I don’t want to be mean. But Dana Bash just said Donald Trump got elected because of outrage over sleazy Reps like Chris Collins, the first member of Congress to endorse Donald Trump.

Good Lord. Just Minutes in and We Already Have the Worst Take on Chris Collins. Trump is a Reaction to People Like Chris Collins! pic.twitter.com/7VrszoAR15

— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) August 8, 2018

Hang dog Ted Cruz, who once called Donald Trump a “sniveling coward”, is now begging him to come to Texas and campaign for him.

Okay, lot of big news today. Read our colleagues Sneed and MacNeal’s final wrap on today’s dramatic Gates’ testimony. We also released a new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast with my interview with Marcy Wheeler. Fascinating stuff in there about the Trump/Russia big picture. But now we’ve got a pretty consequential election night ahead of us. So stay tuned for our coverage of results in the big races.

This is an amazing story, showing Republicans finding increasingly baroque and convoluted ways to engage in election fraud.

We’re seeing the defense coming into view here. Manafort attorney unfolds story of “the secret life of Rick Gates.” Latest report here from MacNeal and Sneed.

This is a fascinating, disturbing story. Our alliance with Saudi Arabia and the UAE and our support for their proxy war in Yemen has led us back into what looks a lot like a de facto alliance with al Qaida. At a minimum it’s an agreement not to fight each other. It’s complex of course. But the key is that fighting the Houthis, Shia rebels backed by Iran, trumps fighting al Qaida. In addition to this, “coalition-backed militias actively recruit al-Qaida militants, or those who were recently members, because they’re considered exceptional fighters.” It’s a must-read. Read it here.

Six Weeks After Trump Tower Meeting, Donald Trump Jr is Asked for the First Time About a Russian "Plot" to Elect Donald Trump President. pic.twitter.com/SUyop42P49

— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) August 7, 2018

One of the abiding, albeit far from the most consequential, mysteries of the Trump/Russia story is how we ended up with the word “collusion” as the canonical term of art at the center of the story. I thought I’d remembered that one or more publications had investigated this minor mystery. But when I asked if anyone remembered such an article I was pointed to this actually quite recent (6.29.18) post from Lawfare. Victoria Clark, a senior at Georgetown who interns at the site, investigated the question and her explanation seems pretty definitive. Read More

Two document dumps on the voting rights front this week. One gives us a window into what was going on at Trump’s voter fraud commission. The other further underscores that the addition of a question about citizenship to the Census didn’t initially have anything to do with DOJ efforts to enforce the Voting Rights Act, despite administration claims to the contrary.

Read about those, and more, in our weekly primer on voting rights and democracy (Prime access) →

Okay, earlier we noted that the shirt those two Trumpers in Ohio were wearing at the rally over the weekend showed up on Russian TV as an example of rising Republican support for Russia and Russia collusion. This was a rabbit hole my colleague Matt Shuham and I couldn’t not go down. So what’s the story? Did they both order it off the same Trumper website? Did the Russians send it to the dudes in Ohio? Or did the Russians see it on social media and whip up their own? Well, I think we’ve solved this mystery. Read More