Trump Administration Loses Plot During ‘Free Speech’ Struggle Session

Posted on by John Light

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

To some extent, every new excess by the Trump administration is unsurprising to us, the writers and editors of Talking Points Memo, and, I imagine, to you, our readers. These guys told us what they were going to do, after all. It sounded authoritarian. Trump’s own former military leaders said he was “fascist.” But given that priming, we heavy consumers of news can, I think, sometimes lose track of how far the Trump administration has gone, even by its own standards.

Nicole on Thursday flagged an interview with CNBC during which FCC director Brendan Carr outlined his belief that both his agency and the “media ecosystem” overall are in the midst of a “massive shift” given the “permission structure that President Trump’s election has provided.”

“And I would simply say we’re not done yet with seeing the consequences of that,” Carr said.

“Will you only be pleased when none of these comedians have a show on broadcast television?” CNBC anchor David Faber asked.

“No, it’s not any particular show or any particular person,” Carr replied. “It’s just we’re in the midst of a very disruptive moment right now, and I just, frankly, expect that we’re going to continue to see changes in the media ecosystem.”

Carr and the rest of the Trump administration have tried to get a lot of mileage out of the whole idea that the 2024 election represented a substantiation of an American cultural “vibe shift” post-COVID (though Carr’s talk of a new, Trumpian “permission structure” is a particularly chilling way to articulate that idea).

But setting aside that Trump’s electoral victory was, in the end, not that large, are Trump’s leaders in government still doing what they understood themselves to have won permission to do?

“This was all in Project 2025, btw,” an actor from “Glee” tweeted, and Carr at 11:43 p.m. replied with that GIF of Jack Nicholson nodding with an ecstatic, unhinged look, a seeming affirmation that, yes, this was all the plan.

But was it? Carr, in fact, wrote the FCC chapter of Project 2025. There was nothing about revoking broadcast licenses or using the “Equal Time” rule in creative ways, as he has threatened to do with “The View,” a program that is seemingly his next ABC-broadcast target. “The FCC should promote freedom of speech,” his chapter of Project 2025 began.

That’s an ideal his party is now seemingly somewhat confused about. Early this week, Pam Bondi got in trouble for trying to distinguish anti-Charlie Kirk “hate speech” from “free speech.” “An FCC license, it’s not a right. It really is a privilege,” Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) told Semafor on Thursday. “Under normal times, in normal circumstances, I tend to think that the First Amendment should always be sort of the ultimate right. And that there should be almost no checks and balances on it. I don’t feel that way anymore,” she added. Other Republicans took the opposite side of the issue, with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) of all people calling Carr’s tactics “right out of Goodfellas.”

It’s in these moments where the Trump administration and its allies lose the plot — when they do an about-face on the same ideas they bear hugged in weeks and months and years prior, casting about for enemies to punish — that the MAGA coalition frays a bit, straining under the weight of cognitive dissonance. We saw the same thing with Trump’s short-lived war on Iran and, much more so, with his aggressive insistence that there was nothing important going on with that Jeffrey Epstein guy. The cause of ending cancel culture launched a thousand MAGA-aligned influencer careers; it is the supposed raison d’être of entire MAGA-friendly publications. Now that the government they serve has turned the page on free speech, what do they do?

It’s not just the MAGA faithful. Booting a late-night host watched by millions from the air over some muddled remarks about your slain political ally is the kind of thing that gets the attention of the “normies” who have decided to tune out from the whole lurid spectacle of American democracy in 2025. (Ditto for revising childhood vaccine recommendations while confessing you’re not even totally clear what you’re voting on.)

Ten years into this, only fools predict we’ve reached the beginning of the end of Donald Trump. And that’s not what I’m saying. But moments like these are not good for Trump’s already limited base of support, and bring us toward the next chapter of America’s authoritarian experiment, whatever that chapter may be.

