was definitely dropping a political bomb on Republicans in tough California races that could decide control of the House. But even among his own supporters in other parts of the country, there was disgust at the idea of joking about nuking a city. I heard one three-time Trump voter in Nebraska, where Trump gave the speech, on MS NOW expressing his horror and saying Trump should shut his mouth.

The next day, when asked to clarify his remarks, Trump twice refused to answer reporters’ questions, which is his usual way of dealing with having said something so over the line—just let it ride out.

But clearly the political damage was done, enough so that Trump had to try to walk it back. At a rally in San Antonio last night, he attempted to make it appear that he was trying to “protect” the cities.

“You want to see problems? And I said it the other day: Let them hit a missile into San Diego or Los Angeles on the way. Let them hit. You want to see a horror show? You want to see problems?”

“Let them hit San Diego. Let them hit Los Angeles if you want to see some bad things happen. You want to see a country that would be in free fall?”

“We’re not going to let that happen. We protect our cities. We protect our country. We’re not letting that happen.”

This was pretty dubious. If Trump really was expressing concern that Iran would get a nuclear weapon and could strike cities in the U.S., it seems to me he’d mention an East Coast city—if that—since Iran has no demonstrated operational missile capability to deliver a nuclear weapon to the West Coast. (And it could not reach East Coast as well, as it has no intercontinental ballistic missles.)

No, Trump was doing his usual performance for the MAGA crowd, throwing hateful chum into the water, and meant to suggest blowing up L.A. and San Diego—and he got the creepy laughter he was looking for.

The original comments weren’t surprising. But the remarkable thing here was the backtrack. As with the ads, Trump has little grip on political reality, no clue how his actions are hurting himself and the GOP. That’s because in the past he got a pass on these kinds of things. Now, with gas prices soaring and inflation continuing to squeeze consumers, as Trump reports billions in income from crypto and other ventures while serving as president, even many in his own base are taking notice, and they’re unhappy.

Those who’ve woken up, however many there are, aren’t willing to let stuff go by now, particularly as he tries to change the subject, and more and more of them are expressing their disgust. For Trump, this is all new—and it explains why he’s slipping and helping doom the GOP.

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Thanks everyone who tuned in to the live video. Will see many of you on the radio, on SiriusXM Progres, today and throughout the week.

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Republicans have sounded a five-alarm fire alert and are focused on trying to save Kansas. Yes, Kansas! They have pulled their money from North Carolina’s Senate race, seemingly seeing it as a lost cause, and are pouring it into the Sunflower State. It’s a frenzied attempt to save their Senate majority as the battleground map expands, with Democratic Senate candidates leading in Texas, Alaska and Ohio, tied in Kansas and within a point in Iowa—all red states with Republican-held Senate seats. In the House, Republicans are also now in trouble in blood-red districts. Even though the GOP has a money advantage, this is exactly what the Democrats want to see—forcing Republicans to spend that money in places they thought were safe.

Trump, meanwhile, is campaigning in deep-red states, as I wrote about last week, wanting to see big, adoring crowds rather than actually help Republicans in places where they’re in trouble. Of course, I don’t think Trump helps Republicans in those places and only helps his opponents. The White House has some of those districts on the schedule, and we’ll see exactly how it plays out. But if Trump’s red-state tour is about assuaging his ego, he had a big disappointment in deep-red Alabama, where there were empty seats in the arena.

There was a lot of speculation that Justice Samuel Alito would retire before the end of this year, allowing Trump to put another conservative on the Court with Republicans in control of the Senate. Alito apparently considered retiring but decided against it, even as momentum for Democrats in Senate races was building. Now he says he will consider retiring again next year. If Democrats take the Senate, that could make it much more difficult for Trump to put another far-right justice in place. And it makes me think Alito may stay, clinging to the power he covets, perhaps for years.

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Yesterday, Senator Eric Schmitt of Missouri was touted in the morning by a puffy Axios “scoop” as “drawing buzz” as a possible running mate for JD Vance’s 2028 presidential race.

A few hours later, he crashed and burned in a Senate hearing while pathetically trying to set a perjury trap for former special counsel Jack Smith. Dramatically holding up placards of text messages between Smith and his team that Schmitt had obtained, he claimed Smith had just lied when he said he wasn’t in Atlanta for a Hawks game in February 2024. But Schmitt, his aides, and his GOP Senate colleagues, in their zealousness, had gotten their teams and cities wrong. Smith was in College Park, Maryland, to see the Iowa Hawkeyes play the University of Maryland.

Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar slammed Schmitt for calling Smith a “dirtbag” and having his cities and teams wrong as Democrats humiliated Schmitt, while Republican Senator Katie Britt, sitting next to Schmitt, looked on horrified—captured by an MSNOW clip that went viral—reflecting how many Republicans should feel.

And even if Smith had been in Atlanta on that date, the kooky conspiracy Schmitt was cooking up was wild: It supposedly revolved around the fact that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis had just publicly acknowledged her relationship with her special counsel, Nathan Wade. Thus, supposedly being in the same city for a basketball game, Schmitt suggested, meant Smith was trying to meet with Willis. I know, it makes no sense!

That humiliating exchange dominated coverage of the hearing, and pretty much ended it for the GOP. But the hearing truly was bad for the GOP way before that.

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Let’s start with simply having the hearing a little more than a month before the midterms. It signaled to voters that the GOP isn’t concerned about the urgent issues voters care about, from inflation and gas prices to the war in Iran and government corruption, and is instead still trying to impress their Dear Leader by going after his perceived enemies. This was the third time Smith had been called before Congress to answer questions about his investigations, and there was nothing new.

One after another, Republican presidential hopefuls put on a show, with Senator Ted Cruz offering “congratulations,” telling Smith in an Orwellian twist that he “succeeded where Richard Nixon failed, which is weaponizing the Department of Justice to go after your political opponents.”

As if it wasn’t bad enough to be bringing Trump and his horrendous actions—and their defense of his conduct—back into the forefront before the election, Republicans focused in large part on Smith having obtained the phone toll records of some Republican senators in his investigation of Trump regarding the January 6th insurrection. Smith testified that obtaining such toll records is legal and common practice in complex investigations. The records did not include the contents of senators’ calls—just metadata, including when calls were made and how long they lasted.

In an era in which Americans are being surveilled by Flock cameras and worried about AI and how technology will be used against them—and, again, are worried about the economy currently—the last thing they want to see before an election is a bunch of wealthy senators, many of whom are multimillionaires, railing about their phone records being looked at during an investigation of a crime.

It was just a stunning example of the elites caring only about themselves, while a driving force in the election is the belief that Washington doesn’t care about the rest of us, as people are struggling every day.

But probably the most devastating thing for Republicans—worse than Schmitt’s complete misfire, which was a spectacular example of confirmation bias—was having the courageous former prosecutor sitting there and defending his investigation.

Jack Smith is unflappable, and no matter where you sit on the political spectrum, he comes off as even-keeled and self-assured. Unlike so many others who might fear and face retribution by Trump, Smith stuck to his principles.

“Our investigation developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in serious crimes against our nation,” he said. “Rather than accept his defeat in the 2020 presidential election, President Trump engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the results and prevent the lawful transfer of power.”

Smith also explained how perplexed he was that Republicans now had this hostile posture, since his strongest witnesses in the January 6th case were Republican officials—Trump administration officials, state officials and even members of Congress.

When South Carolina Senator Darline Graham expressed outrage over her late brother’s phone records being looked at, Smith had the perfect response.

“Do you really believe that Lindsey was going to destroy evidence that was not even in his possession?” she asked.

“No,” Smith replied. “I believe your brother was a patriotic public servant. He was not a target of our investigation, and in fact he likely would have been a witness in our case [against Trump].”

And Smith talked about what has happened since Trump took office again: “History teaches that the rule of law is rarely destroyed all at once. It’s often weakened by attacks on the institutions and the public servants sworn to uphold it. Since January 2025, we have witnessed precisely such an effort.”

At a time when polls show millions of voters having doubts about Trump, this message coming from a cool-as-a-cucumber law enforcement official who was doing what he saw as his patriotic duty was harmful to the GOP. Much of Trump’s most hardcore base will believe MAGA claims about Smith, the election and Trump’s alleged crimes.

But in 2024 there were many other people who voted for Trump who hadn’t voted for him before, believing he was going to do something about the economy. I believe many of those people didn’t like that Trump celebrated the insurrectionists, nor did they believe Trump won the 2020 election—or that Trump didn’t commit crimes. But they voted for him, some perhaps reluctantly, in a time of economic desperation because they believed he’d make things better.

