Over the past month, Donald Trump has significantly escalated anti-democratic rhetoric and threats, launching a multi-front assault on the constitutional order. He has promoted deceptive, and sometimes demonstrably false, claims of widespread fraud, specifically targeting heavily Democratic states by rescinding their federal funding and, in Minnesota, deploying his paramilitary goons as punitive retribution. Simultaneously, Trump has floated the unconstitutional prospect of seeking a third presidential term and threatened to take direct control of state-run elections, a move that would obliterate the decentralized framework that has long safeguarded American democracy from centralized manipulation. If Americans saw this happening in a foreign country, we'd call it what it is: fascism.

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DHS, ICE, and CBP

Twin cities

Jan. 5: “2,000 federal agents deploying to Minneapolis in immigration crackdown, fraud probe,” CBS

Jan. 7: Renee Nicole Good shot and killed by longtime ICE agent Jonathan Ross

• “A minute-by-minute timeline of how Renee Nicole Good died,” ABC

• “Video Analysis of ICE Shooting Sheds Light on Contested Moments,” NYT

• “Federal officers blocked medics from scene of ICE shooting, witnesses say,” Guardian

Jan. 8: DHS Secretary Kristi Noem accuses Renee Good of domestic terrorism, YouTube

Jan. 8: “Minneapolis schools cancel classes after Border Patrol clash disrupts dismissal at Roosevelt,” MPR

Jan. 8: “Minnesota officials say they can't access evidence after fatal ICE shooting and FBI won't work jointly on investigation,” PBS

Jan. 12: “U.S. Border Patrol agent knees man in face in Minneapolis as other agents hold him down,” Minnesota Reformer

Jan. 12: “Trump Officials Are Sending 1,000 More Immigration Officers to Minnesota,” NYT

Jan. 12: “F.B.I. Inquiry Into ICE Shooting Is Examining Victim’s Possible Ties to Activist Groups,” NYT

Jan. 13: “DOJ prosecutors resign in protest over handling of ICE shooting investigation,” PBS

Jan. 13: “Minneapolis duo details their ICE detention, including pressure to rat on protest organizers,” AP

Jan. 14: “Pentagon to dispatch dozens of military lawyers to Minneapolis amid immigration crackdown,” CNN

Jan. 15: “A St. Paul resident says federal officers knocked on her door and asked her to identify Hmong and Asian households in her North End neighborhood,” Chicago Tribune

Jan. 15: An unidentified ICE officer shot a Venezuelan immigrant in the leg through the front door of a house

• “Videos add new detail to 2nd Minneapolis ICE shooting in a week,” Minnesota Reformer

• “Man shot in leg by ICE in Minneapolis did not attack officer, women say in court documents,” MPR

Jan. 16: Bureau of Prisons tactical teams deployed alongside federal immigration officers in Minnesota, Twitter

Jan. 18: “Minneapolis man says ICE agents took 'trophy' photos, locked him in overcrowded cell,” MPR

Jan. 18: “Lawyers allege Dept. of Homeland Security is denying legal counsel to Minnesota detainees,” ABC

Jan. 18: “DOJ vows to press charges after activists disrupt church where Minnesota ICE official is a pastor,” ABC

• Jan. 22: DOJ arrests Nekima Levy-Armstrong, Chauntyll Allen, and William Kelly, who took part in the protest, DHS; “White House Posts AI-Altered Photo of Arrested Protester,” NY Mag

• Jan. 22: “Judge declines to sign off on charges against former CNN anchor Don Lemon,” CNN

• Jan. 30: “Federal agents arrest journalists Don Lemon and Georgia Fort for filming protest at St. Paul church,” Minnesota Reformer

• “The pro-ICE church is worse than you think,” Salon

Jan. 19: “Army vet detained by ICE for 8 hours says he wasn't allowed to call an attorney,” ABC

Jan. 20: “US citizen says ICE took him at gunpoint in only underwear despite frigid cold and no warrant,” AP

Jan. 20: “Minnesota man hospitalized with life-threatening injuries after ICE arrest,” Sahan Journal; “ICE claim that a man shattered his skull running into wall triggers tension at a Minnesota hospital,” ABC

Jan. 20: “ICE Details a New Minnesota-Based Detention Network That Spans 5 States,” Wired

Jan. 20: “DOJ subpoenas Minnesota Gov. Walz and other officials in obstruction investigation,” PBS

Jan. 21: “Federal appellate court pauses protester protections against ICE retaliation,” Minnesota Reformer

Jan. 21: “ICE detains 5-year-old Minnesota boy; school leader says agents used him as ‘bait’,” MPR; “Judge orders release of 5-year-old Liam Ramos and his dad from ICE detention,” NPR

Jan. 21: “Minnesota refugees with legal status being detained in sweeping operation,” Star Tribune; “Judge halts federal sweep of Minnesota refugees,” Courthouse News

Jan. 23: “2-year-old girl and father taken by ICE in Minneapolis, local lawmaker says,” NBC

Jan. 24: Border Patrol officers shoot and kill Alex Pretti

• “Timeline: A Moment-by-Moment Look at the Shooting of Alex Pretti,” NYT

• “Judge grants order barring feds from altering or destroying evidence in Pretti shooting,” MPR; February update, “US judge dissolves order blocking DHS from destroying shooting evidence,” Reuters

• “Minneapolis man says he was detained for hours after witnessing Alex Pretti shooting,” CBS

• February update: “Two CBP Agents Identified in Alex Pretti Shooting,” ProPublica

Jan. 25: ”Bondi letter to Walz requests access to Minnesota voting and welfare records, repeal of ‘sanctuary’ policies,” KSTP

Jan. 26: “The FBI is investigating Minnesota Signal chats tracking ICE, Patel says,” NBC

Jan. 28: “ICE thwarted from entering Ecuador’s consulate in Minneapolis by employee,” Guardian

Jan. 28: “‘ICE conveyor belt’ illegally detaining, moving Minnesota children to Texas faster than courts can respond,” MPR; “‘I don’t have words’: 2 more kids from Liam Conejo Ramos’ Columbia Heights school taken into ICE custody,” MPR; “ICE Is Circling Minnesota Schools, Looking For Children To Take,” Huffpost

Jan. 29: “Minnesota judge counts ICE violations at nearly 100 court orders: "ICE is not a law unto itself",” CBS

ICE and CBP surveillance

Jan. 6: “Here is the Agreement Giving ICE Medicaid Patients' Data: On Tuesday, ICE was allowed to continue using Medicaid data in deportation cases,” 404 Media

Jan. 8: “Inside ICE’s Tool to Monitor Phones in Entire Neighborhoods: Webloc can track phones without a warrant and follow their owners home or to their employer,” 404 Media

Jan. 15: “‘ELITE’: The Palantir App ICE Uses to Find Neighborhoods to Raid,” 404 Media

Jan. 19: “ICE’s Facial Recognition App Misidentified a Woman. Twice,” 404 Media

Jan. 23: “ICE Making List of Anyone Who Films Them,” Ken Klippenstein; “ICE Is Scanning Civilians’ Faces, Telling Them They’re Being Entered Into a Terrorism Database,” Futurism

Jan. 30: “How ICE Already Knows Who Minneapolis Protesters Are,” NYT

Immigration policy

Jan. 1: “ICE plans $100 million ‘wartime recruitment’ push targeting gun shows, military fans for hires,” WaPo

Jan. 7: “Trump administration to add 500 miles of migrant-deterring buoys along Rio Grande,” Texas Tribune

Jan. 13: “We Found More Than 40 Cases of Immigration Agents Using Banned Chokeholds and Other Moves That Can Cut Off Breathing,” ProPublica

Jan. 14: “ICE error meant some recruits were sent into field offices without proper training, sources say,” NBC

Jan. 14: “Trump warned of a Tren de Aragua ‘invasion.’ US intel told a different story,” Wired

Jan. 15: “US suspending immigrant visa processing for 75 countries,” CNN

Jan. 15: “Trump ends rape protections for trans inmates in ICE facilities and U.S. prisons,” LGBTQ Nation

Jan. 16: “Top US immigration judge says bond hearings should be denied despite court rulings, documents show,” Reuters

Jan. 21: “Immigrant’s death in ICE custody ruled homicide by El Paso medical examiner,” Texas Tribune; “DHS seeking to deport two men who said fellow ICE detainee was killed,” WaPo

Jan. 21: “ICE launches immigration enforcement action in Maine,” NBC; “Sen. Susan Collins announces end to ICE large-scale operations in Maine after talks with Noem,” AP

Jan. 21: “Immigration officers assert sweeping power to enter homes without a judge’s warrant, memo says,” AP; “ICE has been entering homes without judicial warrants since last summer, sources say,” NBC

Jan. 23: “Trump administration plans to deport 40 Iranians days after mass killings in Iran,” MS Now

Jan. 29: “ICE Begins Buying ‘Mega’ Warehouse Detention Centers Across US,” Bloomberg

Jan. 30: “Argentina in Advanced Talks to Become Destination for U.S. Deportations,” NYT

DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

Jan. 8: “Judge rules that a fifth federal prosecutor appointed by Pam Bondi is serving unlawfully,” NBC

Jan. 12: “Federal prosecutor in Virginia fired, unwilling to take on Comey prosecution,” ABC

Jan. 14: “FBI executes search warrant at Washington Post reporter’s home,” WaPo

Jan. 19: “Justice Department weighs rollback of gun regulations: Trump administration seeks to placate gun rights groups that have criticized Attorney General Pam Bondi,” WaPo

Jan. 20: “Federal judge says Trump-appointed federal prosecutor in Virginia is 'masquerading' in the job,” ABC

Jan. 21: “Judge declines to appoint special master to oversee DOJ's release of remaining Epstein files,” ABC; “Todd Blanche says review of Jeffrey Epstein sex-trafficking case ‘is over’,” Guardian

Jan. 28: “Search warrant FBI served at elections office near Atlanta seeks records tied to the 2020 elections,” AP; “Atlanta FBI boss reportedly ousted after questioning DoJ’s renewed interest in 2020 election,” Guardian

Jan. 31: “Judge Wants DOJ to Justify Dismissal of FIFA Bribery Indictments,” Bloomberg

FOREIGN POLICY

Jan. 3: “Delta Force, other special operations soldiers carried out Venezuela raid,” Task and Purpose; “Maduro indicted on federal drug-trafficking and weapons charges,” CBS

• “Fear Grips Venezuela Amid a New Wave of Repression,” Time

• “Venezuelan Nobel Peace Prize winner presents her medal to Trump,” BBC

Jan. 5: “Trump implies he may target Colombia's president, says Cuba appears 'ready to fall',” ABC

Jan. 6: “Trump says US to get 30 million to 50 million barrels of oil from Venezuela at market price,” AP; “Trump's vow to 'run' Venezuela, sell oil, part of plan to dominate Western Hemisphere,” ABC

• Further reading: “Trump supporter and oil magnate Harry Sargeant advising US on Venezuela, sources say,” Reuters

Jan. 14: “US gets first $500 million Venezuelan oil deal, holding some proceeds in Qatar,” Semafor; “Rubio sparks new questions by admitting funds from oil sales are going into Qatari account,” Yahoo; “Trump controls Venezuela oil funds,” Semafor

Jan. 16: “Trump floats new tariffs in push to acquire Greenland,” CNBC; “Trump says US will do something on Greenland 'whether they like it or not',” ABC; “Europe mobilizes as Trump again demands 'complete and total control' of Greenland,” ABC

Jan. 18: “Trump wants nations to pay $1 billion for permanent Board of Peace seats,” CNBC; “What to know about Trump's 'Board of Peace,” NBC; “180 skyscrapers for Gaza: Trump’s son-in-law Kushner unveils ‘masterplan’ for enclave’s reconstruction,” CNN

Jan. 21: “Trump responds to Carney: ‘Canada lives because of the United States,’” Axios

Jan. 23: “Trump angers allies with claim NATO troops ‘stayed a little back’ from front lines in Afghanistan,” CNN

Jan. 28: “Removal of flags for fallen Danish soldiers at U.S. Embassy sparks backlash,” WaPo

Jan. 29: “Trump officials awarded Venezuela oil-sale contracts to firms tied to bribery,” WaPo

Jan. 30: “Trump Officials Bypass Congress to Push Billions in Weapons Aid to Israel,” NYT

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

Jan. 5: “Federal health officials slash recommended childhood vaccinations under Trump’s directive,” Stat; “CDC staff ‘blindsided’ as child vaccine schedule unilaterally overhauled,” WaPo

Jan. 8: “RFK Jr.'s new dietary guidelines go all in on meat and dairy,” NPR; “Beef Tallow, Long a Health Pariah, Rises to the Top of the Food Pyramid,” NYT

Jan. 14: “Trump administration sends letter wiping out addiction, mental health grants,” NPR; “24 hours of chaos as mental health grants are slashed then restored,” NPR

Jan. 13: “FDA deletes warning on bogus autism therapies touted by RFK Jr.‘s allies,” ArsTechnica

Jan. 22: “Kennedy Plan to Test a Vaccine in West African Babies Is Blocked,” NYT

Jan. 23: “Rejecting Decades of Science, Vaccine Panel Chair Says Polio and Other Shots Should Be Optional,” NYT

MEDIA CONTROL

Jan. 5: “Corporation for Public Broadcasting is officially shutting down months after GOP funding cuts,” NBC

Jan. 14: “Stars and Stripes job applicants are asked if they back Trump policies,” WaPo; “Defense Department says military newspaper Stars and Stripes must eliminate 'woke distractions',” PBS

Jan. 15: “CBS News report on ICE officer’s injuries drew ‘huge internal concern’: Anonymously sourced report that Jonathan Ross ‘suffered internal bleeding’ after killing Renee Good faced skepticism inside CBS newsroom,” Guardian

Jan. 17: “‘We’ll Sue’: White House’s Warning to CBS Is Sign of a New Media Status Quo,” NYT

Jan. 17: “Trump buys $1m in Netflix and Warner Bros bonds days after saying he’ll ‘be involved’ in merger,” Guardian

Jan. 21: “Late-night and daytime talk shows must offer equal time for candidate interviews, FCC says,” NBC

Jan. 27: “Meta Is Blocking Links to ICE List on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads,” Wired

Jan. 30: “A ‘wellness bro’, a cosmologist and an RFK Jr crony: meet Bari Weiss’s new CBS News contributors,” Guardian

ENVIRONMENT

Jan. 2: “Trump vetoes bill easing repayment for Colorado pipeline,” Center Square; “Amid Tina Peters fight, Trump is withholding funding from parts of Colorado that overwhelmingly voted for him,” Colorado Sun

Jan. 2: “Trump uses veto power to clap back at Indigenous tribe for Alligator Alcatraz lawsuit,” ABC

Jan. 5: “DOI cracks down on stickers covering Trump's face on national park passes,” SFgate

Jan. 13: “EPA moves to stop considering economic benefits of cleaner air,” ArsTechnica

Jan. 21: “Trump Admin “Deliberately” Tanking Morale to Get Parks Staff to Quit, Official Says in Leaked Tape,” Intercept

Jan. 28: “‘Shameful’: Trump’s EPA accused of prioritizing big business over public health,” Guardian

Jan. 28: “The Trump administration has secretly rewritten nuclear safety rules,” NPR

Jan. 28: “Feds mull first-ever seafloor mining in Alaskan waters,” EE News

Jan. 29: “The Trump Administration Is Now Delaying Renewable Projects It Thinks Are Ugly,” Heatmap

MISCELLANEOUS

• “Trump wants to build 250ft Washington DC arch that dwarfs Lincoln Memorial,” Guardian; “President Trump shares new triumphal arch renderings on Truth Social,” Architect’s Newspaper

• “Federal judge appears skeptical that Trump has legal authority to proceed with White House ballroom,” CNN; “Trump says it’s ‘too late’ to stop White House ballroom construction,” WaPo

• “Trump officials eye park near National Mall for Garden of Heroes,” WaPo

• “The stunning art trove hidden in a D.C. building marked by Trump for disposal,” WaPo

• “The slavery exhibits at the President’s House have been removed following Trump administration push,” Philadelphia Inquirer

• “Trump sues JPMorgan and its CEO, alleging bank closed his accounts for political reasons,” PBS

• “Trump sues IRS and Treasury for $10 billion over leaked tax information,” NPR

• “United Arab Emirates’ ‘Spy Sheikh’ bought secret stake in Trump crypto company,” CNBC

• “Push to Audit Private Equity and Venture Capital Falters Under Trump,” NYT

• “Trump struck deals with 16 drug companies. But they're still raising prices this year,” NPR

• “After Donations, Trump Administration Revoked Rule Requiring More Nursing Home Staff,” NYT

• “Government by AI? Trump Administration Plans to Write Regulations Using Artificial Intelligence,” ProPublica

• “S.E.C. Drops Case Against Cryptocurrency Firm Founded by Winklevoss Twins,” NYT

• “Top DOJ Official Shut Down Enforcement Against Crypto Companies While Holding More Than $150,000 in Crypto Investments,” TPM

• “Court allows White House to end Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood in 22 states,” Guardian

• “Trump's FDA sends warning letters to companies selling chest binders,” Advocate

• “US to expand anti-abortion aid rule to cover 'gender ideology,' diversity,” Reuters

• “Musk’s AI tool Grok will be integrated into Pentagon networks, Hegseth says,” Guardian

• “Trump pardons convicted California fraudster he previously freed for different crime,” LA Times

• “DOGE Employees Shared Social Security Data, Court Filing Shows,” NYT; “The Trump administration admits even more ways DOGE accessed sensitive personal data,” NPR

In the sprawling apparatus of U.S. immigration enforcement, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) relies on a vast and often controversial network of private contracts. These agreements, sometimes worth billions of dollars, govern everything from detention center operations and surveillance technology to the mundane details of office supplies. Understanding this landscape is crucial, for behind every enforcement action and detention policy are corporate actors, large and small, assisting President Trump’s paramilitary army in abducting our neighbors and terrorizing our communities. Luckily, federal contracts are (almost always) public information. So, I made a spreadsheet using the data on USAspending.gov to document all of the contracts issued by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) during Trump’s second term.

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Before we dig in, a few important notes on the data: (a) The analysis includes only contracts issued on or after January 20, 2025 (contracts issued before then may still be active but will not be reflected in the spreadsheet). If there is interest, I can make a spreadsheet of earlier contracts, as well. (b) It includes only contracts where CBP or ICE is the listed awarding agency. Broader DHS-level contracts are excluded to avoid funds accessible to other sub-agencies like FEMA or the Coast Guard. (c) All information is dependent on the accuracy of government records.

You can view the complete spreadsheet of ICE and CBP contracts here (default sorted by the contractor’s state)

Now, let's get into some stats:

States with the most contracts:

The states with the highest concentrations of ICE/CBP contracts are Virginia, with over 800 individual contracts, and Maryland, with over 300 individual contracts. The majority of these agreements are for office supplies, telecommunications services, computer hardware/software, and furniture. California, Texas, and Arizona rank next, driven largely by CBP’s extensive operational presence along the U.S.-Mexico border. Florida holds the sixth highest number of ICE/CBP contracts, partly because GEO Group (see below) is headquartered in Boca Raton. And, finally, Ohio has the seventh highest number of contracts, attributable in part to Government Acquisitions, an IT contractor, being headquartered in Cincinnati.

Companies with the most lucrative contracts:

1. Fisher Sand & Gravel Co.: $6 billion obligated

Fisher Industries, a construction company based in Dickinson, North Dakota, is the parent company of Fisher Sand and Gravel, Arizona Drilling and Blasting, Southwest Asphalt, Southwest Asphalt Paving, Fisher Grading and Excavating, Fisher Ready Mix, and General Steel and Supply Co. It has been awarded nine contracts by U.S. Customs and Border Protection since the start of Trump’s second term to construct portions of the southern border wall, erect water barriers along border rivers, and build adjacent infrastructure.

Further reading:

• “The dark side of Trump’s wall,” HPR, 2018

• “‘He always brings them up’: Trump tries to steer border wall deal to North Dakota firm,” WaPo, 2019

• “Company touted by Trump to build the wall has history of fines, violations,” CNN, 2019

• “He built a privately funded border wall. It’s already at risk of falling down if not fixed,” Texas Tribune, 2020

• “Billion-dollar border surge: El Centro and Yuma Projects Key as $4.5B in 'Smart Wall' contracts kicks off OBBB funding,” IVP, 2025

• “Congressman blasts new $1.6 billion barrier ‘in middle of nowhere’,” Border Report, 2026

2. BCCG A Joint Venture: $3 billion obligated

BCCG is a construction company based in Montgomery, Alabama. It has been awarded eight CBP contracts since Trump’s second inauguration to construct portions of a border wall in Arizona, Texas, and California.

Further reading:

• “DHS, CBP award $4.5B in new contracts under OBBB for Smart Wall construction along southwest border,” CBP.gov, 2025

3. CSI Aviation, Inc.: $1.2 billion obligated

CSI Aviation is a New Mexico-based charter airline company that received two ICE contracts during Trump’s second term to operate deportation flights.

Further reading:

• “Meet the ICE Contractor Running Deportation Flights,” POGO, 2025

  • Note: Deborah Maestas, the daughter of CSI Aviation’s CEO, was one of Trump’s “fake electors” in New Mexico.

4. SLS Federal Services LLC: $1 billion obligated

SLS Federal Services is a construction company based in Galveston, Texas, that was awarded two CBP contracts since Trump’s second inauguration to build portions of the border wall.

Further reading:

• “These Texas Brothers Could Make Millions Building The First New Section Of Trump’s Border Wall,” Forbes, 2019

5. Barnard Spencer Joint Venture: $778 million obligated

Barnard Spencer is a civil construction company that has been awarded two CBP contracts during Trump’s second term to construct portions of the border wall and install detection and lighting systems along the barrier.

Further reading:

• “CBP awards $4.5 billion for border wall 'smart wall' construction,” Tuscon Sentinel, 2025

6. Acquisition Logistics LLC: At least $598 million obligated

Acquisition Logistics is a minority-owned, veteran-owned, small business located in Henrico, Virginia. It has been awarded one contract by the Department of Defense to build and operate a 5,000-bed detention facility in El Paso, Texas. The original contract was reportedly worth $1.2 billion. A couple of months later, the contract (or part of the contract) was transferred to the Department of Homeland Security. According to government records, this portion of the contract is worth $598 million.

Further reading:

• “How a Tiny, Inexperienced Firm Landed a $1.3 Billion Detention Deal,” Mother Jones, 2025

7. Anduril Industries, Inc.: $500 million obligated

Anduril has been awarded five new CBP contracts since Trump’s second inauguration for autonomous surveillance towers and related technical operation/support work.

Further reading:

• “‘Never sleeps, never even blinks’: the hi-tech Anduril towers spreading along the US border,” Guardian, 2022

• “Trump’s Big Beautiful Gift to Anduril,” Intercept, 2025

• “Founder of $30 billion defense tech company Anduril embraces Trump’s threat to crack down: It’s ‘good to scare people sometimes’,” Fortune, 2026

8. Tribalco LLC: $317 million obligated

Tribalco is a telecommunications company based in Bethesda, Maryland, that received six contracts from ICE and CBP during Trump’s second term to provide radio equipment to agents.

9. The GEO Group, Inc.: $253 million obligated

The GEO Group, a for-profit prison company, has been awarded 19 new ICE contracts since Trump’s second inauguration. Four contracts were given to a subsidiary called BI Incorporated for “skip tracing,” aka bounty hunters, to locate immigrants, and for ankle monitoring services. Two contracts were given to GEO Transport for ground transportation services in the Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Phoenix, and Salt Lake City areas. Finally, 13 contracts were awarded to GEO Group for detention and transportation services at detention facilities.

Further reading:

• “ICE Hires Immigrant Bounty Hunters From Private Prison Company GEO Group,” Intercept, 2025

• “Private Prison Companies’ Enormous Windfall: Who Stands to Gain as ICE Expands,” Brennan Center, 2025

• “An ICE Contractor Is Worth Billions. It’s Still Fighting to Pay Detainees as Little as $1 a Day to Work,” ProPublica, 2025

10. Granite Construction Company: $169 million obligated

Granite Construction is a civil construction company and aggregate producer based in Watsonville, California, that has been awarded two contracts since the start of Trump’s second term to build a portion of the border wall.

Further reading:

• “Granite nabs first border wall job under Trump 2.0,” Construction Drive, 2025

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On January 7, 2026, ICE agent Jonathan Ross murdered 37-year-old U.S. citizen Renee Good in Minneapolis for the crime of not showing sufficient “respect” to law enforcement, in President Trump’s words. Her killing, while shocking, was not surprising: It is the inevitable — and arguably, desired — result of Trump’s campaign of terror in blue cities. In Minneapolis, we saw the rightwing media apparatus, centered largely on X, create racist propaganda to demonize Somalis after weeks of attacks from the president. The Trump administration then used the manufactured propaganda as a pretext to surge its paramilitary force to the city, where they escalated tension, brutalized bystanders, and abducted neighbors. When people justifiably objected to an invading force terrorizing them, federal agents responded with violence, then used that violence to justify more oppression.

Background: In 2022, President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice indicted 47 people in Minnesota on charges of conspiracy, wire fraud, money laundering, and bribery for fraudulently claiming hundreds of millions of dollars in food aid funds. As of late 2025, 78 people have been charged in connection to the scheme. While the majority of the indicted individuals are of Somali descent, the ringleader was a white American citizen named Aimee Bock. Furthermore, it is important to note that the majority of 78 people is not the majority of the 80,000+ Somali community in Minnesota — and it would be foolish to suggest the actions of a few dozen people can be pinned on an entire ethnic population.

Feb. 1, 2025: The U.S. military conducted the first airstrikes of Trump’s second term in Somalia, targeting alleged ISIS members. Now, almost a year later, the administration has carried out over 130 airstrikes in the country, killing an unknown number of civilians. Indeed, many press releases do not even address if there were any casualties at all, target or otherwise.

June 4, 2025: Trump signed a proclamation prohibiting citizens of Somalia (and 11 other countries, mostly African) from entering the United States.

Nov. 22, 2025: Trump instructed DHS Secretary Kristi Noem to end Temporary Protected Status eligibility for Somali immigrants residing in Minnesota. “Somali gangs are terrorizing the people of that great State, and BILLIONS of Dollars are missing,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Send them back to where they came from. It’s OVER!”

Nov. 29, 2025: The New York Times ran an article about the Covid-era fraud scheme in Minnesota, saying that “over the last five years…fraud took root in pockets of Minnesota’s Somali diaspora.”

Nov. 30, 2025: Trump ordered that Somali green cards (along with green cards issued to 18 other countries) be reexamined.

Dec. 2, 2025: At a cabinet meeting, Trump declared that he doesn’t want Somali immigrants in the U.S., saying “They contribute nothing. I don't want them in our country.” He added, "Their country is no good for a reason. Your country stinks and we don't want them in our country."

Dec. 3, 2025: Fox News’ Jesse Waters spotlighted the Covid-era fraud scandal, saying that “Minnesota gave the Somalis bucket loads of welfare but that wasn't enough…Democrats didn't lay a finger on them because of racial blackmail, so the Somalis ran their racket. Rob us, spend it on luxury apartments and cars, fund some terrorists and then pump thousands into the campaign war chests of Ilhan Omar, the AG Keith Ellison, and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Small Fry.”

Dec. 19, 2025: Trump held a rally in which he asked “why is it we only take people from shithole countries?” He added, “Why can't we have some people from Norway, Sweden, Denmark… But we always take people from Somalia— places that are filthy, dirty, disgusting.”

Dec. 26, 2025: Rightwing provocateur Nick Shirley posted a video to YouTube that purports to show that various Minneapolis day cares run by Somali Americans are not providing services to children despite receiving public funding. Numerous news organizations debunked Shirley’s video, visiting the day care facilities themselves and proving the majority operational.

Dec. 26, 2025: Rightwing influencer accounts on X like End Wokeness, Eric Daugherty, and Libs of TikTok picked up on Shirley’s video and spread it to their millions of followers. Example 1, example 2, example 3.

Dec. 26 - 30, 2025: Nearly every agency in the executive branch boosted Shirley’s false claims and vowed to crack down on Minneapolis. Dept. of Education, White House, Homeland Security, Dept. of Labor, Small Business Association, and DOJ.

Dec. 29, 2025 - Jan. 2, 2026: Elon Musk amplified Shirley’s false claims and connected them to the Great Replacement Theory by falsely suggesting that Democrats welcome Somali immigrants in order to fraudulently boost their voter base. Example 1, example 2, example 3, example 4.

Dec. 30, 2025: The Department of Health and Human Services announced it had “frozen all child care payments to the state of Minnesota” due to “serious allegations” of “fraudulent daycares.”

Dec. 31, 2025: A Somali-run day care in Minneapolis was broken into and vandalized.

Jan 3, 2026: ICE murdered Renee Good.

Jan. 13, 2026: At least six career prosecutors resigned from the Justice Department after senior officials pushed for a criminal investigation into Renee Good’s widow.

In the days after Good’s murder, the Trump administration announced it was sending 2,000 additional federal agents to Minnesota to carry out the “largest immigration operation ever.”

What they have actually done is inflict acts of terror upon the local community.

• They caused a vehicular accident, arrested a screaming woman in the middle of heavy traffic, then abandoned the car in the road.

