After more than 40 days of back-and-forth, Senate Republicans accepted the proposal Democrats have been offering for weeks to fund all parts of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) except Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
The Senate passed the bill around 2:30 a.m. on Friday morning with a voice vote. Only five senators were present on the Senate floor. Following the passage, the Senate recessed for its two-week Easter break.
I mentioned in yesterday’s edition of Where Things Stand that the Trump administration border czar, Tom Homan, was presenting a new retort to questions that are swirling around about whether President Trump is mulling ordering Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to monitor polling places during the midterms. This idea was injected into the debate largely thanks to Steve Bannon, whose raison d’être these days is to provoke enough to stay relevant, but Trump officials’ squishiness when asked about this proposal hasn’t helped to tamp down fears.
“Are illegal aliens voting?” Homan said on the Charlie Kirk Show this week when asked whether ICE would be at the polls. “I mean, bottom line is, what are they afraid of? And they say illegal aliens don’t vote. Well, look, you know, part of DHS’ job is secure elections, and I’m not going to say, you know, you know, what our plan is going forward, but if only U.S. citizens can vote, I don’t see the issue of what they’re concerned about.” (He is only partially correct in his assertion that DHS plays any role in securing elections, which you can read more about here.)
Homan seemingly pioneered that more sophisticated and trollish deflection. As I’ve noted a few times recently, both ex-DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and acting ICE Director Todd Lyons twisted themselves in knots to avoid directly answering the question when pressed during congressional hearings.
Now, it might be the administration’s new line on the matter. During an interview with Matthew Schlapp at the Conservative Political Action Conference today, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche was discussing the administration’s voter ID fixation and brought up the question of ICE at the polls unprompted.
“Election integrity should be the most nonpartisan issue we have. Like, why is there objection to sending ICE officers to polling places? Illegals can’t vote,” he said, to applause and shouts of “amen.”
Deputy AG Todd Blanche: Why is there objection to sending ICE officers to polling places?
The new line is of a piece with an administration largely animated by what it imagines will own the libs; if non-citizens aren’t voting in elections like Democrats claim, then what are Democrats so worried about? (The answer to the question is at least twofold: federal agents stalking voting lines at polling places will intimidate voters. Their presence might also attract protest; it would serve Trump’s goals to inflame tensions at voting stations in communities whose election results he intends to challenge.)
But their lib-pwning pokes holes in their rationale for trying to force the passage of the SAVE America Act in Congress ahead of the midterms. The whole argument for the legislation rises and falls on Trump and Republicans’ belief in the myth that non-citizens are voting en masse in federal elections.
It’s hard to disentangle the conspiracy theorizing from the bad faith here: Whether Trump actually intends to act on the non-citizen voting myth, whether this is part of a plan to suppress the Democratic vote, or whether this is all Steve Bannon clamoring for attention — with an unfortunate degree of success — may not be clear for several months.
— Nicole LaFond
Trump Defends His ‘Mail-in Cheating’
Even though President Trump was present in Florida during early voting for the recent special election there, he opted to cast his vote by mail because it was more convenient with his schedule as president, he said, in as many words, today. That is something he is allowed to do under his state’s voting laws — and something that he and his Republican allies in Congress are trying to outlaw.
Trump was asked during a Cabinet meeting at the White House Thursday why he voted by mail — a practice that figures prominently in his mass voter fraud conspiracy theories — in Florida when he was in his district during early voting and could’ve voted in person.
“You know what, because I’m president of the United States, and because of the fact that I’m president of the United States, I did a mail-in ballot for elections that took place in Florida,” he said. “I decided that I was going to vote by mail-in ballot because I couldn’t be there, because I had a lot of different things.”
Hyprocrisy truly could not matter less at this juncture but: he just called mail-in voting “mail-in cheating” on Monday.
— Nicole LaFond
Congressman Questions The ‘Sophistication’ Of Wall Street After Markets’ Iran Roller Coaster Ride
Rep. Joe Morelle (D-NY), who is the vice ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee and a member of its Defense subcommittee, opened up to TPM this week about how the White House’s Iran war funding requests have become a nearly $1 trillion “mess.” He also shared his thoughts on the wild ride markets have gone on since President Donald Trump launched strikes on Iran last month.
“I rarely criticize investors on Wall Street, but I really wonder who makes these investments, because the president makes one announcement where he says he is talking to the Iranians, about opening up the Strait of Hormuz, and gas prices drop, and the investment market goes up and it’s like, you’re getting your information from Donald Trump and you’re relying on it? I mean, really?” Morelle asked.
Morelle was referring to a phenomenon in recent weeks where Wall Street has responded optimistically to the president’s various and shifting proclamations about the war including expressions of optimism about its speedy conclusion and claims about a ceasefire deal that haven’t panned out. These remarks have caused sharp rebounds on the Dow Jones, Nasdaq, and S&P 500 despite fears of rising oil prices caused by Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz and inflation tied to the massive costs of the war. The phenomenon has led TPM’s own Josh Marshall to speculate the markets may have “Trump Derangement Syndrome.” Morelle offered a similarly perplexed take.
