Big Win for Voting Rights as Judge Blocks Trump EO

Posted on by David Kurtz

‘The President Does Not Feature At All’

In a ruling Friday, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of D.C. permanently barred President Trump from requiring proof of citizenship on federal voter registration forms.

Trump had tried to strong-arm the Elections Assistance Commission into imposing the proof of citizenship requirement, as part of his broad executive order on voting. The president has no legal role in U.S. federal elections, and the March executive order was widely seen as Trump testing how far he could go in asserting power over election administration.

Kollar-Kotelly had already temporarily blocked the proof of citizenship provision back in April, and a federal judge in Massachusetts had likewise blocked other elements of the executive order.

In making her ban permanent, Kollar-Kotelly noted the president’s lack of a role in elections:

The Court pauses to note a conspicuous absence from the legal and historical context thus far provided. The states have initial authority to regulate elections. Congress has supervisory authority over those regulations. The President does not feature at all.

The case, which combined three lawsuits by the Democratic Party and voting rights groups, presented an early test for whether the courts would resist sweeping claims of presidential power in areas where there was no explicit legal authority or historic custom or tradition for the president to be operating.

Proof of citizenship to register to vote has been a Republican fixation for years, driven by a mix of xenophobia and political self-preservation. Trump and the GOP have wildly overstated the prevalence of illegal voting, but additional hurdles to voting — like requiring proof of citizenship — could dampen registration in immigrant communities and among marginalized potential voters. Many Americans lack ready access to proof of their own citizenship.

“The measure was designed to suppress voter participation in elections; a solution in search of a problem,” writes Joyce Vance, a former U.S. attorney in Alabama. “It’s akin to the poll taxes used in the South before the Supreme Court put an end to them.”

Quote of the Day

“Everything that they’re doing now is a relitigation of 2020. They’re trying to discredit the entire electoral system in the United States of America so that Donald Trump can finally be able to say, ‘You see, the system was corrupt. My lies were actually the truth.’ ”–Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes (D) 

Good Read

WASHINGTON, DC – OCTOBER 15: U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro speaks during a press conference at the U.S. Attorney’s Office October 15, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

The NYT’s Alan Feuer has a good rundown on why the D.C. U.S. attorney’s office is ground zero for President Trump’s politicization of the Justice Department.

Lindsey Halligan’s Signal Problem

The judge overseeing the criminal case against New York Attorney General Letitia James ordered the Justice Department to preserve all communications that might be relevant to her defense. The judge stopped short of ruling that the bewildering Signal messages sent by acting U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan to Lawfare reporter Anna Bower are discoverable (he wasn’t being asked to rule on that yet), but wants them and another communications preserved in the event that he is asked to rule on their discoverability later.

Judge Orders Emergency Funding for SNAP

U.S. District Judge John McConnell Jr of Rhode Island ordered the Trump administration to use emergency funds to sustain the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program through November. Funding of the critical anti-hunger program ran out of money at the end of October because of the government shutdown.

Judge Signals Outcome of Oregon National Guard Case

Following a three-day trial last week on the legality of President Trump’s ordered deployment of the National Guard in Oregon, U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut of Portland issued a preliminary injunction continuing to block the deployment until she issues a final ruling this Friday.

While Immergut stressed that it was a preliminary ruling as she continues to assess trial testimony and exhibits, the preliminary injunction strongly suggested she is going to rule against the administration on both the deployment and the federalization of the National Guard. Immergut had already issued a temporary injunction blocking the deployment.

Foreign Entanglements Watch

  • BREAKING: “The Trump administration has begun detailed planning for a new mission to send U.S. troops and intelligence officers into Mexico to target drug cartels, according to two U.S. officials and two former senior U.S. officials familiar with the effort,” NBC News reports.
  • The U.S. conducted its 15th strike against alleged drug-smuggling boats on Saturday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced. Three people were killed in the attack.
  • Mexico says it has been unable to locate the survivor of one of the U.S. high seas attacks last Monday and has ended its search.
  • The Trump DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel told some lawmakers behind close doors that the administration doesn’t consider itself to be bound by the War Powers Resolution of 1973 and will not seek congressional authorization for continuing hostilities in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific. The 60-day window that the resolution gives from the commencement of hostilities for the president to seek approval from Congress expires today.
  • Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA), the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, is warning of the breadth of the Trump administration’s claim it can conduct lethal attacks against people merely “affiliated” with groups it has designated as “narco-terrorists:” “They did not in any way, shape, manner, or form explain what the ceiling and floor are for ‘affiliated.’ Theoretically, that could go beyond whether they’re in the actual action of moving drugs.”