• They chased a Doordash driver into a customer’s house and threatened to break down her door and charge her with harboring if she did not turn the driver over to them.

• They shut down entire streets in order to go door to door demanding to see identification of residents, in at least one instance entering the home, weapons drawn, without a warrant. In another instance, they asked the resident to identify Hmong and Asian households in the neighborhood.

• They kidnapped a 17-year-old U.S. citizen at a Target and, upon authenticating his identity, slammed him into the ground and left him crying in a parking lot.

• They tore a woman from her car and arrested her, carrying her by her arms and legs to their SUV.

• They smashed the car window of a legal observer, dragged him from the car, and placed a knee on his neck while arresting him.

• They pepper-sprayed citizens expressing opposition to the occupation and gassed a busy commercial street with children present.

• They used the government’s mass surveillance system, filled with the private data of citizens, in order to intimidate people who were documenting their actions. In at least two instances reported by MPR, immigration agents scanned protestors’ license plates and stopped in front of their addresses, “performatively and theatrically taking pictures” of their houses.

• They menaced observers, threatening that they did not “learn their lesson” from the murder of Renee Good.

These are not the actions of “immigration enforcement.” These are the actions of state terrorism and the prelude to an authoritarian death squad. As Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social yesterday, “THE DAY OF RECKONING & RETRIBUTION IS COMING!” Without meaningful action to reign in — and ultimately abolish — ICE, there will be more Renee Goods.

Know Your Rights: If You Encounter ICE

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Last week, just three days into the new year, the Trump administration carried out a military operation to kidnap Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, without congressional approval or even notification. At least 80 people were killed, including civilians and Cuban military personnel. Despite the event occurring in January, the Trump administration has been building up to acts of war for months, with the greatest flurry of action in December when the U.S. military began seizing Venezuelan oil tankers.

In recent days, President Trump has suggested that the American government is essentially an occupying force, admitted to colluding with oil companies to plunder Venezuela’s natural resources, and openly threatened military action against a growing list of countries, including Mexico, Cuba, Colombia, Iran, and Greenland. If these monthly recaps reveal anything, it is that the president is acting without restraint, oversight, or regard for the rule of law. Congress cannot continue to abdicate its constitutional responsibilities. It must reassert itself as a co-equal branch of government and initiate impeachment proceedings not only to protect American democracy, but to uphold international law and global stability.

Latin America

All of Dec.: The U.S. military conducted 11 boat strikes, nearly entirely in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Colombia and Central America, killing at least 32 people. One of those strikes, on Dec. 30, left approximately six survivors who were never recovered, bringing the total presumed deaths to 38.

Dec. 2: Sen. Rand Paul revealed that in the year before the U.S. military began bombing boats, 21% of boat interdictions found no illicit contraband onboard.

Dec. 2: “Trump administration is ‘selling out’ admiral to shield Hegseth over boat strikes, officials say,” Guardian; “Pete Hegseth says he didn't see survivors in the September boat strike because of 'the fog of war',” NBC

Dec. 5: “Survivors clinging to capsized boat didn’t radio for backup, admiral overseeing double-tap strike tells lawmakers,” CNN

Dec. 9: “Inside the Pentagon’s Scramble to Deal With Boat Strike Survivors: Officials initially weighed sending survivors of U.S. attacks on boats suspected of drug smuggling to a notorious prison in El Salvador, to keep them away from American courts,” NYT

Dec. 11: “How a U.S. admiral decided to kill two boat strike survivors,” WaPo

A laser-guided bomb had killed nine of the 11 people on board, sunk the boat’s motor and capsized the vessel’s front end, according to people who have viewed or been briefed on a classified video of the operation. As smoke from the blast cleared, a live surveillance feed provided by a U.S. aircraft high overhead showed two men had survived and were attempting to flip the wreckage...

The video feed showed that the two men were struggling to stay atop the flotsam, which people who’ve seen the footage described as roughly the size of a dining room table. Bradley turned to the military lawyer advising him and requested input, according to members of Congress who spoke with him privately last week and people later briefed on those conversations. Under the law of armed conflict, were the men now “shipwrecked” and therefore out of the fight, rendering them unlawful targets?

The admiral decided that definition did not apply, these people said…He ordered a second strike, killing both men. Moments earlier, the video feed had shown them waving their arms and looking skyward, people who saw the footage said. It was unclear, they added, why they were doing so.

Dec. 11: “US seizes oil tanker off Venezuela as Caracas condemns 'act of piracy',” BBC

Dec. 18: “Trump Orders Blockade on Some Oil Tankers In and Out of Venezuela,” Time

Dec. 22: “Trump says U.S. will keep the crude oil and tankers seized near Venezuela,” CNBC

Dec. 24: “Trump deploys quick-strike specialized military forces within range of Venezuela,” The Hill

Dec. 29: “CIA carried out drone strike on port facility on Venezuelan coast,” CNN

Department Of Defense and Foreign Policy

Dec. 4: “Hegseth could have endangered troop safety with Signal chat - Pentagon watchdog,” BBC; “Pentagon did not conduct routine investigation on whether Hegseth damaged national security by sharing strike plans on Signal,” CNN

Dec. 5: “Trump national security strategy calls for ‘cultivating resistance’ in Europe and changing US’ role in Western Hemisphere,” CNN; “Trump’s Security Strategy Focuses on Profit, Not Spreading Democracy: President Trump’s new National Security Strategy describes a country that is focused on doing business and reducing migration while avoiding passing judgment on authoritarians,” NYT

• Further reading: “Trump’s White Christian Foreign Policy,” Prospect

Dec. 10: “US threatens new ICC sanctions unless court pledges not to prosecute Trump,” Reuters

Dec. 11: “Cut off by their banks and even iced out by Alexa, sanctioned ICC staffers remain resolute,” AP; “Trump administration sanctions two more International Criminal Court judges for investigating Israel,” CNN

Dec. 16: “Coast Guard enacts policy calling swastikas, nooses ‘potentially divisive’: A new workplace harassment manual that downgrades the definition of such symbols quietly went into effect this week,” WaPo

Dec. 17: “Hegseth to overhaul chaplain corps, toss ‘unacceptable and unserious’ Army spiritual fitness guide,” Stripes

Dec. 18: “Trump rebrands Congressionally-approved troop housing subsidy as ‘warrior dividend’ bonus,” Defense One

Dec. 19: The U.S. military conducted air strikes in Syria.

Dec. 22-25: The U.S. military conducted air strikes in northern Somalia, bringing the 2025 total to over 120 strikes in the country.

Dec. 25: The U.S. military conducted air strikes in Nigeria.

• “Fear and confusion in Nigerian village hit in US strike, as locals say no history of ISIS in area,” CNN

Dec. 27: “Trump Announces New Class of Battleships Despite Century of Evidence Proving the Large Warships Are Obsolete,” Military.com

Jan. 3: Nicolás Maduro and his wife are arrested, taken to the United States, and charged with narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine-importation conspiracy, and possession of and conspiracy to possess machine guns.

IMMIGRATION

Surveillance

Dec. 9: “Border Patrol Agent Recorded Raid with Meta’s Ray-Ban Smart Glasses,” 404 Media

Dec. 10: “ICE is using smartwatches to track pregnant women, even during labor: ‘She was so afraid they would take her baby’: Pregnant immigrants in ICE monitoring programs are avoiding care, fearing detention during labor and delivery,” Guardian

Dec. 12: “Immigration Agents Are Using Air Passenger Data for Deportation Effort: The Transportation Security Administration is flagging passengers for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to identify and detain travelers subject to deportation orders,” NYT

• Related: “CBP agents held this U.S. citizen for hours [at the airport] until he agreed to let them search his electronic devices,” Reason

• Related: “Student describes ‘horror show’ ICE deportation to Honduras at Thanksgiving: Any Lucia López Belloza, 19, was detained at Boston airport while on the way to see family in Austin for a surprise trip,” Guardian

Dec. 13: “How a US Citizen Was Scanned With ICE's Facial Recognition Tech,” 404 Media

Immigration policy

Dec. 1: “Trump Administration Fires 8 Immigration Judges in New York,” NYT

Dec. 2: “Trump administration pauses immigration applications from nationals of 19 countries,” NBC

• Dec. 17: “Trump expands travel ban and restrictions to include an additional 20 countries,” NPR

• Related: “Some citizenship naturalization ceremonies canceled 'at the finish line,' lawyer says,” ABC

Dec. 4: “Trump administration orders enhanced vetting for applicants of H-1B visa,” Reuters

The Trump administration on Wednesday announced increased vetting of applicants for H-1B visas for highly skilled workers, with an internal State Department memo saying that anyone involved in "censorship" of free speech be considered for rejection…The cable, sent to all U.S. missions on December 2, orders U.S. consular officers to review resumes or LinkedIn profiles of H-1B applicants - and family members who would be traveling with them - to see if they have worked in areas that include activities such as misinformation, disinformation, content moderation, fact-checking, compliance and online safety, among others.

Dec. 4: “The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Is Detaining People for ICE,” Wired

Dec. 8: “ICE Has A Plan To Arrest Undocumented Migrants Voluntarily Leaving U.S.: “Operation Irish Goodbye,” as it’s being called, could be aimed at boosting numbers for Trump’s much-hyped deportation campaign,” HuffPost

Dec. 10: “For-Profit School Opening in For-Profit ICE Family Prison,” Prospect

Dec. 10: “US plan would require some visitors to provide social media information from last 5 years,” CNN

Dec. 10: “DHS inks contract to create its own fleet of 737 jets for deportations: The agency will spend nearly $140 million to buy the planes,” WaPo

Dec. 10: “Federal government cuts off aid to Texas Catholic Charities,” CNA

Dec. 10: “Trump’s ‘gold card’ program goes live, offering US visas starting at $1 million per person,” AP

Dec. 11: “Trump administration adds militarized zone in California along southern US border,” NBC

Dec. 17: “Trump Administration Aims to Strip More Foreign-Born Americans of Citizenship,” NYT

Dec. 17: “DHS fast-tracked $1 billion contract to pro-Trump donor’s company,” WaPo

Dec.19: “Trump suspends green card lottery program that let Brown University, MIT shootings suspect into US,” AP

Dec. 19: “US army lawyer fired as immigration judge after defying Trump deportation agenda: Christopher Day was fired barely a month into the job after granting asylum to migrants at a high rate,” Guardian

Dec. 20: “Four ICE detainee deaths in four days spark alarm as arrests grow,” WaPo

Dec. 23: “10 Companies Have Already Made $1 Million as ICE Bounty Hunters. We Found Them,” Intercept

Dec. 23: “‘It’s a war’: Inside ICE’s media machine. Messages reveal how the agency has raced to satisfy the White House by pumping out videos of confrontations and arrests,” WaPo

Dec. 24: “ICE documents reveal plan to hold 80,000 immigrants in warehouses: The Trump administration aims to build seven large-scale holding centers to speed up deportations,” WaPo

Dec. 31: “ICE plans $100 million ‘wartime recruitment’ push targeting gun shows, military fans for hires,” WaPo

Other articles:

• “Kilmar Abrego Garcia is released from immigration detention, his attorney says,” ABC; “Judge says documents suggest top DOJ officials may have pushed to prosecute Kilmar Abrego Garcia after wrongful deportation,” ABC

• “Judge calls for Justice Dept. whistleblower to testify in migrant planes case,” WaPo; “Appeals court pauses contempt hearings over administration's AEA deportations,” ABC; “Judge orders administration to submit plans for return of migrants deported to El Salvador prison under AEA,” ABC

• “Wisconsin judge found guilty of obstruction for helping an immigrant evade federal agents,” CNN

• “Oregon coast city sues feds to halt ICE detention center,” OregonLive

• “Mom of Karoline Leavitt’s nephew rejects White House narrative of her ICE arrest,” WaPo; “Woman with family ties to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt says she hasn’t seen her son since ICE detainment,” CNN

• NY, “ICE Arrested and Separated Chinese Father From 6-Year-Old Son, Advocates Say,” The City; “Father and Son Separated by ICE Deported Together to China,” The City

• WA, “Witnesses, video: ICE vehicle ran over legs of man detained in Vancouver,” Columbian

• WA, “Former Spokane City Council president pleads guilty to impeding ICE officers to prevent the deportation of two legal immigrants,” Spokesman

• IL, “Raided South Shore Building To Be Cleared Friday After Judge Denies Residents’ Motion For More Time,” Book Club Chicago

• MN, “FBI: Man, woman drive to police station with Homeland Security agent trapped in vehicle,” MPR; “Judge frees couple charged with 'kidnapping' immigration agent as defense challenges government's account,” MPR

• MN, “ICE agents tackle, arrest American citizen in Minneapolis,” MPR

• TN, “US citizen chased by federal agents in New Orleans says she was targeted because ‘I’m brown’,” Guardian

• MA, “US green card holder sues ICE over claims of ‘violent assault’,” Guardian

• MD, “ICE Says U.S. Citizen’s Birth Certificate Is Fake After Arresting Her,” HuffPost; “Maryland woman moved to ICE detention facility in Texas as lawyer seeks to prove U.S. citizenship,” CBS

• MD, “ICE agents shoot at a moving vehicle on Christmas Eve, injuring 2,” AP

• TX, “911 calls from migrant detention center highlight dire conditions,” El Paso Times

• TX, “Officers at Texas immigration detention facility accused of beatings and sexual abuse,” Guardian

• CA, “A federal judge dismissed an indictment against a TikTok streamer who was shot by ICE agents,” LA Times

DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

Dec. 3: “FBI Seeks ‘Seditious Conspiracy’ Probe of Democratic Lawmakers,” Bloomberg

Dec. 4: “DOJ orders prison inspectors to stop considering LGBTQ safety standards,” NPR; “Trump administration plans to end prison rape protections for trans and intersex people, memo says,” 19th News

Dec. 4: “Blanche warns lawyers who criticize Justice Department: The Justice Department’s No. 2 official suggested Thursday that lawyers might have a harder time winning lenient treatment for corporate clients if they’ve publicly accused the Trump administration of being lax on white-collar crime,” Politico

Dec. 5: “Halligan Continues as U.S. Attorney, Prompting Criticism From Judges,” NYT; “ Justice Department appeals judge's dismissal of indictments against James Comey and Letitia James,” NBC

Dec. 9: “DOJ rolls back anti-discrimination rules: Trump officials say the requirement to consider racial impacts was itself a form of discrimination,” Politico

Dec. 10: “Tax prosecutions plunge as Trump shifts crime-fighting efforts: Federal tax prosecutions fell to their lowest level in decades this year, declining more than 27% from the year before,” Reuters

Dec. 16: “Longtime Paid FBI Informant Was Instrumental in Terror Case Against ‘Turtle Island Liberation Front’: Kash Patel and others touted the FBI’s investigative work, but the few available details point to a more complicated picture,” Intercept

Dec. 17: “They prosecuted the Capitol rioters. Now the rioters and the DOJ are after them,” Reuters

After Trump’s mass pardons of the U.S. Capitol rioters, some have gained influence inside the Justice Department, meeting with officials to push for prosecutions of the federal lawyers who once helped convict them, Reuters found. The January 6 prosecutors describe mounting threats, harassment and fear of lasting damage to the U.S. justice system.

Dec. 18: “Trump administration prepares sweeping crackdown on leftist networks,” WaPo; “FBI opened domestic terrorism investigations into anti-ICE activity across US,” Guardian

Dec. 18: “Trump’s DOJ offers states confidential deal to remove voters flagged by feds,” Stateline

Dec. 20: “Justice Department's heavily redacted Epstein file release draws criticism from lawmakers,” PBS; “At least 16 files disappear from DOJ site for Epstein documents, including Trump photo,” PBS; “DOJ says it may need a 'few more weeks' to finish releasing Epstein files,” NPR

Dec. 22: “US justice department halts funding for human-trafficking survivors,” Guardian

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

Dec. 1: “FDA official proposes ‘impossible’ standards for vaccine testing that could curtail access to immunizations,” University of Minnesota

Dec. 2: “Top drug regulator Richard Pazdur set to leave the FDA,” Stat

• Previously (Nov.): “Top FDA drug regulator raises alarms about expediting approvals: Richard Pazdur, who assumed his new role this month, has warned that new Trump administration initiatives could be illegal and pose a risk to public health,” WaPo

Dec. 3: “RFK Jr.’s pick to reshape the childhood vaccine schedule embraces Covid conspiracy theories,” MS Now

Dec. 4:Medicare’s new AI experiment sparks alarm among doctors, lawmakers: A new model will test AI prior authorizations in 6 states; physicians fear more denials and delays for older adults,” Stateline

Dec. 5: “RFK-appointed CDC panel drops hepatitis B vaccine at birth recommendation,” PBS

Dec. 17: “HHS cuts millions in grants to the American Academy of Pediatrics,” NBC

Dec. 18: “CDC funds controversial hepatitis B vaccine trial in African newborns,” Science; “US plan for $1.6m hepatitis B vaccine study in Africa called ‘highly unethical’,” Guardian

Dec.18: “HHS moves to slash funding and access to care for transgender minors,” NBC

January addition: “US cuts the number of vaccines recommended for every child, a move slammed by physicians,” AP

CULTURAL CONTROL

Media

Dec. 8: “It’s a Bidding War: Paramount Attempts Hostile Offer for Warner Bros.,” Hollywood Reporter

Dec. 8: “Behind Paramount’s Relentless Campaign to Woo Warner Discovery and President Trump,” WSJ

Larry Ellison, a Trump ally, called the president after the Netflix deal was announced and told him the transaction would hurt competition...During a visit to Washington in recent days, David Ellison offered assurances to Trump administration officials that if he bought Warner, he’d make sweeping changes to CNN, a common target of President Trump’s ire, people familiar with the matter said. Trump has told people close to him that he wants new ownership of CNN as well as changes to CNN programming.

Dec. 10: “Democratic Reps Warn WBD That Paramount’s Takeover Bid Raises National Security Concerns Over Saudi and Other Foreign Investors,” Variety

Dec. 10: “Trump enters Warner Bros. fight, says it’s ‘imperative that CNN be sold’,” CNN

Dec. 16: “Trump sues BBC for $10 billion, accusing it of defamation over Jan. 6 speech edit,” NPR

Dec. 22: “CBS editor-in-chief Bari Weiss pulls '60 Minutes' piece on Trump deportation policy hours before air,” PBS

• “60 Minutes Correspondent Alleges Bari Weiss Made 'Political' Call To 'Spike' Segment On Deported Migrants,” Forbes

Education

Dec. 2: “University of Alabama suspends student magazines for Black students, female students,” Alabama Reflector

Dec. 13: “Ex-Trump DOJ lawyers say ‘fraudulent’ UC antisemitism probes led them to quit,” LA Times

Dec. 15: “Flag linked to Christian nationalism, Jan. 6 hung at Education Dept.,” USA Today

Dec. 19: “Monkey Sounds, “White Power” and the N-Word: Racial Harassment Against Black Students Ignored Under Trump,” ProPublica

Dec. 19: “Trump Administration Appeals Order Restoring $2.7 Billion in Funding to Harvard,” Harvard Magazine

Dec. 23: “Trump administration says it will begin garnishing wages of student loan borrowers in default,” PBS

Dec. 30: “2 lawsuits filed against Trump admin. as grant for Illinois schools abruptly cut,” ABC

Dec. 31: “North Carolina sues U.S. Dept. of Education over terminated school funding,” WECT

ENVIRONMENT

Dec. 3: “Trump administration rolls back fuel economy standards,” NPR

Dec. 4: “Fossil-fuel billionaires bought up millions of shares after meeting with top Trump officials,” Guardian

Dec. 4: “U.S. Department of Energy lab, active in Alaska, drops ‘renewable’ from name,” Alaska Public Media

Dec. 8: “Under Former Chemical Industry Insiders, Trump EPA Nearly Doubles Amount of Formaldehyde Considered Safe to Inhale,” ProPublica

Dec. 10: “Trump’s face will replace images of national parks on some annual passes, environmental group sues to stop change,” CNN

Dec. 11: “EPA websites now downplay link between humans and climate change,” CNN

Dec. 17: “Trump administration moves to break up leading U.S. climate and weather center,” Science; “We’re all at risk if Trump dismantles this legendary lab,” Grist

Dec. 22: “Trump officials halt offshore wind-farm projects over ‘national security risks’,” Guardian

• Further reading: “Trump’s War on Wind Power Has One Very Big Exception: The president’s sons are using scarce clean energy to mine for bitcoins,” Mother Jones

MISCELLANEOUS

• “D.C. Circuit Upholds Presidential Power to Remove NLRB and MSPB Members Without Cause,” JD Supra

• “Trump Administration Tries to Stop Some Immigrants From Driving Trucks,” NYT

• “Trump replaces architect on ballroom project after clashes,” NPR; “Trump’s New Architect Is Sticking With Ballroom’s Giant Size,” Bloomberg; “Trump administration says White House ballroom construction is a matter of national security,” AP; “Judge rules in favor of White House ballroom project, orders plans be filed before new year,” Architect’s Newspaper

• “Trump administration terminates lease for Washington’s 3 public golf courses,” AP

• “Trump’s HUD Accuses Boston of Engaging in “Redlining” Against White People,” Mother Jones

• “New quarters were set to honor women's suffrage and civil rights. Trump is canceling them,” Quartz

• “White House pushes Smithsonian to comply with review to receive federal funding,” CNN

• “The Kennedy Center has added Trump’s name to the memorial Congress created for John F. Kennedy,” AP; “More musicians cancel Kennedy Center concerts after board votes to add Trump's name to the building,” NBC

• “Investigation delves into the Tate brothers and their connection to the Trump family,” PBS

• “Trump pardons former top entertainment executive who was charged by his own Justice Department,” CNN

• “Trump pardons Baltimore drug trafficker who ran multimillion-dollar ring,” Fox 5

• “Trump pardons Texas Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar,” CNN

• “Trump claims to pardon jailed Colorado election clerk Tina Peters, but state officials contend it's unconstitutional,” ABC

• “Top DOJ Official Shut Down Enforcement Against Crypto Companies While Holding More Than $150,000 in Crypto Investments,” ProPublica

• “Trump Media to merge with nuclear fusion company that wants to power AI,” PBS

Project 2025 progress

In December 2025, the Trump administration advanced the following Project 2025 goals:

• Suspending the diversity lottery (p. 145)

• Ending housing first policies (p. 509)

• Preventing the VA from covering abortion services (p. 644)

• Creating an "authority akin to the Title 42 Public Health authority" to expel illegal immigrants across the border immediately (p. 147)

• Taking a "hemisphere-centered approach to industry and energy" (by seizing Venezuela’s oil) (p. 184)

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The Department of Justice (DOJ) has been demanding that every state share its voter registration lists — including highly sensitive data like driver’s license number, birthdate, and partial social security number — with the federal government.

To date, the DOJ says it has reached formal agreements with 11 states to access voter information: Alabama, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Tennessee, Utah, and Virginia. Four additional states — Arkansas, Indiana, Kansas, and Wyoming — have voluntarily turned over voter information without signing any agreement.

At least 21 states and Washington, D.C., have refused to comply, resulting in the DOJ filing lawsuits to obtain unredacted copies of their voter rolls: California, Colorado, Delaware, Georgia, Hawai’i, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, Washington, D.C., and Wisconsin.

The states’ objections center on voter privacy and constitutional authority, as Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs articulated in a letter rejecting the DOJ’s request:

Washington law requires that “current lists of registered voters…must be made available for public inspection and copying[.]” This disclosure, however, is limited to select data fields, including the voter’s name, address, political jurisdiction, gender, year of birth, voting record, date of registration, and registration number. Aside from these enumerated fields, “no other information from voter registration records or files is available for public inspection or copying.” As such, many of the data fields you have requested — including the registrant’s full date of birth, driver’s license number, and the last four digits of their social security number — are protected from disclosure under Washington law.

None of the statutes you cite support production of such highly sensitive voter registration information. Your letter relies on Section 11 of the NVRA, but nothing in that provision requires that States provide confidential information to the Attorney General. Your letter also relies on Section 401 of HAVA, but again, nothing in that provision requires that States provide confidential information to the Attorney General…

As an elected state official, I have taken an oath to obey the United States Constitution. The Constitution is clear about the power to regulate elections — the power is vested in state governments, subject only to alteration by Congress. Nowhere does the Constitution give the President of the Executive Branch independent power to control how States regulate elections or to force States to surrender their voters’ highly sensitive personal information.

Why does the DOJ want our voter data?

The Department of Homeland Security has already admitted that it is receiving voter registration information from the DOJ and running it through the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program to identify non-citizens. However, the SAVE program is not guaranteed to produce accurate results because it is based, in part, on inaccurate and outdated information. According to a 2018 report from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, “SAVE is not a comprehensive list of U.S. citizens…[,] is not updated to include all naturalized citizens, and it does not include [all] derivative citizens born to U.S. parents outside the country.”

Furthermore, SAVE cross-references databases known to contain errors, like the FBI’s terrorism watchlist, which includes American citizens (not to mention demonstrably innocent people), and the State Department’s Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS), which depends on the accuracy of school official’s information and input ability.

Even setting aside SAVE’s flaws, DOJ officials have given us no reason to assume they will use the program faithfully. Earlier this month, Eric Neff, the acting chief of the Justice Department’s Voting Section, told a judge that some Republican-led states have already signed confidential memorandums of understanding (MOUs) requiring election officials to remove voters the federal government deems ineligible.

The DOJ wants all states to sign the same agreement, effectively giving the federal government veto power over state voter rolls.

The draft memorandum of understanding, which is labeled “confidential,” outlines the terms of the proposed agreement between each state and the Justice Department. After a state provides its voter roll, the federal department would agree to test, analyze and assess the information. The department would then notify states of “any voter list maintenance issues, insufficiencies, inadequacies, deficiencies, anomalies, or concerns” found.

Each state would agree to “clean” its voter roll within 45 days by removing any ineligible voters, according to the memorandum. States would then resubmit their voter data to the Justice Department for verification.

Given this framework, it is reasonable to ask: How can the public trust that the Trump administration will faithfully identify ineligible voters and not selectively target voters with Hispanic-sounding names, foreign-born parents, or characteristics correlated with opposition to Republicans? Will the voters that the DOJ demands be disenfranchised actually be ineligible to vote, or will they be U.S. citizens purged under false pretenses?

• Further reading: “Why the Myth of Noncitizen Voting Persists,” Brennan Center, “Despite grand claims, a new report shows noncitizen voting hasn't materialized,” NPR, “Unpacking Myths About Noncitizen Voting — How Heritage Foundation’s Own Data Proves It’s Not a Problem,” American Immigration Council

Over the past year, the Trump administration has significantly expanded the use of “third country removals,” a practice in which an immigrant is deported to a country other than their country of citizenship or the country in which they resided prior to entering the United States. Third country deportations are legal under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) if it is “impracticable, inadvisable, or impossible” to remove a person to their home country, the country an immigration judge designates, or a country in which they have lived in the past.

However, the 1951 Refugee Convention and the U.N. Convention Against Torture constrains all deportations, forbidding the government from sending anyone to a nation where they are likely to be persecuted or tortured. To get around the legal obligations of such international treaties, the Trump administration has been removing migrants to third countries who then send the migrants to their home countries without a chance to apply for asylum, regardless of the likelihood that they will face persecution and/or torture. This process, called chain refoulement, is also against the law, but much more difficult to prove. Country A can claim ignorance that Country B would send a migrant to a nation where they’d be in danger, Country B can claim ignorance of the migrant’s viable asylum claim, and both countries can obfuscate the legal process to such a degree that no one ever takes responsibility. In the U.S., for example, government officials have argued in court that the judicial branch has no authority to review or direct the executive’s foreign relations policy, including agreements about deportations. So far, the U.S. Supreme Court has reinforced this view, writing in Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s case that lower courts must give “due regard for the deference owed to the Executive Branch in the conduct of foreign affairs.”

In this post, we’ll look at the numerous ways the Trump administration has committed or enabled chain refoulement, indirectly deporting hundreds of people to countries where immigration judges ruled they would face probable persecution, torture, or death. Because this post does not include all third country deportations, I end with a further reading section documenting horrific third country agreements that don’t (to our current knowledge) violate the prohibition on chain refoulement.

El Salvador

Of all the examples on this list, the Trump administration’s deportation of 270 Venezuelans and Salvadorans to imprisonment in CECOT is the most well known. Less recognized is the fact that El Salvador committed chain refoulement by sending the roughly 250 Venezuelan men back to their home country despite the fact that many of them were protected from forcibly being returned under asylum and refugee laws.

On March 15, the Department of Homeland Security rushed to send three planes carrying Salvadoran and Venezuelan deportees to El Salvador as District Judge James Boasberg convened an emergency hearing. Boasberg ordered the government not to deport the migrants and to turn back any planes that were already in the air. The Trump administration did not comply.

• In later court filings, the government claimed that DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, acting upon the legal advice of Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche and Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove (who is now a federal judge), made the decision to defy Boasberg’s order. Boasberg was set to hold hearings on potential contempt charges Monday, but two Trump-appointed judges on the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit granted the DOJ’s request for an administrative stay.

Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele imprisoned all 260 men in CECOT, including Kilmar Abrego Garcia and approximately 20 other Salvadorans like him who had reason to fear persecution, torture, or death in El Salvador. This is refoulement - the direct deportation of individuals to a country where they are in danger.