“Is this like a bunch of kindergartners deciding what to spend money on?” he asked. “I mean, it doesn’t really say much for the sophistication of Wall Street investment firms.”
Despite the periodic bounces, the Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P are all down since the start of the war. On Thursday, the major stock indexes were all near session lows. Investor’s Business Daily attributed the poor performance to skepticism about Trump’s latest confident proclamations.
“Trump also noted some encouraging signs on ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz, but that didn’t seem to scare away the bears on the stock market today,” the trade publication wrote.
Wall Street is clearly starting to get the message that Trump’s word may not be worth betting on.
I had a moment of insight or perhaps revelation early in this war when the blockage of the Strait of Hormuz first became central in the news and President Trump was publicly debating whether he would use the U.S. Navy to escort ships through it. Would he, won’t he? Will it happen tomorrow? What will he decide. Then I was watching a YouTube show about maritime shipping. In passing the host, Sal Mercogliano, noted that, at that time at least, there weren’t any U.S. naval vessels in the Persian Gulf at all. And the kind of ships you need, in the numbers you’d need, were hundreds of even thousands of miles away. That made perfect sense since for the kind of war the U.S. is currently fighting we don’t need naval vessels anywhere near that close to the combat zone, and when they are that close they become much more vulnerable to attack. But the point is that the whole debate about whether Trump was about to do that any time in the near future was entirely contained within Trump’s Truth Social world. It wasn’t connected to any of the hard realities of whether any of that was even possible.
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Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) said Republicans sent Senate Democrats “our last and final offer” for the ongoing Department of Homeland Security funding negotiations.
“I think the Dems are now in possession of what I think is our last and final” offer, Thune told reporters on Thursday. “So let’s hope this gets it done.”
Republicans’ “final” proposal comes as lawmakers on Capitol Hill have been negotiating for weeks to end the DHS-specific government shutdown, which started on Feb. 14. Senate Democrats have been filibustering the DHS funding bill and demanding reforms and constraints be placed on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents.
Kate and Josh talk airports in crisis, Trump’s bewildering political calculus and, believe it or not, an optimistic vision of what a post-Trump world could look like.
We’re going to be looking at the rumors — stoked by Trump-aligned figures — surrounding the possibility that the president would order Immigration and Customs Enforcement to polling places this fall, updates in the DOGE voter sharing agreement saga (spoiler alert: we still don’t have a ton of answers on this one), Chip Roy admitting the SAVE Act actually will impact women voters, and, of course, updates in the never-ending redistricting battle that Trump started almost a year ago.
President Donald Trump is planning to bring the UFC into the White House later this year. But the brawl on the South Lawn is not the only way mixed martial arts has become a part of his administration.
Trump, like many other right-wing leaders before him, has a long history with combat sports.
Yesterday afternoon, John Light, Hunter Walker and Joe Ragazzo got on Substack Live to talk about how martial arts has become right coded. It’s a cultural phenomenon with troubling effects that stretch from D.C., to Saudi Arabia, and the white supremacist fringe.
One of Layla A. Jones’ insights when she joined our team last year was that you could measure the destruction that DOGE wreaked on the federal workforce by looking at the D.C.-area economy, and, specifically, the housing market. Her first piece for us examined those indicators. Now, a year after Elon Musk and his youths began their slash-and-burn rampage through the executive branch, Layla finds the damage lingering — and, in some ways, worsening — with the middle class, once propped up by government workers and contractors, falling behind a growing wealthy elite. That story is here.
I wanted to use the occasion of the resignation of a prominent climate scientist from NASA, citing the Trump administration’s attacks on climate science, to note how Trump’s foreign misadventures are inextricably intertwined with his retrograde energy policy.
In the face of overwhelming evidence of catastrophic climate change fueled by manmade carbon emissions, Trump spent the first year of his second term decimating domestic wind and solar and doubling down on hydrocarbons, making the United State more — not less — dependent on global energy markets while exacerbating carbon emissions and delaying the inevitable energy transition.
It’s no coincidence that Trump’s two decapitation strikes — Venezuela and Iran — involve countries whose geopolitical significance results almost exclusively from their status as petro-states. Trump wanted to go back to the ways of the old economy, and he got exactly what he bargained for, whether he likes it or not. It’s a reminder — one we didn’t really need — that while the abundance of oil and gas has produced amazing riches and unprecedented global economic growth and development for more than a century, it has come at an enormous price.
From a long-term perspective, the ultimate price of our oil and gas dependence will be a centuries-long rise in global temperatures that is expected to threaten the pillars of civilization and imperil human survival. Nothing major. Alternative forms of energy promised not just to wean us from our dependency but to begin to unshackle us from the unforgiving geopolitics of oil and gas.
Trumpian Chaos in Energy Markets
WSJ: The liquid natural gas supply chain has been hit hardest by the Middle East conflict and will take much longer to recover than oil.
Bloomberg: As part of its regular modeling of the effect of energy prices on economic growth, Trump administration officials are examining what a potential spike in oil prices to as high as $200 a barrel would mean for the economy,
WSJ: Beginning on April 26, the U.S. Postal Service will impose an 8% surcharge on packages to cover the rising cost of fuel and transportation.
