A series of attempts by President Trump’s Justice Department to access voter roll information is prompting increasing alarm from election administrators, who warn that the federal government may be laying the groundwork to attempt to strongarm states over how they conduct their elections.
Continue reading “DOJ Keeps Escalating Its Attempts to Get Ahold of States’ Voter Rolls”Portland Begins Its Own Fight Against Trump’s National Guard Occupations, Joining DC and LA
Portland, Oregon has become President Trump’s newest target for National Guard invasion and blood-drenched hyperbole, as the administration deployed a couple hundred troops over the governor’s resistance this weekend.
Continue reading “Portland Begins Its Own Fight Against Trump’s National Guard Occupations, Joining DC and LA”New Purges Continue to Hollow Out the Trump DOJ
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.
Removing the Few Remaining Guardrails
While the Trump DOJ has been hijacked to target Donald Trump’s perceived foes with criminal investigation and prosecution, it continues to undergo a slow-motion purge of career professionals that is flying a little bit under the radar.
The purge of career people — in many cases in violation of laws and procedures meant to protect them from untoward political influence — is important in its own right. But it also contributes to the larger scheme of removing roadblocks and guardrails that might prevent or slow down even more radical abuses of office by Trump and the political appointees at the Justice Department.
Among the latest purge developments we’ve learned over the past few days:
- DC: A group of agents photographed kneeling with protestors in D.C. during the June 2020 Black Lives Matter protests over the police killing of George Floyd have been fired en masse. It’s not clear how many agent were fired, but it could be as many as 20. Some of them had already been reassigned earlier this year in what amounted to demotions.
- Miami: Attorney General Pam Bondi summarily fired an up-and-coming assistant U.S. attorney in Miami reportedly over blog posts critical of President Trump written during his first term, before the AUSA joined the Justice Department. Will Rosenzweig was fired via email from Bondi while he was observing Rosh Hashanah; he didn’t notice anything was amiss until the next day when his office-issued mobile phone wasn’t working.
- Sacramento: The acting U.S. attorney in Sacramento says she was fired by President Trump shortly after warning Border Patrol honcho Gregory Bovino that a court order prevented him from arresting people without probable cause in the Eastern District of California. Michele Beckwith was fired July 15 less than six hours after her warning to Bovino, according to documents reviewed by the NYT.
Trump’s Fave Border Patrol Guy Admits to Racial Profiling
Gregory Bovino, the Border Patrol commander who is now running the Trump administration’s mass deportation operation in Chicago, admitted during an interview to detaining people on the basis of how they look, the Sun-Times reports:
“You know, there’s many different factors that go into something like that,” Bovino said. “It would be agent experience, intelligence that indicates there’s illegal aliens in a particular place or location.
“Then, obviously, the particular characteristics of an individual, how they look. How do they look compared to, say, you?” he said to the reporter, a tall, middle-aged man of Anglo descent.
You’ll recall that Justice Brett Kavanaugh in one of the Supreme Court’s recent emergency docket rulings earlier this month condoned using apparent ethnicity and race as a factor in deciding which people to stop.
Quote of the Day
“I spoke to the governor, she was very nice. But I said, ‘Well wait a minute, am I watching things on television that are different from what’s happening? My people tell me different.’ They are literally attacking and there are fires all over the place … it looks like terrible.”–a befuddled President Trump, feebly trying to square the difference between the real world reports from Orgeon’s governor on a peaceful Portland and the propaganda he’d been fed before announcing a plan to send troops to the city he described as “War ravaged”
Picking Through The Comey Indictment
A few new tidbits:
- WSJ: “Tensions over the case came to a head … after some administration officials, including Ed Martin, a Justice Department official pursuing cases of interest to Trump, privately told the president that the Justice Department was slow-walking cases against Trump critics, people familiar with the discussions said.”
- Acting U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan, with no prior experience as a prosecutor, stumbled through securing the Comey indictment, the NYT reports: “At one point, she entered the wrong courtroom. When she found the right one, she stood on the wrong side of the judge, then appeared confused about the paperwork she just had signed.”
- Politico: “[T]he case against the former FBI director and longtime Trump nemesis may quickly end in disappointment — and even humiliation — for the prosecutor who was conscripted by the president to bring the charges.”
New Trump Targets Alert
With President Trump making threats to broaden the abuse of the Justice Department to target his political enemies with criminal investigation and prosecutions, two new targets stand out:
- President Trump has turned his ire on former FBI Director Christopher Wray, his own appointee to the post who resigned immediately before Trump took office for a second term. In a Sunday phone call with NBC News, Trump sicced the Justice Department on Wray: “I would imagine. I would certainly imagine. I would think they are doing that,” Trump said when he was asked whether DOJ should investigate him. Trump connected his complaint about Wray to a bogus conspiracy theory that the FBI instigated Trump supporters to attack the capitol on Jan. 6.