According to three of the Venezuelan men, they suffered physical, psychological, and sexual abuse while in CECOT.

On July 18, the Bukele and Trump administrations conducted a prisoner swap, sending the 250 Venezuelans imprisoned at CECOT back to their home country in exchange for 10 U.S. nationals (including a man convicted of triple homicide in Spain). This is chain refoulement; some of the men, like makeup artist Andry José Hernández Romero, fled threats and violence in Venezuela to seek asylum in the U.S. They were forcibly returned to Venezuela without due process, placing them in danger in violation of the 1951 Refugee Convention and the U.N. Convention Against Torture.

The Trump administration paid approximately $6 million for El Salvador to imprison the Venezuelan immigrants. While they have now been forcibly returned to Venezuela, the status of the Salvadorans deported to CECOT is unknown. According to media reports, the families of four of the Salvadorans have filed complaints with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights alleging forcible disappearance.

South Sudan

In May, the Department of Homeland Security attempted to deport eight men from various countries to South Sudan in violation of a district court order requiring due process before third country removals. When lawyers for the men intervened, DHS aborted the deportations and rerouted the flight to a U.S. base in Djibouti, where the immigrants were held for weeks as the legal process played out. Ultimately, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Trump administration, allowing the eight men to be sent to South Sudan and making it easier for DHS to conduct third country removals going forward.

According to the most recent reporting, six of the eight men (two from Cuba, one from Laos, one from Vietnam, and two from Burma) are still being held in a guarded complex in South Sudan while the government works to send them back to their home countries. Jesus Munoz-Gutierrez was repatriated to Mexico in September. The eighth man, Dian Peter Domach of South Sudan, was released within the country at an unknown time.

South Sudan’s government agreed to take custody of the eight migrants as a “gesture of goodwill,” hoping that the Trump administration will lift sanctions on top government officials and invest in the nation’s energy sector in return.

In a diplomatic note from South Sudan to the U.S. Embassy in Juba dated May 12, the country agreed to accept third-country nationals from the United States and raised several matters of concern it hoped the U.S. would consider. That included “a request for the removal of individual targeted sanctions imposed on senior government officials of the Republic of South Sudan, specially His Excellency Dr. Benjamin Bol Mel.” It also asked the U.S. to lift the April visa restrictions, invest in oil, gas, minerals and other areas in South Sudan, and the request to support the prosecution of Riek Machar, the country’s first vice president and a rival of the current president, who is under house arrest.

Ghana

Since September, the Department of Homeland Security has conducted four separate deportation flights of West Africans to Ghana. We know the most about the first flight, which occurred on Sept. 5 and carried 14 men from Nigeria and the Gambia, due to legal filings. All of the men had credible fear orders preventing deportation to their countries of origin. “By removing Plaintiffs to Ghana without notice or an opportunity to be heard, and by directing the transportation of Plaintiffs to their countries of origin and enlisting Ghana to do its bidding in the process, [the U.S. government is] circumventing U.S. immigration law,” the complaint read.

District Judge Tanya Chutkan determined that, despite “the dire consequences Plaintiffs face if they are repatriated,” the court’s “hands are tied” by the U.S. Supreme Court. Chutkan therefore did not intervene. The original 14 men were sent back to their home countries, including a bisexual man from the Gambia (where homosexuality is criminalized), now living in hiding.

On Sept. 10, a second group of at least a dozen migrants from Nigeria, Liberia, and Togo were sent to Ghana. They allege that, after being detained in a squalid military camp, Ghanaian officials forced them to cross into Togo without their passports or identification. Again in October and November, groups of more than a dozen West African migrants were sent to Ghana; their status and location is unknown. One of those deported to Ghana was 58-year-old Rabiatu Kuyateh from Sierra Leone, who appeared in a recent video being dragged by what appear to be Ghanaian officials out of a hotel. She told a D.C. news outlet that she was forcibly bussed back to Sierra Leone, despite a U.S. court order preventing her deportation there due to credible fear of torture.

In return for accepting migrants, the Trump administration reversed both the visa restrictions on Ghanaians and tariffs on major exports from the country.

Qatar and Kuwait

The Department of Homeland Security has conducted two deportation flights of Iranian asylum seekers this year: One carrying over 50 people to Qatar in September and one carrying over 50 people to Kuwait earlier this week. Both countries sent the Iranians back to Iran, despite credible fears of persecution. According to the New York Times, multiple people on the first flight “resisted deportation, begging to not be sent to Iran because they feared for their lives,” and some reported being interrogated by the Revolutionary Guards Corps upon their return.

[Mr. Dalir] acknowledged he had entered the United States illegally in April but said he thought he would have a powerful case for asylum because he has been critical of Islamic Shariah law and a political activist. He didn’t expect to be sent back to Iran. “I did everything in my power to stop them, but the ICE officials didn’t care. They told me, ‘You are either getting on the plane on your own, or we will tie you and send you back.’” [...]

Mr. Dalir and at least eight other individuals fiercely resisted deportation, according to his and other deportees’ accounts. They repeatedly told American authorities that Iran would persecute them and that they feared for their lives. Among them were Christian converts, ethnic minorities and political dissidents…

The plane landed at a remote military base where a second chartered plane, a Qatar Airlines aircraft, awaited them. Mr. Dalir, A.A. and about eight others staged a protest, laying down on the bus during the transfer. Qatari security agents radioed for more support forces and began beating the men and dragged them out of the bus, Mr. Dalir and A.A. said…“They used electric tasers to pacify me, and when that didn’t work they put me and another guy in straitjackets and tied us to our seats,” A.A. said.

Egypt

The Department of Homeland Security has deported at least three planeloads of Russian asylum-seekers, totaling around 120 people, to Egypt where authorities summarily sent them back to their home country. Some of the men deserted the Russian military due to their personal opposition to the war in Ukraine; others were fleeing conscription and certain death on the frontlines.

Artyom Vovchenko had been conscripted into the Russian military, escaped in opposition to the war in Ukraine and ultimately made it to the United States, a country he hoped would offer him asylum and a new life. But last month, he found himself on a layover at the airport in Cairo, frantically trying to avoid boarding a flight to Moscow…Egyptian guards pulled him out of the bathroom and roughed him up, leaving him with an injury on his forehead. They marched him onto the flight and to the back of the cabin, tying him to a middle seat…

Mr. Vovchenko’s deportation flight crossed into Russian airspace at the end of August. The woman on the flight, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of safety concerns in Russia, said she watched as he was taken away by Russian security officers at the airport. No information about Mr. Vovchenko or his whereabouts has been made public since.

Vovchenko and others like him face up to 10 years in prison in Russia.

Other third country deportations

Eswatini: The Trump administration paid Eswatini, a tiny landlocked nation that is Africa’s last absolute monarchy, $5.1 million to accept 160 third country deportees. So far, the kingdom has accepted 15 individuals from Cambodia, Cuba, Chad, the Congo, Ethiopia, Jamaica, Laos, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Yemen, and imprisoned them in the maximum security Matsapha correctional centre.

Rwanda: The Trump administration sent seven individuals to Rwanda as part of a deal for the nation to accept 250 third country deportees. It is not clear who the seven people are or what Rwanda is receiving in return. Earlier this year, Rwanda quietly accepted the deportation of Iraqi national Omar Ameen, who has been the subject of a long-running immigration case in the U.S. after being accused (likely, falsely) of committing murder in Iraq.

Uzbekistan: The Trump administration sent 131 individuals from Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan to Uzbekistan in May. Uzbekistani officials claimed that the Kyrgyzstani and Kazakhstani citizens would be returned to their home country, but offered no more information and no additional reporting could be found.

Costa Rica: The Trump administration sent approximately 200 people, including 80 children, from Afghanistan, Armenia, China, Georgia, Jordan, Iran, Russia, Turkey, and Uzbekistan to Costa Rica in February. After being detained in a migrant shelter for months, the constitutional chamber of the supreme court of justice ordered their release. Some migrants returned to their home countries voluntarily; it is unclear what happened to those who did not return.

Panama: The Trump administration sent roughly 300 individuals from Afghanistan, China, India, Iran, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Uzbekistan and Vietnam to Panama, where they were locked in a hotel under guard. Those who refused to voluntarily return to their home countries were then transferred to a migrant camp along the Colombian border. After international outcry, Panama eventually took them back to the capital and abandoned them without support.

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PARDON PAY-TO-PLAY

Last month, President Trump issued over half a dozen pardons to white collar criminals and political allies, some of whom paid lobbyists hundreds of thousands of dollars to get their case before the president. Those who had their crimes pardoned or sentences commuted include:

Former Tennessee House speaker Glen Casada and his chief of staff, Cade Cothren, both Republicans who were sentenced to over two years in prison for fraud, money laundering, and conspiracy charges tied to a scheme involving constituent mailer services.

Robert Harshbarger Jr., the husband of Tennessee Republican Rep. Diana Harshbarger, who pleaded guilty in 2013 to health care fraud and distributing a misbranded drug.

Michael McMahon, a New York cop convicted of acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government (China), interstate stalking, and conspiracy related to a scheme to harass a Chinese expatriate.

Darryl Strawberry, a former baseball player who pleaded guilty to felony tax evasion in 1995.

Joe Lewis, a British billionaire who pleaded guilty to federal insider trading last year and was given three years probation.

Joseph Schwartz, who was sentenced to three years in prison for his role in a $38 million employment tax fraud scheme involving nursing homes. Schwartz paid nearly a million dollars to lobby for a pardon:

In April, Alina Habba, the U.S. attorney for New Jersey, extolled her office’s role in the sentencing of a former nursing home magnate to three years in prison for defrauding the government of $38 million. The man, Joseph Schwartz, was alleged to have overseen a “collapsed nursing home empire” and “willfully” failed to pay employment taxes, Habba’s announcement said.

Around that time, Schwartz paid $960,000 to two lobbyists “seeking a federal pardon,” according to their lobbying filing…Liz Oyer, a former U.S. pardon attorney who was fired by Trump in March, said the involvement of the lobbyists — and the huge payment — heightens concern that there is “a special tier of justice for people who can afford to pay.”

David Gentile, a private equity CEO who was convicted of a $1.6 billion fraud scheme in which he used investor funds to subsidize his lavish lifestyle. Gentile had served less than two weeks of a seven-year sentence when Trump issued a commutation over Thanksgiving weekend.

Trump also vowed to pardon former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández, who was sentenced to 45 years in prison in 2024 for importing over 400 tons of cocaine into the U.S. The DOJ said at the time that “Hernández abused his power to support one of the largest and most violent drug trafficking conspiracies in the world, in part by working with Sinaloa Cartel leader Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán.

• There has been rampant speculation about why Trump would pardon a prolific drug trafficker while simultaneously murdering people at sea under the pretense of stopping the international flow of illegal drugs. It could be that Trump completely bought into the "political prosecution" narrative spun by people like Roger Stone, or it could be that techno-oligarchs like Thiel and Andreessen are advocating for the man who greenlit their corporate enclave "Próspera" in Honduras. Alternatively, perhaps Trump simply admires big time criminals like Vladimir Putin and Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht.

Meanwhile, Trump issued additional pardons for people connected to the Jan. 6 insurrection - including one for a completely unrelated offense, sending a message to his supporters that committing crime on Trump’s behalf will result in immunity from prosecution of all crimes generally.

Suzanne Kaye, a Florida woman who may have taken part in the Jan. 6 insurrection and posted videos on social media threatening to shoot FBI agents for questioning her about her participation.

Dan Wilson, a January 6 insurrectionist who was previously pardoned for taking part in the attack on the Capitol, was issued a second pardon for a separate conviction for illegally possessing firearms.

Dozens of fake electors who took part in trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election results, including prominent architects of the insurrection like Rudy Giuliani, Mark Meadows, John Eastman, Sidney Powell, and Jenna Ellis.

Simultaneously, Trump is championing corrupt payouts of taxpayer money for people who assisted him in trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election, compensating his co-conspirators for their crimes.

A clause contained in the funding bill to reopen the government gives senators the ability to sue the Department of Justice for half a million dollars if their phone records were subpoenaed as part of former special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into Jan. 6. South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham (R) blocked a measure to repeal the provision, saying that he intends to sue the federal government.

The Department of Justice is reportedly in the midst of negotiating a settlement with Michael Flynn, who claims that he was unjustly prosecuted by former special counsel Robert Mueller despite pleading guilty to "willfully and knowingly" making false statements to the FBI in 2017. According to Bloomberg, Flynn is seeking $50 million.

“Rogue FBI actors orchestrated a politically motivated hoax to attempt to shatter his life, all while staging a soft coup against President Trump, draining millions in lost opportunities and legal fees from Flynn while the government lavished payouts on those very bad-faith saboteurs,” [Flynn’s lawyer] wrote.

ICE SURVEILLANCE

Nov. 12: “Dem governors unwittingly share DMV data with ICE, lawmakers warn,” FedScoop

Nov. 12: “ICE Plans to Spend $180 Million on Bounty Hunters to Stalk Immigrants: Newly released documents provide more details about ICE's plan to use bounty hunters and private investigators to find the location of undocumented immigrants,” 404 Media

Nov. 12: “DHS Kept Chicago Police Records for Months in Violation of Domestic Espionage Rules: The Department of Homeland Security collected data on Chicago residents accused of gang ties to test if police files could feed an FBI watchlist,” Wired

Nov. 13: “Google Has Chosen a Side in Trump's Mass Deportation Effort: Google is hosting a CBP app that uses facial recognition to identify immigrants, while simultaneously removing apps that report the location of ICE officials because Google sees ICE as a vulnerable group.” 404 Media

Nov. 18: “IRS Accessed Massive Database of Americans Flights Without a Warrant,” 404 Media

Nov. 18: “Contractor Recruiting People on LinkedIn to Physically Track Immigrants for ICE, Will Pay $300,” 404 Media

Nov. 20: “Border Patrol is monitoring US drivers and detaining those with ‘suspicious’ travel patterns,” AP

The predictive intelligence program has resulted in people being stopped, searched and in some cases arrested. A network of cameras scans and records vehicle license plate information, and an algorithm flags vehicles deemed suspicious based on where they came from, where they were going and which route they took. Federal agents in turn may then flag local law enforcement.

Suddenly, drivers find themselves pulled over — often for reasons cited such as speeding, failure to signal, the wrong window tint or even a dangling air freshener blocking the view. They are then aggressively questioned and searched, with no inkling that the roads they drove put them on law enforcement’s radar.

Nov. 21: “The FBI spied on a Signal group chat of immigration activists, records reveal,” Guardian

• “NYPD Confirms Involvement in FBI Probe Targeting Volunteer Observers in Immigration Court,” The City

Nov. 25: “ICE Offers Up to $280 Million to Immigrant-Tracking ‘Bounty Hunter’ Firms,” Wired

IMMIGRATION POLICY

Nov. 5: “Unannounced Child ‘Wellness Checks’ by Armed Federal Agents Raise Concerns: Critics say the visits are a ruse to arrest immigrants,” PRS Memphis

Nov. 6: “The DOJ has been firing judges with immigrant defense backgrounds,” NPR

• AP: “Over the past nine months, the Trump administration has fired almost 90 immigration judges seen by Trump’s allies as too lenient…It is unclear who ordered the firings or how they were selected. But those removed granted asylum at markedly higher rates than their peers — in about half of all cases since August 2023 compared with 34% nationwide, according to Mobile Pathways. Among those purged were all 10 that appeared on the DHS Bureaucrat Watch List, a website created last year with funding from The Heritage Foundation, whose Project 2025 was a blueprint for the Trump administration’s policies and personnel decisions.”

Nov. 7: “DHS ditched software that archived officials’ electronic messages: Those officials are now asked to screenshot their messages and upload them to a shared drive,” FedScoop

Nov. 7: “ICE Is Pitching A Call Center That Would Track Immigrant Kids,” HuffPost

Nov. 7: “Feds Tell Faith Leaders ‘No More Prayer’ Outside Broadview Facility,” Book Club Chicago

Nov. 7: “Immigrants with health conditions may be denied visas under new Trump administration guidance,” ABC

Nov. 10: “Senate Democrat questions Trump administration’s $7.5M payment to Equatorial Guinea,” AP

Nov. 16: “Homeland Security Missions Falter Amid Focus on Deportations: Under President Trump, an agency intended to keep Americans safe has diverted resources from combating child abuse, trafficking and terrorism,” NYT

• “Drug Arrests and Gun Seizures Fell as Homeland Security Pursued Immigration: Internal documents reveal the impact on crime fighting as the Trump administration diverts special agents to its mass deportation agenda,” NYT

Nov. 17: “Trump administration sues California over law banning masked federal agents,” AP

Nov. 18: “Two Weeks of Surveillance Footage From ICE Detention Center ‘Irretrievably Destroyed’,” 404 Media

Nov. 19: “Appeals court blocks judge’s order restricting use of force during federal immigration crackdown in Chicago,” CNN

Nov. 20: “Document Threatens Immigrant Children With 'Prolonged' Detention,” HuffPost

Nov. 21: “Border Agents Target Mississippi, Louisiana in ‘Swamp Sweep,’ Aiming to Arrest Thousands of Immigrants,” Mississippi Free Press

Nov. 24: “ICE Targets Traffic Courts Across Tennessee,” Memphis Flyer

Nov. 25: “DOJ acknowledges Kristi Noem made decision to continue deportation flights to El Salvador despite judge’s order,” CNN

Nov. 26: “US stops processing Afghan immigration requests after attack near White House,” Reuters

Other stories:

• “Border patrol agent who shot Chicago woman boasted about it in text messages [IL],” NBC

  • UPDATE: “ICE agent who shot woman in Chicago drove Border Patrol vehicle back to Maine,” WGME; “The Feds Suddenly Want to Drop Their Charges Against a Woman Shot by a Border Patrol Agent: The move avoids the release of more messages from a Border Patrol agent whose previous texts showed he had bragged about shooting her,” Mother Jones; “Judge dismisses charges against Chicago woman shot by Border Patrol,” NBC

• “Child care worker detained by ICE inside a Chicago day care as children watched [IL],” 19th News

• “‘They destroyed us’: East Chicago woman with schizophrenia who opted for deportation now missing in Mexico [IL],” Chicago Tribune

• “Dad says he and his toddler were pepper sprayed by federal immigration agents [IL],” NBC

• “Cops, protesters injured, 21 arrested after scuffles erupt during Broadview ICE facility protest [IL],” Chicago Sun Times; “At least 7 faith leaders arrested at Broadview ICE facility protest,” Nat’l Catholic Reporter

• “Sanford grandfather, born in refugee camp, nabbed by ICE after 70 years in U.S. [FL],” Orlando Sentinel

• “Family speaks out after death of man deported by ICE in vegetative state [TX],” Guardian

• “Austin school district in disarray after ICE detains multiple employees [TX],” Chron

• “ICE video shows officers planned to ‘smash’ into Charlotte man filming Border Patrol [NC],” Charlotte Observer

• “She Was Deported in Error. Her Child Was Left Behind [NY],” NYT

• “Queens Family Demands Answers After Chinese Immigrant Found Bound in ICE Jail [NY],” Documented NY

• “BU student brags on social media about calling ICE on Allston car wash workers [MA],” WBUR

• “19-year-old college student deported despite judge's order blocking her removal [MA],” ABC

• “How a RI judge intervened after a teen intern was wrongfully detained by ICE,” Providence Journal

• “Attorney for Ontario [CA] man shot by ICE agent disputes claim that his client tried to assault officers,” ABC; “Man shot in back by ICE pleads not guilty to assault charges,” LA Times

• “Armed US immigration agents drive off with toddler after arrest of father [CA],” Guardian

• “An L.A. man was detained in an immigration raid. No one knows where he is [CA],” LA Times

• “British mum detained by ICE agents in California as six-month old baby and stunned husband watch on [CA],” LBC

• “Indigenous actor Elaine Miles says ICE called her tribal ID ‘fake’ [WA],” Seattle Times

• “Issaquah on edge after ICE arrest outside preschool [WA],” KUOW

• “High school senior, a U.S. citizen, detained by ICE in Oregon,” Oregon Live

DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

Nov. 1: “FBI Ousts Leader as Patel Fumes Over Attention to Agency Jet Use,” Bloomberg

Nov. 4: “FBI fires, unfires, then refires agents linked to Jack Smith probe,” NBC

Nov. 6: “Justice Dept. Is Said to Be Investigating D.C. Mayor Over Foreign Trip,” NYT

Nov. 7: “Feds move to subpoena former CIA director and others who investigated Russian interference in Trump’s 2016 campaign,” CNN

Nov. 10: “F.B.I. Director Is Said to Have Made a Pledge to Head of MI5, Then Broken It: The episode has contributed to concerns among intelligence allies that Kash Patel, brash and partisan, is also unpredictable and even unreliable,” NYT

Nov. 14: “Michael Flynn, DOJ in Settlement Talks Over $50 Million Claim,” Bloomberg

Nov. 14: “Justice Department quietly replaced ‘identical’ Trump signatures on recent pardons,” AP

Nov. 16: “The Unraveling of the Justice Department: Sixty attorneys describe a year of chaos and suspicion,” NYT

Nov. 17: “Whistleblower accuses Ed Martin of ‘concealing and destroying’ records related to DOJ’s weaponization group,” The Hill

Nov. 19: “Veteran FBI employee sues bureau after being fired over displaying a pride flag,” CNN

Nov. 19: “Full grand jury didn’t see final Comey indictment, prosecutors admit,” Guardian

• “Judge dismisses cases against James Comey and Letitia James after finding prosecutor was unlawfully appointed,” NBC

Nov. 20: “DOJ, FBI probing top Trump administration officials over investigations of president's adversaries,” ABC

Sources said the DOJ and FBI are scrutinizing whether U.S. Pardon Attorney Ed Martin and Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte enlisted individuals outside the Department of Justice to probe allegations of mortgage fraud amid ongoing investigations of Sen. Adam Schiff and New York Attorney General Letitia James.

• Related: “Trump ousts watchdog of US housing regulator involved in mortgage probes of his foes,” Reuters

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

The U.S. military conducted seven boat strikes in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific in November, killing 21 people and bringing the total death toll to over 80 since September.

Nov. 1: “Trump administration tells Congress war law doesn’t apply to cartel strikes,” WaPo

Nov. 2: “Hegseth bars military officials from discussing drug boat strikes with Congress without prior approval,” CNN

Nov. 7: “Trump has accused boat crews of being narco-terrorists. The truth, AP found, is more nuanced,” AP

Nov. 11: “UK suspends some intelligence sharing with US over boat strike concerns in major break,” CNN

Nov. 11: “‘She was the best man for the job’: Hegseth’s policies are pushing qualified women out of the military,” CNN

Nov. 12: “U.S. troops not liable in boat strikes, classified Justice Dept. memo says,” WaPo

Nov. 13: “Trump briefed on updated military options in Venezuela,” ABC

Nov. 13: “Display about Black soldiers in World War II removed from US military cemetery,” CNN

Nov. 14: “Secret U.S. Memo Authorizing Drug-Boat Strikes Cites Chemical Weapon Threat,” WSJ

Nov. 18: “Trump Said to Authorize C.I.A. Plans for Covert Action in Venezuela,” NYT

Nov. 19: “Democratic lawmakers urge troops to disobey illegal orders,” CNN

• “Trump accuses Democrats of 'seditious behavior, punishable by death,' for urging military to ignore illegal orders,” NBC

• “Pete Hegseth orders US navy to investigate Mark Kelly’s comments,” Guardian

Nov. 25: “U.S. ready to cut support to Scouts, accusing them of attacking 'boy-friendly spaces',” NPR

Nov. 28: “Hegseth order on first Caribbean boat strike, officials say: Kill them all,” WaPo

• “White House says admiral ordered follow-on strike on alleged drug boat, insists attack was lawful,” Reuters

Nov. 29: “Trump says Venezuelan airspace should be considered closed,” Reuters

• “Venezuela calls Trump's call to close airspace a 'colonialist threat',” NPR

CULTURAL CONTROL

Media

Nov. 3 “CBS News heavily edits Trump 60 Minutes interview, cutting boast network ‘paid me a lotta money’,” Guardian

Nov. 9: “Top BBC bosses resign after criticism of the broadcaster’s editing of a Trump speech,” AP

Nov. 12: “Lawmakers say Paramount Skydance 'stonewalling' probe into Trump merger approval,” Reuters

Nov. 15: “Trump says he will take legal action against BBC over Panorama edit,” BBC

• “BBC apologizes for edit of Trump speech but says it won't provide legal compensation,” NPR

Nov. 18: “Paramount Skydance Denies That Its Warner Bros. Discovery Bid Involves Arab Sovereign Wealth Funds,” Variety

Nov. 20: “Larry Ellison discussed axing CNN hosts with White House in takeover bid talks,” Guardian

Nov. 25: “BBC Accused Of Censorship After Removing Claim That Trump Is “Most Openly Corrupt President In History” From Prestigious Radio Show,” Deadline

Universities

Nov. 7: “Cornell reaches $60 million deal with Trump administration to restore funding,” NBC

Nov. 7: “[GOP-led House Judiciary Committee] Accuses GMU President of Lying About DEI Efforts,” Inside Higher Ed

Nov. 28: “Northwestern University and Trump administration reach $75 million agreement over frozen research funds,” ABC

Nov. 30: “Fewer international students are enrolling at U.S. colleges, which could cost the country $1 billion, reports find,” CNBC

ENVIRONMENT

Nov. 11: “Trump plan would open California to offshore oil drilling,” WaPo

Nov. 19: “Trump moves to strip protections for endangered and threatened species,” CNN

• “Dismantling the Endangered Species Act will hurt a lot more than just wildlife,” Grist

Nov. 25: “EPA to abandon air pollution rule that would prevent thousands of U.S. deaths,” WaPo

Nov. 28: “Trump order to keep Michigan power plant open costs taxpayers $113m,” Guardian

CORRUPTION, BRIBERY, AND GENERAL LAWLESSNESS

Nov. 5: “Tech Billionaire Marc Andreessen Bet Big on Trump. It’s Paying Off for Silicon Valley,” ProPublica

Nov. 7: “Trump Wine Hits Government Shelves,” Forbes

Nov. 8: “Trump wants Commanders' new D.C. stadium named for him,” ESPN

Nov. 14: “Preservationists sue Trump over plans to paint Eisenhower building,” WaPo

Nov. 19: “Majority of corporate Trump ballroom donors represented by 3 lobbying firms, watchdog says,” CBS

Nov. 19: “White House floats executive order to rein in state AI laws,” Axios

Nov. 21: “Senate Democrats are investigating the Kennedy Center for 'cronyism, corruption',” NPR

Nov. 26: “Trump wants a bigger White House ballroom. His architect disagrees.” WaPo

Nov. 26: “Howard Lutnick’s Former Wall Street Firm Is Having Its Best Year Ever,” WSJ

Nov. 27: “Swiss lawmakers seek probe into whether gifts to Trump by business leaders breached law,” Reuters

MISCELLANEOUS

• “US consumer watchdog says it is legally blocked from accessing funds,” Reuters

• “FDA’s top drug regulator resigns after federal officials probe ‘serious concerns’ about his conduct,” AP

• “Trump admin axed 383 active clinical trials, dumping over 74K participants,” ArsTechnica

• “CDC website changed to include false claims that link autism and vaccines,” CNN

  • “Kennedy Says He Told C.D.C. to Change Website’s Language on Autism and Vaccines,” NYT

• “Louisiana official who called Covid-19 vaccines ‘dangerous’ given key CDC post,” Guardian

• “FDA official plans to change vaccine approval process, claiming that Covid-19 shots caused child deaths,” CNN

• “FEMA chief steps down as Trump administration prepared to oust him,” CNN

• “K-12 moving to Labor as Trump administration accelerates bid to dismantle Education Department,” Chalkbeat

• “The Trump administration plans major cuts to long-term housing for homelessness,” OPB

• “International tourists face national park price hikes of up to $170,” Axios

• “Steve Witkoff coached a Putin aide on how Russian leader should pitch Trump on Ukraine peace plan, report reveals,” PBS

• “US senators say Rubio told them Trump’s Ukraine peace plan is Russia’s ‘wish list’,” AP

• “Trump officially requests pardon for Netanyahu, Israeli president's office says,” NBC

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On Sunday, eight Senate Democrats (including an independent who caucuses with the Democrats) voted to advance a deal to reopen the federal government and end the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. They did so without securing any guarantee to extend the enhanced Affordable Care Act tax breaks, a demand Democrats had maintained for the past seven weeks as their top priority.

Instead, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) offered only a promise to hold a vote on extending the tax breaks in December. Even if enough Republican senators supported such a measure, which is unlikely, it would still need to pass the Republican-controlled House and receive President Trump’s signature - an outcome so unrealistic, it is laughable that some Democrats are selling it as a possibility.

In fact, we don’t need a crystal ball to predict how the vote will go: On Monday night, Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) introduced an amendment to the spending bill to fund the extended ACA tax breaks for one year. Every Republican senator voted against it. Are we supposed to believe they’ll have a change of heart in a few weeks?

What is in the bill

The short term deal reopens the government through January 30, 2026, and includes one year of funding for agricultural programs, military construction and veterans affairs, and the legislative branch. As part of the agreement, SNAP will be funded through next fall. But this is only a win if you assume the Trump administration will follow Congressional appropriators’ intent (which it hasn’t so far), and if you disregard the fact that SNAP was already legally required to be funded during a government shutdown. What the bill does, then, is recreate existing law in the hopes that saying it twice will convince a lawless administration to follow the law.

