Federal employees involved in the massive operation that led to a surge of deportations and detentions around Minneapolis in recent months have received a souvenir from the controversial mission. A federal worker provided TPM with images of a challenge coin that was given to employees from various government agencies at the B.H. Whipple Federal Building Minnesota, which holds a detention center and has served as a headquarters for ICE agents and others involved in the controversial Minneapolis operation, which was dubbed “Metro Surge.” The commemorative token includes portraits of President Donald Trump and a person who appears to be White House Border Czar Tom Homan glaring out from under a skull.
Continue reading “Staff At Minnesota Deportation Hub Received ‘Obscene’ Trump-Themed Challenge Coins Adorned With Skulls”JD to Pakistan
I’m no Trumper. I hate what they represent. But I can occasionally appreciate their approach to ritually humiliating their own. In this vein, it’s sort of a nice touch that they’ve made JD Vance — who’s been leaking to basically every news outlet that will listen that he was 100% against this war and it’s totally not his fault — own it outright, wrap himself in it really, in Pakistan.
Chef’s kiss, as they say.
For Eric Adams, Albania Is the New York Of the Balkans
Hello it’s the weekend. This is The Weekender ☕️
There is a long list of famous and infamous people who can trace their roots to Albania including the pop singer Dua Lipa, Mother Theresa, dictator Enver Hoxha, and the late comedian John Belushi. And now, disgraced former New York City Mayor Eric Adams has joined the ranks of famous Albanians.
Continue reading “For Eric Adams, Albania Is the New York Of the Balkans “The New Defense Budget
We need to talk about the president’s 2027 proposed defense budget. It’s not like there’s been a shortage of reporting about it. But even with all that, I don’t think people have really absorbed the extent of it, it’s significance, the scale of growth. The president wants to increase the defense budget by more than 40%. That comes on top of his request for $200 billion to fund his current war with Iran.
Continue reading “The New Defense Budget”How Do You Deprogram an Electoral Autocracy?
Hungary’s prime minister Viktor Orbán has become a kind of godfather of competitive authoritarianism, an autocratic visionary for the 21st century that right-wing parties around the world are seeking to emulate. Trump’s second term draws directly from his model, with the various thought leaders of that movement making their admiration plain. Orbán’s is a system in which elections continue, giving the country the appearance of democracy, but it is just that: an appearance.
Or so the thinking has gone. There is some irony in the fact that, according polls, Orbán is on track to lose reelection on Sunday to a former member of his Fidesz Party, Péter Magyar, who has won voters over by denouncing the regime’s corruption and incompetence. While it is no longer a question whether the country’s democratic mechanisms are fair, Sunday will test whether they are rigged enough to withstand the overwhelming backlash Orbán is now facing. JD Vance and Vladimir Putin are, in various ways, scrambling to save their ideological ally.
If Magyar’s party, Tisza, does win on Sunday, it could become the first step in a long process of de-Orbánization, which we have a great piece up on this afternoon. Political scientist Gabriela Greilinger walks through what will have to happen to unwind the prime minister’s grip on power. He and legions of his loyalists have burrowed deep into the mechanism of Hungarian government, and extracting them will not be quick or easy.
Continue reading “How Do You Deprogram an Electoral Autocracy?”Hungary’s Creep Toward Autocracy Helped Inspire Trump. In 2 Days, Voters Will Try to Reverse It
This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis.
On Sunday, April 12, Hungarians will go to the polls in an election that will decide the future of their country and the illiberal state that Prime Minister Viktor Orbán — Europe’s longest-serving head of state and a role model for far-right authoritarians in Europe and America alike — has built over the past 16 years in power.
Continue reading “Hungary’s Creep Toward Autocracy Helped Inspire Trump. In 2 Days, Voters Will Try to Reverse It”Trump Goes International With Criminalizing Left-Wing Opposition
So THIS Is What Seb Gorka’s Been Up To?
Old TPM fave Sebastian Gorka has been pretty under-the-radar as the senior counterterrorism director on President Trump’s second term National Security Council, but now he pops up in this important New York Times story as a leader of what you might call the internationalization of the administration’s effort to criminalize left-wing opposition:
[Gorka] has pushed to designate more far-left groups abroad as terrorist organizations, to pressure foreign allies to investigate the groups and to search for connections between them and Americans. …
For months, Mr. Gorka has led a regular counterterrorism meeting with dozens of officials from U.S. security agencies. In those meetings, he has pushed for more attention on antifa, as well as other groups, like transgender activists and undocumented migrants.
Trump’s criminalization of left-wing politics, which TPM’s Josh Kovensky has covered closely in our series Creating the Enemy Within, traces back to Trump I, where it really took off during the Black Lives Matter protests in the summer of 2020. Authoritarians like Trump practically need a shadowy, cohesive, violent opposition — at least rhetorically — and if they don’t have one, they’ll set about inventing it.