- In a social media post over the weekend, President Trump threatened the private sector job of former Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, who is now a top executive at Microsoft. The president said Microsoft “should immediately terminate” her employment. Monaco oversaw the two criminal investigations of Trump while she wa No. 2 at DOJ during the Biden administration. She has already been a named target of a Trump executive order stripping security clearances from people he perceived as enemies.
The Never Ending Jan. 6 Revisionism: False Flag Edition
In a weekend social media post, President Trump embraced and reiterated the bogus claim that the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol was fomented by the FBI.
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) apparently got the memo and spewed the baseless conspiracy theory Sunday on national TV:
Johnson’s comment comes as he has created a revisionist Jan. 6 committee to rewrite the history of the attack, saying in the same TV interview that it’s “a committee investigating the previous committee.”
SCOTUS Hands Trump Huge Win on Lawless Rescission
In a stunning win for President Trump, the Supreme Court on Friday used its emergency docket to clear the way for him to continue to withhold billions of dollars in foreign aid despite congressional authorization of the monies. The decision implicitly ratified the president’s use of a pocket rescission, the refusal to spend the money before it expires tomorrow at the end of the fiscal year.
In the second fiery-for-her dissent of the week, Justice Elena Kagan noted that the court’s decision meant the foreign aid monies will now never reach the intended recipients and castigated the administration’s position that it would suffer irreparable harm by … following the law:
[T]hat is just the price of living under a Constitution that gives Congress the power to make spending decisions through the enactment of appropriations laws. If those laws require obligation of the money, and if Congress has not by rescission or other action relieved the Executive of that duty, then the Executive must comply. It cannot be heard to complain, as it does here, that the laws clash with the President’s differing view of “American values” and “American interests.” That inconsistency, in other words, is not a cognizable harm, to be weighed in the equitable balance. It is merely a frustration any President must bear.
Against Hopium and Doomerism
Binary categories of “Winning/losing” – or “weak/strong” – are just not very helpful right now. They tend to reproduce mood swings more than they help generate plausible analysis. Every Trumpian embarrassment (remember the “Liberation Day” tariff debacle?) is destined to cause a new round of “Trump is weak, he is losing” pieces; every authoritarian escalation is accompanied by a chorus of “Democracy is dead, Trump won” post-mortems. My point is not merely to say that the truth lies “in the middle” (it might be far closer to one end of the spectrum than to the other) – but to remind us all that we must consider the bigger picture and how the many different actions and reactions are connected.
New Banned Words
The Energy Department’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy has added “climate change,” “green” and “decarbonization” to its “list of words to avoid,” according to a Friday email obtained by Politico.
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The Corrupt Supreme Court Must Be Reformed: Dems Must Champion It
Going into 2026 and 2028 it’s time for — essential for — Democrats to make clear that the current Supreme Court will have to reformed (expanded in number, reformed in structure) to allow popular government to continue in the United States. This is not so much a litmus test (though it should be that too) as a precondition for any other promise to be credible.
Continue reading “The Corrupt Supreme Court Must Be Reformed: Dems Must Champion It”25th Anniversary Event Update
We’ve noted this in the emails members have received, but since we’ve gotten a lot of questions about it: tickets for individual nights will go on sale this coming week. We know a lot of people can’t make it in for both nights (Thursday and Friday). So for those who just want to attend the show Thursday evening or the anniversary party Friday evening, those tickets will go on sale this coming week.
I also want to take a moment to thank everyone who came out to our event with STAT News Thursday night in Cambridge (Boston). I loved the venue and it was a chance for me to finally meet a lot of longtime readers from Boston and the greater New England region. A bunch of members from Vermont, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, etc. were there. (There may have been some from Maine. But no one told me they were from Maine.) The venue was really great, I thought, and I had a great mini-discussion with Rick Berke, co-founder and executive editor of STAT News. (That was the “content” for this event before we got on to the happy hour proper.) Let me thank especially Allegra Kirkland and Christine Frapech as well as the rest of our team for putting the Boston event together.
We’ll update you when tickets for each individual night of the anniversary celebration go on sale.
It’s Completely Trump’s Supreme Court Now, And He Knows It
President Trump notched a startling legal win Friday evening, as the Supreme Court gave an early stamp of approval to a legal theory so outlandish that experts at one point predicted to TPM it wouldn’t “get a single vote.”
