Trump Administration Fails to Substantiate Its Claims of Noncitizen Voting (Again)

Posted on August 21, 2026August 21, 2026 by John Light

Good morning! I hope this morning dispatch, focused on the latest updates about ongoing TPM storylines, has been useful. Starting next week, TPM members will be able to recieve it as an email. If you’re not a member, consider becoming one!

Propaganda Meets Reality

Ahead of President Trump’s big speech last month touting supposedly new information about election interference (there was little new info, and no new conclusions to draw from it), the Department of Homeland Security claimed to have uncovered “tens of thousands of non-citizens who are illegally on the states’ voter rolls.” That press release inspired credulous headlines in major news outlets, even as experts scrambled to explain that its conclusions appeared to be baseless, and likely founded on a database that would not allow the department to make such claims.

Now, despite DHS’ July assertion that it found “15,903 non-citizens registered to vote in Nevada,” the department has privately told state election administrators that it has identified on the voter rolls only a fraction of that number of “potential” noncitizens — 185, according to emails and recordings obtained by the New York Times.

Whats more, the administration has not given Nevada actionable information about who those 185 are — it hasn’t even provided names, per the Times. It also has apparently not alleged any of them voted. “In the virtual meeting, federal officials told Nevada that the nearly 16,000 they had originally identified represented ‘the ceiling’ of potential noncitizens,” the Times reports.

21-Year-Old Uses AI to ‘Test’ a ‘Theory.’ Chaos Ensues.

MADISON, WISCONSIN – AUGUST 11: With her son George by her side, Democratic Wisconsin Gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong votes in the primary election on August 11, 2026 in Madison, Wisconsin. Recent polling has Hong with a substantial lead over her nearest Democratic rival David Crowley. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Following some impressive digital sleuthing, the Guardian identified and spoke with a 21-year-old who appears to be behind the website that put out fake polling data about California, Nevada and the gubernatorial primary in Wisconsin that saw David Crowley defeat Francesca Hong. The Hong polling, in particular — it showed her 20 points ahead, only for her to later lose her election — helped launch a thousand thinkpieces.

Rahil Prakash, the guy the Guardian identified, told the newspaper the polling miss in the Michigan governor primary, when surveys showed Abdul El-Sayed with more of an advantage over Haley Stevens than he actually had on primary day, gave him the idea for the “experiment.” “This is what inspired me to test my theory,” said Prakash. “I was a bit shocked, perhaps at how fast this sort of information can spread.”
Prakash said he used AI to create the fake polling results.
Speculation has abounded that the whole operation was some kind of scheme to make money on betting sites such as Kalshi or Polymarket, even though “Median Strategies,” the outfit behind the “poll,” insisted the “project was not undertaken for financial gain or to influence the value of any financial or prediction-market position.” It has “all the earmarks” of a “pump-and-dump scheme,” American Prospect editor Dave Dayen wrote. “I think this falls into the category of hard to prove but very hard to think it’s anything else,” Corey Frayer, a former financial regulatory staffer in Congress now with the watchdog group Consumer Federation of America, told Dayen.
Nonetheless, Prakash denied to the Guardian he placed bets on any prediction markets amid his scheme. “No, not at all,” he said.
If this is the full story, it’s a wild cautionary tale about AI and our current media environment, where slop easily insinuates itself into our social media feeds, and even into coverage by major news outlets and statements by political campaigns. It also may not be the full story.

Tabs

The Daily Beast has published what it says are two letters from Natalie Harp to Trump. They are bizarre!

Mike Rogers, the candidate running for Senate against Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan, backed a one-year moratorium on data centers, The Detroit News reports — a clever finger to the wind amid widespread distrust of AI and the facilities needed to support it.
Relatedly, a Reuters analysis of money in this year’s election finds that “Crypto companies, artificial intelligence firms and online betting have emerged as the biggest industries shaping the 2026 midterm races, driving a record amount of business spending on congressional contests, according to campaign finance watchdogs and interviews with more than a dozen political strategists from both parties.”