And those are among the people the GOP now needs to get back. Reminding those people of how dishonest and reckless Trump is—especially those whose first instinct may have been not to vote for Trump—isn’t a winning formula. Smith did a great service for America not only when he served as special counsel but when he sat before the Senate this week and stated the truth once again.

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It’s astounding how the GOP is waking up in a world of hurt, seemingly only now realizing how much trouble they are in. All year long, the numbers told the story, as did the special elections and the anger about tariffs and the war. But now Republicans suddenly seem to realize it’s all for real, defying Trump and criticizing him. It’s all too late as conditions have deteriorated rapidly, with polls showing the Senate very much in play and MAGA operatives and podcasters fretting about big losses in the House…

The Supreme Court, in good news, ruled for a third and final time that Missouri could not use its new gerrymandered maps. But this week the Supreme Court handed down a bad ruling allowing the federal government to let states use a database that shares personal information to check if noncitizens are voting—a database with a bad track record. While it’s something to be concerned about, legal advocates have been cautioning against alarm right now and reassuring people that it will have limited, if any, impact on the upcoming midterms. But the Trump administration has other plans in place, and we have to be alert…

The ban against CNN, MS NOW and Politico has been on-again, off-again, as the Trump administration for hours appeared to defy a judge’s ruling, only to let the outlets back into the White House—but then attempted to ban some of their journalists from the state dinner with the Chinese leader. And now Trump has banned CNN from Air Force One. This is all a vile attack on the press and a brazen challenge to the judge’s order. But Trump is also hurting himself by not having cameras on him because the other TV networks that share pool footage have shown solidarity and refused to participate in the pool. Trump has actually seemed jarred by this, wondering out loud why the cameras weren’t there after he banned the outlets…

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When I told him that South Carolina ranks among the states with the highest violent-crime rates, and that its murder rate is significantly higher than California’s, he refused to believe it—even though the numbers come from Kash Patel’s FBI crime data.

And when I told him that where I was sitting, New York City, is one of the safest large cities in America, with crime—including violent crime and murder—much lower than in South Carolina, he was in complete disbelief. Because, you see, his “local television news”—Myrtle Beach includes a station owned by the right-wing Sinclair Broadcasting, known for pushing disinformation—had told him otherwise.

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Where are your numbers? I asked. He didn’t have any and tried to change the subject to immigration—which is their go-to when they’re losing—and I didn’t let him. I shut him down.

What was even more interesting, however, were the calls for the next hour from many people in South Carolina and others all across the country. They told their experiences and crunched the numbers. Some South Carolinians called Myrtle Beach a MAGA hellhole, with people telling me about drug crime and homelessness in the heart of a city of roughly 40,000 people—which you really can’t compare to a large city anyway.

But I was happy to compare because it turns out New York City has a significantly lower crime rate—including violent crime, which is at the lowest in recorded history—than Myrtle Beach.

And Myrtle Beach has had a reputation for high crime for years. Back in 2017, one report listed it as the third most dangerous city in America:

The Safewise Report listed popular vacation destination Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, as the third most dangerous city in America. Lumberton, North Carolina was right behind at fourth on the list.

These people live in a fantasy.

Watch and let me know your thoughts!

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Last week Chris Gallant, a Black Hawk pilot, volunteer firefighter and openly gay Democrat running for Congress against MAGA Republican Rep. Nick LaLota on Long Island, acknowledged that some BDSM photographs of him that surfaced are authentic and go back more than 15 years. They became public when the right-wing New York Post published them, turning Gallant’s modeling photos—some of which depict sexual activity with his then-partner—into a political story in what Gallant called a “political hit.”

But the entire thing appears to have backfired on the GOP—or at least deflated quickly. Gallant said the photos were taken consensually with his then-partner, stating, “I’m not embarrassed or ashamed.” And he’s argued that they have nothing to do with his qualifications as a veteran, former air-traffic controller, member of the National Guard or congressional candidate.

The national media coverage actually elevated a proud gay man, who surged on social media, got enormous support from LGBTQ people—and many others across the country—and was defended by the Democratic Party. The attention may well give him a fundraising boost.

