More Than a Feeling

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

In the past week alone, I have had two members of my conservative Christian, Trump-supporting family let me know they think the president has gone too far with this Iran business.

There are a lot of obvious things about Trump’s actions in Iran that make this moment feel like the ultimate betrayal for some of those MAGA fans who responded positively to his campaign rhetoric, in which he and his allies portrayed him as an isolationist; in 2020, for instance, he proclaimed that the U.S. is not the “policemen of the world.” It’s in part how he pulled anti-imperialists in under the MAGA umbrella alongside other strange bedfellows like the MAHA movement and those who support far-right extremist views like the Great Replacement Theory or fetal personhood ideology.

Its not just my family members; many of Trump’s strongest supporters are scratching their heads. New polling this week shows that more than half of Americans oppose the U.S. taking military action in Iran.

The greatest challenge for those who admire Trump’s shameless approach to politics may be the fact that he is offering little coherent reasoning to cling to for why we are in this war, how we get out, and why Americans are paying the cost. Amid skyrocketing gas prices, he has offered befuddling and ever-changing rationales for launching a war with Iran — including evidence-free claims about wanting to stop it from attacking the U.S. and a lack of clarity about whether it’s attempting regime change, despite killing many of the people Trump thought might replace Ayatollah Khamenei. He’s shrugged off the potential for additional deaths of U.S. service members. He’s told Americans that they should, in fact, thank him for now-insane gas prices because “when oil prices go up, we make a lot of money.” His White House and he himself have given the American people little insight into how long the operation will last or why he brought us into this matter in the first place beyond Trump’s “feelings.” He’s only doubled down on that too. In an interview that aired Friday, Trump told Fox News Radio’s Brian Kilmeade that the war will be over “when I feel it — feel it in my bones.”

— Nicole LaFond

Thune Tries to Ease His SAVE Act Headache

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) has been under pressure from a handful of far-right congressional lawmakers, President Donald Trump and his MAGA base for weeks to bring the SAVE America Act to the Senate floor. Since the legislation would be filibustered by Senate Democrats, the far-right base wants Thune to invoke a “talking filibuster” and force Senate Democrats to continuously hold the Senate floor to block the passage of the bill.

Thune has been adamant in his refusal to rely on the talking filibuster, a tactic rarely used in modern times as it can hijack the Senate floor for weeks at a time. But the proponents of the bill have largely refused to accept the consequences of the talking filibuster, continuing to pressure the majority leader.

Thune seems to have had enough of the pressure campaign.

He announced this week that he will bring the GOP bill to the floor next week but not quite the way the far-right base wants him to.

Instead of a full-blown talking filibuster, Thune is reportedly planning for several days of, possibly overnight, marathon sessions. Those will still force Democrats to stay on the floor and debate the bill for an extended period of time. But at some point leadership is expected to invoke the existing Senate rules and hold a vote that requires a supermajority. That likely means that the bill will inevitably fail (due to the Democratic filibuster) unless a handful of Senate Democrats change their position. 

— Emine Yücel

Arizona Officials Remind County Recorders to Not Give DOJ Voter Data in Wake of New Subpoena

In response to the Trump Justice Department expanding its supposed 2020 election probe to Arizona, Democratic Secretary of State Adrian Fontes and Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes are warning county recorders in the state that the Department of Justice may try to use the expanded investigation to access the state’s voter rolls.

They’re warning county recorders not to succumb to pressure to do so.  

​​Earlier this week, the FBI reportedly issued a grand jury subpoena to the Arizona state Senate for 2020 election records. Fontes and Mayes are concerned that the administration will use this action to continue to pressure Arizona to hand over voter files — part of the administration’s larger campaign to seize sensitive voter information from states across the country. 

In a joint letter this week, Fontes and Mayes told the state’s county recorders to not cave to the administration’s demands, warning that doing so would be a violation of both state and federal law. 

“Although Arizona has made its opposition to disclosure clear in ongoing litigation with DOJ, we reiterate our Offices’ position here just in case you may be contemplating disclosure. We write to inform you that doing so would violate both federal and state law,” they wrote. 

As it stands now, the DOJ is suing 30 states, including Arizona, who have refused to comply with an order to hand over voter roll data, which includes information like drivers license numbers and social security numbers. Fontes referred to the current lawsuit as “frivolous” and said the DOJ’s demands are “unprecedented,” reiterating that he has filed a motion to dismiss the suit.

“If your Office receives a federal grand jury subpoena demanding that you turn over voters’ private data, we urge you to notify our offices immediately,” the letter adds. “The grand jury should not serve to circumvent Arizona’s ongoing lawsuit, and our offices will pursue all legal actions available to prevent the Department of Justice from misusing the grand jury process.”

— Khaya Himmelman

An Investigation Based on ‘Screwy’ Data

As we mentioned above,  the Trump administration widened its 2020 election probe to Maricopa County, Arizona this week, with the FBI reportedly issuing a grand jury subpoena to the Arizona state Senate for 2020 election-related materials. This comes weeks after the FBI raided election offices in Fulton County, Georgia, which similar to Maricopa County, was also a hotbed for conspiracy theories during the 2020 election. 

But, unlike in Fulton County where the FBI seized actual ballots from 2020, in Maricopa, a federal grand jury subpoenaed digital records retained by the state Senate from the county as part of its supposed 2020 election “audit,” which we unpack in greater detail here. And, according to a recent report from ProPublica, an investigation based on these digital records would be unreliable.

Despite multiple official audits affirming Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 election, Arizona state Senate Republicans demanded an unofficial partisan “audit” of the 2.1 million ballots cast and the 400 voting machines in Maricopa County. Arizona Senate Republicans hired a cybersecurity firm with a history of promoting fake voter fraud claims with no actual experience in election security, called the Cyber Ninjas, to run this supposed audit. 

As ProPublica reports in a new piece out this week, the “audit” did not adhere to standard procedures, made mistakes, and the CEO of the firm, Doug Logan, even admitted that its recount of ballots was “screwy.”

— Khaya Himmelman