— John Light

Here’s what else TPM has on tap this weekend:

  • A look at Republicans’ careful tinkering with their favorite legislative tool.
  • Indiana Republicans appear to be on the cusp of caving to Trump’s demands on redistricting.
  • DC officials head to Congress, attempting to push back on the portrayal of their city as a hellscape.

Let’s dig in.

Republicans Prune Parts Of The Filibuster That Don’t Help Them 

The legislative filibuster helps Republicans. They can still do nominations and tax cuts with a simple majority, and it prevents them from having to execute on the policy demands of the base, many of which are massively unpopular. 

But when they run into tentacles of the filibuster that thwart those goals, they — unlike Democrats — do not hesitate to end them. 

On Thursday, Republicans confirmed 48 Trump nominees at once after changing the rules that previously would have required a 60-vote supermajority. Before that, in May, they revoked a California electric vehicle standard with a simple majority, ignoring the parliamentarian’s ruling that the vote was subject to the filibuster. 

They also reduced the hours required for post-cloture debate to two down from 30, and followed Democrats’ lead on most nominees, lowering the threshold to a simple majority for Supreme Court ones as well.

The GOP has long painted itself as the protectors of the filibuster, and painted it as a measure of old-school rationality and tea-cooling. In reality, the party only has such reverence for the parts of the blockade that are politically beneficial. If the legislative filibuster truly hurt them, their professed veneration for Senate operations would evaporate in an instant.

— Kate Riga

Indiana Gov. Mike Braun Says a Redistricting Special Session ‘Probably Will Happen’

In the latest in the Trump administration’s redistricting pressure campaign to strong arm red states into engaging in the extremely uncommon practice of mid-cycle redistricting so Trump can rig the midterms, Indiana Gov. Mike Braun announced this week that a redistricting special session will likely be held in the next couple of months. Braun, along with other GOP members of the state legislature, had not previously indicated that he would agree to Trump’s redistricting plans, which are transparently aimed at flipping the only two Democratic seats that Indiana has in the House. 

But, earlier this week, per the Indy Star, Braun told reporters a special session “probably will happen.”

“We’re going to poll our legislators, and if it’s there, we’re going to do it,” Braun said. “My feeling is it probably will happen.”

Despite the indication from Braun that a redistricting special session will likely occur, there remain a number of Indiana GOP State House members who oppose the administration’s continued efforts to pressure GOP officials into redrawing their congressional district maps. The Trump administration is trying to decrease Republicans’ chances of losing the House in 2026, a change that would not only mean the end of a Republican trifecta in D.C. but also would hand investigative and subpoena power back to Democrats.  

Braun’s comments also come against the backdrop of the death of Trump ally and CEO of Turning Point USA Charlie Kirk, who, before his killing, said on X that his organization would “support primary opponents for Republicans in the Indiana State Legislature who refuse to support the team and redraw the maps.”

Republicans are using Kirk’s death as a way to push forward the administration’s redistricting plans, with one Indiana Republican suggesting Kirk’s death gives the effort renewed urgency.

“They killed Charlie Kirk — the least that we can do is go through a legal process and redistrict Indiana into a nine to zero map,” U.S. Sen. Jim Banks (R-IN) said. “And I sense it in this crowd, in a big way. And I sense it from supporters all over the state; that now’s not the time to back off. Now’s not the time to be nice. Now’s the time to engage in a peaceful and political way.”

— Khaya Himmelman

House GOP Continues Its Crackdown on DC Supposed Crime Problem

Three top elected officials from Washington D.C. — Mayor Muriel Bowser, Council Chair Phil Mendelson and Attorney General Brian Schwalb — were at a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on Thursday testifying about their oversight of the district.

Throughout the hearing, D.C. officials pushed back on House Republicans’ consistent characterization of the nation’s capital as crime-ridden (it is not) — a sentiment President Donald Trump also built his entire justification for the occupation of the district with armed federal law enforcement around.

House Republicans have also passed several of a series of bills this week attempting to overhaul D.C.’s criminal justice system and roll back home rule, without any input from the district itself or its constituents.