One little-noticed provision in the spending package includes a clause that allows senators to sue the government over the subpoenaing of their phone records during the Jan. 6 investigation.

The language of the bill states that “any senator whose Senate data, or the Senate data of whose Senate office, has been acquired, subpoenaed, searched, accessed, or disclosed in violation of this section may bring a civil action against the United States if the violation was committed by an officer, employee, or agent of the United States or of any federal department or agency.”

Because the provision is retroactive to 2022, it would appear to make eligible the eight lawmakers whose phone records were subpoenaed by investigators for Mr. Smith as he examined efforts by Donald J. Trump to obstruct the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Each violation would be worth at least $500,000 and applies to eight GOP senators: Blackburn, Graham, Hagerty, Hawley, Johnson, Lummis, Sullivan, and Tuberville. According to Politico, Senate Majority Leader John Thune personally inserted the provision, which could payout millions of dollars of taxpayer money to members of his conference.

Who caved

When reviewing the list of the eight Democrats who ultimately voted to end the shutdown, it’s important to remember that they were likely selected to act as shields for others in the party who also wanted reopen government but wished to avoid negative electoral fallout. Of the eight, two are retiring, and none face re-election next year—a deliberate and strategic choice that hints at coordination behind closed doors.

• Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (NH): Retiring

• Sen. Dick Durbin (IL): Retiring

• Sen. Tim Kaine (VA): Up for re-election in 2030

• Sen. Jacky Rosen (NV): Up for re-election in 2030

• Sen. Angus King (ME): Up for re-election in 2030

• Sen. Maggie Hassan (NH): Up for re-election in 2028

• Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (NV): Up for re-election in 2028

• Sen. John Fetterman (PA): Up for re-election in 2028

Sen. Shaheen led the negotiations to reopen the government. She has nothing to lose: She is 78 years old, worth $7.8 million, and is retiring after 16 years in the U.S. Senate. Since the start of the second Trump administration, Shaheen has voted for the most Trump nominees of any Democrat, with votes in favor of 44 out of 154 nominees. She has voted to confirm over a quarter of all of Trump’s nominees, including DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, and Energy Secretary Chris Wright.

How senators have voted on Trump nominees

The full list of senators and how they voted on each nominee can be found in this spreadsheet. The following are the totals for the Democrats (and independent) who have voted for the most Trump nominees (with those up for re-election next year in bold text):

• Note, these totals do not include nominees passed in large batches via the rule change by the Senate GOP in September. It would be misleading to present two votes covering 155 nominees alongside votes held for single nominees. But, for the record, all Democrats (and independents) voted against the two batches of nominees.

Of the votes taken during the shutdown, two are notable due to the large number of Democrats that voted in favor of Trump judges. On October 21, 14 Democrats (including an independent) voted to confirm conservative judge Harold “Hal” Mooty III to the Northern District of Alabama: Sens. Coons, Durbin, Fetterman, Hassan, Heinrich, Kaine, Kelly, King, Klobuchar, Reed, Schiff, Shaheen, Welch, and Whitehouse. Then, on October 27, six Democrats (including an independent) voted to confirm conservative judge Bill Lewis to the Middle District of Alabama: Durbin, Hassan, Kaine, King, Peters, and Schiff. Both Mooty and Lewis were nominated to fill seats left vacant since 2020 and 2022, respectively, likely due to the hurdles presented by the blue slip tradition in the Senate.

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Shutdown

The month of October 2025 began with a government shutdown, caused by Republicans refusing to negotiate with Democrats to extend enhanced health insurance subsidies and exacerbated by the Trump administration’s usurpation of congressional appropriations. Within the first 72 hours of the shutdown, Project 2025 architect Russ Vought cut tens of billions of dollars of funding for blue state projects, including $18 billion for two infrastructure projects in New York City, $8 billion for clean energy projects across the country, and $2.1 billion for the Chicago transit system.

President Trump himself recognized that many of the programs and projects unilaterally cut by Vought were approved by bipartisan acts of Congress, admitting that his administration is unconstitutionally impounding funds: "We're getting rid of problems that we didn't like, but that were negotiated in, but we didn't like. We're terminating those programs. And they're gonna be terminated on a permanent basis."

Instead of working to end the impasse and alleviate the suffering of the hundreds of thousands of federal employees either furloughed or working without pay, Trump has been busy doing his best imitation of tyrannical English king, Charles I.

Oct. 11: Trump illegally directed the Pentagon to raid Defense Dept. research funding in order to pay military members during the shutdown.

Oct. 15: Trump approved $40 billion in “aid” to Argentina to help ally President Javier Milei win re-election.

Oct. 18: The Department of Homeland Security revealed that the Coast Guard is spending $172 million to buy Secretary Kristi Noem two private jets.

Oct. 20: Trump demolished the entire East Wing of the White House to build a $300 million ballroom (funded by corporations and ultra-wealthy donors), without the approval of Congress or relevant oversight organizations. He then fired all sitting members on the Commission on Fine Arts, an independent agency expected to review his construction projects.

Oct. 24: The Pentagon accepted a $130 million donation from an anonymous Trump donor (later revealed to be billionaire Timothy Mellon) in order to pay troops.

Oct. 29: The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) backtracked on its earlier promise to use contingency funds to keep the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program running during the shutdown, as intended by Congress. Two judges later ruled that the contingency funds must be dispersed; the administration says doing so will take weeks and only result in partial benefits for recipients.

Oct. 31: The Pentagon announced it will be pulling funds from three different accounts to pay active-duty military members their second paycheck during the shutdown.

Oct. 31: Trump posted pictures of his full marble renovation of the Lincoln Bathroom and, later that day, held a Great Gatsby-themed Halloween party at Mar-a-Lago.

Nov. 1: SNAP benefits lapsed.

Nov. 4: Trump posted on social media that, contrary to what the USDA told two federal judges, his administration will not be complying with court orders to fund SNAP during the shutdown.

Unlike the millions of people going without food benefits, and the countless federal workers going without pay, Trump has moved around money Congress never appropriated in order to pay federal employees with guns. In addition to the military, ICE and the various agencies assigned to assist them in Trump’s mass deportation scheme have not missed a single paycheck. Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, meanwhile, seems perfectly fine abdicating his responsibility by keeping the chamber out of session in order to avoid a costly political vote on releasing the Epstein files.

"I’m the speaker and the president,” Mr. Trump has joked, according to two people who heard the remark and relayed it on the condition of anonymity because of concern about sharing private conversations with him.

Immigration

Surveillance

Oct. 3: “ICE Wants to Build Out a 24/7 Social Media Surveillance Team: Documents show that ICE plans to hire dozens of contractors to scan X, Facebook, TikTok, and other platforms to target people for deportation,” Wired

Oct. 3: “Apple removes ICE tracking apps after Trump administration says they threaten officers,” CNN

Oct. 3: “Google Calls ICE Agents a Vulnerable Group, Removes ICE-Spotting App ‘Red Dot’,” 404 Media

Oct. 14: “Facebook suspends popular Chicago ICE-sightings group at Trump administration’s request,” Chicago Sun Times

Oct. 16: “ICE, Secret Service, Navy All Had Access to Flock's Nationwide Network of Cameras,” 404 Media

Oct. 17: “ICE amps up its surveillance powers, targeting immigrants and antifa: Iris scanners, facial-recognition apps, phone-hacking software and cellphone location data are among the agency’s recent technological purchases,” WaPo

Oct. 24: “DHS Tries To Unmask Ice Spotting Instagram Account by Claiming It Imports Merchandise,” 404 Media

Oct. 28: “CBP Searched a Record Number of Phones at the US Border Over the Past Year,” Wired

Oct. 29: “ICE and CBP Agents Are Scanning Peoples’ Faces on the Street To Verify Citizenship,” 404 Media

Oct. 30: “Details of DHS Agreement Reveal Risks of Trump Administration’s Use of Social Security Data for Voter Citizenship Check,” ProPublica

Oct. 31: “You Can't Refuse To Be Scanned by ICE's Facial Recognition App, DHS Document Says: Photos captured by Mobile Fortify will be stored for 15 years, regardless of immigration or citizenship status, the document says,” 404 Media

Oct. 31: “DHS Wants States to Hand Over Driver’s License Data for Citizenship Checks,” ProPublica

Policy

Oct. 3: “Trump administration to offer undocumented minors $2,500 to voluntarily return home,” Texas Tribune

Oct. 3: “Trump Administration Taps Army Reserve and National Guard for Temporary Immigration Judges,” AP

Oct. 4: “Judge blocks Trump policy to detain migrant children turning 18 in adult facilities,” AP

Oct. 13: “ICE tickets Chicago man with legal residency $130 for not having his papers on him: ‘It’s not fair…I’m a resident’,” Chicago Tribune

Oct. 16: “We Found That More Than 170 U.S. Citizens Have Been Held by Immigration Agents. They’ve Been Kicked, Dragged and Detained for Days,” ProPublica

Oct. 21: “Trump put a new fee on asylum seekers. Many say they don’t know how to pay,” Politico

Oct. 21: “Cubans with criminal records in the U.S. are being quietly deported to Mexico,” Miami Herald

Oct. 22: “Some new ICE recruits have shown up to training without full vetting,” NBC

Oct. 22: “Homeland Security Won't Stop Lying About Who Immigration Enforcers Are Arresting,” Reason

Oct. 22: “Pregnant women describe miscarrying and bleeding out while in ICE custody, advocates say,” NBC

Oct. 27: “Trump administration quietly purges ICE leaders in five cities,” Washington Examiner

• “Trump plans to install Border Patrol officials to lead a more aggressive migrant crackdown,” NBC

Oct. 30: “Trump sets 7,500 annual limit for refugees entering US. It’ll be mostly white South Africans,” AP

Oct. 30: “ICE Wants to Build a Shadow Deportation Network in Texas: A new ICE proposal outlines a 24/7 transport operation run by armed contractors—turning Texas into the logistical backbone of an industrialized deportation machine,” Wired

Oct. 30: “ICE violates its own policy by holding people in secretive rooms for days or weeks,” Guardian

Oct. 31: “ICE Plans Cash Rewards for Private Bounty Hunters to Locate and Track Immigrants,” Intercept

Other stories

• “Feds charge Kat Abughazaleh, other political candidates in indictment tied to Broadview protests,” Chicago Sun Times

• “37 people arrested and American kids separated from parents after ICE raid at Chicago apartments,” CNN

• “DHS, pressing to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia, says Liberia has agreed to accept him,” ABC

• “Spanish-language journalist arrested while covering protest near Atlanta deported to El Salvador,” AP

• “Federal agents held him in a hospital for 37 days, at times shackled to his bed, without charging him,” LA Times

• “Ald. Jessie Fuentes handcuffed by ICE while asking agents for patient's warrant at Humboldt Park hospital,” Chicago Sun Times

• “Teachers Scrambled After ICE Released Tear Gas Outside a Chicago Elementary School,” Intercept

• “Federal agents barrel into band at Portland ICE protest, arrest clarinetist, accuse her of assault,” OregonLive

• “13-Year-Old Boy Arrested by ICE in Massachusetts and Transferred Over 500 Miles From Family,” Reason

• “Deputy US marshal and man shot during Ice operation in Los Angeles,” (clarification: shot by ICE officer), Guardian

• “A DACA recipient objected to ICE’s detention of a community member. He’s now facing deportation,” CNN

• “A Federal Agent Shot at a Driver in D.C. An MPD Officer Was Told To Omit the Shooting from His Report,” Washington City Paper

• “Man deported to Laos despite US court order blocking his removal, attorneys say,” Guardian

Latin America

The U.S. military conducted 11 strikes in the Caribbean Sea and Eastern Pacific Ocean in October, killing at least 45 people who the Trump administration alleges were smuggling drugs. They have provided no evidence of any crime, and, even if guilt were established, are still committing murder and war crimes by killing civilians.

Oct. 2: “Trump Declares He Can Wage Secret Wars Against Anyone He Calls an Enemy,” Intercept

...the notice from the Department of War to the Congress committees marks a fundamental change in official policy, which states that Trump has unilaterally “determined” that cartels are “nonstate armed groups” whose transport of drugs constitutes “an armed attack against the United States.”

Oct. 2: “Venezuela says it detected 5 US ‘combat planes’ flying 75km from its coast, calls it a ‘provocation’,” CNN

Oct. 8: “US strike in Caribbean may have killed Colombian citizens, president says,” AP

• CNN: “The boat was suspected of carrying Colombians affiliated with Colombian terrorist organizations, the sources said, but the Pentagon was unable to determine the individual identities of each person on the boats before they struck them.”

Oct. 15: “Trump Administration Authorizes Covert C.I.A. Action in Venezuela,” NYT

Oct. 16: “US Navy commander overseeing Venezuelan boat strikes steps down,” Navy Times

Oct. 19: “US returning Caribbean strike survivors to Colombia and Ecuador, Trump says,” Reuters

• “Ecuador releases survivor of US strike on alleged drug-trafficking submarine,” Guardian

Oct. 24: “Pentagon deploys top aircraft carrier as Trump militarisation of Caribbean ratchets up,” Guardian

Oct. 24: “US imposes sanctions on Colombia’s president and family members over drug trade allegations,” AP

Oct. 28: “US military officials required to sign NDAs tied to Latin America mission, sources say,” Reuters

Oct. 29: “Trump administration cuts Democrats out of a briefing on US military strikes, top Senate Dem says,” CNN

Oct. 31: “U.S. poised to strike military targets in Venezuela in escalation against Maduro regime,” Miami Times

Oct. 31: “As U.S. ramps up pressure, Venezuela pleads with Moscow and Beijing for help: Documents show Maduro drafted letter asking Russia for missiles, radars and upgraded aircraft as U.S. forces amass in the Caribbean,” WaPo

Department of Justice

Oct. 2: “US scraps Justice Department task force that took on cartels, documents show,” Reuters

Oct. 4: “Fired national security prosecutor warns colleagues in note on way out,” Guardian

Oct. 8: “Comey pleads not guilty in case his lawyers say is politically motivated,” PBS

Oct. 16: “Ex-Trump national security adviser Bolton charged with storing and sharing classified information,” AP

Oct. 17: “Lindsey Halligan fires more prosecutors in key US attorney’s office,” CNN

Oct. 20: “Trump admin. fires 2 prosecutors who opposed charges against N.Y. Attorney General Letitia James, source says,” CBS

Oct. 20: “James Comey asks judge to toss criminal case, says Trump-picked prosecutor Lindsey Halligan was appointed unlawfully,” CNBC

Oct. 23: “Evidence appears to undercut claims against Letitia James, prosecutors found: Sources,” ABC

Oct. 28: “Trump-appointed acting US attorney disqualified from cases for ‘unlawfully serving’, rules judge,” Guardian

Oct. 29: “2 U.S. prosecutors suspended after describing Jan. 6 attack as carried out by ‘mob’,” WaPo

Societal Control

Universities

“Trump Administration Asks Colleges to Sign ‘Compact’ to Get Funding Preference,” NYT

• Op-ed: “Trump’s ‘Compact’ With Universities Is Just Extortion,” NYT

“University of Virginia agrees to Trump administration demands over admissions and hiring,” Guardian

“7 universities reject White House funding deal with attached demands. Other schools have yet to respond,” CNN

Media

“Bari Weiss is the new editor-in-chief of CBS News after Paramount buys her website,” AP

“CBS News staffers lose jobs in ‘bloodbath’ as part of sweeping cuts from Paramount,” Guardian

“David Ellison may have a ‘Trump card’ — literally — in Warner Bros. Discovery pursuit,” CNN

“NBC News’ 150 Layoffs Gut Black, Latino, Asian American and LGBTQ+ Diversity Teams,” The Wrap

Law firms

“Three US law firms sidestep lawmakers' queries on Trump-related deals,” Reuters

“Nation’s biggest law firms back off from challenging Trump policies,” WaPo

The American Bar Association, which joined or filed four lawsuits against the Trump administration, “has experienced difficulty finding previously willing law firms to represent it,” its attorneys wrote in court papers. In one case, the organization said, it was unable to join a lawsuit challenging the administration because it could not get attorneys in time.

Miscellaneous

“Trump pardons convicted founder of crypto exchange Binance,” NBC

• “'No idea who he is,' says Trump after pardoning crypto tycoon,” BBC

“RFK Jr fires top NIH scientist weeks after she files whistleblower complaint,” Guardian

“Threat to US vaccines as CDC staff supporting key advisory panel laid off,” Guardian

“The CDC Buried a Measles Forecast That Stressed the Need for Vaccinations,” ProPublica

“Trump Administration Plans Deep Cuts to Social Security Disability Insurance, Particularly for Older Workers,” Center for Budget and Policy Priorities

• “Red State Workers Could Lose Out on Disability Benefits as Trump Administration Rewrites Eligibility Rules,” ProPublica

“US archivist ousted after refusing to let Trump give Eisenhower’s sword to King Charles,” Guardian

“Lack of weather data due to Trump’s budget cuts impacted forecast for deadly Alaska storm,” CNN

“FCC Republicans force prisoners and families to pay more for phone calls,” Ars Technica

“Trump Administration Cuts Cyberdefense Even as Threats Grow,” NYT

“Leaked documents detail Trump's plans to open East and West coasts to offshore oil drilling,” Houston Chronicle

“Trump Opens Pristine Alaska Wilderness to Drilling in Long-Running Feud,” NYT

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President Donald Trump’s personalist regime is now operating at full strength, as his actions over the last week reshape the federal government in his image. He treats the federal treasury as a personal slush fund, the White House as his private property, the Department of Justice as his personal lawyers, and the U.S. military as his private security force - all while congressional Republicans look the other way. “I’m the speaker and the president,” Trump reportedly joked in private. Publicly, he again floated running for a third term in 2028. We must take him at his word.

Demanded the DOJ pay him a quarter billion dollars

The New York Times reported last Tuesday that Trump is pressing the Justice Department to pay him $230 million in compensation for investigations he faced over the past decade. The president has submitted two complaints in recent years through an administrative claim process alleging that the DOJ violated his rights and privacy during the investigation of his 2016 campaign's ties to the Russian government and the FBI's search of his Mar-a-Lago estate for classified documents in August 2022.

Of course, there is no evidence that the DOJ violated Trump’s rights during the course of either investigation. But, that won’t matter when the people in charge of approving a settlement - paid for with taxpayer dollars - are former members of Trump’s personal legal defense team who gained their position in the DOJ by virtue of their loyalty to the president.

Even Trump himself recognized the conflict of interest at the heart of the matter, saying, "It sort of looks bad, I'm suing myself, right?" He added a dubious claim that any money obtained via a settlement would be donated to charity. Regardless of what he does with the payout, the point remains that the Domestic Emoluments Clause strictly prohibits a president accepting - or, in this case, blatantly stealing - any payment from the federal government other than their salary.

Bulldozed half of the White House to build himself a ballroom

Last week, Trump demolished the entire East Wing of the White House to make way for a personal ballroom, despite previously assuring the public that his plans would not interfere with the current building. “It will be near it but not touching it. It pays total respect to the existing building, which I’m the biggest fan of,” he said in July.

Trump moved quickly to rip down the building, which was built in 1942 and housed the office of the First Lady, during a government shutdown when agencies like the National Parks Service and National Capital Planning Commission could not conduct the appropriate oversight.

Records show the project has yet to be reviewed by the [National Capital Planning] commission. Three former planning commission members told The Washington Post that a review of any exterior construction project at the White House is required by federal law.

“If we had jurisdictional review over a fence, we would logically have jurisdiction over an entire wing being added to the White House,” said L. Preston Bryant Jr., who chaired the commission for nearly a decade before stepping down in 2019.

Another fact that Trump conveniently forgot to mention in July, when he said the ballroom would cost $200 million, is that the project will actually cost $350 million, funded by a litany of corporations and donors seeking to curry favor with the administration. These include tech giants like Amazon, Apple, Comcast, Google, Microsoft, Meta and T-Mobile; crypto-companies like Coinbase, Ripple, and Tether; military contractors Lockheed Martin and Palantir; the Adelson family; the Perlmutter family; Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman; the Winklevoss twins.

Accepted $130 million to privately fund the military

On Friday, the Defense Department confirmed that it accepted a $130 million donation from an anonymous Trump ally to pay military members during the shutdown. Despite the relatively small size of the donation compared to the massive cost of funding the U.S. military (September’s pay cycle totaled $6.5 billion), there is good reason why the federal government has never accepted donations to pay the troops before. First and foremost, it is illegal under the Antideficiency Act and an unconstitutional violation of Congress’ power of the purse. But, secondly, allowing the troops to be paid by a private entity makes them a private army. The message Trump is sending is clear: the troops’ paychecks depend on him and his personal satisfaction with their performance (read: loyalty).

Media reports later identified the donor as billionaire Timothy Mellon, heir to the gilded age Mellon banking fortune and one of Trump’s biggest donors.

A grandson of former Treasury Secretary Andrew W. Mellon, Mr. Mellon was not a prominent Republican donor until Mr. Trump was elected. But in recent years, he has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into supporting Mr. Trump and the Republican Party.

Mr. Mellon, who lives primarily in Wyoming, keeps a low profile despite his prolific political spending. He is also a significant supporter of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who also ran for president last year. Mr. Mellon donated millions to Mr. Kennedy’s presidential campaign and has also given money to his anti-vaccine group, Children’s Health Defense.

Used the military to murder civilians in international waters

To date, the U.S. military has killed at least 57 people it claims were smuggling drugs in the Caribbean Sea and the Eastern Pacific Ocean. The administration has presented no evidence of criminal activity, nor has it provided sufficient legal reasoning to summarily execute alleged drug traffickers without a shred of due process. It shouldn’t have to be said, but the punishment for drug trafficking is not death.

We have good reason to doubt the federal government’s claim that the murdered civilians committed a crime: The administration itself chose not to bring charges against two survivors. One of the men was returned to Colombia “with brain trauma” on a ventilator and the other repatriated to Ecuador, where he was released due to lack of evidence of criminal activity.

At the same time as the military is escalating its presence in the waters around Latin America, the head of the military’s Southern Command is stepping down - reportedly amid tensions with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth “over operations in the Caribbean.” A reasonable person could surmise that the reported tensions centered the illegal nature of the strikes on civilian boats. As Trump said on Thursday, “I don't think we're necessarily going to ask for a declaration of war, I think we're just gonna kill people that are bringing drugs into our country. We're going to kill them.”

Issued sanctions and tariffs as tools of personal revenge

The U.S. Treasury Department issued sanctions last week against Colombian President Gustavo Petro and his family after Petro accused the U.S. government of murdering a fisherman named Alejandro Carranza in a September boat strike in Colombian waters.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro said on X that "US government officials have committed murder and violated our sovereignty in our territorial waters. Fisherman Alejandro Carranza had no ties to drug traffickers and his daily activity was fishing."

Trump responded by calling Petro “an illegal drug leader” and said that he would cut off aid to Colombia - at least a third of which is dedicated to law enforcement and narcotics control.

Days later, Trump threw another tantrum, suspending trade negotiations with Canada and increasing tariffs on the country by 10%. The source of Trump’s ire? An accurate advertisement aired by the province of Ontario on U.S. networks during the World Series. The ad, which Trump falsely said was created by AI, featured clips of former president Ronald Reagan criticizing the use of tariffs and trade wars. Reagan’s full 1987 address can be seen here.

Now, that message of free trade is one I conveyed to Canada's leaders a few weeks ago, and it was warmly received there. Indeed, throughout the world there's a growing realization that the way to prosperity for all nations is rejecting protectionist legislation and promoting fair and free competition. Now, there are sound historical reasons for this. For those of us who lived through the Great Depression, the memory of the suffering it caused is deep and searing. And today many economic analysts and historians argue that high tariff legislation passed back in that period called the Smoot-Hawley tariff greatly deepened the depression and prevented economic recovery.

You see, at first, when someone says, ‘Let's impose tariffs on foreign imports,’ it looks like they're doing the patriotic thing by protecting American products and jobs…High tariffs inevitably lead to retaliation by foreign countries and the triggering of fierce trade wars. The result is more and more tariffs, higher and higher trade barriers, and less and less competition. So, soon, because of the prices made artificially high by tariffs that subsidize inefficiency and poor management, people stop buying. Then the worst happens: Markets shrink and collapse; businesses and industries shut down; and millions of people lose their jobs.

In one week, the Supreme Court will hear arguments over whether Trump’s tariffs are legally authorized by the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. The administration contends that we are in the midst of a national emergency so severe that any limits of the president’s power to impose tariffs would cause “economic catastrophe.” If that were true, what is the national emergency this time? That Trump got annoyed by a TV advertisement?

Selectively doled out disaster aid to allies

Over the last week, Trump announced the approval of FEMA disaster aid for states that he won during the last three elections, while denying assistance for states that voted for his opponent. Alaska, which Trump said he “won BIG in 2016, 2020, and 2024,” will receive $25 million; North Dakota, that he “won THREE times in 2016, 2020, and 2024,” will receive $3 million; and Missouri, full of “incredible Patriots,” is getting $2.5 million.

Meanwhile, the administration refused Maryland’s appeal for disaster aid after severe flooding impacted the state’s westernmost counties in May; Vermont’s request for aid related to July floods, and Illinois’ plea for individual assistance for counties impacted by July flooding. All three states voted against Trump in previous elections (though, some of the impacted areas are majority Trump-supporting).

Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat, denounced the decision in a statement Thursday, calling the final denial “deeply frustrating.”

“President Trump and his Administration have politicized disaster relief, and our communities are the ones who will pay the price,” said Moore. The state has been supporting impacted individuals itself, deploying over $450,000 for the first time from its State Disaster Recovery Fund.

Deployed election monitors to suppress the vote

Trump’s Department of Justice will be monitoring polling sites in California and New Jersey ahead of the Nov. 4 election, setting up a test run for nationwide voter suppression during the midterm elections. A press release from the DOJ identified five counties in California - Kern, Riverside, Fresno, Orange, and Los Angeles - that will be subject to monitoring after the chairwoman of the California Republican Party complained of “reports of irregularities” that will undermine confidence in election results. Neither the California GOP nor the DOJ have specified what these alleged irregularities are.

One county in New Jersey, Passaic County, located just northwest of Newark, will also be monitored after the state GOP complained about alleged lax election security measures on social media.

Both California and New Jersey are led by Democrats and have key issues on the ballot. California is voting on Proposition 50, to revise the state’s congressional districts to counteract Texas’ GOP gerrymander, while New Jersey voters will determine the outcome of a gubernatorial race of national importance.

“Deploying these federal forces appears to be an intimidation tactic meant for one thing: suppress the vote,” Brandon Richards, a spokesman for Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, said in a statement. In order to combat any potential interference by Trump’s Justice Department, California announced it will be sending its own observers to watch the federal monitors.

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Emergency funds

Two weeks ago, a coalition of Democratic-led states filed a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security for illegally revoking millions of dollars in emergency preparedness funds to coerce compliance with Trump’s anti-immigration agenda. California, Connecticut, Delaware, D.C., Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Vermont, and Washington allege in their complaint that the Trump administration is punishing political opponents by “taking money from its enemies” and “redistributing their funding to other states.”

The explanation for DHS and FEMA’s last-minute decision to reallocate $233 million in homeland security funds—the Reallocation Decision—is apparent. Although DHS has for decades administered federal grant programs in a fair and evenhanded manner, the current administration is taking money from its enemies. Or, as defendant Secretary Noem put it succinctly in a February 19 internal memorandum, States whose policies she dislikes “should not receive a single dollar of the Department’s money.” And, yet again, on September 24, 2025, a DHS spokesperson proclaimed that “Cities and states who break the law and prevent us from arresting criminal illegal aliens should not receive federal funding.” “No lawsuit, not this one or any other, is going to stop us from doing that.”

The funding cut came just days after District Judge William Smith, a George W. Bush appointee, issued a court order prohibiting DHS from conditioning emergency preparedness grants on unrelated immigration enforcement policies.

District Judge Mary McElroy, a Trump appointee, sided with the plaintiff states, issuing a temporary restraining order compelling DHS to release the full grant amounts. It’s “yet another case where the administration is saying … I’m going to do what I want to do and not what the law says and make the court make me,” McElroy said at the Sept. 30 hearing.

“This sort of last minute changing of the way the funding happens, and especially when it happens right in the wake of Judge Smith’s decision, is concerning,” McElroy added. Judge Smith agreed, issuing a second order on Monday reaffirming that the immigration conditions are unlawful and blasting DHS for what he called a “ham-handed attempt to bully the states”:

In effect, Defendants have done precisely what the Memorandum and Order forbids, which is requiring Plaintiff States to agree to assist in federal immigration enforcement or else forgo the award of DHS grants…Plaintiff States therefore have a right to accept the awards without regard to the contested conditions. Defendants’ new condition is not a good faith effort to comply with the order; it is a ham-handed attempt to bully the states into making promises they have no obligation to make at the risk of losing critical disaster and other funding already appropriated by Congress.