The beauty, from the MAGA perspective, of the amorphous nature of antifa is that it can be a vessel into which every right-wing fear, conspiracy theory, and fever dream can be poured. What emerges from the NYT story is that Gorka is pushing the myth of an all-encompassing global antifa with purported ties back to American leftists:
Mr. Gorka has repeatedly told U.S. officials that “there are no lone wolves,” according to two officials who have witnessed the comments, in urging them to find links between left-wing extremists abroad and Americans, which could create a legal avenue to investigate U.S. citizens.
That possibility has alarmed current and former U.S. officials who worry the Trump administration is politicizing counterterrorism efforts, with the ultimate aim of punishing Mr. Trump’s opponents at home, potentially with charges of supporting terrorism. The unusually expansive way in which the administration has defined far-left extremism, they warned, could allow investigators to use slender connections to people overseas to go after Americans who have no real history of violence.
Gorka has an ally at the State Department in Thomas G. DiNanno, the undersecretary for arms control and international security. (Gorka called the NYT story “wrong.” DiNanno did not respond to the NYT.) The State Department issued a statement to the NYT confirming it is working with international partners to counter “antifa-aligned terrorism.” It’s offering a $10 million reward for information that disrupts the finances of violent leftist groups.
The whole thing is well worth a read.
Pentagon Denies Pope Threat
After initially issuing a non-denial denial, the Pentagon broadly denied as “grossly false” reports that a top Trump official had dressed down the Vatican ambassador in January for the Pope not being on the administration’s side, including making an ominous reference to the Avignon papacy.
Still, the Pentagon did not address the specifics of the reports. Instead, the U.S. embassy in the Vatican posted a rather odd rebuttal in which the U.S. ambassador to the Holy See purports to quote strained denials of a sort from the Vatican ambassador who was in the January meeting with Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby:
The Cardinal emphatically denied the media’s portrayal of his meeting with Colby. He described the meeting as “frank, but very cordial” and a “normal encounter.” He confirmed that the reporting “does not reflect what happened” and was “just invented to make a story.”
Here’s the full thread:
Ambassador Burch spoke today with His Eminence Cardinal Pierre, the outgoing papal nuncio to the United States, regarding his January meeting with Under Secretary Elbridge Colby. 1/4 https://t.co/FYwa2T7uln
— U.S. in Holy See (@USinHolySee) April 9, 2026
Judge: Pentagon Defied My Order
Unlike the slow-motion confrontations in many of the other case where the Trump administration has defied court orders, U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman quickly called out the misconduct and moved to put a stop it.
It took Friedman less than three weeks to rule that the Defense Department had violated his March 20 order to restore press access to the Pentagon. In the case brought by the NYT, Friedman issued a scathing rebuke of the administration’s conduct in the case:
Latest From the Middle East …
- How It’s Going: Trump Demands Reopening of Hormuz Ahead of US-Iran Peace Talks
- Israel: There’s growing evidence that Israel’s operation in Lebanon was understood by the parties to covered by the ceasefire with Iran, but instead Israel ramped up attacks against Hezbollah, complicating diplomatic efforts to such an extent that President Trump gave Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a “stern message” in a brief phone call to “scale back attacks,” according to the WSJ.
- ‘Squirter’: Army survivors of the deadly attack in Kuwait dispute Pentagon’s account, saying the unit “was unprepared” to defend itself, CBS News reports.
The Corruption: In All Its Glory Edition
- DoD: A Pentagon official who oversees the Defense Department’s artificial intelligence efforts made a cool profit of as much as $24 million earlier this year when he sold a private investment in Elon Musk’s AI company, The Guardian reports.
- White House: “The day after President Trump announced a sudden pause of strikes against Iran last month, the White House warned staff against improperly leveraging their positions to place well-timed bets in futures markets,” the WSJ reports.
Trump DOJ Watch
- Bloomberg: Under Trump, DOJ Has Been Making Errors in Court, Testing Judges’ Patience
- The Trump DOJ is putting the finishing touches on a politicized report that will accuse the Biden Justice Department of being anti-Christian in how it enforced Covid regulations and laws protecting abortion clinics.
Thread of the Day
Mass Deportation Watch
- Lawyers for man shot multiple times by ICE during a traffic stop this week in California say their client has already been shot before he tried to flee the scene.
- San Francisco Chronicle: Medical delays and misdiagnoses drive rising death toll in ICE custody
- A California philosophy professor was acquitted by a federal jury after some two hours of deliberation on charges of assaulting federal agents by throwing back a tear gas canister they had deployed against protesters.
Nothing to be Concerned About …
The Trump administration is quietly seeking unprecedented access to personally identifiable medical information in the insurance records of millions of federal workers and retirees, and their families, KFF Health News reports.
Enjoy Your Spring Weekend
See ya back here Monday.
Hot tips? Juicy scuttlebutt? Keen insights? Let me know. For sensitive information, use the encrypted methods here.
DOGE’s Ransacking of the Social Security Administration Has Left Us All to Float in a Data Security Vacuum
This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis.