Man of the Hour

UNITED STATES – FEBRUARY 24: Barron Trump and his mother First Lady Melania Trump attend President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address in the House Chamber of the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday, February 24, 2026. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

Its Barron Trump, the college sophomore who is worth $150 million. Much of that fortune comes from his family’s various cryptocurrency schemes, Forbes suggests.

Are We at War?

Oman and the UAE are thrilled that parts of their countries are now “U.S. Territory.”

Biggest US Retailers Use $5 Billion in Trump Tariff Refunds to Appease Investors

Posted on August 21, 2026August 20, 2026 by Layla A. Jones

This week saw some of the country’s largest retailers report their quarterly earnings and the impact of some several billion dollars in tariff refunds on their bottom lines.

After the Supreme Court struck down tariffs President Donald Trump levied under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA, Trump’s administration was ordered to repay, with interest, tariff revenue collected under that statute. After all was calculated, 330,000 importers were owed $166 billion via a process that’s being facilitated by U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Some $100 billion of that had been repaid as of July 31, while an additional $29 billion has been approved to be liquidated and refunded, according to an August 4 declaration from CBP official Brandon Lord.

For the most part, American consumers are unlikely to see much benefit from the billions big corporations are getting back. And according to a report from the New York Federal Reserve Bank, companies aren’t done hiking prices in response to Trump’s trade policies.

Target, Walmart, Home Depot, Lowe’s and TJX, which houses brands TJMaxx, Marshalls and HomeGoods, reported earnings between Tuesday and Thursday. The bulk of repayments began during the quarter the big box stores reported on throughout the week, offering a look into how much corporations were repaid and what they spent that windfall on.

How Much Did the Biggest Corporations Get?

In total, the five brands reporting as of Thursday received just over $5 billion in IEEPA tariff refunds. That amounts to 5% of all the tariffs that have been repaid so far.

Home Depot got $730 million. Target got $994 million. Lowe’s recorded a modest $80 million refund, which its executives said is a small share of what the company ultimately expects to receive. TJX reported $331 million in tariff refunds. And Walmart netted $2.9 billion from the U.S. government, more than the other four companies combined.

Did Shoppers Get Any of That Money?

Sen. Elizabeth Warren sent a letter in early August urging Walmart, Target, and some major tech companies to translate tariff refunds into lower prices for shoppers, championing the Democratic populist call for tariff refunds to trickle down to consumers.

Executives at Walmart openly said during their earnings call that the chain was using at least some of their tariff boost to reduce prices. That’s notable, since when Walmart publicly announced it would raise prices in response to Trump’s tariffs in May 2025, the president lashed out at the retailer. Target executives highlighted price cuts but didn’t explicitly connect those to their refund.

Home Depot, Lowe’s, Target and TJX did not report lowering prices as a result of the one-time influxes of cash. Instead, each of those brands represented the ways they used the money to boost their gross profits by reducing the cost of sales. Since gross profit is the amount of revenue a company takes in minus the cost of earning that revenue, diverting tariff cash into decreasing the cost of goods sold decreases the amount companies have to subtract from their revenue and bumps their gross profit. Walmart also used some of its refund to do that.

TJX took $112 million of its $331 million tariff refund to pay out employee incentives and bonuses, the company reported.

U.S. consumers are paying about $1,100 more annually because of tariffs, according to an August analysis from Yale Budget Lab. Last September, the Yale Budget lab projected the average household would lose $2,400 because of tariffs.

One-Time Boost Masks Weakening Sales

Lowe’s reported the lowest tariff refund gain and also had to revise down its projections for the remainder of the year.

At Target, a 4.7% increase in the percentage of revenue left after the cost of sales would’ve dropped down to just 1% without the benefit of the tariff refunds, the company reported.

