Donald Trump’s Truth Social recently started a streaming service for MAGAs and “pro-family” Christians called Truth+. Hunter Walker was surprised to find that among the top ten most watched movies featured for viewers was a “documentary” about how alien lizard people secretly rule the earth. And that was only the beginning of the fun.
President Trump’s Media Company Is Offering Movies About ‘Lizard People’ And Other Wild Conspiracy Theories
Less than two minutes into the movie, the narrator makes a shocking claim.
“The evidence we are about to present to you has the potential to rewrite thousands of years of human history. It will present evidence that suggests ancient serpent or lizard-like aliens came to earth thousands of years ago,” the narrator says. “We’ll also present evidence that these ancient aliens are still among us today.”
Continue reading “President Trump’s Media Company Is Offering Movies About ‘Lizard People’ And Other Wild Conspiracy Theories “Federal Judge Orders Dem Win Certified In NC Supreme Court Race
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.
Last Undecided Race Of 2024 Nears End
Six months after Election Day, a federal judge ordered the North Carolina Board of Elections to certify Democratic incumbent Allison Riggs as the winner of the fiercely contested race for her seat on the state Supreme Court.
Riggs has been clinging to a narrow 734-vote lead and fighting off efforts from Republican challenger Jefferson Griffin to flip that result through all manner of machinations and after-the-fact changes to the rules.
In a new opinion Monday, U.S. District Judge Richard Myers thoroughly rejected Griffin’s attempts to rewrite the election rules after the election was held: “That principle will be familiar to anyone who has played a sport or board game. You establish the rules before the game. You don’t change them after the game is done,” Myers ruled.
At one point in the post-election litigation, Griffin was seeking to throw out more than 60,000 already-cast ballots. Over time his challenges were whittled down by the courts to a smaller batch of ballots that, if rejected, still had the potential to flip the result of the exceedingly close race.
Myers ruling on the remaining ballots under challenge – mostly from military and civilian voters overseas – was decisive in Riggs’ favor: They must all be counted. But Myers stayed his decision for seven days to give Griffin time to appeal to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Reacting to the Myers decision, election law expert Rick Hasen said the decision would likely hold up on appeal:
I expect any appeal would be rejected. Although part of the due process portion of the court’s analysis rests on Bush v. Gore, and not every court would agree on reading Bush v. Gore in this way, the due process arguments are nonetheless extremely strong even without relying on that case. And the equal protection arguments are even stronger.
“Today, we won,” Riggs said in a statement last evening.
Trouble In MAGA Paradise: Ed Martin Edition
Despite a new push from President Trump, the Senate Judiciary Committee is running out of time to bring Ed Martin’s nomination for D.C. U.S. attorney to a vote, Punchbowl reports. With Martin’s temporary appointment ending on May 20 and various procedural hurdles to navigate, committee chair Charles Grassley is pretty much down to next week to move the nomination. Meanwhile, Martin had to supplement his disclosures to the committee for the fourth time, with a new letter on his public appearances on Russia state media.
The Destruction: Higher Ed Edition
- Columbia University: The Trump administration has presented Columbia with the terms of a consent decree that would bring the university under federal supervision, the WSJ reports.
- Harvard University: The Trump administration continued to put an unlawful squeeze on the nation’s oldest university by withholding all future federal grants. “This letter is to inform you that Harvard should no longer seek grants from the federal government, since none will be provided,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon wrote in a letter to university President Alan M. Garber.
Trump’s Case For Alien Enemies Act Falls Apart
The U.S. intel community released a declassified memo that undermines a key justification for President Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act. The IC assesses that Tren de Aragua is not controlled by the administration of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro: “The Maduro regime probably does not have a policy of cooperating with TDA and is not directing TDA movement to and operations in the United States.”