What would you do if you found out a stranger accessed a federal database then walked away with your Social Security number? What if this person also walked away with your place and date of birth, citizenship status, race, ethnicity, the names of your parents — and all of their information too? You might ask how the stranger got access, why he stole your information and, ultimately, what pernicious plans he may have in store. Above all, you’d be outraged by the prospect of your data being passed around like trading cards.
Unfortunately, we’re past the hypothetical stage. Recent reporting from the Washington Post detailed a whistleblower’s complaint that a DOGE staffer left the Social Security Administration (SSA) in possession of two highly restricted databases of U.S. citizen information. While the Post has not independently confirmed the accusations in the complaint, they’re being investigated by the SSA’s internal watchdog, and follow other claims of fishy activity by DOGE at SSA. If the claims are true, the sensitive information on 500 million living and dead Americans is at risk of exposure.
Continue reading “DOGE’s Ransacking of the Social Security Administration Has Left Us All to Float in a Data Security Vacuum”Trump Has Epic Social Media Meltdown Over Right-Wing Iran Dissent
President Donald Trump fired off an extraordinary Truth Social tirade on Thursday directed at some right wing commentators who have broken ranks over their concerns about his war in Iran. Trump’s post, which was 482 words long, called out ex-Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, conspiracy theory broadcasters Alex Jones and Candace Owens, and the former Fox News hosts Megyn Kelly and Tucker Carlson.
“They have one thing in common, Low IQs. They’re stupid people, they know it, their families know it, and everyone else knows it, too!” Trump declared in the post, which extensively featured non-standard grammar and punctuation. “Look at their past, look at their record. They don’t have what it takes, and they never did! They’ve all been thrown off Television, lost their Shows, and aren’t even invited on TV because nobody cares about them, they’re NUT JOBS, TROUBLEMAKERS, and will say anything necessary for some ‘free’ and cheap publicity.”
Trump has faced a rare level of opposition from the right in the weeks since late February when he launched strikes against Iran in conjunction with Israel. The war, which was clearly out of step with Trump’s campaign promise to avoid foreign military conflicts, angered both the non-interventionist wing of his MAGA movement and far right antisemites who are disturbed by the U.S.’s relationship with Israel. Those tensions have mounted as Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz has caused oil prices to spike and threatened large-scale economic disruption.
On Tuesday, after Trump threatened to launch an attack that would destroy Iran’s “whole civilization” if that country did not make a deal with him, both Greene and Owens called for his removal from office, joining a chorus of congressional Democrats calling for the same. Jones accused Trump of threatening “genocide” and said the president sounded “like an unhinged super villain from a Marvel comic movie.” Carlson —who was the top rated host in Fox News’ primetime lineup prior to his ouster in 2023 amid a series of controversies that included his promotion of content with white supremacist themes — encouraged military officials to disobey orders from Trump, whose conduct he dubbed “evil.” Trump’s threat culminated in a ceasefire deal with Iran that was largely dictated by that country. Kelly, who left Fox News for a poorly rated run at NBC in 2017 before turning to podcasting, had declared that Trump’s agreement with Iran “sounds very much like surrender.”
In his social media attack on the critics, Trump painted them as opportunists who were no longer allied with his movement.
“They think they get some ‘clicks’ because they have Third Rate Podcasts, but nobody’s talking about them, and their views are the opposite of MAGA,” Trump wrote.
Apparently unaware of the contradiction inherent in claiming no one is discussing these commentators while simultaneously addressing them from the White House, Trump went on to make various personal attacks against each of his critics for, among other things, their levels of education and professional achievement. This included mocking Owens, who was sued for defamation after falsely claiming France’s First Lady, Brigitte Macron, was born a man.
“To me, the First Lady of France is a far more beautiful woman than Candace, in fact, it’s not even close!” Trump wrote.
While the growing dissent among right wing figures is especially notable, Trump’s threat to eliminate Iran’s “civilization” also spurred mounting calls for his removal from Democrats. Overall, polls show most Americans oppose the war in Iran. That includes majorities of Democrats and independent voters. Despite the criticism from the far right that has drawn Trump’s ire, most Republicans are supportive of the war effort. Still, the opposition to the conflict and concerns about rising gas prices have helped drag Trump’s approval rating to a record low.
Trump concluded his extraordinary diatribe by insisting the war is not actually a reversal of his vision for the country. He also suggested anyone who thinks otherwise doesn’t understand his “MAGA” platform.
“MAGA is about WINNING and STRENGTH in not allowing Iran to have Nuclear Weapons. MAGA is about MAKING AMERICA GREAT AGAIN,” Trump wrote, adding, “These people have no idea how to do that, BUT I DO, because THE UNITED STATES IS NOW THE ‘HOTTEST’ COUNTRY ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD!“
Melania Wants Hearings for Her Husband’s Friend’s Victims?
While the Justice Department actively attempts to shield fired-Attorney General Pam Bondi from having to sit for a deposition before the House Oversight Committee about the DOJ’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files, the first lady is actively calling for more Epstein related hearings.
Continue reading “Melania Wants Hearings for Her Husband’s Friend’s Victims?”