And while at Home Depot the amount of the average transaction increased, the number of transactions in general decreased. Home Depot, Walmart and Lowe’s highlighted the impacts of higher fuel costs on these quarterly results and future projections, all backing up the tangible, negative effects of Trump’s Iran War on energy prices that are whacking the everyday driver, major retail companies, and airlines alike.

Consumer confidence and consumer perceptions of current economic conditions dropped in July, according to data from The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index. A preliminary look at Republican sentiment about the economy for August is the lowest it’s been since the 2024 presidential election, the University of Michigan’s Survey of Consumers found, while data from the Census Bureau showed retail sales in July down from the previous month. Those figures were up, though, from July 2025, when Trump’s tariff regime was taking shape.

Greg Abbott Grasps At Anything to Stir Up Anti-Islam Panic for His Reelection

Posted on August 20, 2026August 20, 2026 by Nicole LaFond

Abbott’s Only Campaign Strategy

For over two years now, the George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Texas has had facilities to accommodate the Muslim wudu ritual of washing hands, feet and face ahead of daily prayers.

But Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is, just now, very concerned about it.

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Is There a Polling ‘Crisis’ and Why Should We Care If There Is?

Posted on August 20, 2026August 20, 2026 by Josh Marshall

I wanted to follow up on my post about Pat Ruffini’s deep dive about the accuracy of Senate race polling in recent cycles and whether they’ve overstated Democrats’ strength. But since I wrote that post, I’ve also gotten a few emails from friends and TPM readers about polling generally. So I wanted to combine all of this together into some general comments on polling and whether we should care about it at all.

In the wake of the big apparent polling misses in Michigan and Wisconsin, we’re seeing another wave of discussion about a purported “crisis” in polling and what we should collectively do about it or what the polling industry should do about it. Mostly, the answer is there is no “crisis” — at least in the sense of one that any of us should care about as some problem for American democracy or elections or anything else. If you’re in the polling business, it may well be a problem. But if you’re not, who cares? There might be a crisis in Swiss cheese marketing too. But if I’m not a cheese monger, why do I care?

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DHS Exempted Itself from Normal Law for Undercover Investigation Into Protesters

Posted on August 20, 2026August 21, 2026 by Josh Kovensky

Tucked in at the bottom of a bombshell document released last week detailing DHS’ undercover operations in Minneapolis is a curious note.

“This case has also been accepted under CUC Op Keyhole,” it reads.

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California’s Dem Senators Write to SoS Expressing ‘Grave Concerns’ About Tina Peters

Posted on August 20, 2026August 20, 2026 by Khaya Himmelman

Hello, and welcome back to The Franchise!

Election officials in Shasta County — a deep red California county that has been plagued by election denialism and election conspiracy theories since the aftermath of the 2020 election — have decided that it would be a really terrific idea to hire election denier and recently-released-from-prison ex-elections administrator Tina Peters as an … elections consultant.

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Security Blankets and the Mad, Mad King

Posted on August 20, 2026August 21, 2026 by Josh Marshall

If you’ve been online in the last few days you’ve undoubtedly been exposed to Natalie Harp Discourse (NHD), the phenomenon surrounding a woman who has served since January 2025 as President Trump’s human emotional comfort blanket. Attention to Harp had been growing online over the last couple weeks. (Perhaps the canonical account on her role was published by the New York Times just after the 2024 election.) Even the TPM Editors’ Blog has been in on the action. But it kicked into high gear on Sunday when Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) referenced her with a mere three words in a campaign speech which was then sliced and diced for maximum social media exposure. Let me quote the full sentence with the three words about Harp in italics: “He golfs and trades stocks. See, he doesn’t want to do the job. He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the emir of Qatar.”

This may seem like fluff and frivolity to some. But among other things it brings to the surface a question that has hovered around the opposition to Trump ever since he entered the political scene more than a decade ago. I had been thinking about this in recent weeks because it becomes increasingly relevant, especially with the onset of the 2026 midterms.