Nothing to See Here at All
Suspicious trading has been observed ahead of other big Trump policy announcements, but the anomaly was especially notable this week right before Trump backed off his threat to strike Iranian power plants:
"Frankly terrible for the credibility for the American government and American capital markets in general"
The FT's Gillian Tett on insider trading speculation after massive oil bets were placed minutes before Donald Trump announced the US would delay strikes on Iran#Newsnightpic.twitter.com/sF0pRi1KdP
WaPo: The Pentagon is considering diverting Ukraine military aid to the Middle East, although a final decision to redirect the equipment has not yet been made.
NYT: Under threat from Iranian counterattacks, many of the 40,000 American troops based in the Middle East have had to disperse to hotels and office spaces because the 13 U.S. bases in the region are “all but uninhabitable.”
WaPo: Iraq accused the United States of killing seven members of the Iraqi military and injuring 13 others in a strike Wednesday that hit a clinic on a military base in western Anbar province. The Pentagon issued a carefully worded denial that put a lot of weight on the word “target”: “U.S. forces did not target a medical clinic in Iraq.”
The Long Tail of the Alien Enemies Act
A Venezuelan national deported under the Alien Enemies Act has filed a new lawsuit against the United States allegeing that he was wrongly identified as a member of the Tren de Aragua gang on the basis of his tattoos and endured “physical and psychological torture, solitary confinement, inhumane living conditions, and deliberate indifference to medical care” while detained at CECOT.
U.S. District Judge James Boasberg of D.C. dismissed a lawsuit from immigrant advocacy groups that challenged the legality of the agreement under which the United States paid for El Salvador to detain the Alien Enemies Act deportees at CECOT. In a highly technical ruling, Boasberg concluded that the groups lacked standing because even giving them what they sought would not redress the harms they continue to face:
At bottom, Plaintiffs describe real injuries stemming from an unprecedented detention arrangement between the United States and El Salvador. They have thus directed their challenge at the nonbinding diplomatic instrument that preceded the agencies’ actions. But, legally, the Agreement is not what authorized the Government to render Plaintiffs’ clients to El Salvador and to pay the Salvadoran government to detain them. Instead, that power comes from statutes that predate the Agreement and that would stay in force no matter how the Court decides this case. Even if the Court vacated the Agreement, then, the Government could keep using those same statutes to inflict the same injury on Plaintiffs. And, as a practical matter, vacating this nonbinding exchange of notes would not change the Government’s willingness or ability to do so. Because the relief Plaintiffs seek would not likely redress their injuries, the Court must dismiss their claims for lack of standing.
Trump’s Mass Detention Policy Upheld
The uber-conservative 8th Circuit Court of Appeals — which covers Minnesota — became the second appeals court to uphold the Trump administration’s ahistorical and unprecedented policy of mandatory immigration detentions without bond in the interior of the country. The two appeals court rulings (the 5th Circuit is the other) stand in contrast to the hundreds of district courts that have found the policy to be unlawful.
The unilateral policy change by the Trump administration, which flew in the face of decades of practice and was contrary to past interpretations of federal statutes, has done more than anything else to flood the federal courts with immigrant habeas cases. Minnesota federal courts have been especially hard hit because of Operation Metro Surge.
Massive DOJ Fuckup
In an extraordinary admission this week, the Trump DOJ told a federal judge it had repeatedly misrepresented the substance of an ICE memo throughout months of litigation over the arrests of migrants at immigration courts.
“We deeply regret that this error has come to light at this late stage, after the parties have expended significant resources and time to litigate this case and this court has carefully considered plaintiffs’ challenge to the 2025 ICE guidance,” the DOJ attorneys told the judge as they formally withdrew their prior arguments about a core aspect of the case.
The DOJ lawyers blamed an unnamed ICE lawyer for the error: “Based on our discussions with ICE today, this regrettable error appears to have occurred because of agency attorney error.”
The Corruption: Mike Flynn Edition
Former Trump National Security Adviser Mike Flynn, who pleaded guilty to lying to investigators probing Russian interference in the 2016 election and was later pardoned by President Trump, will be paid $1.2 million in a corrupt bargain to settle his wrongful prosecution lawsuit.
The Trump I DOJ corruptly dropped the case against Flynn. Later, the DOJ under Biden successfully defended Flynn’s civil lawsuit. The Trump II DOJ — run out of the White House — is back to its old tricks. The president is looting the federal treasury to benefit his supporters, using DOJ to gussy it up with the language and procedural flourishes of a normal settlement of a legitimate legal dispute.
The Retribution: Letitia James Edition
Federal Housing Finance Agency director Bill Pulte is at it again.
The Trump crony has sent two new criminal referrals against New York Attorney General Letitia James to U.S. Attorneys Jason Reding Quiñones of the Southern District of Florida and Andrew Boutros of the Northern District of Illinois.
The new bogus allegations are adjacent to his OG mortgage fraud allegations against James, which were dismissed and which two subsequent grand juries rejected. Pulte is now accusing James of homeowners insurance fraud for allegedly misrepresenting how properties in Florida and Illinois would be used.
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