“We are a city under siege,” Mendelson said during Thursday’s hearing. “It is frustrating to watch this committee debate and vote on 14 bills regarding the district without a single public hearing, with no input from District officials or the public, without regard for community impact nor a shred of analysis, including legal sufficiency or fiscal impact.”

Rep. Suhas Subramanyam (D-VA), a member of the House Oversight Committee, told reporters outside of the hearing room that the committee should be having hearings about the crimes happening under the Trump administration instead.

“They are flagrantly violating the law at every corner,” Subramanyam said of the Trump administration. “Instead, they’re picking on homeless people, they’re picking on people who are not committing crimes or picking on people who they disagree with and violating their constitutional rights. … We should be having a hearing on things that are a little bit more pressing with this administration because we’re an oversight committee.”

— Emine Yücel

The Age of Monsters

Posted on by Josh Marshall

We live in an age of monsters: Elon Musk, Donald Trump, the Ellison family, Mark Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel, the sundry billionaires who don’t own apps. This may sound like a caustic and dramatic comment coming from me. Some of them are genuine monsters: Musk, Trump, probably Thiel. In other cases, like with Zuckerberg, they are probably more or less normal and might even be okay to have lunch with. But functionally, in the role they play and power they wield in our society, they are monsters. And the function of the Trump era has been to wind them all together into a single formation, first by allurement and then by force.

This realization first started to dawn on me in the years after Citizens United, the court decision that essentially ended meaningful campaign finance law in the United States. It came in the first reactions to Citizens United or more specifically the spending it made possible. Billionaires and centi-millionaires started gaining publicity and critical reactions to the scale of their spending and the impact it had on elections. Political giving at scale by the extremely wealthy wasn’t new. It had just taken a half-century hiatus. Perhaps the difference was the internet. Whatever it was, the years after 2010 spawned the idea that the very wealthy and the extremely powerful needed to be afforded more protections, more privacy for their giving then ordinary people who might donate $50 or even $5,000 up near the candidate donation limit.

Continue reading “The Age of Monsters” →

Nancy Mace Can Thank John Roberts for Keeping Her Congressional Seat Safe

Posted on by Allegra Kirkland

This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. It was originally published at Balls and Strikes. 

On Wednesday, the South Carolina Supreme Court decided that it has no power to protect Black voters from partisan gerrymandering, dismissing a challenge to the state’s congressional district map as a “nonjusticiable political question” in a 5-0 opinion. The only people with the legal power to un-gerrymander the state, it seems, are the Republican lawmakers who gerrymandered it in the first place.

In 2021, South Carolina’s Republican-controlled legislature adopted maps that moved over 30,000 Black residents out of the state’s first congressional district, reducing its Black population to 17 percent—the precise amount necessary, per GOP analyses of partisan voting patterns, to keep Black voters from threatening Republican dominance in District 1, which is currently represented by Republican Nancy Mace. This little maneuver is likely enough to prevent the state’s Democrats from competing to oust her, and to pick up a seat in Congress.

In 2023, a three-judge panel of South Carolina’s federal district court unanimously struck down this ambitiously racist map as unconstitutional. But in 2024, the Supreme Court reversed that judgment, concluding that the state didn’t discriminate against the voters because they were Black, but because they were Democrats. As a practical matter, this distinction doesn’t mean much—either way, lawmakers are discriminating against Black people, who overwhelmingly vote for Democrats. Still, under the Supreme Court’s precedent, the map presented a political question for state legislatures and state courts to solve, not a constitutional question for federal courts to solve.

So, a couple months later, South Carolina voters filed a new lawsuit in state court, challenging the map as an “extreme partisan gerrymander” that violates several provisions of the state constitution. But on Wednesday, the South Carolina Supreme Court batted away that challenge, too, as an unanswerable political question. As a result, South Carolina legislators are free to continue picking their voters, and South Carolina voters have no real shot at picking their legislators.