A Disturbing Peek Into Trump’s Kafkaesque Immigration Courts

Posted on August 20, 2026August 20, 2026 by David Kurtz

Wrong, Wrong, and Wrong Again

Today we begin with a particularly striking example of the bleak inanity of executive branch immigration courts under President Trump, first flagged by Politico’s Kyle Cheney.

The especially disturbing episode was revealed in an order yesterday by U.S. District Judge Sheri Polster Chappell of Ft. Myers, Florida, who granted a petition for a writ of habeas corpus by a Colombian national whose case was repeatedly botched by an immigration judge.

I’m not sure botched is strong enough.

The Kafkaesque tale, as recounted in Judge Polster Chappell’s order, began April 9, when Jorge Eliecer Madera Reyes was arrested by Orlando police for … opening a beer inside a convenience store … in violation of a local ordinance. His arrest brought Madera Reyes to the attention of ICE, which detained him on April 11.

Madera Reyes, who had no prior criminal history, has been in the United States since 2019, when he overstayed his visa. Since then, as Judge Polster Chappell describes it: “He has not departed the country since his 2019 arrival, and he has applied for asylum, obtained work authorization and steady employment, filed income tax returns, and developed family and community ties.”

Those are relevant facts which will be important in a moment.

When Madera Reyes sought to be released from ICE custody on bond, Immigration Judge Stuart Siegel denied his request in a flawed May 19 order that wildly misstated the facts that the denial was based on:

*Annotated excerpt from immigration judge’s order*

“There is no dispute that each of the three stated reasons for denying bond are factually incorrect,” Judge Polster Chappell wrote in her order. As we already know, Madera Reyes is not a recent arrival, he applied for asylum, and he hasn’t left the United States since he arrived. The immigration judge got each of those facts wrong.

Three strikes and you’re out. But it gets worse.

When Madera Reyes appealed, the immigration judge rejected it and “reiterated the incorrect factual basis for denying bond,” Judge Polster Chappell wrote.

Madera Reyes later managed to establish that the DHS allegations against him were incorrect, and DHS amended its charges against him. At that point, Madera Reyes renewed his request for release on bond.

No matter. The immigration judge denied bond for Madera Reyes on July 16 “without conducting a hearing and based on the same mistaken understanding of the facts,” Judge Polster Chappell wrote.

Finding that Madera Reyes had made a prima facie case that his Fifth Amendment rights had been violated, Judge Polster Chappell ordered him released within 24 hours.

Clock Is Ticking on ICE Agent Extradition

I planned to follow up on yesterday’s Morning Memo with an item on the urgency of Minnesota’s lawsuit against Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to force the extradition of ICE agent Christian Castro to face criminal charges for the January shooting of Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis — but Georgetown law professor Steve Vladeck has an excellent rundown this morning on why the clock is ticking:

[T]he statute that authorizes holding a fugitive for the asylum state governor’s benefit also sets a [90-day] deadline for the asylum state governor to act. But the deadline carries no consequence for the governor who blows it. The only consequence falls on the demanding state, which loses its defendant. Thus, delay isn’t a litigation risk for Governor Abbott. Delay is the remedy he almost certainly is seeking.

The 90-day deadline in Castro’s case appears to be next week. Hence Minnesota’s urgency in not just getting a court order requiring Abbott to act, but in seeking a separate order preventing the sheriff in Texas’ southernmost county who arrested Castro from releasing him.

As Vladeck notes: “Minnesota’s entirely plausible concern appears to be that release from a border town like Brownsville would allow Castro to slip into Mexico—at which point no interstate rendition warrant, however belatedly signed, would be worth much of anything.”

I just wanted to fill out that picture a little bit more because in its filing Minnesota presented somewhat more than a hypothetical fear that Castro would flee to Mexico. Jailhouse calls reveal that Spanish-fluent Castro has been “in frequent communication” with a woman in Mexico talking about marrying her and buying a house there after he’s released, Minnesota alleged:

On information and belief, law enforcement’s initial review of Castro’s Cameron County jail calls reflects that Castro has substantial ties to Mexico and there is a real risk that he may flee and avoid prosecution if he is released from custody. Castro would be released close to the Mexican border. Castro is fluent in Spanish and has been in frequent communication with a woman in Mexico, including about marrying her and buying a house in Mexico when he is released.