The Corruption: Ballroom Edition

WASHINGTON, DC October 15: US President Donald Trump delivers remarks during a ballroom fundraising dinner in the East Room of the White House on Wednesday October 15, 2025. (Photo by Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

While the Trump White House has put out a list of donors to his pet ballroom project and hosted many of them for a dinner, it has withheld the names of some donors and did not divulge the names of everyone in attendance at the dinner, the NYT reports.

Do you like Morning Memo? Let us know!

After 3-Day Trial, Trump Appointee Judge Grants Preliminary Injunction Blocking Guard from Portland

Posted on by Kate Riga

Judge Karin Immergut handed down a preliminary injunction late Sunday night, keeping the National Guard out of Portland. 

Continue reading “After 3-Day Trial, Trump Appointee Judge Grants Preliminary Injunction Blocking Guard from Portland” →

Early Bloggers Changed the Public’s Perception About the Iraq War

Posted on by Allegra Kirkland

War is an accelerant of change, not least in the media. In the last century, every major war has helped a new medium prove itself as essential for communication. The popular experience of the Second World War was shaped by radio (famously Edward R. Murrow’s live dispatches from the Blitz in London), Vietnam by television (with Walter Cronkite’s dismay at the Tet offensive being a pivot point), and the first Iraq War by cable news (CNN becoming addictive for its 24-7 coverage). 

For me — and not for me alone — the second Iraq War was the age of blogs. The first “web log” (an online diary accessible by search engines) was created in 1994 by a Swarthmore College student Justin Hall, who coded the HTML by hand. Even before 9/11, the new medium (now shortened to “blog”) was rising in popularity thanks to the development of easy-to-use hosting systems such as LiveJournal and Blogger. Most weren’t political, but rather digital daybooks revolving around personal concerns (parenting blogs) or obsessions (such as beloved celebrities). Talking Points Memo, created by Joshua Micah Marshall in 2000, was an early pioneer, notably for a bracing skepticism towards Republican Party propaganda.

Political blogs found their purpose once George W. Bush and his administration decided to use the justifiable outrage at the 9/11 attacks as a pretext for an ambitious remaking of the Middle East by military means. The run-up to the Iraq War and subsequent failure of Bush’s larger political project was enormously polarizing. Blogs became the perfect medium whereby this debate played out, especially important because much of the mainstream media had been cowed by nationalist fervor into going along with White House propaganda. 

Continue reading “Early Bloggers Changed the Public’s Perception About the Iraq War” →

Rob Ford Was Back at the World Series 

Posted on by Hunter Walker

Hello, it’s the weekend. This is The Weekender ☕️

This is a TPM deep cut.

As some of you may know, TPM has a long and illustrious history with the late former mayor of Toronto, Rob Ford. Back in 2013, Ford gained international infamy after he was filmed smoking crack. That revelation led to a series of cascading scandals including super racist rants, drunken misconduct and more crack videos — and that’s a partial summary.

Continue reading “Rob Ford Was Back at the World Series “ →

White House Limits Media Access to West Wing Offices in Latest Indignity for the Trump Press Corps

Posted on by Hunter Walker

On Friday evening, White House Communications Director Steven Cheung and Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt sent out a memo announcing a new restriction on press access in the West Wing. According to the memo, members of the White House press corps will now be restricted from accessing the area known as “upper press” without an appointment. 

The move comes amid extensive changes to the Washington press corps under President Trump. At the White House, the Trump administration has taken the unprecedented steps of choosing partisan, right-wing organizations to fill seats in the briefing room for daily press conferences and to join the pool reporters who accompany the president to events. Those tasks had long been the domain of the White House Correspondents Association. Some of the reporters who are not part of the hand-picked, partisan element have been subject to insults from top White House staffers. 