Much of the South Carolina court’s opinion is spent recounting the rationale of the U.S. Supreme Court in Rucho v. Common Cause, the 2019 case in which the Court decided that there is no constitutional problem with politicians manipulating district lines to keep themselves in power. Justice George James wrote that Rucho held that “federal law does not furnish judicially discernible and manageable standards for reviewing claims of partisan gerrymandering (as opposed to racial gerrymandering),” thus rendering such claims “nonjusticiable under the United States Constitution.” James wrote that the same is true at the state level: “There are no constitutional provisions or statutes that pertain to, prohibit, or limit partisan gerrymandering in the congressional redistricting process in South Carolina,” he said. 

So, the South Carolina Supreme Court reached the same conclusion the U.S. Supreme Court did: “Partisan gerrymandering claims present a nonjusticiable political question.” 

When the U.S. Supreme Court decided Rucho, Chief Justice John Roberts argued for the majority that he was not dooming the public to rule by unrepresentative government. “Our conclusion does not condone excessive partisan gerrymandering. Nor does our conclusion condemn complaints about districting to echo into a void,” said Roberts. As consolation, Roberts pointed to the state supreme court in Florida, which struck down an electoral map in 2015 as violating the Fair Districts Amendment of the state constitution. “Provisions in state statutes and state constitutions can provide standards and guidance for state courts to apply,” Roberts said.

In light of the South Carolina Supreme Court decision, Roberts’s gesture looks even emptier. Today, at least 13 states explicitly address partisan gerrymandering in their constitutions or statutes, but South Carolina is now the fourth state since Rucho to decide that partisan gerrymandering is nonjusticiable, following New Hampshire, North Carolina, and Kansas. 

At the same time, Rucho has encouraged Republican legislatures to swing for the antidemocratic fences. South Carolina’s Senate Majority Leader, Republican Shane Massey, outright told reporters that they “knew” their gerrymandered map was “something that we could do” because of “the rules that the Supreme Court set out.” After the state court’s decision, the South Carolina’s Republican Senate Caucus boasted on Twitter: “While numerous red states hurry to undergo mid-decade redistricting, South Carolina rests easy knowing Republican Senators finished the job following the 2020 census.”

In a brief concurring opinion in the South Carolina case, Chief Justice John Kittredge lamented the widespread undemocratic impact of Roberts’s opinion. “Following Rucho‘s elimination of any possibility of a federal constitutional violation, state legislatures became emboldened,” he said. And since state laws are often insufficient to deter gerrymandering, he continued, district maps that “may, indeed, be in line with each respective state’s constitution and laws” could still “collectively have the effect of diminishing our constitutional republic as a whole.” 

The ongoing race to wipe out minority political parties, Kittredge concluded, is “a troubling prospect for those who adhere to our nation’s founding principle that the People are sovereign.” 

Fundamental rights like voting in free and fair elections should not depend on what state one happens to live in. But that is the current legal landscape the Supreme Court created. And South Carolina voters are now suffering the consequences.

State Lawmakers Are Getting Arrested at Detention Centers and Yelling at Masked ICE Agents. Good.

Posted on by Allegra Kirkland

This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. 

This week, two moments revealed the front lines of America’s immigration fight. In New York, 11 state legislators were among more than a dozen elected officials arrested after demanding entry to overcrowded Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention cells at 26 Federal Plaza. In Illinois, a viral video showed State Senator Karina Villa racing down a suburban street, shouting in English and Spanish for families to stay inside as she confronted masked ICE agents.

These scenes capture something too often overlooked: while the federal government carries out a deeply unpopular agenda, state lawmakers are fighting back visibly and boldly. A hopeful story is unfolding as legislators defend communities with their voices and their bodies, uphold the rule of law, and embody a vision of government that protects rather than persecutes.The next step is to knit these efforts together so the energy in Illinois, New York, and beyond becomes a coordinated front.