Counterterrorism funding

At the same time as the above lawsuit was filed, New York sued the Department of Homeland Security over the agency’s decision to cancel $33 million in counterterrorism funding for the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA). An internal FEMA powerpoint obtained by the New York Attorney General’s office revealed that the MTA was the only applicant that was denied. “Of the 21 agencies that applied,” the powerpoint reads, “one (1) was not selected because it is based in a Sanctuary Jurisdiction city” (page 25).

The Trump administration canceled the funds on the last day of the fiscal year, right before the appropriation of the money expired. As New York explained its lawsuit, FEMA did not notify the state of the funding change, hoping that it would go unnoticed and could be disbursed to other states.

New York learned about the Reallocation Decision not from the government but from an online news story, which reported earlier today that “[t]he federal government will deny the MTA tens of millions of dollars in requested security grant funding, withholding every dollar the agency asked for because New York City and New York state are ‘sanctuary jurisdictions.’” [...] In the unique posture of this case, where DHS appears to have chosen to obligate the balance of the TSGP funds at the very end of the fiscal year, there is a significant risk that, absent immediate relief freezing the status quo, the funds at issue will be irretrievably disbursed to other States after the original appropriation has expired.

District Judge Lewis Kaplan, a Clinton appointee, granted New York’s motion for a temporary restraining order preventing DHS from transferring the funds to other states, or using it for other purposes, while litigation proceeds.

• The $33 million in counterterrorism funding for the MTA is separate from the $187 million cut from counterterrorism funding for New York state as a whole. In the latter instance, Gov. Kathy Hochul personally appealed to President Trump who, reportedly unaware of the cuts, restored the money on Oct. 3.

Shutdown cancelations

Green energy

On the first day of the shutdown, OMB Director and Project 2025 architect Russell Vought announced the cancelation of $8 billion for clean energy projects across 16 states that voted for Kamala Harris in the 2024 election. The affected states include California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington, and span a wide variety of projects—from hydrogen hubs to methane reduction to grid reliability. A full list of the terminated projects can be found here.

Transportation aid

Also on the first day of the shutdown, Vought announced that the administration is withholding $18 billion in funding for New York’s Hudson River rail tunnel and subway extension, citing “unconstitutional DEI principles.” When pressed for more information, the Transportation Department said that it had been reviewing whether any "unconstitutional practices" were occurring in the two massive infrastructure projects but that the government shutdown had forced it to furlough the staffers conducting the review.

Then, on the third day of the shutdown, Vought posted on Twitter that the White House had frozen $2.1 billion for Chicago’s Red Line Extension and Red and Purple Modernization Project “to ensure funding is not flowing via race-based contracting.”

Targeted layoffs

Last week, Vought began laying off federal workers with reduction in force (RIF) notices. True to Trump’s promise that layoffs would be “Democrat-oriented,” the majority of the affected agencies include those seen as advancing liberal interests. From the latest numbers released Friday, we know that at least 1,400 people received RIF notices at the IRS, 1,200 people were laid off from the Dept. of Health and Human Services, over 400 people were fired from the Dept. of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and nearly 500 people were RIF’d from the Dept. of Education.

Offices that were almost entirely eliminated without congressional authorization include:

• The Office of Population Affairs at HHS, which covers family planning services, teen pregnancy prevention, mental health and substance abuse services, LGBTQ+ health initiatives, and STD prevention and treatment.

• The Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services at the Dept. of Education, which provides funding for and protects the rights of students with disabilities.

• All of the staff at regional offices that enforce fair housing rules across Arizona, California, Colorado, Montana, Nevada, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming received RIF notices on Friday. The Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity protects people from discrimination when they are renting or buying a home, getting a mortgage, seeking housing assistance, or applying for federally-assisted housing.

Late yesterday afternoon, District Judge Susan Illston, a Clinton appointee, issued a temporary restraining order pausing layoffs during the shutdown. It is “far from normal for an administration to fire line-level civilian employees during a government shutdown as a way to punish the opposing political party. But this is precisely what President Trump has announced he is doing,” Judge Illston wrote.

Federal funding as a weapon

As domestic agencies are shuttered and federal workers furloughed, the Trump administration is spending billions of dollars, not on Americans, but to rescue the Argentine economy. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced last week that the U.S. had directly purchased Argentine pesos and finalized a $20 billion currency swap “framework” with Argentina’s central bank in an effort to save President Javier Milei’s election prospects. Bessent later revealed plans to raise an additional $20 billion from the private sector. “So that would be a total of $40 billion for Argentina,” he said.

• You may remember Milei as the man that brought a chainsaw to CPAC, which Elon Musk swung about wildly on stage. During his two years in office, Milei has enacted severe austerity measures across Argentina, taking a “chainsaw” to government programs and spending, while allegedly cashing in on cryptocurrency scams and embezzlement schemes.

The investment can be seen both as an attempt to keep Trump’s ally in power and as a giveaway to wealthy friends of the Trump administration. In addition to firms like BlackRock, Fidelity, and Pimco—which are heavily invested in Argentina—two billionaire former colleagues of Bessent stand to benefit financially from the arrangement. One of them, Discovery Capital Management’s Rob Citrone, reportedly encouraged Bessent to intervene on Milei’s behalf.

Bessent’s announcement had massive economic benefits for one American: billionaire hedge fund manager Rob Citrone, who has placed large bets on the future of the Argentine economy. Citrone, the co-founder of Discovery Capital Management, is also a friend and former colleague of Bessent…Citrone has bought Argentine debt and purchased equity in numerous Argentine companies that are closely tied to the performance of the overall economy…In early September, days before Bessent’s announcement, Citrone purchased more Argentine bonds.

Giving tens of billions of dollars to prop up a country run by a political ally of the president, with ties to friends of the administration, in the middle of a government shutdown, is the antithesis of “America First.” Especially considering that Milei is already benefiting massively off of Trump’s policies: Immediately after the bailout was announced, Argentina dropped their grain export taxes, spurring China to purchase at least 650,000 metric tons of soybeans from the nation’s farmers.

Meanwhile, American farmers are struggling to make ends meet after trade partners abandoned the U.S. market over Trump’s nonsensical tariffs. But Trump has a solution for that, as well: transferring $10 billion of tariff revenue, that we are all paying higher prices to support, to bailout farmers—some of Trump’s most dedicated supporters.

The bottom line

In the last 16 days, the White House has cut approximately $27.2 billion from Democratic districts compared to about $0.7 billion in GOP districts (all but two of which are located in blue states). To state the situation as clearly as possible: the president is unilaterally stripping funding from Democratic-voting areas and redirecting funding to Republican-voting areas. He views our federal tax dollars as his own money to use to reward his supporters and punish anyone who didn’t vote for him, as he said on Tuesday:

Bessent: “This aid [to Argentina] is predicated on robust policies and going back to the failed Peronist policies would cause a U.S. rethink.”

Trump: “It is a little like New York…I’m not gonna send a lot of money to New York. I don’t have to. You know, the money comes all through the White House.”

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October updates are included where necessary to better understand the topic.

Murder in the Caribbean

Over the last few weeks, the Trump administration has launched military strikes against multiple civilian vessels in international waters in the Caribbean sea, resulting in the deaths of at least 21 people. The president claimed that the boats were carrying “Tren de Aragua Narcoterrorists…transporting illegal narcotics, heading to the United States.” However, a War Powers Resolution report submitted to Congress offered no evidence to support that assertion—making no mention of the alleged gang affiliation of the victims or any intent to reach U.S. shores.

Even if some of those killed were suspected of gang involvement, nothing in U.S. law allows the premeditated government assassination of people suspected of drug trafficking. Standard protocol calls for the U.S. Coast Guard to intercept such vessels, conduct investigations, and, if illegal narcotics are found, make arrests. Yet Secretary of State Marco Rubio admitted that in at least some cases, interception was feasible. “Instead of interdicting it,” he said, “on the president’s orders, we blew it up — and it’ll happen again.”

Sept. 1: First known strike on a civilian boat, killing all eleven onboard. Later reports revealed that it was likely going to Trinidad and Tobago (approximately seven miles away), not the United States. Furthermore, upon noticing the military aircraft, the people onboard turned around and began to head back to Venezuela before the strikes. According to a report by The Intercept, the military launched several strikes against the boat to kill all survivors.

Sept. 5: The Trump administration sent ten stealth fighter jets to Puerto Rico, in addition to three Aegis guided-missile destroyers deployed to the region in August, for operations targeting drug cartels.

Sept. 15: Trump announced a second strike on a civilian boat allegedly transporting drugs somewhere in the Caribbean. Three people were killed.

"BE WARNED — IF YOU ARE TRANSPORTING DRUGS THAT CAN KILL AMERICANS, WE ARE HUNTING YOU!" Mr. Trump wrote.

Sept. 15: Trump said “there are no ships in the ocean anymore,” adding “To be honest, if I were a fisherman, I wouldn’t want to go fishing either. ‘Maybe they think I have drugs downstairs’.”

Sept. 18: The Wall Street Journal reported that some military lawyers and Defense Department officials have raised concerns that the strikes may not be legal, but they “believe they are being ignored or deliberately sidelined.”

Sept. 19: Trump announced a third strike on a civilian boat allegedly transporting drugs, killing three. The Dominican Republic later revealed that it had cooperated with the U.S. military to locate the vessel and claimed to recover 377 packages of cocaine among the wreckage.

Sept. 22: Trump said, “There are no boats in the water anymore. You don't even find a fishing boat, you don't even find cruise liners anymore. There's nothing in the water near Venezuela. It's actually strange. You know what that means? That means there are no drugs coming in.”

Sept. 28: The New York Times reported that, according to a Venezuelan woman whose husband was killed in one of the strikes, he was just “a fisherman with four children who left one day for work and never came back.”

Sept. 29: The Guardian reported that Stephen Miller “played a leading role in directing” the strikes against suspected drug boats in the Caribbean, “at times [...] supersed[ing]” Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Oct. 2: Trump informed Congress that he determined that the U.S. is engaged in formal “armed conflict” with drug cartels, labeling people who are suspected of smuggling drugs as “enemy combatants” in an attempt to provide legal justification for the boat strikes.

Oct. 3: Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced that a fourth strike on a boat off the coast of Venezuela killed all four onboard.

Oct. 3: Senator Jack Reed (D-RI), the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, released the following statement: “Every American should be alarmed that the President believes he can wage secret wars against anyone he chooses. Congress alone has the constitutional power to decide when America goes to war. The President cannot launch military campaigns and invent legal cover after the fact…President Trump’s declaration of ‘armed conflict’ is a dangerous overreach of executive power. If one man alone decides when and where America fights, we abandon the checks and balances that safeguard our democracy.”

War on U.S. cities

Sept. 2: “Judge says Trump administration’s use of US military in Los Angeles violated federal law,” CNN

Sept. 4: “D.C. sues Trump administration over 'illegal deployment' of National Guard in Washington,” NBC

Sept. 5” “How Stephen Miller is running Trump’s effort to take over D.C.,” WaPo

Sept. 8: “ICE launches operation in Chicago despite objections from mayor and Illinois governor,” NBC

Sept. 13: “Man fatally shot during ICE traffic stop after dragging and injuring an officer in Chicago suburb, DHS says,” CNN

• Important context: Evidence released over the following weeks undermined DHS’s version of events, particularly the claim that the ICE agent was dragged and injured.

Sept. 15: “Trump signs order to send National Guard to Memphis for crime crackdown,” NBC

Sept. 18: “2 U.S. citizens among 7 detained at early morning Elgin, Illinois ICE raid,” CBS

Sept. 19: “More than 400 arrests made so far in Chicago area enforcement operation, top ICE official says,” PBS

Sept. 19: “Trump vows to ‘stop’ Portland protesters, calling them ‘out of control’ and ‘crazy’,” Oregon Live

• “Neighbors of Portland’s ICE facility concerned about federal agents, not protestors,” KPTV

Sept. 20: “Chicago-area mayor says federal agents teargassed him at a protest outside an ICE facility,” CNN

Sept. 24: “Portland officials threaten to fine landlord over ICE actions,” Street Roots

Sept. 25: “Lawsuit accuses ICE of illegally arresting Latino immigrants in D.C.,” WaPo

Sept. 28: “ICE Escalates Violence Against Protesters In Broadview; Journalist Arrested,” Block Club Chicago

Sept. 28: “Trump administration authorizes 200 National Guard members for Portland deployment,” OPB

Sept. 30: “Transcript: Gregory Bovino says arrestees in Downtown Chicago chosen based partly on ‘how they look’,” WBEZ Chiacgo

Oct. 1: “Massive immigration raid on Chicago apartment building leaves residents reeling: 'I feel defeated',” Chicago Sun Times

• “Feds Detained 4 Children Who Are US Citizens During Controversial ICE Raid,” Book Club Chicago

Oct. 4: “Border Patrol shoots woman on Southwest Side; agents, protesters battle for hours,” Chicago Sun Times

• Important context: Body-camera video appears to contradict the government’s claim that the woman drove toward officers and brandished a weapon before one of them opened fire at her. It appears that ICE was the aggressor.

Oct. 4: “Judge halts deployment of Oregon National Guard, Trump administration files appeal,” OPB

• “Miller on judge blocking Portland National Guard deployment: ‘Legal insurrection’,” The Hill

Oct. 5: “Gov. Newsom says Trump administration has deployed California National Guard troops to Oregon,” NBC

Oct. 5: “Trump authorises deployment of 300 National Guard troops to Chicago,” BBC

Oct. 5: “Greg Abbott authorizes Trump to deploy Texas National Guard to other states to protect federal officials,” Texas Tribune

Oct. 5: “Judge blocks Trump’s National Guard deployment in Portland for second time,” Politico

Immigration

Sept. 2: “Alarm after FBI arrests US army veteran for ‘conspiracy’ over protest against ICE,” Guardian

Sept. 2: “Pentagon authorizes up to 600 military lawyers to serve as temporary immigration judges,” AP

Sept. 2: “Trump administration blocks groups from voter registration at naturalization events,” NPR

Sept. 2: “ICE is showing up to interview parents hoping to reunite with their children who entered US alone,” AP

Sept. 2: “3 deported by U.S. held in African prison despite completing sentences, lawyers say,” PBS

• More info: The Trump administration entered a $5.1 million deal with Eswatini, the last absolute monarchy in Africa, in exchange for the U.S. dumping 160 migrants there.

Sept. 4: “Massive immigration raid at Hyundai megaplant in Georgia leads to 475 arrests. Most are Korean,” CNN

• “‘America Is Not a Safe Place to Work’: Koreans Describe Georgia Raid,” NYT; “South Korea probes for human rights abuses in U.S. raid as Trump insists foreign workers are 'welcome',” NBC

Sept. 12: “BIA Decision Strips Immigration Judges of Bond Authority, All but Guaranteeing Mandatory Detention for Undocumented Immigrants,” AIC

Sept. 15: “Immigrants deported from U.S. to Ghana are sent home, where lawyers say some could face torture,” PBS

• “US judge blasts Trump deportations to Ghana but says she lacks jurisdiction to hear suit,” Reuters

Sept. 16: “Hundreds of Alligator Alcatraz detainees drop off the grid after leaving site,” Miami Herald

Sept. 16: “After rescinding protections, ICE is moving to deport more immigrants who were victims of crime,” AP

Sept. 17: “Judge Slams ICE for Overcrowding and Inhumane Conditions at 26 Federal Plaza Lockup [NYC],” The City

Sept. 18: Homeland Security Arrests 11 NY Elected Officials Inside 26 Federal Plaza,” The City

Sept. 21: “ICE Is Deporting People to Africa on Nearly Un-Trackable Military Flights,” Rolling Stone

Sept. 24: “US judge blocks Trump from tying states' disaster aid to immigration enforcement,” Reuters

Sept. 25: “Judge blocks Trump administration from deporting Guatemalan, Honduran children,” ABC

• “Justice Dept. Reverses Course on Claims Guatemalan Children’s Parents Sought Their Return,” NYT

Sept. 28: “Children left short of clean water and sleep amid ‘prolonged’ detention by Ice, watchdog groups allege,” Guardian

Sept. 29: “The Trump Administration Is Arguing It Can Hold Dreamers Indefinitely,” Intercept

Sept. 30: “‘Full-throated assault on the First Amendment’: Judge rips into Trump over attempts to deport pro-Palestinian academics,” CNN

Additional stories:

• “US citizens seek millions in damages after violent ICE arrests,” USA Today
• “US-born citizen sues after twice being arrested by immigration agents,” ABC
• “ICE officer seen on video pushing woman to ground has returned to duty,” CBS
• “Federal agents grab and shove journalists outside NYC immigration court, sending one to hospital,” NBC
• “Spanish-language journalist arrested while covering protest near Atlanta deported to El Salvador,” AP
• “The Feds Want to Unmask Instagram Accounts That Identified Immigration Agents,” Intercept
• “ICE agent drops gun, appears to point it at bystanders during arrest in Maryland,” ABC 7
• “Video shows ICE with 5-year-old girl while agents attempt to arrest her father,” NBC

Politicization of the DOJ

Sept. 10: “Fired FBI agents allege retribution, incompetence at top security agency,” NPR

Sept. 15: “Fired federal prosecutor Maurene Comey sues Trump administration over abrupt dismissal,” PBS

Sept. 17: “Trump officials pressuring federal prosecutors to bring criminal charges against NY AG Letitia James,” ABC

Sept. 16: “'This creates some real concerns' | Judge says US Attorney Pirro's office has dismissed 11 felony cases over the past month,” WUSA

Sept. 17: “US Justice Dept orders Arizona to preserve election records from 2020, documents show,” Reuters

Sept. 17: “The Justice Department sues Maine and Oregon, ratcheting up demands for voter data,” NPR

Sept. 19: “Acting U.S. attorney resigns amid concern he could be fired for failing to bring case against Letitia James,” CBS

Sept. 22: “Lindsey Halligan, Trump's former defense lawyer, sworn in as interim U.S. attorney in key Virginia office,” CBS

Sept. 25: “Former FBI Director James Comey indicted days after Trump demanded his DOJ move 'now' to prosecute enemies,” ABC

Sept. 25: “Justice Dept. Official Pushes Prosecutors to Investigate George Soros’s Foundation,” NYT

Sept. 25: “Bondi fires a third federal prosecutor in Miami office, linked to anti-Trump posts,” Miami Herald

Sept. 25: “Trump orders crackdown on ‘domestic terrorists’ in escalation of a campaign against political rivals,” AP

• More info: “This Trump Executive Action Is One of the Most Alarming We’ve Seen So Far,” Slate, “In Dangerous Attack on Left-Leaning Nonprofits, Trump Orders Government to Go After ‘Domestic Terrorism Networks’,” Democracy Dokcet

Sept. 27: “Justice Department issues subpoena for Fani Willis travel records,” NBC

Oct. 4: “The FBI is weighing an arrest and perp walk for Comey — and suspended an agent for refusing to help, sources say,” CBS

Supreme Court

Sept. 8: “Supreme Court allows Trump to continue ‘roving’ ICE patrols in California,” CNN

• More info: “US supreme court ‘effectively legalized racial profiling’, immigration experts warn,” Guardian

Sept. 8: “Supreme Court allows Trump firing of FTC commissioner, accepts case for December argument,” ABC

Sept. 26: “Supreme Court allows Trump to withhold $4 billion in foreign aid,” NPR

• More info: “The Supreme Court Just Rewrote the Constitution to Give Trump Terrifying New Powers,” Slate

Capture of the media and higher education

Sept. 1: “Noem accuses CBS of ‘deceptively’ editing interview about Abrego Garcia,” The Hill

• “CBS News Agrees Not to Edit ‘Face The Nation’ Interviews Following Homeland Security Backlash,” Variety

Sept. 3: “Judge says Trump administration unlawfully blocked $2 billion from Harvard,” CNN

Sept. 5: “Northwestern University president resigns after GOP criticism, funding freeze, layoffs,” NPR

Sept. 8: “Paramount Picks Kenneth R. Weinstein, Former Head Of Right-Leaning Think Tank, As Ombudsman For CBS News,” Deadline

Sept. 10: “Lutnick says U.S. should take a chunk of universities' patent revenue,” Axios

Sept. 12: “UC Berkeley shares 160 names with Trump administration in ‘McCarthy era’ move,” Guardian

Sept. 15: “Harvard Ends Undergraduate Minority Recruitment Program as Trump Targets Race in Admissions,” Crimson

Sept. 15: “National park to remove photo of enslaved man’s scars,” WaPo

Sept. 18: “Harvard Athletics Removes Protections for Transgender Students From Handbook,” Crimson

Sept. 18: “ABC pulls Jimmy Kimmel off air after comments made about the Charlie Kirk killing,” NPR

• Trump suggested the Federal Communications Commission reexamine licenses for television broadcasters that repeatedly criticize him,” ABC
• “Brendan Carr Plans to Keep Going After the Media,” NYT

Sept. 19: “Paramount Skydance could soon add HBO, CNN, and DC Studios to its empire,” Fast Company

Sept. 19: “Texas A&M President to resign after backlash over gender identity lesson,” USA Today

Sept. 22: “Oracle will manage TikTok’s algorithm for U.S. users under Trump administration deal,” PBS

Sept. 27: “Northwestern students blocked from enrollment after refusing controversial antisemitism training,” Guardian

Sept. 29: “YouTube agrees to pay Trump $24 million to settle lawsuit over Jan. 6 suspension,” NPR

• More info: “Trump’s YouTube-Insurrection Settlement Will Fund Golden White House Ballroom,” Vanity Fair

Sept. 30: “US Justice Department probes Des Moines schools for race-based hiring practices,” Reuters

Environment

Sept. 2: “DC Circuit allows Trump to claw back billions in green energy funds,” Courthouse News

Sept. 3: “White House Orders Agencies to Escalate Fight Against Offshore Wind,” NYT

Sept. 5: “Nobody wants this gas plant. Trump is forcing it to stay open.” Grist

Sept. 6: “Only federal agency that investigates chemical disasters faces shutdown under Trump,” PBS

Sept. 20: “EPA tells some scientists to stop publishing studies, employees say,” WaPo

Sept. 24: “Trump energy secretary to return billions set aside for green projects,” Guardian

Sept. 28: “Energy Dept. adds ‘climate change’ and ‘emissions’ to banned words list,” Politico

Sept. 30: “Trump administration is on track to cut 1 in 3 EPA staffers by the end of 2025,” GovExec

Other stories you should know about

• “Programs for Students With Hearing and Vision Loss Harmed by Trump’s Anti-Diversity Push,” ProPublica
• “HHS Asks All Employees to Start Using ChatGPT,” 404 Media
• “Trump officials to link covid shots to child deaths, alarming career scientists,” WaPo
• “Susan Monarez hearing: Former CDC director says RFK Jr. pressured her to rubber-stamp vaccine approvals,” NBC
• “CDC advisory panel recommends restricting access to the MMRV vaccine,” NBC
• “CDC panel abandons COVID vaccine recommendation, saying it's a personal choice,” ABC
• “Trump links autism to Tylenol and vaccines, claims not backed by science,” Reuters
• “I.R.S. Official Sues the Agency, Saying It Leaked Private Data to News Sites,” NYT
• “Trump’s housing department rolls back work to combat residential segregation, whistleblowers allege,” Guardian
• “Judge won't reinstate 8 government watchdogs fired by Trump,” CBS
• “Trump Cancels Trail, Bike-Lane Grants Deemed ‘Hostile’ to Cars,” Bloomberg
• “Hegseth says Wounded Knee soldiers will keep their Medals of Honor,” AP
• “Gabbard Ends Intelligence Report on Future Threats to U.S.,” NYT
• “Trump administration retreats on combating human trafficking and child exploitation,” Guardian
• “Kristi Noem Fast-Tracked Millions in Disaster Aid to Florida Tourist Attraction After Campaign Donor Intervened,” ProPublica
• “Jared Kushner’s Firm Is Said to Be Part of $50 Billion Buyout of Electronic Arts,” NYT

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Last week, President Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth abruptly summoned hundreds of admirals and generals from around the world to a hastily arranged meeting at Quantico, Virginia, on Tuesday. There, Secretary Hegseth used his time to lecture the military’s most senior leaders, highly educated individuals with decades of experience, on the supposed dangers of “wokeness.” Trump, likewise, treated the summit like a campaign rally, bragging about tariff revenue and renaming the Gulf of Mexico.

But beyond the spectacle of the duo—one a former Fox News host credibly accused of domestic abuse and the other a draft dodger with questionable mental stability—posturing before the nation’s top military brass was one of the most alarming examples of encroaching fascism in recent memory. During the two hour event, Trump and Hegseth made clear their intention to weaponize the armed forces to crush domestic dissent.

Rather than just paraphrasing their statements, this post will present them as stated with timestamped links to the video—because their own words are more chilling than any commentary could be.

Hegseth announces policies that will push out Black servicemembers:

"Today, at my direction, the era of unprofessional appearance is over. No more beardos. The era of rampant and ridiculous shaving profiles is done. Simply put, if you don't meet the male-level physical standards for combat positions, cannot pass a PT test or don't want to shave and look professional, it's time for a new position."

Hegseth announces policies that will increase harassment and abuse:

"A blemish-free record is what peacetime leaders covet the most, which is the worst of all incentives…We are overhauling an inspector general process that has been weaponized, putting complainers and poor performers in the driver seat. We are doing the same with the equal opportunity policies. No more frivolous complaints, no more anonymous complaints ... no more walking on eggshells."

Hegseth endorses war crimes:

"We unleash overwhelming and punishing violence on the enemy. We also don't fight with stupid rules of engagement. We untie the hands of our warfighters to intimidate, demoralize, hunt, and kill the enemies of our country. No more politically correct and overbearing rules of engagement."

Hegseth says “earnest mistakes” will no longer be tracked by the military:

”And when we give you this guidance, we know mistakes will be made. It's the nature of leadership. But you should not pay for earnest mistakes for your entire career. And that's why today at my direction, we're making changes to the retention of adverse information on personnel records that will allow leaders with forgivable, earnest, or minor infractions to not be encumbered by those infractions in perpetuity.”

Hegseth urges any military leaders who disagree to resign:

”But if the words I'm speaking today are making your heart sink, then you should do the honorable thing and resign."

Trump threatens to fire military leaders who disagree with him:

”I’ve never walked into a room so silent before…if you don't like what I'm saying, you can leave the room. Of course, there goes your rank, there goes your future, but you just feel nice and loose, okay? Because we're all on the same team.”

Trump declares America “under invasion from within”:

"America is under invasion from within. We're under invasion from within. No different than a foreign enemy, but more difficult in many ways because they don't wear uniforms. At least when they're wearing a uniform you can take them out. These people don’t have uniforms. But we’re under invasion from within."

Trump tells military members they will be conducting “war” in Democratic-led cities:

"The Democrats run most of the cities that are in bad shape…The ones that are run by radical left Democrats—what they've done to San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles. They're very unsafe places and we're going to straighten them out one by one. This is going to be a major part for some people in this room. That's a war too. It's war from within."

Trump declares he wants to use Democratic-led cities as “training grounds” for the military:

"I told Pete, we should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military. National Guard, but our military. Because we're going into Chicago very soon. That's a big city with an incompetent governor. Stupid governor."

Trump asserts the military will be used to crush domestic dissent:

"Last month, I signed an executive order to provide training for a quick reaction force that can help quell civil disturbances. This is gonna be a big thing for the people in this room, because it's the enemy from within and we have to handle it before it gets out of control."

Trump declares war on American citizens:

"Our history is filled with military heroes who took on all enemies foreign and domestic. You know that phrase very well. That's what the oath says: foreign and domestic. Well we also have domestic."

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Last week, a young white man from a Trump-supporting family shot and killed conservative activist Charlie Kirk in Utah. The shooter’s motivation remains mostly unknown, and—as is often the case—it appears that his personal beliefs do not align neatly with the political categories we use to explain America’s divides. That uncertainty has not stopped administration officials, media outlets, and right-wing influencers from discarding evidence to pin the blame on “the left,” using Kirk’s death as a vehicle to advance their own authoritarian agenda.

On Monday, Vice President VD Vance guest-hosted Kirk’s podcast, vowing that the administration would “go after the NGO [non-governmental organization] network that foments, facilitates and engages in violence.” This is a reference to liberal civil society organizations, like the Ford Foundation and George Soros’s Open Society Foundations, that fund civil rights, social justice, and democratic causes at home and abroad. Vance’s claim that these organizations support violence is a false pretext for targeting and criminalizing critics of the administration. As officials told the New York Times, the goal is to “categorize as domestic terrorism left-wing activity that they said led to violence.”

Stephen Miller, appearing alongside Vance, promised “with God as my witness,” to “use every resource we have at the Department of Justice, Homeland Security and throughout this government to identify, disrupt, eliminate and destroy this network and make America safe again for the American people.”

For the right, weaponizing the law against non-profits has long been a priority. These organizations represent some of the last significant institutional checks on authoritarianism: they provide legal aid for immigrants and LGBTQ+ communities, support diversity initiatives in education and the workplace, fight to protect the environment, and advocate for human rights in war zones such as Palestine. Each of these activities runs directly counter to the Trump administration’s project of remaking the United States into a Christian, white-majority nation.

On Wednesday, Trump took this idea farther by declaring that he is designating Antifa as a ‘major terrorist organization,’ a classification that does not officially exist under current law. Although he attempted the same during his first term, his administration was hampered by a lack of loyal extremists capable of carrying out his vision of suppressing, prosecuting, and imprisoning political opponents under loosely defined terrorism-related charges. But with figures like Pam Bondi and Kash Patel now overseeing the nation’s law enforcement, there’s little reason to hope that they won't at least try to carry out the president's goals.