The changes echo others at the Pentagon, where recent restrictions on the press have been even more dramatic. Reporters there were asked to sign a pledge vowing not to gather information that has not been authorized for release. That move led several news organizations — including prominent conservative news outlets — to vacate the facility. They were summarily replaced by a slew of hand-selected media figures that include conspiracy theorists and extremists. 

One White House correspondent who spoke to TPM on Friday said the new restrictions in upper press were a sign of worse things to come in the West Wing.

“They already kicked all the legitimate news organizations out of the Pentagon. Now they want to do the same thing here,” said the correspondent, who requested anonymity to offer a candid assessment.

Traditionally, White House press pass holders have been able to have relatively free access to several areas of the complex, including the press workspaces adjoining the briefing room, the briefing room itself, and the North Lawn, where TV networks film standups and reporters often question officials as they enter the building. Along with these areas, reporters with hard passes can enter an area behind the briefing room podium known as “lower press” as well as “upper press,” which is located one floor above. While lower press contains the offices of relatively junior press aides, upper press includes the offices of the press secretary and communications director. Reporters stake out upper press when they are seeking to speak to these more senior aides. 

Accessing upper press requires going by a Secret Service checkpoint where your hard pass must be displayed. Often, after major breaking news events, reporters will come into the hallway outside the press secretary’s office seeking a comment. Other officials — including Cabinet members and, very rarely, the president — sometimes pass through upper press and speak with reporters there. 

The memo from Cheung and Leavitt attributed the new restrictions to “recent structural changes to the National Security Council.”

“The White House is now responsible for directing all communications, including on all national security matters,” the memo said. “In this capacity, members of the White House Communications Staff are routinely engaging with sensitive material.”

The memo said the new limits would “ensure adherence to best practices pertaining to access to sensitive material.” It also noted reporters will “continue to freely engage with White House Press Aides in the Lower Press Area outside of the Briefing Room.” 

Cheung did not respond to an email from TPM inquiring whether there had ever been a specific national security disclosure issue related to upper press. He also did not address questions about the pattern of insults, indignities, and increased partisanship in the White House press shop.

Trump Wants to Abolish the Filibuster? Please Proceed, Degenerate …

Posted on by Josh Marshall

As you’ve probably already heard, Donald Trump went on Truth Social late last night and announced that the time had come for his senators to pass a clean “continuing resolution” to reopen the government with a simply majority vote by abolishing the filibuster. The only proper response to this is “bring it on.” It’s never good to cower, of course. “Give it your best shot” is always the proper posture. But if Trump is able to accomplish this (I’m skeptical — more on that in a moment), that’s great news.

Continue reading “Trump Wants to Abolish the Filibuster? Please Proceed, Degenerate …” →

A Hunger Cliff Is Days Away. Women, Children and Food Banks Will Feel It First.

Posted on by John Light

This story was originally reported by Barbara Rodriguez of The 19th. Meet Barbara and read more of their reporting on gender, politics and policy.

Food banks in several states, including Idaho and Maine, are bracing for an influx of visitors. In South Carolina, a state emergency relief fund will be tapped to respond to demand. And in North Dakota, the state’s sole food bank has started an emergency fundraising campaign.

As lawmakers in Congress extend a nearly record-breaking federal government shutdown into possibly another month, massive cuts to critical aid are looming for the nation’s most vulnerable people — including women, postpartum parents and children.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as food stamps or SNAP, is set to run out of money beginning Saturday, the start of November. Separately, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, known as WIC, has no long-term funding for November. (The White House tapped some contingency funding for WIC in October, but advocates warn it’s set to run out over the next few weeks.)

SNAP, which has been around for 60 years, ensures nearly 42 million low-income Americans, including nearly 16 million kids, can access money to buy groceries. The funding is typically issued through debit-style cards that are not scheduled to be refilled on November 1 (or throughout the month since some states administer the program on a staggered calendar.)