Gotta hand it to the writers’ room that they came up with a plot device where an ICE agent might flee across the border to Mexico to escape the U.S. criminal justice system.

After the Purge: The Sycophants

After firing inspectors general en masse, President Trump has installed sycophants as replacements and redirected their focus from the departments that they’re supposed to investigate to politicized allegations of fraud in blue states, the New York Times reports.

The Corruption: Census Bureau Edition

It’s hard to overstate how much this bogus new report that claims Trump really won the 2020 election is a corruption of the Census Bureau, it’s stellar reputation for methodological rigor, and its nonpartisan neutrality.

A Man-Child President’s Wounded Ego

WASHINGTON, DC – JULY 21: A scaffolding with a tarp on it cover the marquee at the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts after President Donald Trump’s name was removed on July 21, 2026 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Kevin Carter/Getty Images)

The Trump-controlled Kennedy Center told a federal judge Wednesday that a tarp covering up the space where President Trump’s name was illegally bolted to the marble facade must remain indefinitely because of … reasons — including assessing damage to the stonework.

It’s not clear what “damage” it’s referring to, but Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-OH), an ex officio board member who successfully sued to have Trump’s name removed, told the judge she suspects it’s from adding the president’s name in the first place: “The current statement also refers to vague ‘reported panel damage’—which apparently means damaged caused by the installation or removal of President Trump’s name the first time around.”

Beatty’s position remains that the tarp is Trump’s way of defying the court’s order to take his name down by complying with the literal removal but not making publicly visible on the performing arts venue it’s official name honoring President John F. Kennedy: “His name should once again be visible on the façade and Defendants’ childish refusal to accept this Court’s ruling to that effect should end now.”

News? Tips? Feedback? Please let me know. For sensitive information, use the encrypted methods here.

The Second Trump Admin Has Not Yet Gone All-Out in Attacking Abortion. That May Soon Change.

Posted on August 20, 2026August 20, 2026 by John Light

Good morning! I am back, and excited to get back into it.

The Next Trump Attack on Abortion?

President Donald Trump on Wednesday nominated a top administration health policy official and conservative activist, Heidi Overton, to head the Food and Drug Administration. Overton spent the Biden administration at the America First Policy Institute, one of a few competing policy incubators that emerged in anticipation of a second Trump term, where she was outspoken about abortion and, specifically, against the abortion medications she will now regulate if confirmed.

“America First policies should focus on immediately halting the effort to normalize abortion-on-demand and on broadly recognizing the evidence of the risk posed to women,” she wrote in one policy brief, which I first saw flagged by the Guardian. “In the upcoming state legislative sessions and the 118th Congress, policymakers should prioritize providing greater protection for the two lives involved—the mother and the baby—especially with safeguards to protect women and children from the dangers of teleabortion.” In another AFPI statement, she celebrated the fall of Roe v. Wade in the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision.

One of the themes we’ve been tracking since the second Trump administration began to take shape is the way in which it has been forced to speak out of both sides of its mouth on abortion, appeasing anti-abortion activists while seemingly fearful of electoral backlash. In November 2022’s elections, which came only months after Dobbs was handed down, voters’ fury at states’ rapid moves to rip away abortion rights, which they now had the greenlight to do, helped buoy Democrats, somewhat holding in check the usual phenomenon where a president’s party loses ground in Congress in the midterm. Americans’ anger about the decision continued to loom over the 2024 presidential campaign.

