For almost a decade now, we’ve watched as Trump plowed through guardrails intended to restrain a rogue executive, exploited one loophole after another, and managed to turn every legal ambiguity in his favor.

So it’s worth noting that one relatively small structural guardrail held firm and provided a check today on one of Trump’s worst abuses.

I mentioned earlier this month that we had this panel at our 25th anniversary event that I simply loved, an oral history of TPM. We published the audio of the panel as last week’s installment of the podcast. I have my own reasons for enjoying it, but I think you will too. In any case, one thing I was reminded of in listening to the discussion is that in recent years I’ve shifted toward analysis and away from my own reporting. Not as an absolute, of course. And in the spring I was reporting on a lot of stuff at once. But certainly over this year, I’ve written a lot of big-picture looks at what I think is happening in the country, what the Trump administration is trying to do, what people can and are doing to resist those efforts, what the big global story is. Listening to the panel discussion made me a bit hungry to do more of the thread-collecting and yanking of nitty gritty reporting, the grabbing on to a story and getting everything of out it, finding and introducing the key characters, finding the arc of their story.

This story is a few days old. But I only came across it yesterday. Meet Austin Smith. He’s a former state legislator in Arizona, member of the Arizona Freedom Caucus. Or former member. He was also strategic director of Turning Points Action, Turning Points’ political arm. (Yes, what other arm would their be?) He was also a hardcore “vote fraud” hustler. And now rather predictably he’s pled guilty to attempted election fraud. Yes, surprise, surprise. In fact, he’s from Surprise, Arizona. No really. You can read the story here.

So Trump didn’t rendition Mamdani. They appear to be huge friends now. What gives?

Here’s my take since I’ve got this question again and again in the last hour.