This is the story of the moment: as federal power is abused, states are showing what democracy looks like in practice. Legislators are flexing their authority to protect families, confront masked agents, and make the fight visible. And they’re using these tools with ingenuity in every state, regardless of its color on a map.

Pursuing laws that flip the script

States are flexing fiscal power. In New York, lawmakers introduced the so-called Avelo Airlines bill, which would block public contracts and fuel tax exemptions for companies profiting from deportation flights. Maryland, New York and Wisconsin have introduced bills empowering state officials to withhold payments or slap liens on federal buildings if Washington defaults on funding. The message is blunt: if the federal government won’t honor its commitments, states shouldn’t bankroll its abuses.

But it’s not only about resistance. Pennsylvania legislators formed a Welcoming Caucus to advance bills creating an Office of New Pennsylvanians. Colorado and New York already have offices and run programs offering English classes, legal clinics, and hotlines for newcomers. These efforts send the signal that immigrants are valued neighbors and contributors.

Lawmakers are protecting people at work. Washington enacted SB 5104 to shield immigrant employees who file labor complaints. Last year, Washington followed in the footsteps of states like California by opening professional licensing to residents using taxpayer ID numbers instead of Social Security. Indiana and Oklahoma recently reduced barriers for foreign-trained medical professionals, filling critical shortages.

Privacy is another battleground. Washington’s 2019 Keep Washington Working Act restricts data sharing with ICE unless tied to an active criminal case. California and Colorado are advancing similar restrictions. These laws aim to keep school, health, and employment records from becoming tools of surveillance.

Then there is the rule of law. Delaware recently became the seventh state to ban 287(g) agreements that deputize local police as ICE agents, joining California, Connecticut, Illinois, Oregon, Washington, and Maryland. Bills in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Michigan, and New York would ban masked or unidentified law enforcement officers. Together, these laws flip the script, using state power not to target, but to protect.

Showing up and demanding answers

When ICE hides its operations behind closed doors, state legislators are fighting to pry them open. In Florida, lawmakers sued their governor after being denied entry to the Everglades Detention Facility, and subsequently gained access. In Washington, legislators passed HB 1470, mandating health inspections of private detention centers, over objections from GEO Group, the massive private prison contractor. Massachusetts legislators staged unofficial hearings to document raids and their toll. By using their oversight powers to walk into detention centers, convene hearings, and sue for access, state lawmakers are shining light where federal actors prefer darkness.

Dragging the fight into courtrooms

Some battles must be fought in court. Florida Rep. Anna Eskamani testified in litigation over the conditions inside the Everglades facility, adding her firsthand account to the record. Legislators elsewhere have signed on as amici, offered declarations, and supplied evidence that lawyers need to press their cases. Judges can compel accountability, and legislators are helping build the record to get there.

Making resistance visible

If authoritarianism thrives in the shadows, lawmakers are countering with cameras, microphones, and crowds. In New York, legislators stood outside the Metropolitan Detention Center for a press conference after ICE blocked access to detainees. Pennsylvania lawmakers staged a joint event to reintroduce the Office of New Pennsylvanians bill, flanked by immigrant families. In California, the Latino Legislative Caucus rallied with community partners to denounce ICE raids and back protective bills. Through speeches, press releases, social media livestreams, and joint statements across states, lawmakers are shifting the narrative from fear to solidarity.

These actions share a common purpose: to protect communities and uphold the rule of law. But too often they occur in silos, treated as isolated skirmishes rather than parts of a coordinated campaign. That’s a mistake. Conservatives already know that power accrues to those who exercise it. Just as the right has pooled resources for decades, progressive states and legislators must link arms now —- synchronizing bills, sharing data, holding joint hearings and press conferences. Coordination multiples power.

The lesson is clear. The judiciary will not reliably check authoritarian excess, and this administration is not deterred by public opinion. That leaves the states. Used together, their powers, including budgets, contracts, data, oversight, litigation, communications, can create not just defensive shields but affirmative models of governance.

