Let me give you a brief update on a story out of North Carolina, or rather rumors out of North Carolina. Because it’s really nothing more than rumors. But it could be real and could be a pretty big deal. We’re told that CNN is about to publish a story that is likely to, or could, knock Lt Gov. Mark Robinson out of the governor’s race in North Carolina. That’s pretty stunning because Robinson is a freakshow candidate even in the broader menagerie of GOP freakshow candidates. Hunter Walker had an early jump on his freak flag in this story from a year and a half ago. That raises the question of what could possibly be so bad, so insane, outrageous or criminal that it would knock him out of the race. The rumors suggest something of a sexual nature. There already was a story a couple week ago claiming, over Robinson’s denials, that Robinson was a regular at porn-shop viewing booths in the ’90s and early 2000s. So what could it possibly be? And don’t forget that a major shakeup at the top of the ticket in North Carolina could conceivably impact the winner of the presidential election.

Over recent weeks I’ve tried to share with you a series of questions about the campaign or features of the campaign that could mean the difference between victory and defeat. Most of these aren’t cases where you say “this campaign has to do this” or “this campaign has to do that.” They’re mysteries to me at least at a deeper level. The one I’d like to discuss today I’ve mentioned a few times in earlier posts.

Remember back in the spring the Trump campaign and really the Trump family did a sort of forced takeover of the RNC and as part of that move they closed down the RNC’s Get Out The Vote or field operations and decided to outsource that work to a series of super PACs of which Elon Musk’s America PAC and the Turning Point USA’s PAC are the biggest? This wasn’t totally out of the blue or not totally without some rationale behind it. The FEC recently made a ruling that gave campaigns and parties greater ability to coordinate with super PACs on GOTV work. So there’s some logic to that. But it’s not obvious on that basis why you’d shut down the RNC’s GOTV operations. So questions about that move have hovered over this. Was this just dumb? Is there some financial interest at work? Is it just part of asserting total control over the party apparatus? Or is it actually just a good idea, allowing the unlimited dollars of these PACs to up the party’s game? The weight of logic and some evidence points to some mix of the first few answers. But it’s been hard to totally rule out the last one.

We’re just days out from our first Morning Memo Live event on the weaponization and politicization of the Justice Department under Trump II. To preview the kinds of topics we’ll be digging into, Josh Marshall joined David Kurtz on Substack Live to talk about the aftermath of the fatal ICE shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis.

“There’s no longer any independence between the White House and the Justice Department,” David told Josh. “And it’s been made abundantly clear that what the White House says is what goes.”

Join us on Jan. 29 at the National Union Building in Washington, D.C. to talk about what’s going on at Main Justice, Pam Bondi, Trump’s retribution campaign against his political enemies, and where things go from here.

All TPM members should have a special discount code in their inboxes. And 2 for 1 tickets available now at checkout (even for those who already purchased a ticket!).

We’ll see you there.

Earlier this afternoon I told you how the GSA staffers who run the Sandra Day O’Connor Federal Courthouse in Phoenix were abruptly fired with no warning or notification to anyone who works in the building. A bit later this afternoon I was able to speak to Debra Lucas, the District Court Executive and Clerk of the Court. To explain that job title Lucas is the senior judicial branch official at the courthouse in terms of the administration of the function of the courthouse. What Lucas told me basically squared with what sources had already told and which I shared with you in that earlier post.

They got no advance warning that this was going to happen. And they still haven’t gotten any explanation of what’s happening. “We’re still waiting for guidance,” Lucas told me. When I asked, guidance from whom? she said the GSA.

We’re going to need to wait for the dust to settle. But it’s clear there’s a major wave of hoax bomb threats today into this evening into swing states, seemingly in most and likely all cases targeting areas of heavy Democratic voting. Officials say they appear to be emanating from Russia. Key points are these. a) They’re not real. There are no bombs. There’s no danger. b) This is a focused efforts to disrupt voting and/or vote counting in Democratic areas. c) We know what’s going on here.

I must admit to being a bit perplexed at what Donald Trump is doing with the Epstein story. He went on Truth Social, the family’s vanity social network and corruption vehicle, today and again went off about how his own supporters are fools for not moving on from the Epstein story and how they should just — goshdarnit! — forget about it and move the F on! Trump seems to be demanding, for any of us who thought there was no there there in the Epstein material, that we realize there must be — that we believe there must be. He’s not asking my consent or yours. He’s just doing it. And this is what I mean: When Donald Trump is guilty as sin on something he insists that whatever is out there that you might have thought was incriminating is actually the work of Obama, Hillary and James Comey. And that is literally what he is doing. Here’s today update from Truth Social.

DHS seems to have pissed off a federal judge in one of the many ongoing litigations around gutting much of the federal government. This one is brought — ironically — by Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights against DHS and is about DHS shutting down several statute-mandated offices that provide oversight of the treatment of people in DHS custody (which of course includes ICE custody). You can tell why Trump wants to abolish those offices. That’s the substance. But the technical issue is just as important and it’s one that applies to things happening across the federal government.

Here’s another post following up on the earlier one about free passage through the Strait of Hormuz, the pinched off little turn in the Persian Gulf where the waterway is at its narrowest. On Bluesky, in response to my earlier post, one user pointed me to this video, a daily ~30 minute update on a YouTube channel called What’s Going on With Shipping.

I want to start by stating clearly the basis upon which I’m sharing this video. I’d never heard of the channel before a couple hours ago. It’s run by a guy named Sal Mercogliano who says he’s a former merchant mariner and historian who teaches maritime history and also consults on the topic. In other words, he appears to be a merchant shipping and tanker professional/nerd. And he runs this shipping news channel. I can’t independently vouch for his credibility. However, I watched today’s episode and a number of factors — subscriber count, reliance on credentialed news articles and industry data sources, tone, meticulousness and more — make me think that it’s at least legit enough to get a beginning overview of the situation in the Gulf. I found it fascinating. It reminds me — sadly — of reporting on the supply chain breakdowns at the beginning of the COVID pandemic. You suddenly had to come up to speed on the complex but to most of us little-understood world of global supply chains, the underbelly and machinery of how the modern interconnected world actually runs.

Kate Riga and I just finished recording this week’s edition of the podcast. We’ll add a link when it’s published. We devoted most of the episode to the coming budget showdown, what should happen and what’s going to happen (not necessarily or perhaps likely the same things). There was one point we discussed that I wanted to share with you here.

We have a whole debate about what Democrats should to with this continuing resolution. A lot of that debate centers on what even Democrats would be trying to achieve — make a point, get specific policy concessions. But there’s an entirely different question that informs a lot of it for me. What kind of Democratic leadership you have right now is the best indication of the type you’ll have in divided government in 2027-28 if Democrats win control of one or both houses of Congress in the midterms. It’s the best indication of what kind of governance we’d see in a Democratic trifecta in 2029, if such a thing came to pass.