The Other Abrego Garcia Case
Morning Memo previously mentioned the case of another foreign national unlawfully deported to El Salvador in circumstances similar to Kilmar Abrego Garcia. While Abrego Garcia had an immigration judge order barring his removal, the until-now anonymous Venezuelan man in a separate Maryland case was covered by a 2024 settlement agreement that barred removal of a class of asylum seekers until their cases were heard.
Politico has now identified that man as Daniel Lozano-Camargo, a 20-year-old who had been living in Houston and was removed to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act on March 15.
U.S. District Judge Stephanie Gallagher of Maryland has already ruled that the removal of Lozano-Camargo violated the settlement agreement that she had previously approved and ordered the Trump administration to “facilitate” his return a la Abrego Garcia. The Trump administration is fighting that order, too.
For Your Radar …
“Hackers have targeted GlobalX Air, one of the main airlines the Trump administration is using as part of its deportation efforts, and stolen what they say are flight records and passenger manifests of all of its flights, including those for deportation,” 404 Media reports.
Secretary Of Dense
Since taking office, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has used the encrypted app Signal more extensively than previously known, engaging in at least a dozen separate chats, including using settings that disappeared messages before they were properly recorded as a government record, the WSJ reports.
Hegseth Launches Broader Purge Of Generals
Two things to keep an eye on as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth moves to reduce the number of 4-star officers and general officers in the National Guard by 20% each:
- Are women and people of color disproportionately purged?
- Do the numbers creep back up over time, replaced by officers perceived to be loyal and/or compliant?
Quote Of The Day
“There’s nothing like it.”–Rice University historian Douglas Brinkley, on the corrupting conflicts of interest that have emerged in the second Trump term.
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Very Interesting
Politico Nightly has a very interesting observation tied to Trump’s latest fever-dream about a tariff on movies produced outside the United States. Studios are spooked about it and the idea even pushed down entertainment stocks. (As I’ve noted a few times, the current hiatus on the law mattering has a lot of people jumpy.) I’m pretty sure this is yet another idea the President more or less randomly came up with on his own. There are a few problems with it, not the least of which is that movies aren’t physical goods. They are intellectual property. To put it in different terms you might put a tariff on physical books produced in the Philippines and shipped on a boat to the US. But you couldn’t easily put a tariff on the ideas in the book or the text itself. I actually heard in one conversation that there is a specific law preventing any effort to place tariffs on intellectual property in this way. Regardless of all that, the Politico Nightly piece makes a different and really interesting point. It’s been widely discussed that the notional statutory basis of all Trump’s tariffs is quite weak. There’s a small business lawsuit challenging them which is backed by Koch and Leonard Leo-funded groups, interestingly enough. There’s also a state attorneys general challenge. There have been recent signs that the court in question is looking very seriously at this challenge. And Politico notes that a threatened movie tariff, based on the same weak statutory basis and now claiming a national security threat based on “imported” movies might be flaunting the legal absurdity of the President’s actions at just the wrong time.
No One Is On The Same Page On Medicaid Cuts—Including Guy Running Medicaid Agency
While most Trump administration officials have avoided weighing in on specifics while House Republicans grapple with how exactly they will try to discreetly slash funding for Medicaid, the Trump admin guy tasked with running the very office overseeing Medicaid and Medicare services offered his opinion on Monday.
Continue reading “No One Is On The Same Page On Medicaid Cuts—Including Guy Running Medicaid Agency”Kemp Out
Governor Brian Kemp (R) just formally announced he’s not going to run for Senate next year against Senator Jon Ossoff (D). It’s difficult to convey how big a coup this is for Democrats and how big a setback it is for Republicans for the 2026 midterms. Candidate choice is always important but seldom decisive. This is an exception. Ossoff was (and is) a favorite against everyone but Kemp. Kemp is a popular two-term governor who has managed what has eluded virtually every other Republican in the country: not being labeled “Never Trump” or anti-Trump and yet defying Trump at a critical moment. You don’t need to valorize that to recognize that that is a big selling point in what remains a tipping point state like Georgia. My own read is that Kemp recognizes the political power of that needle-threading and wants to keep it intact to run for President in 2028 or possibly even 2032.