As a result, the radicalism with which, in 2025, the administration pushed to enact a reactionary agenda was not as clear-cut on this issue. The question is whether that will begin to change. Conservatives have been particularly incensed about the way in which doctors in blue states, through telehealth, have been able to prescribe the abortion drug mifepristone in red states. They want the FDA to step in and restrict access to drugs it has long held to be safe. Trump’s first FDA head, Marty Makary, promised a review of the drug. Then nothing happened. Conservatives were furious. It was a factor in Makary’s ultimate ouster. Soon after he stepped aside, the review went forward. But notably, the review, launched in June, was expected to take six months, “meaning it likely won’t be completed before the midterm elections,” the Wall Street Journal reported.

Overton’s nomination could be seen as laying the groundwork for what will happen after the review — and the elections — are complete.

The position requires Senate confirmation. Democrats have indicated they will oppose her nomination; to successfully block her, they will need some Republicans to join them. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), a doctor, has voiced skepticism, citing Overton’s role in a recent administration order to split up childhood vaccine schedules. But Cassidy has been easily swayed before.

Trump’s Attack on the Census Takes a New Form

WASHINGTON, DC – JULY 24: U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026 in Washington, DC. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains. (Photo by Eric Lee/Getty Images)

The Census Bureau is claiming in a short report with no listed author that 24,000 non-citizens voted in the 2020 election, a dubious assertion Trump immediately and predictably seized on on social media.

“[O]ne of the red flags in the report is that the Census Bureau, when they start to use a new data source, typically goes through a very extensive process of trying to understand the data quality,” one expert told TPM’s Layla A. Jones Wednesday. “And I don’t see any evidence that they did that.”
NPR reported Wednesday that the analysis was not conducted by career civil servants and that the team behind it “included individuals affiliated with the America First Policy Institute, a think tank started by officials from Trump’s first administration.”
The AFPI and other Trump-aligned think tanks, including America First Legal and the Center for Renewing America, have appeared to be behind many of the Census’ most controversial moves recently, TPM has reported, including an effort to change how the bureau anonymizes respondents that has experts scratching their heads.
The latest developments are an additional ominous data point about how the administration might seek to use the census to further its own agenda. TPM has reported on a plan being passed around within the administration that would restrict the bureau from counting many immigrants in apportionment, stripping political power away from blue states and giving it to red states.

Tabs

White nationalists at a recent conference celebrated that “local media has been dying all over America, which means that there’s essentially no real way to hold local governments accountable — and they can do whatever they want,” concluding “this is a good thing.” Investigative journalist Phil Williams flagged the statement.
Asked a fairly standard question during a debate Wednesday about U.S. national security interest in Taiwan, Sen. Darline Graham (R-SC), the sister of and interim replacement for Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), delivered a fairly shocking cop out. “I’m just going to be honest here,” she said. “I’m not that informed on national security.” Graham is running against Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC), a right-wing member of Congress, in a primary to become Graham’s permanent replacement. “National security is not my thing,” she added later, “not my area of expertise, but I do support the military.”

Woman of the Hour

US President Donald Trump and Natalie Harp (R), aide to President Trump, attend a dignified transfer solemn event for US service members killed during operations in the Middle East, at Dover Air Force Base in Dover, Delaware, on July 22, 2026. (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP via Getty Images)

It’s Natalie Harp, who, MS NOW reported Wednesday, managed to remain omnipresent around Trump — following him everywhere and even drafting his Truth posts — without obtaining a security clearance for more than a year. “After concerns mounted among the White House counsel’s office and security officials, the president himself intervened, and Harp in recent months filled out the forms to launch a formal federal background investigation and received the clearance,” the network reported.

Are We at War?

It is now time for the “MOST CRUSHING ECONOMIC OPERATION EVER TAKEN AGAINST ANY COUNTRY.”

New Report on Carr Communications With White House, Right-Wing Media Affirms What We’ve Know All Along

Posted on August 19, 2026August 19, 2026 by Nicole LaFond

Meetings With Murdoch and Sinclair Chief

I’ve been making the case in Where Things Stand for some time now that Federal Communications Commissions Chair Brendan Carr has been one of the most successful yes men of Trump’s second term when it comes to carrying out the very specific and often petty aims of Trump’s retribution campaign against the media.

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