Continue reading “It’s Completely Trump’s Supreme Court Now, And He Knows It”Heads Won’t Roll
Hello it’s the weekend. This is The Weekender ☕️
Eager to cleanse his administration of the human guardrails that fenced him in during his first term, President Trump stocked his second White House with slavishly loyal zealots.
Continue reading “Heads Won’t Roll”Sinclair Backs Down
As I’ve written a few times, we can’t over-read any single move in the broad contest over big societal institutions obeying or resisting Trump administration diktats. But Sinclair Broadcasting just announced they’re ending their “preemption” of the Jimmy Kimmel show. Even their own statement seems to make clear that while they asked for concessions from ABC/Disney they didn’t get any.
Continue reading “Sinclair Backs Down”Beware the (Purported) Iron Laws of Shutdowns
As we hurtle toward an almost inevitable government shutdown, I want to note one part of the discussion I’ve seen among commentators. This is a bit in the weeds but I think it’s worth discussing. Some writers say that it’s actually a mistake for Democrats to make any policy demands in the budget standoff. So health care, pushing back on ICE, standing up for democracy … regardless of the specific demand, it’s a mistake. I noticed Bill Scher making this argument today in The Washington Monthly. I’ve seen TPM alum Brian Beutler in his Off Message substack newsletter. And these are only a couple of examples.
The argument goes like this.
These shutdown standoffs are technical budgetary questions. The side that is making policy demands is basically taking the budget hostage to extract extraneous policy concessions. Based on the evidence of the last 20-30 years of history, that side is the one who gets blamed for the shutdown because they’re “taking the budget hostage” or introducing extraneous demands even if those demands are good ones on the merits or even supported by the public. Beutler focuses on the “hostage taking” metaphor. Scher puts it this way:
Continue reading “Beware the (Purported) Iron Laws of Shutdowns”Every past attempt to use government shutdowns to extract policy concessions has failed, even when the policy demands are politically popular, because shutdowns make people forget what you have to say. Public attention shifts to how shutdowns hurt average Americans and how one political party is willing to harm constituents to play political games. Once public opinion quickly turns, the shutdown agitators invariably realize the shutdown failed to provide negotiating leverage and eventually cave.
Scandal-Plagued Oklahoma Schools Chief Ryan Walters Steps Down to Lead Anti-Teachers Union Group
This story first appeared at The 74, a nonprofit news site covering education. Sign up for free newsletters from The 74 to get more like this in your inbox.
He once called Oklahoma’s teachers union a “terrorist organization.” Now state Superintendent Ryan Walters is threatening to “destroy” teachers unions nationwide.
A former small-town history teacher who waged a culture war against educators over issues such as sexually explicit books and criticism of President Donald Trump, Walters announced his resignation Wednesday night to become CEO of the Teacher Freedom Alliance, an anti-union initiative of the Freedom Foundation, a conservative think tank.
“We will build an army of teachers to defeat the teachers unions once and for all,” he told Fox News. “This fight is going national and we will get our schools back.”
Walters was expected to run in the Republican primary for governor next year. But he had increasingly alienated “pretty much everyone” in state leadership, said Deven Carlson, a political science professor at the University of Oklahoma. “I do think there was still some grassroots support in pockets of the state, but it wasn’t clear how that was going to translate to the things you might need to win, say, the 2026 governor’s election.”
First as education secretary to Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt and then as the state’s elected schools chief for nearly three years, Walters established a reputation for a headline-grabbing and at times even outlandish brand of Christian nationalism. Even before his election in 2022, Walters singled out teachers he considered too “woke” for Oklahoma schools. Once in office, he moved quickly to revoke the teaching certificates of educators accused of violating laws against so-called “divisive concepts.”
With little initial opposition from the state’s GOP majority, he made news almost daily for controversial actions such as threatening to take over the Tulsa schools and mandating Trump-endorsed classroom Bibles. As recently as this week, he announced that every high school in Oklahoma would have a chapter of Turning Point USA, the youth-focused conservative organization Charlie Kirk founded in 2012. Most of the Wednesday’s Fox news show Walters joined focused on the growth of the organization since Kirk was killed Sept. 10 in Utah.
“We’ve never seen a national movement like this of so many kids, so many parents so willing to step up and say, ‘Listen, we have got to get the country back on track.’ ” he said. “We’ve got to turn away from this radical leftism.”
As Walters kept a busy calendar of appearances on right-wing media, at home, Republican lawmakers began criticizing the state chief for financial missteps, like delaying funds to schools for security upgrades. Former state officials said he failed to communicate about routine state business. He promoted stronger literacy instruction, recently launching a new tutoring initiative, but his divisive manner overshadowed his efforts to focus on learning.