In a time when Republican politicians have faced sexual assault and domestic abuse allegations, and one extremist GOP candidate, Brandon Herrera in Texas, has called kids “cum trophies,” this story was a big yawn. The president of the United States is an admitted adulterer, has been accused of sexual assault by multiple women and was found liable by a jury for sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll. A federal judge subsequently said that what the jury found Trump did constitutes rape. And the first lady herself was a model who posed nude and in sexually provocative photo shoots—something that obviously didn’t prevent Republicans from embracing her or her husband.

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The race in New York’s 1st Congressional District, rated likely Republican, was always going to be difficult for Gallant, who I’ve interviewed on my SiriusXM program several times. But rather than ruining his chances, the non-scandal has given him lots of visibility, shown him to be fearless and offered him a better opportunity to make the race competitive.

What’s most glaring about this story is what the media didn’t cover a few days later and that says a lot about the corporate media.

The Daily Mail last Thursday focused on a story that had been previously reported, but the sensational tabloid offered more details that make it much more curious and worthy of further investigation. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, a married man with six children, and the unmarried Congressman Jason Smith of Missouri, chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, are roommates in Washington. What the Daily Mail added to the story, first reported by Bloomberg in 2025 and subsequently by others—and even referred to by Mullin during a congressional hearing—is that Mullin owns the house, having bought it in 2023.

Mullin’s representative characterized Mullin as Smith’s “landlord” in a statement to the Daily Mail, and Smith confirmed the arrangement. But the representative declined to say how much rent Smith pays, and the Daily Mail said it could find no public documentation of rent payments.

This raises a legitimate—and newsworthy—ethics question about the financial arrangement, and it also focuses attention on the relationship between a former MMA fighter from Oklahoma and an unmarried congressman whose best friend in Congress for years was none other than Aaron Schock, the muscled, flamboyant, closeted former Illinois congressman who left Congress in disgrace amid a spending scandal and later finally came out as gay.

Of course, when I asked Schock back at the Republican National Convention in 2012 if he was gay—specifically how he could vote against allowing gays to serve openly in the military when he was gay himself—he tried to deny it without actually denying it.

“Those questions are completely ridiculous and inappropriate,” he said. He added, when asked if he was confirming that he was not gay, “I’ve said that before and I don’t think it’s worthy of further response. I think you can look it up.” Schock then walked off, abruptly ending the interview.

Schock had come under scrutiny during his time in Congress for going on lavish trips, some on taxpayer dollars. And one of his traveling companions was his friend Jason Smith, the congressman from Missouri. They even went with some of their male aides, something The Hill newspaper called “unusual” in a story about the trips coming under “scrutiny.”

Smith took a trip with Schock to Brazil along with two other House members, most of which was paid for by the Brazilian government.

But after the official business, The Hill reported, Schock, Smith and several of their male aides headed to the Brazilian gay-friendly resort spot of Canoa Quebrada. Smith and Schock also went to Argentina with their aides, in an unofficial trip in which the aides were actually on vacation time. Schock had posted Instagram photos of himself, Smith and the male aides, including Schock’s chief of staff, David Roman. Jonathon Link, a photographer who often traveled with Schock on his taxpayer-funded recreational trips, took the photos, showing the men “hanging out at a vineyard in the famed Mendoza wine region of Argentina and whitewater rafting the Andes rivers of Potrerillos.”

As The Hill reported in 2015:

Rep. Jason Smith (R-Mo.) joined his close friend Aaron Schock on campaign and government trips and exotic vacations in 2014 that are being scrutinized by federal investigators looking into alleged spending abuses by the former congressman, who resigned in March.

Revelations that Smith, 35, accompanied Schock on the campaign trip come the same week The Hill reported that Smith has hired Schock’s former chief of staff, Mark Roman, who managed the congressman’s office at the time of his spending scandal.

There’s no indication that federal prosecutors have questioned or sought records from Smith, but his participation on trips now under criminal investigation could drag one of Schock’s closest friends in Congress into his legal mess and undermine Smith’s political image as a humble, salt-of-the-earth fiscal conservative. The news has also led to chatter on Capitol Hill, where Roman’s hiring by Smith surprised many.

Smith, like Schock, also has a long record of opposing gay rights. After the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in 2015, Smith attacked the ruling, declaring, “I have never wavered in my commitment to the biblical definition of marriage.” And in 2022, he voted against the Respect for Marriage Act, which wrote federal protections for same-sex marriage into law, and he has voted for spending bills that added dozens of anti-LGBTQ provisions.