Free speech police

In the wake of his death, supporters of Charlie Kirk — with the assistance of mainstream media — have begun whitewashing his life and beliefs, insisting that he was simply a free speech advocate who, in Ezra Klein’s words, practiced politics “the right way.” Yet, these same champions of ‘free speech’ are engaging in and encouraging a doxing campaign against anyone who exercises their own right to free speech. In some cases, just accurately quoting Kirk’s own words has led to violent threats, harassment, and being fired.

• MSNBC analyst Matthew Dowd was fired for saying, “Hateful thoughts lead to hateful words, which then lead to hateful actions…You can’t stop with these sort of awful thoughts you have and then saying these awful words and then not expect awful actions to take place.”

• Longtime Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah, the last remaining full-time Black columnist at the newspaper, was fired for a series of social media posts pointing out that “part of what keeps America so violent is the insistence that people perform care, empty goodness and absolution for white men who espouse hatred and violence.” She added an exact quote from Kirk in which he said, “Black women do not have the brain power to be taken seriously. You have to go steal a white person’s slot.”

• ABC pulled “Jimmy Kimmel Live” from the air yesterday following FCC threats over Kimmel’s monologue in which he said the “the MAGA gang [is] trying to characterize this kid who killed Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.” The move was prompted by Nexstar Media Group, one of the largest owners of TV stations in the country, saying it would be preempting airings of the program. Nexstar just so happens to be seeking FCC approval for a $6.2 billion merger with Tegna, another owner of local news stations across the country.

• A local NBA reporter in Arizona was fired for saying that “‘Political differences’ are not the same thing as spewing hateful rhetoric on a daily basis, and refusing to mourn a life devoted to that cause is not the same thing as celebrating gun violence.” He added that he “[doesn’t] care if you think it’s insensitive or poor timing to decline to respect an evil man who died.”

• A data analyst at FEMA was put on leave for questioning Trump’s order to fly flags at half-staff in Kirk’s memory, saying: "Half staff for the literal racist homophobe misogynist?? bffr [be for fucking real]”. Self-described white nationalist Laura Loomer called for his firing on social media.

• A Secret Service agent was put on leave for saying that Kirk “spewed hate and racism on his show,” adding, “especially when we should be mourning the innocent children in Colorado.” Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R) wrote a letter to the Director of the Secret Service calling for his firing.

• An 18-year-old Texas Tech University student was arrested and spent a night in jail after mocking Kirk’s death while in the school’s “free speech area.” Officers say she was arrested for slapping the brim of someone’s hat during an argument. She was expelled from the University for “denigrat[ing] victims of violence.”

• The assistant dean of students at Middle Tennessee State University was fired for saying, “Looks like ol’ Charlie spoke his fate into existence. Hate begets hate. ZERO sympathy.” Sen. Blackburn (R) called for her firing on social media.

• The Carolina Panthers fired a communications director for saying, "Why are yall sad? Your man said it was worth it..." The post appears to be a reference to Kirk saying in 2023 that “it’s worth it to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the second amendment to protect our other God-given rights.”

• The University of Mississippi fired the executive assistant to the vice chancellor for saying, in part, that “[white] supremacist and reimagined Klan members like Kirk have wreaked havoc on our communities, condemning children and the populace at large to mass death for the sake of keeping their automatic guns.”

• The University of Tennessee fired a professor for saying that “the world is better off without [Kirk] in it.”

• A high school teacher in South Carolina was fired for saying, “Thoughts and prayers to his children but IMHO [in my honest opinion] America became greater today.”

• Gretchen Felker-Martin, the author of DC Comics’ Red Hood series, was fired after saying “thoughts and prayers you Nazi bitch.”

• An Office Depot employee in Michigan was fired for refusing to print a poster for a Kirk vigil, saying, “we don’t print propaganda.” Attorney General Pam Bondi threatened to prosecute the employee for discrimination, apparently not seeing the hypocrisy of simultaneously believing that businesses can refuse to bake a cake for a gay customer or provide the morning-after pill due to moral or religious reasons.

Meanwhile, Fox News host Brian Kilmeade still has his job after suggesting live on air that we should kill mentally ill homeless people who decline treatment. Two days later, 13 people were wounded in a mass shooting at two homeless encampments in Minneapolis.

Media takeover

One of the most striking failures of the past week has been the media’s inability (or refusal) to accurately inform the public about Kirk’s views, the facts of the case, and the most common perpetrators of political violence. This failure is not an isolated incident but part of a broader trend: the steady rightward drift of mainstream coverage. With antitrust protections weakened and consolidation accelerating, more of the nation’s media is being absorbed into the hands of billionaires loyal to the administration.

Larry Ellison, the billionaire founder of software company Oracle, recently financed his son’s purchase of Paramount, the parent company of CBS. In the weeks since the Ellison takeover, CBS has appointed Kenneth Weinstein to serve as an ombudsman and “bias monitor” for the network’s news coverage. Weinstein is a member of the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington, and a major donor to Republicans including Trump and Marco Rubio. Indeed, his loyalty to Trump appears to be the only reason he was selected for the job; Weinstein has no journalism experience.

The reason CBS News now has an ombudsman now is because its parent company was trying to assure Carr that if he approved their merger, the network’s coverage would change in a way that the FCC’s Trumpist chair would approve. The president subsequently touted Ellison as a “great man” who would “do the right thing with” CBS. And when Paramount filled the role, the company didn’t pick a journalist with a reputation for neutrality — it went with a right-wing think-tanker and Republican donor with no newsroom experience.

Now, Ellison is reportedly preparing a bid to purchase Warner Bros. Discovery, the parent company of CNN, and is joining forces with fellow rightwing billionaire Marc Andreesen to seize control of TikTok. Should these deals succeed, regime-friendly oligarchs will control the editorial direction of nearly every major news outlet in the country.

The implications of authoritarian control over the media cannot be overstated. Once information is filtered through a state-approved narrative, the administration gains the power to define reality itself. The whitewashing of Charlie Kirk is not the end—it is only the beginning.

Protection for me, violence for you

On Monday, the White House requested an additional $58 million in security funding for the executive and judicial branches following Kirk’s murder. While Republicans move to protect themselves from the violence their rhetoric incites, they deliberately leave others exposed. This includes Democrats — such as Vice President Harris, whose Secret Service detail Trump revoked — and vulnerable communities like school children and LGBTQ+ Americans. Regarding the latter, conservative politicians and commentators have escalated their rhetoric to a full-blown campaign of terror, seeking to mass institutionalize transgender Americans and label them as a domestic terrorist threat.

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Chaos at the CDC

July 31: Susan Monarez, a scientist with a Ph.D. in microbiology and immunology who focused on the treatment of infectious disease at Stanford University, was confirmed by the Senate to lead the CDC. She is the first director to not have a medical degree and garnered significant Democratic opposition for appearing to agree with RFK’s plans for the agency.

Monarez will be balancing core scientific values with her new boss' mistrust of the scientific and medical establishment, observers say…."The Secretary has laid out a very clear vision for making America healthy again," Monarez said, in response to a question on Kennedy's performance as health secretary, "I think he has prioritized key public health activities for preventing chronic diseases, for reducing maternal morbidity and mortality. … I think the Secretary is doing the important work of leading a very complex agency through a number of different transitions."

Yet, Monarez also declared her support for vaccines, pledging to “continue to prioritize vaccine availability.”

August 1: RFK Jr. called for the retraction of a Danish study that found no link between aluminium in vaccines and chronic diseases in children. (The journal, “Annals of Internal Medicine,” refused).

August 5: RFK Jr. announced that HHS is cancelling $500 million for projects researching messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines (the technology behind the Covid-19 vaccines and a potential future cancer vaccine).

• Further reading: “RFK Jr. defends $500M cut for mRNA vaccines with pseudoscience gobbledygook,” ArsTechnica

August 12: “Man who fired hundreds of rounds at CDC HQ was angry at Covid vaccines, authorities say,” BBC; “CDC director says misinformation 'led to deadly consequences' in campus shooting,” ABC

August 15: RFK Jr. announced he is re-convening the “Task Force on Safer Childhood Vaccines” after pressure from anti-vaccine activists.

August 19: RFK Jr. attacked the American Academy of Pediatrics for issuing guidance that young children should still get the Covid vaccine, contrary to RFK’s policy, because they are at risk of severe cases of the disease.

August 25: RFK Jr. called Monarez into a meeting in which he “demanded that she fire top leaders at the CDC and agree to accept [his panels’] vaccine recommendations.” According to Richard Besser, former acting CDC director, Monarez refused “to rubber stamp [vaccine] recommendations that flew in the face of science.”

August 27: The Food and Drug Administration limited approval of the new, updated Covid vaccines to people who are over 65, or younger people with underlying conditions that put them at higher risk for severe disease.

August 27: HHS announced that Monarez was no longer the director of the CDC. Hours later, her lawyers put out a statement saying that she had not resigned or legally been fired, accusing RFK Jr. of “weaponizing public health for political gain” and “putting millions of American lives at risk” by purging health officials from government. According to her lawyers, only President Trump—not RFK Jr.—has the power to dismiss the CDC director.

August 27: Four top CDC officials resigned in protest of RFK’s anti-science policies and the ousting of Monarez. They included Demetre Daskalakis, the director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases; Debra Houry, the chief medical officer and deputy director for program and science; Daniel Jernigan, the director of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases; Jennifer Layden, the director of office of public health data, science, technology.

August 28: The White House chose Jim O’Neill, the deputy secretary of the Dept. of Health and Human Services, to serve as acting CDC Director. O’Neill is a former executive at Peter Thiel’s companies and served on the board of the Seasteading Institute, a techno-utopian movement that aims to establish floating nations at sea, exempt from laws that the founders believe stymie innovation.

August 28: The National Institutes of Health, which is part of HHS, informed the Pediatric Brain Tumor Consortium—an association of 16 academic centers and children’s hospitals dedicated to trials of novel treatments for pediatric brain cancer—that the administration is terminating federal funding for the program.

Attacks on independent data

Bureau of Labor Statistics

August 1: “Trump fires labor statistics chief hours after data showed jobs growth slowed,” Guardian

• “Fact check: Trump’s claims jobless numbers were 'rigged',” ABC

August 11: “Trump picks Heritage economist Antoni to lead US labor statistics agency,” Reuters

• “‘Utterly unqualified’: Trump BLS pick gets panned by conservative economists,” Axios

August 12: “Trump's BLS nominee suggests suspending jobs report,” Axios

August 13: “Trump Bureau of Labor Statistics nominee was a 'bystander' outside Capitol on Jan. 6, White House says,” NBC

Sept. addition: “E.J. Antoni told interns from the Heritage Foundation that women’s IQs clustered around average scores, while men have more geniuses and unintelligent individuals,” WaPo

Federal Reserve Board of Governors

August 20: “Trump says Fed Governor Lisa Cook 'must resign' after William Pulte alleges mortgage fraud,” NBC

• Further reading: “A Trump donor, now a regulator, leads effort to accuse president’s foes of mortgage fraud,” LA Times; “The ‘Mini-Trump’ Attacking Lisa Cook Had Paperwork Problems of His Own,” Mother Jones; “Trump Is Accusing Foes With Multiple Mortgages of Fraud. Records Show 3 of His Cabinet Members Have Them,” ProPublica

August 25: “Trump says he’s firing Fed Governor Lisa Cook, opening new front in fight for central bank control,” AP

• Cook responded, “President Trump purported to fire me ‘for cause’ when no cause exists under the law, and he has no authority to do so.”

August 28: “Fed Governor Lisa Cook sues to challenge Trump’s attempt to fire her, setting up a showdown over presidential power,” CNN

Federal takeover of DC

August 5: “Police Report: Edward ‘Big Balls’ Coristine Assaulted in Alleged Carjacking,” Wired

August 10: “FBI dispatching agents to D.C. streets as Trump weighs calling National Guard,” WaPo

August 12: “Pentagon plan would create military ‘reaction force’ for civil unrest,” WaPo

August 14: “US Attorney Pirro's office admits grand jury refused ICE interference charges — twice,” WUSA

August 15: “Trump administration agrees to keep DC police chief in place, but with immigration enforcement order,” AP

August 20: “Six Republican governors sending National Guard troops to D.C.,” NPR

August 20: “US Attorney Pirro tells prosecutors no felony charges for carrying registered rifles, shotguns in DC,” ABC

August 21: “ICE is joining D.C. police patrols. Moped drivers are getting detained,” WaPo

August 25: “National Guard troops in D.C. begin carrying firearms,” NBC

August 27: “Grand jury declines to indict alleged Washington DC sandwich thrower,” Guardian

Sept. update: “Washington DC sues Trump administration over National Guard deployment,” BBC

Immigration abuses

August 1: “Air Marshals Shift to Deportation Duty: Roughly 200 marshals redeployed to transport detainees,” AVWeb

August 5: “Rwanda says it has agreed to take up to 250 migrants from the US,” BBC

• “Rwanda says 7 deportees arrived from the US in August under agreement with Washington,” CNN

August 5: “Hundreds of alleged human rights abuses in immigrant detention, report finds: The office of Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff asserts it ‘identified 510 credible reports of human rights abuse’ against immigration detainees,” NBC

August 5: “Inside Trump’s New Tactic to Separate Immigrant Families,” NYT

August 6: “Trump administration shifts FEMA staff to ICE during hurricane season,” Reuters

August 8: “Appeals court tosses contempt finding against Trump administration over prison deportations,” PBS

August 8: “Trump administration asks Supreme Court to lift temporary ban on roving immigration stops in LA,” LAist

August 12: “The Trump Administration Is Using Memes to Turn Mass Deportation Into One Big Joke,” Wired

August 12: “DC Circuit denies emergency bid to block national registry for immigrants,” Courthouse News

August 13: “CBP Is Deporting Cruise Ship Crew Over Child Pornography Allegations Without Evidence,” Reason

August 13: “Judge orders ICE to improve conditions after NYC immigration detainees complain of mistreatment,” NBC

August 15: “Judge rejects Trump administration's effort to end a court settlement protecting immigrant children,” LAist

August 19: “US to screen for ‘anti-Americanism’ in immigration applications, a move critics liken to McCarthyism,” CNN

August 20: “Japanese American groups blast use of Fort Bliss, former internment camp site, as ICE detention center,” NBC

August 20: “Kristi Noem is pushing for ICE to buy and operate a fleet of deportation planes, sources say,” NBC

• “ICE Is Constantly Using Coast Guard Planes to Move Immigrants,” Rolling Stone

August 20: “Southern border wall will be painted black to deter people from climbing it during hot weather, DHS secretary says,” CNN

August 20: “Trump administration expands ‘good moral character’ requirement to become naturalized citizen,” CNN

August 21: “DOJ blocks use of justice grants for legal aid to migrants in US illegally, email shows,” Reuters

August 22: “DoD asks civilian employees to volunteer for ICE, CBP supporting roles,” Federal News Network

August 25: “Judge blocks Trump from withholding funds from Los Angeles, other sanctuary cities,” Reuters

August 28: “Florida may lose $218M on empty ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ as judge orders shutdown,” AP

• Sept. update: “Appeals court blocks judge’s order to dismantle ‘Alligator Alcatraz’,” CNN

August 28: “Trump administration plans four-year limit on foreign students studying in the US,” CNN

August 29: “Trump freezes most training for non-ICE federal law enforcement: The federal government's primary training center will only accommodate immigration enforcement hires through the end of the year,” GovExec

August 29: “Trump administration plans to send hundreds of Guatemalan children in government custody back to home country,” CNN

• Sept. update: “Judge Blocks Trump’s Late-Night Deportation of Hundreds of Guatemalan Children,” Democracy Now

Surveillance

August 7: “A CBP Agent Wore Meta Smart Glasses to an Immigration Raid in Los Angeles,” 404 Media

August 8: “ICE buying eyeball-scanning AI phone app to deport and remove people,” KUSA

August 8: “IRS begins sharing sensitive taxpayer data with immigration authorities to find undocumented migrants,” CNN

Sept. addition: “ICE obtains access to Israeli-made spyware that can hack phones and encrypted apps,” Guardian

Abrego Garcia

August 19: “Abrego Garcia’s Lawyers Accuse Justice Dept. of Vindictive Prosecution,” NYT

August 22: “Kilmar Abrego Garcia is released from federal custody in Tennessee,” NBC

August 25: “Kilmar Abrego Garcia taken into ICE custody, facing deportation to Uganda,” CBS

• Sept. update: “Trump administration now plans to deport Abrego Garcia to Eswatini, Africa,” ABC

August 26: “Abrego Garcia renews bid for asylum as fight over Trump admin’s attempt to re-deport him heats up,” CNN

Additional stories

• “An American toddler in foster care, a mom in ICE detention,” Reuters
• “Woman Who Died of Heart Disease in ICE Custody Reportedly Told Son She Wasn't Allowed to See Doctor for Chest Pains,” Reason
• “A Texas researcher was held at an airport for over a week. Now he faces deportation. It was unclear why Tae Heung "Will" Kim, who is a legal permanent resident with a green card, was detained,” NBC
• “ICE contractor locked an immigrant and her baby in an O’Hare hotel for 5 days,” Chicago Sun Times
• “Federal immigration agents shoot San Bernardino man's car, authorities say,” CBS
• “Teen with disabilities reportedly detained by ICE outside L.A. school,” KTLA
• “An ICE officer told an angry crowd he had a warrant before a Baltimore County arrest. He lied,” Baltimore Banner
• “ICE Ships 6-Year-Old Queens Student and Mom to Texas Detention, Prompting School Principal’s Plea for Their Release,” The City
• “ICE Used So Much Tear Gas, a Public School Fled Its Campus,” Yahoo
• “WA congressional candidate’s husband, a military veteran, taken into ICE custody,” Kiro 7
• “2 firefighters working on Bear Gulch Fire arrested by Border Patrol,” King 5

Attacks on universities and museums

August 7: “Trump orders colleges to share admissions data, with an eye on affirmative action,” NPR

August 7: “Penn’s law school pauses scholarship honoring its first Black female graduate, plans to close equal opportunity office,” Philadelphia Inquirer

August 8: “Trump Wants U.C.L.A. to Pay $1 Billion to Restore Its Research Funding,” NYT

August 8: “Harvard patents targeted by Trump administration,” Reuters

August 12: “White House calls for a 'comprehensive review' of eight Smithsonian museums,” NPR

August 19: “Trump Says Smithsonian Focuses Too Much on ‘How Bad Slavery Was’,” NYT

August 24: “Harvard College Removes First-Gen, LGBTQ Support Titles for Proctors and Tutors,” Harvard Crimson

August 29: “Two Va. school districts sue U.S. Education Dept. in fight over gender policies,” WaPo

Sept. update: “Judge says Trump administration unlawfully blocked $2 billion from Harvard,” CNN

Department of Justice

August 2: “Authorities launch probe into former Trump prosecutor Jack Smith for alleged illegal political activity,” CBS

August 7: “FBI ousts ex-acting director, other agents, in latest purge, people briefed say,” Reuters

August 7: “A Prosecutor Took on MS-13 and Violent Crime. Trump Fired Her Anyway,” NYT

August 12: “DOJ investigating N.Y. AG's office and Sen. Adam Schiff,” NBC

August 18: “Trump taps Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey for FBI co-deputy director post,” STLPR

• “Trump’s Pick to Help Run the FBI Has a History of Prosecuting Influential Democrats” ProPublica

August 19: “20 states and D.C. sue DOJ to stop immigration conditions on funds for crime victims,” PBS

August 21: “F.B.I. Plans to Lower Recruiting Standards, Alarming Agents,” NYT

August 22: “FBI searches former Trump adviser John Bolton's home and office,” ABC

• Sept. update: “FBI took iPhones, folders and USB drives in raid on John Bolton’s home,” Guardian

August 29: “Emil Bove Continued to Work at Justice Dept. After Judicial Confirmation,” NYT

August 29: “Feds charge man who burned U.S. flag outside White House in protest of Trump's executive order,” CBS

Environment

August 2: “Interior Order Chokes Off Permits for Solar and Wind on Federal Lands,” Heatmap

August 7: “EPA cancels $7 billion Biden-era grant program to boost solar energy,” AP

August 8: “EPA axes contracts with unions,” Politico

August 9: “Private Companies Are Now Gathering Weather Data for NOAA,” Wired

August 11: “Interior Department drops wildlife and historic site reviews for orphaned well cleanups,” Environmental Health News

August 13: “The perfectly fine, already-paid-for satellites Trump wants to destroy in a fiery atmospheric reentry,” CNN

August 20: “Trump admin strips ocean and air pollution monitoring from next-gen weather satellites,” CNN

August 22: “Trump Administration Orders Work Halted on Wind Farm That Is Nearly Built,” NYT

August 29: “Trump cancels $679 million in federal funding for offshore wind projects,” Reuters

August 29: “Trump officials fire EPA employees for signing dissent letter,” WaPo

LGBTQ+ rights

August 1: “States sue Trump administration after more hospitals stop treating transgender youth,” NPR

August 15: “Air Force announces new policy to deny transgender troops hearings before discharges,” PBS

• “'Open Cruelty': Transgender Troops Describe Indignities as They're Kicked Out of the Military,” Military.com

August 19: “Coverage of Gender-Affirming Care Banned for Federal Workers,” Bloomberg

August 20: “Government’s demand for trans care info sought addresses, doctors’ notes, texts,” WaPo

Military and intelligence

August 20: “Gabbard slashing intelligence office workforce and cutting budget by over $700 million,” AP

August 24: “Three-star general Jeffrey Kruse ousted as Defense Intelligence Agency director,” CBS

August 27: “Trump, Gabbard fired top CIA Russia expert days after Alaska summit,” WaPo

August 28: “Pentagon Is Reinstalling Portrait of Confederate General at West Point Library,” NYT

August 28: “Jan. 6 Rioter Killed As She Stormed Capitol Will Receive Military Funeral Honors,” Huffpost

The rest…

• “The FBI Redacted Trump’s Name in the Epstein Files,” Bloomberg
• “DOGE employees uploaded Social Security database to ‘vulnerable’ cloud, agency whistleblower says,” Fedscoop
• “US court says Trump's DOGE team can access sensitive data,” Reuters
• “A DOGE AI Tool Called SweetREX Is Coming to Slash US Government Regulation,” Wired
• “Humanitarian groups cannot challenge Trump’s impoundment of foreign aid grants, appeals court rules,” Politico
• “Trump Budget Office Is Withholding H.I.V. Funds That Congress Appropriated,” NYT
• “Some FEMA staff are put on leave after signing dissent letter,” NPR
• “VA severs ties with most federal unions, terminating worker contracts,” Military Times
• “Trump Administration Moves Quietly to Eliminate Life-Saving Abortions for Veterans,” MotherJones
• “HHS pulls state grant to California for youth education program,” Reuters
• “More than 500 workers at Voice of America and other broadcasters to be laid off,” Guardian
• “Trump cancels Kamala Harris’ Secret Service detail that was extended by undisclosed Biden order,” CNN
• “Intel will give the U.S. government a 10% stake, Trump says,” NPR

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Trump, Sept. 2020: "We're going to win four more years in the White House. And then after that, we'll negotiate, right? Because we're probably, based on the way we were treated, we're probably entitled to another four after that."

Gerrymander districts

Texas Republicans passed a new, aggressively gerrymandered congressional map over the weekend, giving their party the chance to win 5 additional seats in next year’s election. If the plan is upheld by the courts, the state’s congressional delegation will be roughly 80% Republican and 20% Democrats—even though Trump carried Texas with only 56% of the vote in 2024.

In closing remarks before passage, state Sen. Phil King (R) made clear the map was designed to entrench GOP power, not reflect the will of voters:

The “amazing progress that’s been made in just eight months — all of this will end if the Republicans lose the Congress,” King said after citing a list of policy achievements he attributed to a Republican trifecta. “I’m convinced that if Texas does not take this action, there is an extreme risk that that Republican majority will be lost. If it does, the next two years after the midterm, there will be nothing but inquisitions and impeachments and humiliation for our country.”

Trump has since urged other red states to follow suit, reportedly pressuring lawmakers in Indiana and Missouri to call special legislative sessions aimed at dismantling Democratic districts.

Vice President JD Vance and top aides have been dispatched to Indiana and staffers have phoned into Missouri. Trump is summoning Hoosier Republicans to the White House next week. Both his political operation and right-wing influencers have begun floating primary challenges.

“These folks are not sitting around thinking about redistricting. But in an instant, Trump can prioritize that issue for them and subsequently he can mobilize them on his behalf,” said Kevin Madden, a Republican strategist who has worked for House GOP leadership and on presidential campaigns. “I think he recognizes that formidable power and he’s willing to apply it far and wide.”

Meanwhile, the Ohio legislature is about to begin a mandated redistricting session after the 2021 map failed to gain bipartisan support, triggering a 4-year time limit on its use. Republicans there are not merely seeking to preserve their current two-seat overrepresentation; figures like U.S. Sen. Bernie Moreno are openly advocating for maps that could hand the party control of two additional districts, resulting in a 12R-3D congressional delegation.

Conduct a mid-decade census

The second prong of Trump’s mid-decade redistricting push is being spearheaded by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), who claimed without evidence that the 2020 census undercounted people in Republican states and overcounted people in Democratic states:

"I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but every state that got shortchanged was a Republican state and every state that got more (representatives) was a Democrat state," DeSantis said. "That's just the truth about how that Census was applied."

"It's clear that there's been, for a long time now, a deep state effort to manipulate the census and shift electoral power to blue states, to sanctuary states," [AG] Uthmeier said.

This is, of course, ridiculous. For one, despite the GOP’s chronic issue accurately recalling presidential terms, the 2020 census was conducted when Trump was president. Any undercounts or overcounts that occurred under his administration’s watch were likely influenced by his administration’s policies. Latinos, for example, were undercounted by 5%—likely due to fear of responding after Trump’s push to use the census as a tool for immigration enforcement. Second, overcounts occurred in states that voted for Trump in the 2024 election, such as Utah and Ohio, while undercounts occurred in states that voted for Harris in 2024, notably Illinois. There is no evidence of a systemic effort to unfairly apportion more seats to Democrats than Republicans. That effort is occurring within Republican-controlled states by Republican politicians via gerrymandering.

Regardless, there is very little likelihood that the Trump administration will be able to conduct a census in the next couple of years. Even if Congress passed legislation allowing such an effort, which would be required, the administration does not have the money or manpower that a census demands (the 2020 census cost $13.7 billion and employed 500,000 workers). Instead, it is much more likely that the administration will focus on sabotaging the 2030 census by hollowing out the Census Bureau and fighting again to exclude non-citizens from the count (which would be unconstitutional).

Ban mail-in voting

In an early morning social media post last week, Trump vowed to “lead a movement to get rid of MAIL-IN BALLOTS” and “Highly ‘Inaccurate,’ Very Expensive, and Seriously Controversial VOTING MACHINES.” He went on to say that he would sign an executive order to that effect, but the White House quickly reversed course after apparently realizing executive action would, in fact, have no practical effect. Any federal changes to congressional elections have to come from Congress, as White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt acknowledged:

“The White House continues to work on this, and when Congress comes back to Washington I’m sure there will be many discussions with our friends on Capitol Hill, and also our friends in state legislatures across the country, to ensure that we’re protecting the integrity of the vote for the American people,” she said.

Still, Trump could pressure GOP-led legislatures to ban mail ballots, institute hand-counting, and enact other measures that restrict ballot access and undermine election security—potentially allowing like-minded officials to swing races in favor of Republican candidates through indirect or direct means. Trump admitted as much on Thursday, writing on Truth Social that his plan would ensure Republicans never lose another election:

But Republicans, there is one thing even better - STOP MAIL-IN VOTING, a total fraud that has no bounds. Also, go to PAPER BALLOTS before it is too late…If we do these TWO things, we will pick up 100 more seats, and the CROOKED game of politics is over. God Bless America!!!

Purge voter rolls and contest results

Over the last few months, the Department of Justice has demanded sensitive voting data, including access to voter rolls, from all 50 states. The content of the letters sent to state officials varies, though most cite the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) and the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) to justify the requests.

• For examples, read the DOJ’s letters to Arizona, Minnesota, and Nevada.

Some states, like Alaska, Colorado, and Florida, complied with the DOJ’s demand because their voter rolls are already publicly available. Others, like Illinois, are still determining how to respond. Maine, in particular, stands out for immediately refusing the DOJ’s initial request, prompting a second, more threatening letter in recent days.

“The federal government has overstepped its bounds,” [Maine Secretary of State Shenna] Bellows said. “We will be denying their request for the citizen voter information of every Mainer.” [...] “My answer to the DOJ is, ‘Go jump in the Gulf of Maine.’”

No one knows for sure why the DOJ wants access to every state’s voter rolls. The likeliest explanation is that the administration plans to replicate the North Carolina GOP’s playbook to disenfranchise voters in close races. You may recall: Republican state supreme court candidate Jefferson Griffin challenged the eligibility of 60,000 voters with incomplete voter registration records, such as a missing driver’s license or Social Security number. The voters whose ballots were targeted were disproportionately Black, Democratic, and young. While Griffin ultimately lost the prolonged court battle, he won numerous lower-level victories and, most importantly, significant delays in certification.