Into the Wilds of Democratic Navel-Gazing and Big Think
About a week ago, both Matt Yglesias and Jonathan Last at The Bulwark had pieces up arguing different electoral strategies for the Democratic Party. Yglesias argued that while the current Democratic Party is at least competitive in national majority votes (good enough for bragging rights and probably the House) they are at a decisive disadvantage when it comes to winning the Senate in 2026 and in a challenging position when it comes to the Electoral College. What’s necessary, he argues, is a major repositioning on issues like guns and fossil fuels (among other issues) to make Democrats competitive in Senate contests in states like Iowa or Texas, states that often seem like they might elect a Democrat but then don’t. For the purposes of this conversation, we might slot in immigration and trans rights for Yglesias’ fossil fuels and guns. In a way, the arguments were captured by a series of speeches freshman Senator Elisa Slotkin (D-MI) started giving around the same time, in which she argued that Democrats needed to shed their reputation for being “weak and woke” in order to battle and defeat Trump.
Continue reading “Into the Wilds of Democratic Navel-Gazing and Big Think”3 Prosecutors Resign Over DOJ’s Highly Irregular Move In Police Brutality Case In LA
Morning Memo comes to you today from Pittsburgh, where my son – whose harrowing path through his college years I’ve previously shared with you – graduated yesterday.
Not Normal
Three career prosecutors resigned from the Justice Department over a highly unusual post-verdict plea agreement struck by the Trump-appointed acting U.S. attorney in Los Angeles. The plea agreement comes in a case where a sheriff’s deputy was convicted back in February of using excessive force against a Black woman.
“A plea agreement filed late Thursday says if Trevor Kirk pleads guilty to misdemeanor deprivation of rights under color of law, the U.S. Attorney’s Office will ‘move to strike the jury’s finding’ that he injured his victim, which made his crime a felony,” Meghann Cuniff first reported.
On Friday, the four federal prosecutors who handled the case and did not sign the plea agreement withdrew from the case. It was signed on behalf of acting U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli by an assistant U.S. attorney not previously involved in the case.
On Saturday, the LA Times reported that three of the prosecutors – assistant U.S. Attorneys Eli A. Alcaraz, Brian R. Faerstein, and section chief Cassie Palmer – had resigned from the Justice Department entirely.
The plea deal sets up a dramatic downward departure in sentencing from what Kirk faced with the felony conviction, Cuniff reports:
Kirk faced about nine years in prison under U.S. Sentencing Commission guidelines for his felony conviction, but his misdemeanor conviction carries a maximum of one year. However, Essayli and Keenan agreed to recommend only one year of probation. They also aren’t barring him from working in law enforcement.
A judge must still approve the plea agreement.
Judges Skeptical Of Trump DOJ
The rapid deterioration of the quality of the Justice Department’s work under President Trump has not been lost on federal judges, the WaPo reports.
Judge Strikes Down Trump EO Against Perkins Coie
U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell declared “null and void” the Trump executive order targeting Perkins Coie, the first time a judge has permanently enjoined enforcement of one of President Trump’s executive orders targeting law firms.
In a 102-page opinion clearly written to be judged by history, Howell invoked Shakespeare, John Adams, and Alexis de Tocqueville in finding the executive order sent a constitutionally impermissible message: “lawyers must stick to the party line, or else.”
In an important footnote, Howell was critical of the law firms who struck deals with President Trump rather than risk being targeted by an executive order:
[S]ome clients may harbor reservations about the implications of such deals for the vigorous and zealous representation to which they are entitled from ethically responsible counsel, since at least the publicized deal terms appear only to forestall, rather than eliminate, the threat of being targeted in an Executive Order.