In 2023, amid a feud with former MAGA congressman Matt Gaetz over his attacks on House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Gaetz was widely interpreted as suggesting that Smith was closeted.

Gaetz later denied that he was referring to Smith’s sexuality, but he nonetheless was feeding into speculation that already existed about Smith.

So how did Smith and Mullin become good friends and eventual roommates? Mullin’s congressional workout group goes back to 2013, with Smith among its earliest members. By 2014, Mullin, Smith and Schock were all working out together in the regular 6:30 a.m. sessions—during the same period when Smith and Schock were close friends and traveling together.

That history makes the newly detailed Smith-Mullin living arrangement all the more worthy of ordinary journalistic curiosity. It may have a completely mundane explanation. The financial arrangement may be entirely proper. And none of Smith’s friendships or living arrangements establishes anything about his sexual orientation. But given his anti-LGBTQ political record, his history with Schock, the speculation about Smith that came from a fellow Republican member of Congress, and now the questions surrounding his financial arrangement with Mullin, there is plenty here for journalists to examine and ask questions about.

And that brings the story right back to Chris Gallant. His modeling photos from more than 15 years ago, some depicting sexual activity with his then-partner, became national news—even though he acknowledged the photographs immediately and told everyone he wasn’t ashamed of them.

Yet the longtime living arrangement between the secretary of Homeland Security and one of the most powerful members of the House—an arrangement that now raises at the very least a legitimate question about rent and congressional ethics—has received remarkably little scrutiny outside of a tabloid.

That contrast is the glaring part of the story. Gallant has nothing to hide. Maybe Smith has nothing to hide either. But why does the media seem so much more interested in the private life of the man who has already told us everything?

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From the beginning of the Iran war, the Pentagon has lied about damage to U.S. bases, how effective it’s been against Iran and the number of American casualties. Now new reporting reveals they’ve covered up the number of dead servicemembers in the war. It’s not shocking, but it’s another example of the lack of concern for those serving and the brazenness with which the administration believes it can withhold the truth.

In Turkey there is a brutal crackdown on LGBTQ activists, some of whom have been detained in their homes, as well as on people who took to the streets to protest. It’s all being carried out by the authoritarian president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, under the guise of cracking down on “obscenity” in an operation called “My Family is Safe.” But it’s really about harassing and arresting political opponents of Erdogan, who are numerous among LGBTQ activists. There’s of course been no pushback from Donald Trump, who reveres Erdogan and sure would love to do the same thing in this country regarding his political opponents.

Amid what have been successful campaigns by Democrats in taking on the GOP, there have been disappointments: Some Democrats unnecessarily have latched onto ugly anti-trans rhetoric, from James Talarico in Texas to Rep. Marcy Kaptur in Ohio. The trans issue is just not working for the GOP in this election—and it actually doesn’t appear to have ever truly been effective, as I’ll explain—and there’s no reason for Democrats to fear it. Other Democrats have been defending trans rights, even in places some might think anti-trans rhetoric would hurt them, and it’s not been an issue as they show they stand up for what they believe in.

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The Federal Reserve raised interest rates yesterday as the new Fed chairman, Kevin Warsh, warned of inflation being “too high” for “too long.” And he didn’t rule out another rate hike in the future.

Trump’s hand-picked chairman tried to stay away from blaming Trump, evading reporters’ questions at a news conference and trying to play up some positive aspects of the economy.

But it was all too clear—and delicious seeing Trump grapple with the fact that the man he put in place to bring rates down ended up raising them, with a unanimous vote of the 12 governors on the board. Trump’s policies helped force the Fed to raise rates. Americans could now see higher borrowing costs on credit cards and car loans—and at a time when they are putting a lot on credit cards, struggling to make ends meet. Mortgage rates, already high, could also face further upward pressure. Gas prices are about to spike further, according to industry analysts. And all just weeks before the midterms.

There are several very clear reasons why inflation is surging and causing the Fed to take action, and Trump’s policies are central to them: his tariffs and his war in Iran, which has caused an energy shock. His tax cuts for the wealthy and his spending have also raised concerns about deficits and inflationary pressure.

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You then add everything else on top of it, from his brutal mass deportations and his championing of data centers to his obsession with the Kennedy Center and the ballroom. This is a disaster Trump has created.

Then there was “Trumpalooza” in Dallas last week, the GOP midterm convention at which Trump begged voters to “pretend” he is on the ballot.