House Passes Funding Plan With No Concessions to Dems, Leaving Senate in Deadlock

Posted on by Emine Yücel

House Republicans passed their “clean” seven-week continuing resolution (CR) Friday morning on a largely party line 217-212 vote, setting up the Senate for a stalemate over government funding similar to what happened in March.

Continue reading “House Passes Funding Plan With No Concessions to Dems, Leaving Senate in Deadlock” →

Trump Poised to Fire US Attorney for Not Indicting Letitia James

Posted on by David Kurtz

A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.

Peak Retribution Alert

It’s all coming together in President Trump’s push to find a way to bring criminal charges against New York Attorney General Letitia James: the retribution, the denigration of the rule of law, the evisceration of the Justice Department, and the ultimate unbridled unitary executive.

In another important story, ABC News reported overnight that Trump is poised to fire U.S. Attorney Erik Siebert of the Eastern District of Virginia for not seeking an indictment of James on the bogus mortgage fraud claims the administration has drummed up.

The latest news comes after a deeply reported ABC News piece earlier in the week that prosecutors had turned up considerable exculpatory evidence in the case. So even though the investigation had begun on a pretextual predicate, it had done more to exonerate James than to implicate her in the supposed mortgage fraud. For that reason, Siebert wasn’t going to seek a grand jury indictment in the Virginia mortgage fraud case.

The refusal to bring a case against James apparently enraged Bill Pulte, the Trump-appointed head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, who pushed Trump to fire Siebert, ABC News previously reported. It appears now that Trump is expected to follow through on Pulte’s demand.

Siebert, a career prosecutor, became interim U.S. attorney earlier this year, and his tenure was extended by the judges of the Eastern District. He is Trump’s own nominee for the permanent position, with approval from both of Virginia’s Democratic senators.

If Trump cans Siebert as expected, it sets up a situation where Trump is likely to name someone to the role who has indicated, directly or indirectly, that they will proceed with a criminal prosecution against James. That would be an intolerable position for any fair-minded, ethical legal professional, so it all but guarantees that a political hack will take over the office.

The Eastern District of Virginia is one of the most politically and legally significant districts in the country. The case involving James originates in Hampton Roads, but the district sprawls from the southeastern Virginia metro area through Richmond into the northern Virginia suburbs, which include the Pentagon and CIA headquarters. Significant national security cases are often handled by this U.S. attorney’s office.

This U.S. attorney’s office in particular is not one you want run by a political hack eager to do the bidding of the Trump White House.

Trump Judge Lambastes Admin in Guatemala Kids Case

U.S. District Judge Tim Kelly of Washington, D.C., issued a preliminary injunction blocking the Trump administration from deporting unaccompanied minor Guatemalan children, an operation that began in the dead of night over the Labor Day weekend.

In a surprisingly direct opinion, Kelly, a Trump appointee, was deeply skeptical of the administration’s claims about the removal operation and in particular of the representations made by Justice Department attorney Drew Ensign during an emergency hearing Labor Day weekend in front of a different judge:

Lawyers got wind of this hasty operation while it was unfolding and filed this lawsuit seeking emergency relief that Sunday at 1:00 a.m. The judge on emergency duty entered a temporary restraining order barring the agencies and their officials from removing or otherwise transporting the children from the United States. At a hearing later that day, counsel for Defendants explained why it was “fairly outrageous” for Plaintiffs to have sued: all Defendants wanted to do was reunify children with parents who had requested their return. But that explanation crumbled like a house of cards about a week later. There is no evidence before the Court that the parents of these children sought their return.

The case has echoes of the rushed weekend deportation under the Alien Enemies Act in March, which put federal judges on alert that the Trump administration is not acting in good faith and the Justice Department can no longer be given the benefit of the doubt.

Kirk Killing Fallout: No Criticism of Trump Allowed

  • President Trump directly threatened to revoke the licenses of broadcasters who air criticisms of him.
  • Anna Gomez, the lone Democratic commissioner on the FCC, tells Greg Sargent: “What the administration is doing violates the First Amendment and the Communications Act.”
  • “Pentagon leaders are considering a new recruiting campaign that would encourage young people to honor the legacy of assassinated conservative activist Charlie Kirk by joining the military,” NBC News reported.