Only when lawyers make the choice to challenge rather than back down when confronted with government action raising non-trivial constitutional issues can a case be brought to court for judicial review of the legal merits, as was done in this case … If the founding history of this country is any guide, those who stood up in court to vindicate constitutional rights and, by so doing, served to promote the rule of law, will be the models lauded when this period of American history is written.
TPM Exclusive: A New Attack On Judicial Branch
TPM’s Josh Kovensky reports on the implications of a lawsuit by the Stephen Miller-founded America First Legal Foundation against Chief Justice John Roberts and the head of the Administrative Office of U.S. Courts. While ostensibly a FOIA lawsuit, it is asking a federal judge to declare that the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts and the Judicial Conference of the United States are independent agencies of the executive branch. It’s a troll-ish argument but seems designed to lay the legal groundwork for President Trump to assert control over the administration of the federal judiciary.
Second Amendment Trumps Everything
The Trump administration has removed a memorial at ATF headquarters honoring victims of gun violence.
Jan. 6 Revisionism Alert
- In a remarkable encounter over the weekend at Mar-a-Lago, former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio – convicted of seditious conspiracy for his role in Jan. 6. – personally thanked President Trump for pardoning him.
- In a reversal of the Justice Department’s legal position, the Trump administration has reached a settlement in principle in the $30 million wrongful death lawsuit brought by the family of Ashli Babbit, the Jan. 6 rioter who Trump has turned into a martyr. Terms of the settlement have not been disclosed.
- Senate Judiciary Democrats are blasting the Trump DOJ for taking the position that the government must refund the restitution paid by Trump-pardoned Jan. 6 defendants.
Good Read
Greg Sargent: How Trump Inadvertently Sabotaged His Own Case Against Abrego Garcia
Quote Of The Day
“In this country, the federal government doesn’t get to arrest American citizens who have not committed a crime. In this country, we don’t threaten to persecute people just because they belong to a different political party.”–Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers (D), after border czar Tom Homan alluded to criminal charges over a memo issued to state employees confronted by federal immigration authorities
IMPORTANT
While President Trump backed away in recent days from targeting the tax-exempt status of nonprofits beyond Harvard, Trump administration officials at the IRS continue to explore whether to alter the rules governing how nonprofit groups can be denied tax-exempt status, the WSJ reports.
The Destruction: LGBTQ Health Edition
NYT: “Of the 669 grants that the National Institutes of Health had canceled in whole or in part as of early May, at least 323 — nearly half of them — related to L.G.B.T.Q. health, according to a review by The Times of every terminated grant.”
The Destruction: Arts And Humanities Edition
- NEA: On Friday night, the National Endowment for the Arts sent out notifications cancelling grants nationwide.
- NEH: A lawsuit reveals new details of DOGE’s role in mass termination of grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
For The Record …
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) May 3, 2025
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Republicans Persist In Newest Voter Suppression Fad Despite Evidence That It Hurts Their Constituents Too
Then-candidate Donald Trump and his Republican congressional allies fixated on the great “threat” of noncitizen voting in the 2024 campaigns. Despite copious research showing that this type of voter fraud is extremely rare, it was the election conspiracy theory du jour — out with bamboo fibers, magical voting machines and ballots in dumpsters, in with the “busloads of illegals.”
Continue reading “Republicans Persist In Newest Voter Suppression Fad Despite Evidence That It Hurts Their Constituents Too”The White House’s Next Orchestrated Budget Crisis
This is something I’m still trying to get my head around — both the technical legislative details as well as how all this plays in political terms. The details are still fuzzy to me, but I want to get the outlines in front of you. At the end of the summer we’ll be coming to the end of the fiscal year. DOGE has canceled tons of NIH grants and done various other things to make it really hard for NIH and other grant-making parts of HHS to do their work and spend the congressionally appropriated money. So by late August a very large pot of money will have built up and you will be coming to the end of the fiscal year in which Congress mandated that it be spent.
Continue reading “The White House’s Next Orchestrated Budget Crisis”