You cannot make this up. Not only has there not been an environment like this for the party in power in years, but it’s hard to think of a president who so insistently forced his party to make him the centerpiece of a midterm election, even as the majority of Americans see him as an absolute failure.

The Senate map keeps expanding, with Democrats even looking toward Kansas, South Carolina and Mississippi now. These may not become competitive races—South Carolina and Mississippi are still rated Solid Republican by most analysts—but the fact that Democrats are even looking at such deep-red states is an indication of how much the political environment has shifted.

Trump will continue his efforts to exert more control over the election, as I outlined on Tuesday. And after the Supreme Court slapped him down on mail-in ballots, he may become more desperate. The thuggish FBI Director Kash Patel wouldn’t rule out sending FBI agents to polling places when pressed by senators this week, even though federal law sharply restricts the presence of armed federal officers at polling places. But that hasn’t stopped this gang in the past.

So we’re not out of the woods yet regarding what Trump and MAGA will do in challenging voting rules or votes already cast. But having watched how legal advocates have worked hard, and having seen the courts pushing back, I feel better 47 days out from the election than I thought I’d feel. You might disagree—and I’d like to hear from you—but one thing I didn’t count on was Trump really being the Democrats’ own best weapon.

Sure, running against Trump was always part of the playbook—in addition to running on issues and promising real reform—but I didn’t expect Trump to muck things up just about every single day as the environment deteriorates for the GOP. It’s pretty sadistic as he keeps kicking Republicans while they’re down, making it easier for Democrats to stay focused on their message.

Trump has now helped push Canada further into the arms of the European Union, whose president has proposed making Canada the bloc’s first “associate member.” Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has welcomed the prospect of dramatically closer ties. That could have economic implications for states like Michigan, Ohio and Maine that rely heavily on trade with Canada—and where Republican candidates are struggling—particularly if Trump responds with additional tariffs, as he has threatened to do.

Yesterday, Trump of course lashed out at the Federal Reserve, as he did at the Supreme Court earlier in the week, but within hours he was focused again on the Kennedy Center and getting his name on it—with new fears that he might demolish it if he doesn’t, fueled in part by a photo of him aboard Air Force One appearing to look at a placard reading “Kennedy Center DEMOLISHED.”

Whether he actually goes through with this horrific action against the memorial to a revered, assassinated president or not, Trump’s obsession with President Kennedy—his desire to give himself some worth by attaching himself to another president’s name—is so freaky and sends a message to voters that he’s really lost the plot, whirling in his narcissism.

And weeks before a midterm election, it’s all just helping the Democrats build further momentum.

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The Supreme Court ruled last night in what seems to be an effective 7-2 decision against Donald Trump’s attempt to use the Postal Service to regulate mail-in ballots. It was a brief unsigned order on the emergency docket, in which the court said the government was unlikely to prevail in its challenge to the lower court’s preliminary injunction as the case proceeds.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote a concurring opinion that appears like an attempt to stay in the MAGA club while doing the only sane thing on this issue: He said there was a “fair” chance the Postal Service’s rule was within its statutory authority, but that it was far too close to the election to allow the rule to proceed. Justice Samuel Alito wrote a dissent much longer than the majority opinion, joined by Clarence Thomas, which offered several reasons why the administration should be allowed to move forward with the Postal Service rule.

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It means that for 2026, Trump is screwed on this issue while he’s still trying other ways to affect the election. He lashed out this morning at the three justices he appointed: Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch.

These are not the people I interviewed to serve on the United States Supreme Court, they are merely a shell of their original selves.

It is a big loss for Republicans, and America itself, and makes cheating by the Radical Left ‘Dumocrats,’ on Mail-In Ballots, a much easier thing to do - And now they have an open field to do so!

This was pretty rich, as Trump’s three justices have given him massive latitude to carry out policies that lower courts had blocked, in case after case. But these kinds of ad hominem attacks are what Trump does when he doesn’t get the outcome he wants. And clearly Kavanaugh’s attempt to leave the door open to the administration’s legal argument didn’t spare him a nasty barb from Trump on Truth Social. Trump, of course, praised Alito and Thomas as “legends both.”

A huge psychological and political blow for Trump

This decision was obviously a big blow for Trump as Republicans face the possibility of major losses and his administration faces investigations if Democrats take one or both chambers of Congress. Ever the authoritarian, Trump has tried to exert more federal control over elections via executive action, while courts have repeatedly pointed to the Constitution’s allocation of election administration to the states, subject only to Congress’s authority.