“The fact that we’re talking about so much money and so many families that depend on it — not having the benefits go out next month is really going to be a crisis,” said Marlene Schwartz, director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy & Health at the University of Connecticut.

WIC, developed in the early 1970s, provides some money for food purchases, but it primarily offers resources aimed at making sure low-income new parents can raise healthy babies. That includes prenatal care, nutrition education and breastfeeding support. The program is a lifeline, serving 7 million people, including nearly half of all babies born in the United States.

Cutoffs to one or both programs would be unprecedented — Congress has never let funding for these vulnerable populations lapse, even during previous shutdowns. The ripple effect could be hungry families and pregnant and postpartum parents with fewer resources — including formula in some cases — to keep their babies healthy.

Food banks — the charitable aid system that distributes food to pantries and meal programs around the country and is funded through a range of sources, including private donations — are offering help as panic begins to set in among families. Many existing recipients of food pantries don’t qualify for SNAP because their income threshold, while potentially low, might not be low enough. It means strained resources for more people.

“Food banks and food pantries are going to step in during this period as a little bit of a bridge,” said Eric Hodel, chief executive officer for the Midwest Food Bank, which distributes food that reaches nonprofits in 25 states and runs distribution sites in two international facilities. “At times, we’ve maybe bridged some people for a day or for a week. If we have extended delays in the administration of SNAP, I think at the food bank we’re preparing that we may have to bridge that a little bit longer and further — so we’re continuing to do what we do to the best of our ability.”

But it’s not expected to be enough. Feeding America, the organization that provides a nationwide network of food banks, estimates that food pantries provide about one meal to every nine provided by SNAP. 

“The most challenging and heartbreaking situation for staff members and volunteers is when the pantry shelves are empty, and they must turn people away — veterans, seniors, families with young children. Yet, with increasing demand and the high cost of food, this is already the harsh reality for so many and, without immediate action, will become a reality for countless more people across the country,” said Claire Babineaux-Fontenot, CEO of Feeding America, in a statement.

It’s a dynamic playing out amid rising grocery prices. Schwartz added: “The charitable food system is there to support families, but it is tiny compared to the amount of money that is available through SNAP.”

That would be particularly relevant for the separate WIC program, explained Nell Menefee-Libey, senior public policy manager at the National WIC Association, which advocates for WIC staff who are based around the country. WIC is the nation’s largest breastfeeding support promotion program — a resource that cannot be filled by the charitable food system. The program also provides tailored foods that meet the specific nutritional needs of pregnant and postpartum parents, as well as those of children from infancy through their fifth birthday. It would also be at the whims of potentially inconsistent food offerings at food pantries.

And if a family is using infant formula, that can be the sole source of nutrition for a young child. For the most part, food banks have not historically supplied infant formula, said Menefee-Libey.

“It’s a pretty delicate supply chain, so trying to figure out what it would look like to get additional infant formula to food banks to support families in the event of a widespread disruption to WIC is incredibly challenging,” she said.

Advocates for SNAP benefits note that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), which administers WIC and SNAP, has contingency funds — between $5 billion and $6 billion, according to some estimates, for SNAP alone. The agency claims it’s unable to use those funds for the program. Nearly 60 percent of SNAP beneficiaries are children and older adults.

“Bottom line, the well has run dry,” reads part of a message on the USDA website.

Bottom line, the well has run dry.”U.S. Department of Agriculture

The assertion is being challenged in court. On Tuesday, a coalition of 25 Democratic-led states and the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration over its plans to cut SNAP access.

“The funds are available to continue SNAP right now without any interruption,” said Democratic Sen. Peter Welch of Vermont during a news conference this week. “So that is a decision the president is making on his own — on his own — to allow people to go hungry.”

While lawmakers in Washington remain deadlocked over how to reopen the government, some are also discussing stand-alone legislation that could continue to fund food assistance. The idea has bipartisan support, but whether there’s enough political will to do something within days is unclear for now. 

USDA tapped $150 million in contingency funds for WIC in October, and then a separate $300 million transfer from tariff funds. Menefee-Libey said if there is no clarity soon, the consequences will include WIC staff being furloughed, which would impact how families are able to access resources.