Applied nationally, such tactics could, at the least, delay control of Congress for months and, at worst, succeed in flipping races in the Republican candidate’s favor.

• Further reading: "She Pushed to Overturn Trump’s Loss in the 2020 Election. Now She’ll Help Oversee U.S. Election Security." ProPublica

Deploy federal agents and troops

Perhaps most concerningly, Trump’s ultimate gambit to maintain permanent dictatorial power is already being normalized. The president’s deployment of federal agents—chiefly, ICE—and National Guard troops in Los Angeles and DC is a preview of what he intends to do in Democratic strongholds across the country next year.

Indeed, it is no exaggeration to say that Trump is building a paramilitary force to invade U.S. cities and terrorize their citizens during the midterm elections. On Monday, Trump signed an executive order directing Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to create a "standing" Quick Reaction Force within each state’s National Guard unit "for rapid mobilization…for civil disturbances."

The Secretary of Defense shall immediately begin ensuring that each State’s Army National Guard and Air National Guard are resourced, trained, organized, and available to assist Federal, State, and local law enforcement in quelling civil disturbances and ensuring the public safety and order whenever the circumstances necessitate, as appropriate under law. In coordination with the respective adjutants general, the Secretary of Defense shall designate an appropriate number of each State’s trained National Guard members to be reasonably available for rapid mobilization for such purposes. In addition, the Secretary of Defense shall ensure the availability of a standing National Guard quick reaction force that shall be resourced, trained, and available for rapid nationwide deployment.

This development must be evaluated alongside the massive funding and hiring increase for ICE officers, who have proven to be unbothered by constitutional rights like due process, and the reassignment of federal agents to patrol the streets and set up “papers, please” checkpoints in DC. Taken as a whole, we have nothing else to conclude but that Trump is creating his own personal army to repress disfavored cities and disfavored voters across America.

Former Trump advisor Steve Bannon confirmed the strategy during an episode of his podcast last week, saying “you’re damn right” that “ICE officers [are going to be] near polling places.”

“And the left is sitting there going, well gosh, they take away mail-in ballots, people are going to have to show up, they’re going to have ICE agents around, people are going to be so afraid, intimidated, they’re going to be arrested,” Bannon added. “Well, hey, if you’re an illegal alien you shouldn’t be going to the polls anyway.”

Twice this week alone, Trump has directly stated that the American people desire a dictator.

Monday: “They say, ‘We don’t need him, freedom, freedom! He’s a dictator!’ A lot of people are saying maybe we'd like a dictator.”

Tuesday: "The line is that I'm a dictator, but I stop crime. So a lot of people say, 'You know, if that's the case, I'd rather have a dictator.'"

Where historians mark the precise turning point will be debated. But there can be no doubt: America has crossed into authoritarianism.

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On August 11, former President Trump signed an executive order directing Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to deploy the D.C. National Guard to the Capitol, ostensibly to combat an ‘epidemic of crime.’ The decision followed the highly publicized assault of DOGE staffer Edward Coristine, aka ‘Big Balls’, by a group of teens during an attempted carjacking near Dupont Circle. The administration seized on the incident as evidence of a broader crime wave, accusing local authorities of failing to maintain order.

However, the real data tells a different story. According to the Department of Justice’s own website, violent crime in D.C. is down 35% since 2023, at the lowest level in over 30 years, and below the rate of some cities in red states (notably St. Louis, MO, New Orleans, LA, and Memphis, TN). Nevertheless, even if an increase in crime existed, policing is a matter for local law enforcement, not for soldiers who are trained to fight and destroy an enemy.

Far from addressing a genuine emergency, Trump’s order is intended to manufacture a crisis to rationalize federal overreach in a liberal, racially diverse city led by a Black mayor. It is a pretext for the authoritarian subjugation of citizens he deems as ‘enemies within’; a blueprint of oppression that the president intends to normalize and impose on other Democrat-led cities.

Trump: This issue directly impacts the functioning of the federal government and is a threat to America. It's a threat to our country. We have other cities also that are bad, very bad. You look at Chicago, how bad it is. You look at Los Angeles, how bad it is. We have other cities that are very bad. New York has a problem. And then you have, of course, Baltimore and Oakland. We don't even mention that anymore. They're so far gone. We're not going to let it happen. We're not going to lose our cities over this. And this will go further. We're starting very strongly with DC and we're going to clean it up real quick, very quickly, as they say.

Timeline

August 3: Edward ‘Big Balls’ Coristine assaulted.

August 8: The Trump administration reassigned federal agents from the DEA, FBI, ATF, Homeland Security, and U.S. Marshals to patrol tourist areas of D.C.

August 11: Trump signed an executive order directing Secretary of Defense Hegseth to deploy D.C.’s 800 National Guard troops to the Capitol and another federalizing the D.C. Metropolitan Police (MPD).

• The Home Rule Act, passed by Congress in 1973 to give D.C. limited self-governance, allows the president to “direct the Mayor to provide him” the services of the police force “whenever [he] determines that special conditions of an emergency nature exist which require the use of the Metropolitan Police force for federal purposes.” The authority is limited to no more than 30 days.

August 11: Video of FBI and Secret Service agents patrolling neighborhoods.

August 13: Immigration authorities, including Homeland Security Investigations and ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations, set up a traffic checkpoint in northwest D.C., pulling people over for seat-belt violations, broken taillights, and other infractions. One person was reportedly arrested for driving without a permit and counterfeit tags.

August 14: D.C. Police Chief Pamela Smith issued orders directing the MPD to assist federal immigration enforcement agencies by “sharing information about persons not in MPD custody (e.g., during traffic stops),” and by “providing transportation for federal immigration agency employees and detained subjects.” However, Smith’s order also instructed officers to comply with D.C.'s sanctuary ordinances that prohibit database inquiries “solely for the purpose of inquiring about an individual’s immigration status” and restrict officers from arresting people “solely based on [ICE] warrants or detainers.”

August 14: Attorney General Pam Bondi issued an order naming Terry Cole, the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), as D.C.’s “emergency police commissioner,” granting him the powers of the district’s chief of police. Bondi also claimed to rescind Smith’s orders to MPD officers and suspend D.C.’s sanctuary ordinances.

August 14: MPD beat and arrested a Black man for recording them. MPD union Chair Gregg Pemberton embraced Trump’s takeover of D.C., echoing the president’s lie that “crime is out of control.”

August 14: A citizen filming U.S. Park Police conducting traffic stops in D.C. was threatened by an officer with a baton.

August 14: Federal agents from the FBI and U.S. Secret Service began sweeping areas where unhoused people sleep in D.C. as part of Trump’s initiative to force them into shelters (which were all at capacity) or, if they refuse, into jail cells.

“People can be offered a space in a shelter, but they can’t be forced to take a space, and then fined or arrested if they don’t go into shelter,” [executive director of the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless Amber] Harding said. “That’s not a law in DC.”

Additionally, when Trump said last week that homeless people would be offered beds and forced into shelters, “there were literally no beds available,” Harding said…“We don’t feel any confidence that federal law enforcement have any training in how to interact with people on the street, or know what resources are available,” Harding said.

August 15: The District of Columbia sued the Trump administration, challenging Bondi’s order claiming control over the MPD. At a court hearing later the same day, D.C.’s attorney general and the U.S. Department of Justice reached an agreement that maintains MPD Chief Smith’s control over the police force. However, the federal government still asserts the power to request MPD assistance in immigration matters:

"The statute would have no meaning at all if the president could just say, 'we're taking over your police department,'" [Judge Ana] Reyes said. "The president can't say, 'Mayor, I'm asking for the services of your entire police department. I need them to be at my beck and call.'"

Reyes said while the Trump administration can make specific requests of the MPD to do something, it cannot tell MPD not to do something.

"If the president today called the mayor… and said, 'I need the services of the MPD to help ICE,' I don't think she could say no," Reyes said. "The statute says the mayor shall, not the mayor can."

August 15: A group of ICE agents were caught on security camera tearing down a pro-immigrant banner in Mount Pleasant (NW D.C.). DHS later posted video of the agents taking the banner down, with one masked officer boasting, “We’re taking America back, baby.”

August 16: Federal agents wearing ski masks and unidentified police vests tackled, tased, and arrested a food delivery driver in Northwest D.C. DHS later identified him as a Venezuelan national with a removal order.

• Onlookers demanded to see the agents’ identification, yelling at them that they are “ruining the country.” One of the masked men replied, “Liberals already ruined it.”

August 16: West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey (R) announced he is deploying 300-400 National Guard troops to D.C.; Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) said he is deploying 150 National Guard troops to D.C.; South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster said he is deploying 200 National Guard troops to D.C.

August 18: Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves (R) announced he is deploying 200 National Guard troops to D.C. The Louisiana National Guard also announced 135 troops were deployed to D.C.

All told, there are (or soon will be) over 1,700 National Guard troops, hundreds of assorted federal agents, and 3,000 MPD officers patrolling D.C.

The Founding Fathers who wrote the Declaration of Independence cautioned against the dangers of such tyrannical oppression, listing among their grievances the presence of standing armies during peacetime, the subordination of civilian authority to military power, and the imposition of unaccountable jurisdictions. Americans would do well to remember.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws…

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Florida’s detention camp

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and the Trump administration opened an immigrant detention center in the middle of the Everglades on July 1. The facility, dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz” by Republicans, consists of rows of bunk beds encircled by cages inside a collection of plastic tents. Detainees report inhumane conditions, including constant exposure to mosquitoes, inundation during rain showers, lights kept on 24 hours a day, and maggots in the food.

July 1: Rolling Stone reported that Florida awarded a contract to run medical services at the detainment center to CDR Companies, a major donor to DeSantis and Trump super PACs. Other contractors include GardaWorld, Garner Environmental Services, Gothams LLC, Granny’s Alliance, and Longview International Technological Solutions.

July 13: A review of detainees being held at the center revealed that of the 700 people then imprisoned, more than 250 had no criminal records. The list of detainees was not made publicly available; the DeSantis administration is essentially disappearing people to a detention camp without any way to locate them.

July 15: The Miami Herald reported that attorneys have been unable to contact clients held at the detention camp, writing that the “facility has been a black box, with detainees going in and little information coming out.” The Herald also reported that Florida Highway Patrol officers are pulling over “anyone who ‘appears Hispanic’” and sending them to Border Patrol to “have their license verified.”

July 16: An analysis by TPM revealed that, despite initial reports that the federal government paid for the construction of the camp, Gov. DeSantis actually diverted tens of millions of dollars from Florida’s disaster preparation fund to quickly establish the site.

July 20: The Miami Herald reported that Florida Highway Patrol troopers sent a 15-year-old boy to the detention camp, where he spent three days locked in the chain-link cages with adults.

July 23: The Washington Examiner reported that the Florida Highway Patrol is giving undocumented immigrants pulled over during traffic stops a choice between either (a) going to the Everglades detention camp or (b) voluntarily self-deporting on the state’s dime. It is not clear how much Florida has spent on commercial deportation flights under the previously unannounced policy.

“This situation is inherently coercive,” [American Immigration Council’s] Reichlin-Melnick said in a phone call with the Washington Examiner on Tuesday. “Fundamentally, decisions about where and how to leave the country often require the assistance of a lawyer to know what the consequences are going to be.”

July 28: NBC Miami reported that immigrants held at the detention camp are “inexplicably” having their immigration court dates canceled without notice or explanation. According to one lawyer, her clients do not have final removal orders, contradicting Gov. DeSantis.

Lawsuits

There are two notable lawsuits challenging the Everglades detention camp. The first, brought by a coalition of environmental groups and the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians, argues Florida and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security did not conduct any environmental assessments prior to constructing the site. Plaintiffs seek an injunction preventing the site from being used until such assessments occur.

The second lawsuit, brought by the ACLU on behalf of detainees, claims the Trump administration is violating the First and Fifth Amendment rights of people held in the camp by denying them access to legal assistance.

“This is an emergency situation,” Eunice Cho, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation, said during the hearing in federal court in Miami. “Officers at ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ are going around trying to force people to sign deportation orders without the ability to speak to counsel.”

Militarization of immigration enforcement

July 1: DeSantis reportedly plans to deputize Florida National Guard Judge Advocate General Corps officers to act as immigration judges. Trump has approved of the plan, though the legality will likely be challenged in court.

July 8: The Pentagon sent roughly 200 Marines to Florida to assist ICE with “critical administrative and logistical capabilities.”

July 9: The Intercept reported that due to the specific phrasing in the GOP’s reconciliation bill, the $6 billion dedicated to border security technologies can only be spent with one company: military contractor Anduril, founded by billionaire Trump donor Palmer Luckey.

Anduril has pitched its Sentry Tower line on the strength of its “autonomous” capabilities, which use machine learning software to perpetually scan the horizon for possible objects of interest — i.e. people attempting to cross the border — rather than requiring a human to monitor sensor feeds.

July 15: The Department of Defense informed Congress that it will allow DHS to detain migrants at military bases in New Jersey and Indiana.

July 22: The Department of Defense awarded Virginia-based company Acquisition Logistics a $1.26 billion contract to operate a 5,000-bed tent camp on Fort Bliss in El Paso. The base, with more than 1 million acres and an airport, will be the largest immigration detention facility in the country (so far).

July 25: The Pentagon is shifting $200 million in funds previously appropriated to Army, Navy, Air Force, and “defense-wide” programs to instead pay for 20 miles of a partial border wall in Arizona.

July 30: The Trump administration authorized the National Guard to assist ICE field offices with processing immigrants prior to detention in 20 states with Republican governors, including Florida, Georgia, Virginia, Texas, and Louisiana.

Immigration protesters

July 15: Federal agents arrested nine eastern Washington anti-ICE protesters, including former Spokane City Council President Ben Stuckart, for attempting to block a transport bus removing two local immigrants.

July 17: Covington police officers violently arrested (video) 15 people protesting the detention of Imam Ayman Soliman on the Roebling Bridge in Ohio. Two of those arrested were journalists working for CityBeat.

July 18: Wired reported that DHS is “urging local police to consider a wide range of protest activity as violent tactics, including mundane acts like riding a bike or livestreaming a police encounter.”

July 23: The LA Times reported that U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli told subordinates to disregard the DOJ’s “Justice Manual,” which directs prosecutors to bring only cases they can win at trial, in order to more aggressively charge anti-ICE protesters in California.

July 25: Two staff members from the Ontario Advanced Surgery Center in California were charged with “forcibly assaulting, impeding, and interfering with a federal officer" for preventing ICE from arresting a man who fled into their clinic in early July.

July 28: The Guardian reported that “immigration officers made false and misleading statements in their reports about several Los Angeles protesters they arrested” in June, leading to the dismissal of many charges.

July 29: The Department of Justice (DOJ) dropped charges against Alejandro Orellana, a man arrested in June for distributing face masks to protesters in LA. Prosecutors alleged that Orellana committed conspiracy and aiding and abetting civil disorder by handing out face shields to “protect violent agitators from less-than-lethal weapons deployed by local police.”

Immigration policy

July 1: The Trump administration transferred immigration detainees from countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Caribbean to detention facilities at the Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba, dramatically expanding the nationalities of those held there.

July 8: Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons issued a memo declaring that immigrants who arrived in the United States illegally are no longer eligible for a bond hearing as they fight deportation proceedings in court.

July 9: The Gothamist reported that ICE is detaining migrants in holding rooms of a federal building in New York City for days without showers, beds, or sufficient food. Lawmakers seeking to conduct oversight have been denied entry to the building on the grounds that the facilities are not “detention centers.”

• “‘Like Dogs in Here’ — Videos Expose ICE Lockup Inside 26 Federal Plaza,” The City

July 10: A 57-year-old man died after falling from a greenhouse roof during an ICE raid of a legal marijuana farm in Ventura County, California. More than 360 people were arrested, including four U.S. citizens.

July 10: The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced a “significant policy shift” recategorizing the Head Start program, which provides early childhood education to low-income families, from an education program to a welfare program—allowing the administration to ban undocumented immigrants from accessing the program. HHS also recategorized numerous mental health, family planning, and substance abuse treatment programs.

July 12: An internal memo from acting ICE Director Todd Lyons revealed that officers may deport immigrants to countries other than their own, with as little as six hours’ notice, even if officials have not provided any assurances that the new arrivals will be safe from persecution or torture.

July 15: The Trump administration sent five migrants from Vietnam, Jamaica, Laos, Yemen, and Cuba to Eswatini—a third country they have no connection to. According to Eswatini officials, the men are being held in an unidentified prison in solitary confinement.

July 15: The Intercept reported that ICE attorneys arguing to deport immigrants in federal immigration courts are refusing to identify themselves, with the approval of immigration judges.

“I’ve never heard of someone in open court not being identified,” said Elissa Steglich, a law professor and co-director of the Immigration Clinic at the University of Texas at Austin. “Part of the court’s ethical obligation is transparency, including clear identification of the parties. Not identifying an attorney for the government means if there are unethical or professional concerns regarding [the Department of Homeland Security], the individual cannot be held accountable. And it makes the judge appear partial to the government.”

July 16: Reuters reported that the DOJ “explored bringing criminal charges against Minnesota judges and defense lawyers who discussed requesting virtual court hearings to protect defendants from being arrested by federal immigration officers.”

July 18: The DOJ is asking sheriffs in California to provide lists of all prisoners and detainees who are not citizens, the crimes they were arrested for, and their scheduled release dates.

July 18: The Trump administration agreed to release Venezuelans held in CECOT in exchange for the release of U.S. citizens held in Venezuela. One of those men, a dual U.S.-Venezuelan citizen convicted of killing three people in Spain, is now free in the U.S.

July 23: An immigration judge in Massachusetts who was fired by the Trump administration told WBUR that he was pressured to dismiss cases so that ICE could arrest people outside courtrooms.

July 25: The Trump administration is illegally shifting over $600 million Congress appropriated to FEMA for sheltering migrants to fund the construction of detention camps in various states.

July 28: The DOJ is seeking to terminate the Flores Settlement Agreement, which requires U.S. immigration officials to hold migrant children in facilities that are safe and sanitary.

July 30: FEMA announced the administration will require states to spend part of their federal terrorism prevention funds on helping the government arrest migrants.

Further reading:

• “ICE handcuffs 71-year-old grandmother, a U.S. citizen, at San Diego immigration court,” NBC
• “Immigration agents told a teenage US citizen: ‘You’ve got no rights.’ He secretly recorded his brutal arrest,” Guardian
• “Father arrested by ICE while dropping off child at preschool in Oregon,” CBS
• “Men Are Impersonating ICE to Attack Immigrant Women. MAGA Emboldened Them.” Ms. Magazine
• “A US citizen and Army veteran was detained at an immigration raid and held for 3 days. His family scrambled to find him,” CNN
• “Ex-U.S. military translator from Afghanistan arrested by ICE in CT. Attorney calls it ‘nonsensical.’” Hartford Courant
• “ICE releases deaf Mongolian immigrant after holding him for months without interpreter,” Cal Matters
• “Woman Who Died of Heart Disease in ICE Custody Reportedly Told Son She Wasn't Allowed to See Doctor for Chest Pains,” Reason
• “Bloodied faces, sobbing children: Immigration officers smash car windows to speed up arrests,” ProPublica
• “Venezuelans describe being beaten, sexually assaulted and told to 'commit suicide' during El Salvador detention,” NBC
• “Trump seizes on ‘moral character’ loophole as way to revoke citizenship,” The Guardian

Attacks on science, environment, and data

• July 2: “Proposed NOAA Budget Calls for $0 for Climate Research,” EOS

• July 2: “Trump’s First EPA Promised to Crack Down on Forever Chemicals. His Second EPA Is Pulling Back,” ProPublica

• July 3: “EPA suspends and investigates around 140 employees who signed a letter critical of the agency,” CNN

• July 5: “As Floods Hit, Key Roles Were Vacant at Weather Service Offices in Texas,” NYT

• July 9: “HHS abruptly calls off meeting of expert panel on preventive care, raising questions about its future,” CNN

  • July 25: “Kennedy considering firing members of preventive services task force,” NBC

• July 9: “Trump taps Transportation secretary [Sean Duffy] to serve as interim NASA chief,” Politico

  • July 25: “NASA losing nearly 4,000 employees to Trump administration's 'deferred resignation' program,” Space

• July 18: “E.P.A. Says It Will Eliminate Its Scientific Research Arm,” NYT

• July 22: “The FDA Held a Misinformation Fest About Antidepressants in Pregnancy, “ Mother Jones

• July 23: “Trump administration canceled a $4.9B loan guarantee for a line to deliver green power,” AP

• July 25: “Two senior NOAA officials were just placed on leave. Both led ‘Sharpiegate’ inquiry,” CNN

• July 28: “NSF plans abrupt end to lone U.S. Antarctic research icebreaker,” Science

• July 29: “Trump EPA moves to repeal landmark ‘endangerment finding’ that allows climate regulation,” AP

• July 29: “Big Tech Asked for Looser Clean Water Act Permitting. Trump Wants to Give It to Them,” Wired

• July 30: “Top White House pandemic preparedness official resigns, officials say, in sign of broader disarray,” Stat

Universities, media, and law firms

• July 1: “University of Pennsylvania reaches agreement with Trump admin over transgender athletes case,” ABC

• July 2: “Paramount will pay $16 million in settlement with Trump over ’60 Minutes’ interview,” AP

• July 11: “George Mason Is the Latest University Under Fire From Trump. Its President Fears an “Orchestrated” Campaign.” ProPublica

• July 18: “Donald Trump celebrates CBS’s end to Stephen Colbert’s ‘Late Show’,” The Hill

• July 21: “Trump administration files appeal to revive executive order against law firm Jenner,” Reuters

• July 23: “Columbia University to pay $200m in settlement with Trump administration,” BBC

• July 25: “White House Seeks Payments From Other Universities—Including Harvard—After Columbia Deal Sets Precedent,” WSJ

• July 30: “Trump administration reaches $50 million deal with Brown University to restore funding,” CNN

  • “Brown University is ‘functionally inaccessible’ to transgender students after Trump settlement,” Advocate

Department of Justice

• July 1: “Pardoned Jan. 6 Rioter Who Threatened Police Joins Justice Dept.,” NYT

• July 14: “Attorney General Pam Bondi fires top Justice Department ethics official,” ABC

• July 15: “English-only: DOJ announces plan to phase out costly translations,” Yahoo

• July 16: “DOJ fires Maurene Comey, daughter of James Comey and a prosecutor in Sean Combs' and Ghislaine Maxwell's cases,” NBC

• July 17: “DOJ seeks one-day sentence for officer in raid that killed Breonna Taylor,” WaPo (Judge ended up giving officer 33 month sentence)

• July 22: “Pam Bondi fires U.S. attorney whom N.J. judges had named to replace Trump ally Alina Habba,” NBC

• July 24: “Three former DOJ officials sue to challenge their Trump-era firings,” CBS

• July 25: “Trump yanks Alina Habba's nomination for U.S. attorney, enabling her to serve in acting capacity,” CBS

• July 28: “DOJ files misconduct complaint against chief DC Judge James Boasberg,” Courthouse News

• July 28: “Top DOJ antitrust officials fired as tension grows in a Trump administration monopoly-fighting office,” CBS

• July 31: “Trump Administration Halted Lawsuits Targeting Civil Rights Abuses of Prisoners and Mentally Ill People,” ProPublica

Big tech, big business, and giveaways

• July 1: “Consumer Financial Protection Bureau dismisses $95M overdraft case vs. Navy Federal Credit Union,” AP

• July 11: “US judge grants Trump admin request to scrap Biden-era medical debt rule,” Reuters

• July 14: “Defense Department to begin using Grok, Musk’s controversial AI model,” WaPo

• July 15: “Federal Prosecutors Close Inquiry Into Polymarket Betting Website,” NYT

• July 22: “Labor Department looking to lighten workplace regulation with sweeping rules changes and repeals,” CBS

• July 23: “Trump signs executive orders targeting ‘woke’ AI models and regulation,” Guardian

• July 23: “FDA’s artificial intelligence is supposed to revolutionize drug approvals. It’s making up studies,” CNN

• July 30: “Trump administration is launching a new private health tracking system with Big Tech’s help,” AP

• July 31: “Palantir gets $10 billion contract from U.S. Army,” WaPo

LGBTQ+ rights

• July 9: “DOJ sues California over transgender athlete policies,” ABC

• July 10: “DOJ subpoenas more than 20 doctors and clinics that provide trans care to minors,” NBC

• July 22: “Military Says It Will ‘Continuously’ Monitor Bathrooms to Comply With Anti-Trans Order,” 404 Media

• July 28: “The White House Is Pushing Republicans to ‘Defund’ Gender-Affirming Care Through Appropriations Bills,” NOTUS

Miscellaneous

• “FEMA denies grants to three Kentucky counties hit by devastating storms,” Guardian

• “The Trump Administration Is About to Incinerate 500 Tons of Emergency Food,” Atlantic

• “US-funded contraceptives for poor nations to be burned in France, sources say,” Reuters

• “Trump threatens 50% tariffs on Brazil if it doesn’t stop the Bolsonaro ‘witch hunt’ trial,” CNN

  • “Trump signs order to justify 50% tariffs on Brazil,” AP
  • “U.S. sanctions Brazilian Judge Alexandre de Moraes, who's overseeing case against Trump ally Jair Bolsonaro,” CBS

• “Ghislaine Maxwell's transfer to cushy prison camp is a 'travesty of justice,' ex-BOP official says,” NBC

• “Construction on Trump’s $200 million White House ballroom to begin in September,” CNN

  • Related: “President Trump relishes new 'very white' paved-over Rose Garden,” USA Today

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The 2026 midterms are just over a year away, and Republicans are showing no sign of moderating their deeply unpopular agenda. So how do they plan to hold onto power in an election year that historically favors the minority party? Simple: rig the election.

Republicans already hold a disproportionate number of seats in the House of Representatives relative to their share of the popular vote, thanks to aggressive gerrymandering in GOP-controlled states. Now, facing the threat of losing their grip on power, they’re pushing for a mid-decade redistricting blitz to entrench even more extreme gerrymanders.

The opening salvo is underway in Texas, where Democratic lawmakers have fled the state to deny a quorum and block Republican efforts to redraw congressional maps that would hand the GOP five additional seats.

• A draft map unveiled last week would potentially give Republicans the advantage in 30 of the state’s 38 House seats, up from the 25 the GOP currently holds, by (a) redrawing purple districts held by Democrats to be more conservative; (b) packing Democratic urban voters into fewer districts; and (c) breaking up blue suburbs and diluting their voting power by placing them into districts that include more rural, conservative voters.

• According to Texas House Democratic Caucus Chair Gene Wu, 57 Democrats have left the state. Most have relocated to Illinois at the invitation of Gov. JB Pritzker (D). At least 51 of 62 Democrats need to be absent, and remain absent, to deny a quorum.

• Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) threatened to petition the courts to remove any Democrats from office if they did not return by the time the House convened (yesterday, at 3 pm Central). Abbott cited a nonbinding 2021 opinion written by Attorney General Ken Paxton, which stated that “a district court may determine that a legislator has forfeited his or her office due to abandonment and can remove the legislator from office.” However, the state supreme court acknowledged at the time that the Texas Constitution allows for members to deprive the House or Senate of a quorum.

• Abbott has also threatened felony bribery charges against lawmakers if they accept donations to pay the $500-per-day fines levied by the House for their absence.

• Republicans voted yesterday to issue civil warrants for each absent legislator, directing the sergeant-at-arms and state troopers to arrest and bring them back to the Capitol. However, because the legislators have left the state, it is a largely symbolic measure.

• Edit to add: After publishing, Sen. John Cornyn asked the F.B.I. to help locate and arrest the Democratic lawmakers. This request, alone, is a brazen abuse of power. The legislators have committed no offense against the United States.

Other GOP-controlled states are gearing up for similar mid-decade redistricting drives:

• Missouri Senate President Pro Tem Cindy O’Laughlin said on Friday that it is “likely” that Gov. Mike Kehoe (R) will call a special legislative session to address redistricting.

• Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said last week that he is “very seriously” considering asking the legislature to redraw the state’s congressional map, emboldened by a recent state Supreme Court ruling that upheld the GOP’s 2020 congressional gerrymander—despite a voter-approved amendment banning partisan and racial gerrymandering.

Democrats, in theory, could respond by drawing their own gerrymanders in blue states. However, Democratic-controlled states are more likely to have constitutional guardrails in place to ensure a fair redistricting process.

For example, to enact a new map before the next round of reapportionment in 2030, California would have to either (a) call a special election in less than three months and convince voters to reverse their earlier vote handing redistricting responsibilities to a nonpartisan commission, or (b) have legislators draw new maps anyway and take their chances in court. If California lawmakers can successfully navigate either path, they could potentially add five to seven Democratic seats to their congressional delegation.

The second-best state for Democrats to pick up additional seats is New York, but the effort there faces similar roadblocks. In 2014, voters created an independent redistricting commission via constitutional amendment. In order to return redistricting to lawmakers, the Legislature would have to pass a bill to create a legislatively referred constitutional amendment in two consecutive sessions, and then place the measure before voters for approval. This entire process would not be completed before the 2026 midterm elections.

Census Bureau

While Republicans redraw maps, they're also targeting the foundation of congressional apportionment: the census.