But it’s also a big psychological and political blow as well. As many legal analysts have observed, including Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern, who comes on my SiriusXM program, the administration has been very careful about what it brings up to the Supreme Court. Not every case it loses in the lower courts is appealed, as administration lawyers have reason to be wary of creating adverse Supreme Court precedent. And overall, they don’t want the very conservative court to be perceived by the public as repeatedly blocking Trump and thus looking even remotely “fair.”

So they often take to the Court cases they believe they have a real shot at winning, and they’ve had enormous success on the emergency docket. Since the beginning of Trump’s second term, they’ve prevailed in the majority of the 30 or so emergency-docket rulings.

When the Supreme Court in recent weeks lifted holds put in place by the lower courts on Trump’s mail-ballot order—reasoning that the administration hadn’t acted yet and thus the challenges were premature—the administration was clearly emboldened. This is a court that has often ruled in Trump’s favor on the emergency docket and, when it hasn’t, more often then not finds ways to punt on a final decision rather than resolve the underlying issue.

But now the administration did act on the order, and the court faced the issue again. This time it said no. The court did something similar with Trump’s effort to deploy the National Guard in the Chicago area—after initially confronting procedural questions—and on Trump’s major tariffs, after allowing the tariffs to remain in place while the case proceeded before ultimately striking them down.

The Trump regime’s lawyers try to play it cool, but sometimes they overreach, and this was one of those times. And for Trump, again, it’s the psychological blow of losing, as well as the political blow—having the Supreme Court slap him down weeks before an election, and on an attempt to affect the vote itself.

Alito and Thomas will let Trump shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue

The decision also showed us that Alito and Thomas appear willing to let Trump do whatever he wants—and Kavanaugh often leaves the door open to his legal arguments. I’m not a legal expert—but I speak to many of them on the radio. The constitutional structure here is important: States administer elections under the Elections Clause, while Congress has authority to alter certain rules for federal elections. The executive branch does not possess any power to administer elections.

Alito tried to argue that some of the states and other plaintiffs suing didn’t have standing, while also arguing that the Postal Service had statutory authority for the rule. The states, meanwhile, argued that the federal rule interfered with their election administration and threatened to disenfranchise voters.

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We’ve seen this divide among the justices before. On the 6-3 tariffs decision Kavanaugh joined Alito and Thomas in dissent. On the court’s birthright citizenship decision—another blow to Trump—Kavanaugh provided the sixth vote for the outcome but disagreed with the majority’s constitutional reasoning. He concluded that Trump’s order violated federal law while arguing that the Constitution itself would permit Congress to restrict birthright citizenship.

Kavanaugh was therefore accused by critics of leaving open another route to restricting birthright citizenship, and he is clearly leaving the door open here as well on mail-in ballots.

This is not the end

So on the issue of these mail-in ballot restrictions, while they’re dead for 2026, the legal fight will be back for 2028. It’s not entirely clear what Gorsuch, Barrett and Roberts would do on the ultimate merits, as they didn’t sign their names to separate opinions and the majority order didn’t say much. The Court’s statement that the government is “unlikely to succeed on the merits” is significant, however, and goes beyond merely saying the rule came too late for this election.

But I wouldn’t trust any of these conservatives on the court, not with their histories on other cases. And surely, we need to remain steadfast on the issue of court reform and expanding the court.

Regarding 2026, while this attempt to stop mail-in ballots is over, there are other efforts underway that Trump has been pushing hard on.

The Justice Department sent threatening letters just last week to election officials across the country, demanding that states preserve election records as the department continues seeking access to detailed voter information.

The Department of Homeland Security has sent employees across the country to investigate people it suspects may be noncitizens registered to vote—though there’s no evidence of widespread noncitizen voting. Markwayne Mullin, the DHS secretary, wrote a letter to the attorney general, asking the Justice Department to examine whether voting systems that use barcodes or QR codes comply with federal requirements for a voter-verifiable paper record and manual audits.

And let’s not forget that all of these efforts, including the now-failed attempt to get the Supreme Court to allow Trump to control mail-in ballots, are meant to cast doubt on elections and confuse people, with the goal of suppressing the vote. So everyone needs to stay alert, make sure people have faith in the system, and get out the vote.

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