Big news tonight on @FoxNews with @tracegallagher .
Liberal’s worst nightmare is about to become true.
Tune in.@foxnewsnight— Ryan Walters (@RyanWalters_) September 25, 2025
One Republican who repeatedly questioned Walters’ competence for the job and supported investigations into whether he should be impeached said the superintendent’s departure is a “very positive move for Oklahoma.”
Former state Rep. Mark McBride said he hopes the person Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt appoints as an interim replacement has “no agenda other than working with students and teachers to improve outcomes.” McBride, who led an education subcommittee in the House, said he would also “love to serve Oklahoma in this capacity,” but had not yet spoken with the governor about the possibility.
Walters was an early advocate of the Freedom Foundation’s efforts to weaken the teachers unions. He appeared at the group’s 2023 and 2024 Teacher Freedom Summits.
“They’re about power and they’re about money,” he said of the unions at last year’s event. “They could care less about student test scores.”
When the foundation launched the new Alliance earlier this year, Walters issued a press release endorsing the initiative, which prompted a state lawmaker to ask Oklahoma’s attorney general to investigate its legality.
Corey DeAngelis, a school choice advocate and outspoken union critic, said Walters is the right person for the job.
“Ryan Walters has the tenacity needed to take the unions head on,” said DeAngelis, a senior fellow with the American Culture Project, an effort to mobilize independent voters around issues such as school choice and tax relief. “His fearless advocacy against the status quo is exactly what we need to lead a mass exodus from the teachers union cartel.”
An enthusiastic MAGA supporter, Walters frequently voiced his admiration for President Trump, even directing schools last year to show a video of him praying for the president.
But the administration hasn’t always reciprocated.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon reportedly snubbed him during an August stop to the state. Carlson suggested the Education Department likely coordinated the visit with Stitt’s office and, with “little love lost” between the two men, “Walters didn’t make the itinerary.”
Department officials have also been critical so far of his proposal to eliminate federal testing requirements in the state and said he was wrong to suggest McMahon would likely approve it.
While Stitt, current chair of the National Governor’s Association, initially supported Walters’ political aspirations, the two were no longer “on the same page,” Carlson said. “I think the governor became frustrated with the effects that Walters initiatives were having on his economic development agenda.”
The state, for example, received negative attention for being 50th in education in one ranking.
Not long before Walters jumped into politics, he was an award-winning history teacher in the McAlester school district, not far from the Arkansas state line. Former students saw him as fair and inclusive, not the anti-LGBTQ firebrand he later became as state superintendent. His love for teaching impressed McBride when the two first met in 2018.
Despite a string of scandals, Walters always bounced back. A probe into his management of state funds last year found no misconduct or missing money. Most recently, he was cleared of any criminal charges following an investigation into why a movie with nude scenes, Jackie Chan’s 1985 action film “The Protector,” was playing on a TV in his office during a state school board meeting. Oklahoma County District Attorney Vicki Behenna said she found insufficient evidence that he had broken the law.
‘Constant distraction’
The episode was one of many that kept Walters in the news. Education advocates, who Walters frequently accused of indoctrinating students with left-wing ideas, largely expressed relief Wednesday night.
“We can get back to the true focus of teaching without the constant distraction and headlines from the state superintendent,” said Jami Jackson-Cole, a teacher who moderates a Facebook group of Oklahoma educators and advocates.
As Walters departs next month, they’re wondering who will take his seat, not just for the remaining 15 months of his term, but in the 2026 election.
Along with McBride, others rumored to be possible candidates for interim superintendent include Nellie Sanders, Stitt’s education secretary. A former member of a charter board, she voted in favor of approving the nation’s first religious charter school. Earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court split 4-4 on whether the school violated the First Amendment, allowing the state supreme court’s decision prohibiting tax dollars from funding the school to stand.
Regardless of who completes the rest of Walters’ term, advocates are also beginning to examine the records of those running for state superintendent. Republican candidates include Rob Miller and John Cox, two superintendents. Two former Tulsa board members, Democrat Jennettie Marshall and independent Jerry Griffin, have also filed paperwork to enter the race.
With Walters “being out of the picture, maybe Oklahomans who are serious about public education can now get to work turning this ship around,” said Erika Wright, an education organizer for Oklahoma Appleseed, a nonprofit law firm.
She’s been working with a coalition of organizations to develop a five-year agenda for the state’s schools that focuses on the teaching profession, student performance, funding for education and school safety.
“The possibilities that lie before us are really exciting,” she said, “but the work is not done.”