“I think we’re really fortunate that this is a program with broad bipartisan support, that the White House and USDA have both stepped in to provide quite a bit of support for the program during the shutdown,” she said. “But even all of the extraordinary measures that have been taken only get us through October. It is entirely fair to say that there needs to be a certain amount of urgency to make sure that we don’t see folks losing access to WIC benefits as soon as November.”

Carolyn Vega is associate director of policy analysis at Share Our Strength, a nonprofit that seeks to address hunger and poverty and oversees a No Kid Hungry campaign that is focused on ending child hunger.

Vega worries about the different groups who are most likely to suffer, including single-parent households and children who may show up to school hungry. (There are federal food assistance programs offered at schools, including for breakfast and lunch, which are not expected to be impacted by the shutdown.)

“The fastest and best way to address the looming hunger cliff is for USDA to step in and provide the benefits that families are eligible for and are counting on,” Vega said.

This cliff comes as the Trump administration announced in September that it would stop tracking food insecurity in American households through an annual report, claiming through a news release that the work was redundant, costly and politicized. Schwartz criticized the move, and its broader implications amid the shutdown.

“That measure has been around for as long as I can remember, and I’ve been in the field for a pretty long time,” she said. “The fact that they’ve just decided not to measure it — it’s like they’re trying to make it harder to really document the harm that’s occurring.”

Trump-Appointed Judge Praises Suspended DOJ Prosecutors

Posted on by David Kurtz

Down The Memory Hole

During the sentencing of a pardoned Jan. 6 defendant in an unrelated case, U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols of D.C. praised the two prosecutors who were suspended by the Justice Department this week after they referred to those who attacked the Capitol as a “mob of rioters.”

“In my view, both Mr. Valdivia and Mr. White did a truly excellent job in this case,” said Nichols, a Trump appointee, while the two suspended prosecutors watched the proceedings from the audience.

After suspending the two prosecutors, the Justice Department submitted a new sentencing memo in the case that edited out the “mob of rioters” section. Online access to the original sentencing memo was apparently blocked by the court clerk, Politico reported. Nichols said he hadn’t ordered the original sealed memo and that the Justice Department would have to justify deep-sixing it in a motion for his consideration.

Comey Attacks Indictment on Multiple Fronts

Former FBI Director James Comey filed the last of his planned pre-trial challenges to the politicized indictment against him, fleshing out a multi-prong attack on the legitimacy of the case. For those keeping close track, Comey has filed three distinct motions to dismiss, based respectively on

In addition, Comey is seeking (i) a bill of particulars from the government that lays out the charges against him with more factual specificity; and (ii) the transcript and audio
recordings of the grand jury proceedings, arguing that potential misconduct and other irregularities may form the basis for additional motions to dismiss.

Of particular note, Comey alleges that a FBI agent may have infected the grand jury proceedings because he was tainted by exposure to “privileged communications” between Comey and one of his lawyers obtained in an earlier investigation. The details of that episode are largely redacted in Comey’s motion so the details remain a bit murky.

Quote of the Day

U.S. Pardon Attorney Ed Martin, calling into question the validity of President Biden’s pardons, in an email to House Oversight Committee chair James Comer (R-KY) obtained by CNN:

As the Pardon Attorney, I can tell you unequivocally that my Office cannot support the validity and ongoing legal effect of pardons and commutations issued during the Biden Administration without further examination.

Their validity must be fully examined in light of what we now know – and I suspect ultimately by a Court with a presentation of the evidence you and others have gathered.

The Retribution: Abrego Garcia Edition

The big evidentiary hearing scheduled for next week on Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s claims of vindictive prosecution is looking increasingly in jeopardy, with both sides raising the prospect of delays.

Abrego Garcia’s defense team is urging the judge to hold the Trump administration’s feet to the fire by dismissing the case outright if its doesn’t cough up requested discovery on the vindictive prosecution claim and comply with a subpoena of top DOJ officials.

For its part, the Justice Department wants the judge to quash the subpoena and if he fails to do so to give prosecutors time to appeal that decision.