How the Late Night Shows Responded to Kimmel’s Suspension

Quote of the Day

John Ganz:

If you were writing a hackneyed novel or film about an authoritarian America, it would go exactly like this: a figure close to the regime is assassinated, a massive shrill and sanctimonious hue and cry rises over the martyred dead, hysteria is whipped up about terrorism and public disorder, leaders in the regime and movement promise vengeance, private citizens are mobbed and lose their jobs for expressing anti-regime sentiments at the encouragement of regime officials and regime-aligned demagogues, and, then, the power of the state is brought to bear against public figures who oppose and criticize the regime.

Can Trump Actually Designate Antifa a Terrorist Group?

No.

RFK Jr. Reaps Anti-Vax Results He Sowed

The CDC vaccine panel that HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. stacked with anti-vaxxers began revising the immunization schedule for kids in a meeting that continues today and is expected to yield even bigger rollbacks in childhood shots.

Trump’s Burgeoning Latin American Intervention

Draft legislation is circulating at the White House and on Capitol Hill that would give President Trump sweeping powers to wage war against drug cartels he deems to be “terrorists” and any nation he claims has harbored or aided them, the NYT is reporting.

The substance of the NYT report is significant in its own right — a dramatic expansion of presidential powers and previous U.S. law on the use of the force — but it also suggests that there is a realization within some corners of the administration that Trump’s unilateral attacks on alleged drug-smuggling boats in recent days has insufficient legal authorization under current law.

In related news: The DEA went too far even for the Trump White House when earlier this year it urged military strikes in Mexico, the WaPo exclusively reports.

WTF?

Trump wants Bagram Air Base back and to re-establish a U.S. presence in Afghanistan.

Do you like Morning Memo? Let us know!

Republicans Kill Attempt to Subpoena FCC Chair After Jimmy Kimmel Suspension

Posted on by Kate Riga

The House Oversight Committee voted Thursday to table a motion to subpoena Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr to testify about ABC’s suspension of Jimmy Kimmel due to the host’s comments on Charlie Kirk’s killing.

The vote came down on party lines.

Ranking member Robert Garcia (D-CA), though, said that he and committee Chair James Comer (R-KY) had been talking during the hearing and are “gonna try to work together on an effort to bring in Mr. Carr in front of the Oversight Committee.”

Continue reading “Republicans Kill Attempt to Subpoena FCC Chair After Jimmy Kimmel Suspension” →

‘Not Life or Death for Us’: DC Officials Push for Budget Fix in CR or Out of It

Posted on by Kate Riga

Despite their reluctance to fix a $1.1 billion hole they blew in Washington D.C.’s budget last March, House Republicans are now proposing filling the gap in their new continuing resolution. 

Continue reading “‘Not Life or Death for Us’: DC Officials Push for Budget Fix in CR or Out of It” →

A Few Thoughts on KimmelGeddon

Posted on by Josh Marshall

Let me start by noting the obvious: What we saw yesterday with Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension by ABC News was a brazen and unabashed attack on free speech in the United States in a way that was unimaginable until a few months ago. It manages to be both shameful in its audacity and criminality while also absurd. It’s not a newspaper being shuttered or a political party being proscribed. It’s a comedian’s show being taken off the air. But dictators and authoritarians never like comedians. They are jesters, not warriors. So their lance strikes and ripostes are oblique in their approach and more difficult to react to.

I don’t want to participate in the, “How bad is this?” discourse. It’s bad. We know that. An apolitical person told me yesterday this whole development was “frightening.” I agreed. So why don’t you seem more upset about it? this person asked. Because I already knew we were here.

All I have time for is what one does in response. So a few thoughts on that front.

Continue reading “A Few Thoughts on KimmelGeddon” →