The Justice Department filing in the matter was signed by Stan Woodward, the former Trump world criminal defense attorney who is now the No. 3 at DOJ. It was his first appearance in the case and creates the unusual tableau, noted by Adam Klasfeld, of the No. 3 at DOJ trying to keep the No. 2, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, from having to testify in the case of a man who six months ago was rotting away indefinitely in an El Salvadoran prison after his unlawful deportation.

The White Nationalism Ain’t Subtle

NYT: “The Trump administration is drastically cutting the number of refugees it will admit to the United States, rejecting thousands of people fleeing war and persecution while reserving the record-low number of slots for mostly white Afrikaner South Africans.”

Deep Dive

TPM’s Kate Riga takes a closer look at the argument by Georgetown law professor Marty Lederman in the Illinois National Guard case that made the Supreme Court ask for more briefing and may be an elegant offramp that could limit President Trump’s militarization of America cities.

Trump’s Cloistered Cabinet

The NYT has a follow-on to The Atlantic’s report on the prevalence of Trump II officials living in military housing usually reserved for flag officers. Among the sheltered few: Pete Hegseth, Marco Rubio, Kristi Noem, Stephen Miller, Daniel Driscoll, and John Phelan.

Gunboat Diplomacy Watch

  • Trump administration officials have let it be known that they have “identified” military targets within Venezuela for potential air strikes, framing it misleadingly around combating drug trafficking rather than regime change.
  • The Trump administration froze out Senate Democrats by briefing only Republican senators on a secret target list and purported legal rationale for its military strikes in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific.
  • In a separate bipartisan briefing on the House side, Pentagon officials told members that they do not know precisely whom they have killed in the military strikes that have left at least 57 people dead, according to Democratic lawmakers in attendance.

‘Aggressively Partisan’

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) has been modeling for years the kind of politicized weaponization of the legal system that the Trump DOJ is now adopting — but things are much worse in Texas now that Paxton is also a candidate for U.S. Senate.

Do you like Morning Memo? Let us know!

‘Biblical Justice’: How North Carolina’s Chief Justice Transformed His State and America

Posted on by Allegra Kirkland

This post first appeared at ProPublica, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up for Dispatches, a newsletter that spotlights wrongdoing around the country, to receive our stories in your inbox every week.

In early 2023, Paul Newby, the Republican chief justice of North Carolina’s Supreme Court, gave the state and the nation a demonstration of the stunning and overlooked power of his office. 

The previous year, the court — then majority Democrat — had outlawed partisan gerrymandering in the swing state. Over Newby’s vehement dissent, it had ordered independent outsiders to redraw electoral maps that the GOP-controlled legislature had crafted to conservatives’ advantage.

The traditional ways to undo such a decision would have been for the legislature to pass a new law that made gerrymandering legal or for Republicans to file a lawsuit. But that would’ve taken months or years.

Newby cleared a way to get there sooner, well before the crucial 2024 election.

In January — once two newly elected Republican justices were sworn in, giving the party a 5-2 majority — GOP lawmakers quickly filed a petition asking the Supreme Court to rehear the gerrymandering case. Such do-overs are rare. Since 1993, the court had granted only two out of 214 petitions for rehearings, both to redress narrow errors, not differences in interpreting North Carolina’s constitution. The lawyers who’d won the gerrymandering case were incredulous. 

“We were like, they can’t possibly do this,” said Jeff Loperfido, the chief counsel for voting rights at the Southern Coalition for Social Justice. “Can they revisit their opinions when the ink is barely dry?”

Under Newby’s leadership, they did.

Continue reading “‘Biblical Justice’: How North Carolina’s Chief Justice Transformed His State and America” →

Watching the Podcast Bubble Burst From the Inside

Posted on by Allegra Kirkland

I started my first podcast in 2009. It wasn’t anything special, just a venue to practice documentary audio and force myself to publish something every two weeks. I was a kindergarten teacher in New York City, trying to figure out how to break into public radio. What I couldn’t have imagined then was that within less than a decade, I’d find myself inside a podcast industry bubble — a bubble that many of us correctly suspected would eventually pop. 

Continue reading “Watching the Podcast Bubble Burst From the Inside” →