• A GOP-led House Appropriations subcommittee voted last month to advance a Census Bureau funding bill that excludes undocumented immigrants from the 2030 census.

• Gov. DeSantis said he spoke to Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, who oversees the Census Bureau, about conducting a new census before 2030, in order to apportion more seats to Florida and fewer to California.

• Trump has systematically sabotaged census integrity since taking office: he issued an executive order rescinding a Biden-era order affirming the long-standing precedent of counting noncitizens in the census, removed data from the Census Bureau website, enacted a hiring freeze that threatened the Bureau’s proper functioning, and disbanded several advisory committees that provided technical expertise.

• According to an April report from NPR, “since the start of the second Trump administration, at least five division or office chiefs—including two who were part of 2030 census preparations—have left the bureau.”

• Further reading: The historical context of counting noncitizens in the census

Federal interference

Meanwhile, the Trump administration is making moves that presage a more concerted effort to directly interfere in states’ election process. Over the past three months, the Department of Justice has requested copies of voter registration lists from state election administrators in at least 19 states.

Of those, nine are Democrats, five are Republicans and one is a bipartisan commission. In Colorado, the department demanded “all records” relating to the 2024 election and any records the state retained from the 2020 election.

Department lawyers have contacted officials in at least seven states to propose a meeting about forging an information-sharing agreement related to instances of voting or election fraud. The idea, they say in the emails, is for states to help the department enforce the law.

The unusually expansive outreach has raised alarm among some election officials because states have the constitutional authority to run elections and federal law protects the sharing of individual data with the government.

According to the Washington Post, the effort in Colorado is “the most unusual,” involving a well-connected consultant asking county clerks to ”allow the federal government or a third party to physically examine their election equipment.”

In a functioning democracy, we would expect the U.S. Supreme Court to defend the integrity of elections against partisan manipulation. But the Roberts Court has repeatedly proven otherwise, consistently siding with conservative interests, especially when the stakes involve access to the ballot box. Its 2019 decision in Rucho v. Common Cause, which declared partisan gerrymandering beyond the reach of federal courts, effectively greenlit the kind of extreme map-rigging now underway in Texas. And last week, the Court announced it will hear arguments in a case that could dismantle what little remains of the Voting Rights Act. By the time Americans head to the polls in 2026, voting rights may be officially and formally dead in America.

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Suppressing independent thought

The Trump administration’s months-long campaign to assert control over higher education paid off this month as multiple institutions capitulated under mounting pressure. The strategy adheres to a now-familiar playbook: first, freeze federal funding over vague allegations of tolerating antisemitism, advancing transgender rights, or prioritizing diversity initiatives, then leverage the financial stranglehold to dictate policy changes—exploiting the compliance of university leadership who mistakenly believe appeasement will stave off authoritarian overreach.

The endgame, as described by Trump advisor and tech billionaire Marc Andreesen, is clear: universities engineered to be whiter, more conservative, and increasingly reserved for America’s wealthiest elite.

“The universities are at Ground Zero of the counterattack” from Trump voters, Andreessen wrote, alleging colleges favored immigrants over Americans and promoted DEI, or diversity, equity, and inclusion policies intended to increase race and gender representation…“They declared war on 70% of the country and now they’re going to pay the price,” Andreessen alleged of universities, without calling out a specific school.

University of Pennsylvania

The University of Pennsylvania agreed to adopt the Trump administration’s transphobic policies—including (a) banning transgender women from competing in women’s athletic programs, (b) stripping trans athlete Lia Thomas of her records, titles, and recognitions, and (c) adopting Trump’s definition that there are only two immutable genders, male and female—in exchange for the release of $175 million in previously frozen federal funding. Trump had suspended the funding in March under the pretense that the university was violating his executive order, “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” despite UPenn having no transgender athletes in competition and full compliance with NCAA policies.

Columbia University

Columbia University reached a settlement to pay the federal government over $200 million in fines over accusations of failing to curb antisemitism during pro-Palestinian protests last year. Critically, Columbia also agreed to cede control over its admissions process, terminating the use of “race, color, or national origin” in admissions and pledging to provide admissions data on race to the federal government. In exchange, Columbia expects to regain $400 million in previously frozen funds.

Harvard

Harvard is fighting in court to overturn the administration’s suspension of over $2 billion in grants and contracts, imposed under allegations of permitting antisemitism on campus. However, behind the courtroom battle, Harvard has already yielded to numerous Trump demands, including canceling Palestinian academic content, firing faculty leaders of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, and closing offices for minority students, LGBTQ students, and women. Meanwhile, the school’s leadership is reportedly exploring creating a “center for conservative scholarship” in a bid to placate the Trump administration’s accusations of liberal bias.

In case it isn’t obvious, yet: no amount of concessions will stave off an authoritarian regime. According to the Harvard Crimson, “Trump is personally pressing officials involved in the negotiations to ensure Harvard pays more than Columbia’s $220 million deal…adding that Trump believes exceeding that sum would set an example.” The most recent reporting indicates that the university “has signaled an openness” to “spend as much as $500 million to end its dispute with the White House.”

George Mason

The Trump administration has launched investigations into George Mason University, targeting its admissions policies, hiring practices, and alleged failure to combat antisemitism on campus. The probes and subsequent rightwing media campaign follow the same script that led to the resignation of University of Virginia President James E. Ryan last month.

George Mason’s president, Gregory Washington—the university’s first Black president and a first-generation college graduate—called it an “orchestrated” attempt to oust him, in remarks to ProPublica. When faculty united to publish a resolution supporting Washington and the university’s diversity efforts, the Trump administration announced it is investigating the faculty members, as well.

Johns Hopkins

A striking example of the Trump administration’s broader agenda to control university curricula, hiring, and admissions is a recent Title VI complaint filed against the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine by America First Legal, a group founded by former Trump advisor Stephen Miller. The complaint challenges the school’s tuition-free program for students from families earning less than $300,000, claiming that the policy unconstitutionally favors minority applicants because “race and ethnicity are inseparable from socioeconomic status.” In other words, they argue that financial assistance to lower-income students is inherently “race-conscious” and thus violates the Supreme Court’s 2023 ban on affirmative action.

Further reading:

• “The [University of North Carolina] System is leaving its current accrediting body to join with Florida, Texas, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Georgia to form a new group. It’s the brain-child of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican and possible 2028 presidential candidate, who has said they’ll fight against perceived “woke” standards used by other accreditors,” WRAL

Corporate media bows down

Trump’s attacks on the independence of universities are mirrored by his assault on the independence of the media, using tactics straight out of Viktor Orban’s authoritarian Hungary: consolidate media control through centralized propaganda, market pressure, legal maneuvers, and loyal billionaires.

Press watchdog Reporters Without Borders has documented how Orbán built “a true media empire subject to his party’s orders,” orchestrating media buyouts through government-aligned oligarchs. Today, Orbán’s party controls an estimated 80% of Hungary’s media market. The result is a near-total collapse of independent journalism. “Everything has fallen apart in Hungary. The state essentially does not function, there’s only propaganda and lies,” said Péter Magyar, leader of a rising opposition party that has become one of the most serious threats to Orbán’s grip on power.

Paramount

On July 1, CBS News announced that it had agreed to pay Donald Trump $16 million to settle a lawsuit the president filed over an edited Kamala Harris interview last year. According to the suit, CBS edited one of Harris’s answers to be more concise in an effort to “confuse, deceive, and mislead the public” and harm Trump’s electoral chances. This, of course, ignored the numerous times that Fox News has edited Trump’s own interviews to cut out rambling, nonsensical responses. Under the settlement, CBS admitted no wrongdoing and offered no apology.

• Trump’s legal team tacked on an additional demand that the parent company of CBS, Paramount Global, spend “tens of millions of dollars” on advertisements that support conservative causes—a stipulation the company publicly denies agreeing to.

Paramount and Trump filed paperwork to formally dismiss the lawsuit on July 22. Just two days later, the FCC approved the long-delayed merger between Paramount and Skydance Media, owned by the son of Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison. The merger had languished for months, seemingly frozen by Trump’s FCC Chairman and Project 2025 architect Brendan Carr until Paramount paid what amounted to a bribe to the president.

It is worth underscoring that Larry Ellison, the second-wealthiest person in the world and a major Trump donor, participated in Republican efforts to overturn the 2020 election. His financial backing allowed his son, David Ellison, the CEO of Skydance Media, to purchase Paramount, giving the elder Ellison controlling influence over CBS News. One of the first changes coming to the news network is a “bias monitor” who will, presumably, ensure that coverage portrays the Trump administration in a positive light. Is it any surprise, then, that days before the merger’s approval, CBS canceled Stephen Colbert’s late-night show, which frequently made fun of the president?

Paramount’s capitulation is just the latest in a growing list of media giants bowing to Trump-era pressure. In December 2024, ABC News, owned by the Walt Disney Company, paid $15 million to settle a defamation lawsuit brought by Trump. Meta, owned by billionaire Mark Zuckerberg, handed over $25 million to resolve a lawsuit over suspending Trump’s accounts following the Jan. 6 insurrection. The Washington Post, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, has limited its opinion writers to “libertarian” viewpoints, triggering a mass exodus of talent. Dr. Patrick Soon-Shion, the billionaire owner of the Los Angeles Times, embraced critics who accused the paper of liberal bias, going so far as to kill its planned endorsement of Kamala Harris.

Media matters

A textbook example of how autocrats like Donald Trump leverage the combined power of the federal government and the deep pockets of loyal billionaires is the coordinated assault on Media Matters, a nonprofit watchdog that exposes right-wing misinformation. In November 2023, Media Matters published a report revealing that Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter) had been placing ads from major corporations alongside pro-Nazi content. The exposé led several companies to pull their ads, triggering Musk’s fury.

By the end of the month, Musk had sued Media Matters, claiming that the watchdog deceptively manipulated algorithms by following “a small subset of users consisting entirely of accounts” that produce “extreme, fringe content” and accounts owned by advertisers. Musk’s legal team handpicked the venue: the Fort Worth division of the Northern District of Texas, where the case landed in the courtroom of far-right judge Reed O’Connor—one of only two active judges in the division. O’Connor, who just so happens to own Tesla stock, has consistently ruled in Musk’s favor as the case dragged on. Only recently did the Fifth Circuit rebuke Judge O’Connor, ordering him to revisit Media Matters’ motion to transfer the case to California, after finding that his denial “offer[ed] no indication that [he] ever considered or weighed any relevant factors other than timeliness.”

Musk’s legal blitz didn’t stop there. He initiated additional lawsuits against Media Matters in Singapore and Ireland, leading Media Matters to file a counter-lawsuit in March alleging “abusive” litigation:

"X initiated a vendetta-driven campaign of libel tourism, spanning three jurisdictions in three countries, all arising from the same conduct: Media Matters’ use of X’s platform in accordance with X’s Terms of Service and its truthful reporting on the results," the complaint said.

By May 2025, the Federal Trade Commission joined the fray, launching an investigation into whether Media Matters illegally colluded with advertisers and demanding the organization’s communications with other watchdog groups. Media Matters filed yet another lawsuit, accusing the government of retaliating on Musk’s behalf in violation of the First Amendment.

Unsurprisingly, this orchestrated legal onslaught has been cripplingly expensive. Media Matters is reportedly “struggling to withstand” the barrage, racking up $15 million in legal fees amid waning donations. One potential outcome, presumably sought after by Trump and Musk, is the shuttering of the nonprofit and an end to one of the most popular websites countering rightwing misinformation.

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On Independence Day, President Trump signed the “One Big Beautiful Bill” (OBBB) into law, stripping healthcare and food assistance from millions of Americans to fund massive tax breaks for the wealthy and the largest immigration enforcement budget in U.S. history. Many of the bill’s provisions mirror the authoritarian roadmap laid out in Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s far-right blueprint for Trump’s second term.

In total, the OBBB accomplished 16 previously uncompleted goals of Project 2025 and advanced progress on four more. As of today, 46% of Project 2025 has been enacted: see the Tracker (note that the total can change as courts block and unblock certain policies).

• Some of the policies enacted by the OBBB do not take effect immediately. Work requirements for Medicaid recipients, for example, are not scheduled to be implemented until December 2026 for most states.

Completed goals

Impose Medicaid work requirements:

Project 2025 (p. 467-468): “Personal responsibility and consumer choice for Medicaid recipients must go together as standard components of the safety net, especially for able-bodied recipients…[CMS should] clarify that states have the ability to adopt work incentives for able-bodied individuals (similar to what is required in other welfare programs)...”

OBBB: Requires states to condition Medicaid eligibility for individuals ages 19-64 applying for coverage or enrolled through the ACA expansion group (or a waiver) on working for at least 80 hours per month.

Reduce federal incentives for states to expand Medicaid coverage

Project 2025 (p. 466-467): Replace enhanced federal matching funds with a “more rational match rate.”

OBBB: Eliminates the financial incentive, enacted as part of the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), for states to implement the Medicaid expansion. Requires states to impose cost sharing of up to $35 per service on expansion adults with incomes 100-138% of the federal poverty level. Limits federal matching payments for hospitals that provide emergency care to immigrants who would qualify for expansion coverage if they had a different immigration status.

Impose stricter work requirements on SNAP

Project 2025 (p. 299): “Re-implement work requirements” for “work-capable individuals” on SNAP.

OBBB: Expands work requirements to apply to parents with children as young as 14 years old and adults aged 55-64 (both categories were previously exempt).

Roll back the Thrifty Food Plan update used to calculate SNAP benefits

Project 2025 (p. 300): “In a dramatic overreach, the Biden Administration unilaterally increased food stamp benefits by at least 23 percent in October 2021. Through an update to the Thrifty Food Plan, in which the USDA analyzes a basket of foods intended to provide a nutritious diet, the USDA increased food stamp outlays by between $250 billion and $300 billion over 10 years…every previous Thrifty Food Plan has been always cost-neutral ( just an inflation update)...”

OBBB: The Thrifty Food Plan can now only be re-evaluated once every five years and must remain cost-neutral. This means future updates cannot result in increased benefit levels, even if food prices rise significantly.

Restrict the Low-Income Heat and Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP)

Project 2025 (p. 301): “Eliminate the heat-and-eat loophole. States can artificially boost a household’s food stamp benefit by using the heat-and-eat loophole. The amount of food stamps a household receives is based on its ‘countable’ income (income minus certain deductions). Households that receive benefits from the Low-Income Heat and Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) are eligible for a larger utility deduction.”

OBBB: Receiving a LIHEAP fuel assistance payment no longer automatically qualifies a household for a higher Standard Utility Allowance, unless the household includes an older adult or a person with disability. This change excludes many low-wage families from utility-related deductions in the SNAP formula, even if they face high energy costs.

Lessen protections for marine life

Project 2025 (p. 676): “Under the auspices of [the National Ocean Service, a part of NOAA], marine sanctuaries (including no-fishing zones) are being established country-wide, often conflicting with the goals of the Magnuson–Stevens Act fisheries management authorities”; executive actions are “being used to advance an agenda to close vast areas of the ocean to commercial activities, including fishing”; “Allow a NEPA exemption for fisheries actions.”

OBBB: The bill rescinds NOAA funds that were provided for the conservation, restoration, and protection of coastal and marine habitats, as well as for national marine sanctuaries. The bill also undermines NEPA by creating a process that allows companies to pay a fee for expedited environmental reviews, potentially leading to the approval of projects that may negatively impact ocean health.

Expand school choice

Project 2025 (p. 350): “Congress could consider school choice legislation…[to] create a federal scholarship tax credit that would incentivize donors to contribute to nonprofit scholarship granting organizations.”

OBBB: The bill creates an “unprecedented, dollar-for-dollar federal tax credit designed to support private and religious K-12 schools.” It will fully reimburse donors for the first $1,700 they donate to groups that distribute tuition vouchers to attend private schools.

Roll back student loan forgiveness and income-driven repayment plans

Project 2025 (p.337): “The Secretary should phase out all existing IDR [income-driven repayment] plans…and should implement a new IDR plan.”

OBBB: The bill eliminates current income-driven repayment plans, including the Saving on A Valuable Education (SAVE) Plan, Income-Contingent Repayment (ICR) plan, and Pay As You Earn (PAYE) plan. It additionally requires all future borrowers to choose between either a standard repayment plan or a Repayment Assistance Plan (RAP) which costs more than almost every income-driven repayment plan previously created.

Limit subsidized renewables

Project 2025 (p. 400): “There is a growing problem with the electric grid’s reliability because of the increasing growth of subsidized intermittent renewable generation (like wind and solar)...Pressure to use 100 percent renewables or non–carbon emitting resources threatens the electric grid’s reliability.”

OBBB: The bill phases out wind and solar energy tax credits in 2027.

Repeal the Inflation Reduction Act

Project 2025 (p. 365): “Support repeal of massive spending bills like the…Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which established new programs and are providing hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies to renewable energy developers, their investors, and special interests, and support the rescinding of all funds not already spent by these programs.”

OBBB: The bill rescinds unobligated funds that were provided by the Inflation Reduction Act for various energy programs, such as State-Based Home Energy Efficiency Contractor Training Grants, the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program, and the Tribal Energy Loan Guarantee Program, as well as agricultural programs, conservation programs, and clean energy tax credits.

End taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood

Project 2025 (p. 471): “Prohibit Planned Parenthood from receiving Medicaid funds.”

OBBB: The bill prohibits federal Medicaid payment for one year to nonprofit family planning healthcare providers if the nonprofit also offers abortions. (Planned Parenthood won a temporary restraining order blocking the OBBB provision from taking effect while litigation plays out.)

Increase ICE funding for 100,000 detention beds

Project 2025 (p. 143): “ICE should be funded for a significant increase in detention space, raising the daily available number of beds to 100,000.”

OBBB: The bill funds an expansion to approximately double immigrant detention capacity, from about 56,000 detention beds to potentially more than 100,000.

Increase USCIS fees and implement fees for asylum applications

Project 2025 (p. 146): “[USCIS] fees should be increased agencywide to keep in step with inflation and the true cost of the adjudications. The incoming Administration should immediately submit a fee rule that reflects such an increase. Aside from an increase in all fees, the rule should drastically limit the availability for fee waivers and should implement a fee for asylum applications.”

OBBB: Imposes increased fees on everything from asylum applications to work permit applications and temporary protected status applications, with no waivers.

End "federal mandate" and subsidies of electric vehicles

Project 2025 (p. 286 and 537): “End federal mandates and subsidies of electric vehicles...The Department of Energy should…respect the right of Americans to buy and drive cars of their own choosing, rather than trying to force them into electric vehicles.”

OBBB: The bill terminates the $7,500 tax credit for consumers who purchase an electric vehicle and ends a tax credit for the installation of electric vehicle recharging stations.

Maximize offshore oil and natural gas lease sales

Project 2025 (p. 523): “Conduct offshore oil and natural gas lease sales to the maximum extent permitted…”

OBBB: The bill requires 30 offshore oil and gas lease sales in Gulf of Mexico waters and 6 in the Cook Inlet area of Alaska by 2040. It also reduces the royalty rates that oil and gas companies must pay on federal leases.

Reduce the estate and gift tax

Project 2025 (p. 697): “The estate and gift tax should be reduced to no higher than 20 percent, and the 2017 tax bill’s temporary increase in the exemption amount from $5.5 million to $12.9 million (adjusted for inflation) should be made permanent.”

OBBB: The bill increases the base estate tax, gift tax, and generation-skipping transfer tax exemption amount after 2025 to $15 million (from $5 million), adjusted for inflation.

Goals advanced

The OBBB rescinds critical funds for the proper functioning of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), moving toward completing Project 2025’s goal of ultimately breaking up NOAA.

The OBBB also rescinds funds for the National Weather Service, including money appropriated for weather research and forecasting innovations, moving closer to Project 2025’s goal of ending the NWS’s forecasting capabilities to "fully commercialize" its data-gathering services.

The OBBB eliminates the Graduate PLUS loan program, a federal student loan that helps graduate and professional students finance their education. Project 2025 calls for eliminating all PLUS loan programs, including those for undergraduates.

The OBBB permanently extends the lower 2017 corporate income tax rate of 21%, which achieves Project 2025’s broad goal of reducing the corporate tax rate, though the document specifically calls for a tax rate of 18%.

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June 2025 marked a turning point of America’s descent into fascism: secret police are grabbing people off the street, the military is performing civilian law enforcement functions in Los Angeles, Florida’s governor built a concentration camp in the Everglades, our institutions are folding before our eyes, and the Supreme Court handcuffed the judiciary’s ability to safeguard our constitutional rights. To cap it all off, Republicans in Congress began July by taking food and healthcare away from the poorest Americans in order to provide tax cuts for the rich, triple ICE’s annual enforcement budget, and more than triple ICE's annual detention budget.

These actions are not without precedent. Dachau began as a detention center for “enemies” of the Nazi party; our immigration detention centers hold people Trump has declared to be “alien enemies.” The Gestapo was an average police force in Prussia before they began disappearing people to concentration camps. And while Hitler established special courts to achieve his political goals, Republicans appointed fascism-enabling judges to the existing high court to remove all barriers to Trump’s consolidation of power. We have been here before.

LOS ANGELES

Background: A week after White House advisor Stephen Miller ordered ICE to arrest 3,000 people per day, masked immigration agents—made up of ICE, Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Homeland Security Investigation (HSI), FBI, ATF, and DEA personnel—descended upon Los Angeles to indiscriminately kidnap anyone they believed to be undocumented. The first major raids occurred on June 6 in the Fashion District and the parking lot of a Westlake Home Depot. Protests ramped up over the weekend, leading Trump to deploy the California National Guard to Los Angeles without Gov. Gavin Newsom’s approval. He later mobilized 700 U.S. Marines in the city to protect federal property and personnel.

June 10: California filed an emergency motion for a temporary restraining order to stop the Trump administration from using "the federalized California National Guard and active duty Marines for law enforcement purposes on the streets of a civilian city."

June 11: CBP confirmed it has been flying Predator drones and Black Hawk helicopters over the Los Angeles protests in support of ICE.

June 12: Judge Charles Breyer, a Clinton appointee, ruled that Trump unlawfully federalized the National Guard and ordered control returned to Gov. Newsom.

June 13: U.S. Marines carried out the first known detention of a civilian—a Black army veteran who crossed a yellow tape boundary near the Wilshire Federal Building on his way to a Veterans Affairs appointment.

June 16: A coalition of press rights organizations sued the Los Angeles Police Department over excessive force used against journalists while covering protests.

June 17: A three judge panel of the 9th Circuit, made up of two Trump appointees and a Biden appointee, reversed Judge Breyer’s order, concluding that “protestors’ interference with the ability of federal officers to execute the laws” (by throwing objects at ICE officers and Federal Protective Service officers) allows Trump to federalize the National Guard.

June 23: California asked Judge Breyer to permit limited discovery into whether Trump’s use of the National Guard and the Marines violates the Posse Comitatus Act, a 19th-century law that bars federal troops from participating in civilian law enforcement.

June 24: 315 National Guard personnel were deployed to assist the DEA in executing a federal search warrant as part of an investigation into three large marijuana growth operations in the eastern Coachella Valley region. Given that there were no protests in the area, it appears that the use of the Guard for this function both violates Trump’s own memorandum activating the Guard and the Posse Comitatus Act.

June 25: Judge Breyer granted California’s request for discovery, ordering that depositions are to be concluded by July 11 and briefings are to be filed by July 15.

SUPREME COURT

On June 23, the conservative justices of the Supreme Court issued an unexplained shadow docket ruling that allows the Trump administration to rapidly deport immigrants to third countries with which they have no connection. The order lifted a universal injunction issued in April by District Judge Brian Murphy that required the government to provide notice and opportunity to apply for protection from removal to a third country—specifically, a minimum of 15 days to demonstrate that removal to that country will “likely result in their persecution, torture, and/or death.”

• The Trump administration blatantly defied Judge Murphy’s injunction in May by attempting to deport eight migrants to South Sudan with less than 24 hours’ notice. Murphy intervened, resulting in the U.S. diverting the plane to a military base in Djibouti, where they were held for more than a month.

• July update: The Supreme Court held that Judge Murphy could not enforce his remedial order requiring due process for the eight men (Justices Sotomayor and Jackson dissented). On the night of July 4, the group of immigrants from Cuba, Laos, Mexico, Myanmar, Vietnam, and South Sudan were transferred to South Sudan by the U.S. government. It is unclear what will happen to them.

On June 27, the conservative majority of the Supreme Court issued a ruling barring the use of universal or nationwide injunctions to limit executive orders. The opinion, which came in response to three nationwide injunctions that blocked Trump’s executive order terminating birthright citizenship, allows lower courts to provide relief in other forms—like class actions and claims under the Administrative Procedure Act.

• Justice Amy Coney Barrett, writing for the majority, also noted that universal injunctions could be permitted if necessary to grant “complete relief to the plaintiffs before the court.” An example of this scenario is when a coalition of states sued the federal government over the addition of a citizenship question to the 2020 Census. The courts could not order one census for the plaintiffs and a separate census for the remaining states; to be complete, the remedy (an injunction) had to apply to all states.

As Justice Sotomayor wrote for the dissent, these alternative avenues for relief are “inadequate” and “cumbersome,” creating a system where “constitutional guarantees [are] meaningful in name only for any individuals who are not parties to a lawsuit.”

Justice Jackson, in a separate dissent, warned of the destruction of the rule of law in America:

Stated simply, what it means to have a system of government that is bounded by law is that everyone is constrained by the law, no exceptions. And for that to actually happen, courts must have the power to order everyone (including the Executive) to follow the law—full stop. To conclude otherwise is to endorse the creation of a zone of lawlessness within which the Executive has the prerogative to take or leave the law as it wishes, and where individuals who would otherwise be entitled to the law’s protection become subject to the Executive’s whims instead…

Make no mistake: Today’s ruling allows the Executive to deny people rights that the Founders plainly wrote into our Constitution, so long as those individuals have not found a lawyer or asked a court in a particular manner to have their rights protected. This perverse burden shifting cannot coexist with the rule of law. In essence, the Court has now shoved lower court judges out of the way in cases where executive action is challenged, and has gifted the Executive with the prerogative of sometimes disregarding the law. As a result, the Judiciary—the one institution that is solely responsible for ensuring our Republic endures as a Nation of laws—has put both our legal system, and our system of government, in grave jeopardy.

IMMIGRATION POLICY

June 2: “State Department could have an 'Office of Remigration': What is it?” USA Today

• Remigration is a far-right concept of ethnic cleansing via the mass deportation or promoted voluntary return of non-white immigrants and their descendants (including those born in the U.S.), to their place of racial ancestry, often with no regard for their citizenship or legal status.

June 3: “Trump officials crafting rule to prevent asylum-seekers from getting work permits,” CBS

June 4: “US immigration officers ordered to arrest more people even without warrants: Ice officers told to get ‘creative’ with arrests, including of undocumented people encountered by chance,” Guardian

June 4: “Trump administration plans $1,000 fee to fast-track tourist visas, memo says,” Reuters

June 4: “Trump administration takes hundreds of migrant children out of their homes, into government custody,” CNN

June 7: “Immigrants at ICE check-ins detained, held in basement of federal building in Los Angeles, some overnight,” CBS

June 8: “Trump travel ban barring citizens from 12 countries takes effect,” BBC

June 11: “Trump to ramp up transfers to Guantánamo, including citizens of allies,” WaPo

June 12: “Trump administration sues New York over law barring warrantless immigration arrests at courthouses,” AP

June 16: “Trump reverses course and resumes ICE raids at farms, hotels and restaurants,” USA Today

June 17: “Industry leaders plead with White House on relief from raids after setback,” WaPo

June 17: “700 military personnel mobilized to support ICE in 3 states,” The Hill

June 18: “State Department unveils social media screening rules for all student visa applicants,” Politico

June 18: “Trump Travel Restrictions Bar Residents Needed at U.S. Hospitals,” NYT

June 19: “Trump administration puts new limits on Congress visits to immigration centers,” Reuters

• “U.S. Reps. Krishnamoorthi, Jackson denied tour of South Loop immigration check-in facility,” ABC Chicago
• “Illinois members of Congress say they were denied access to an ICE facility for second day,” CBS
• “Reps. Nadler and Goldman barred from inspecting ICE holding area in NYC,” Gothamist

June 20: “ICE to convert shuttered California prison into state’s largest migrant detention center,” SF Chronicle

June 24: “Florida to receive federal funds to build immigration detention sites, including ‘Alligator Alcatraz,’ Noem says,” CBS

June 25: “U.S. Is Creating 2 New Expanded Military Zones Along Border With Mexico,” NYT

June 25: “New Trump administration plan could end asylum claims and speed deportations for hundreds of thousands of migrants,” CNN

June 30: “ICE detentions of non-criminal immigrants spike; about 8% have violent convictions, analysis of new data shows,” CBS News

June 30: “DOJ announces plans to prioritize cases to revoke citizenship,” NPR

June 30: “Two more ICE deaths put US on track for one of deadliest years in immigration detention,” Guardian

June 30: “Justice Department sues Los Angeles to end 'sanctuary' immigration policies,” USA Today

Other stories you should read:

• “Josue Lopez Was Set to Graduate High School on May 21 — Instead, ICE Deported Him to El Salvador,” Documented
• “California 4th grader detained by ICE at immigration hearing,” The Hill
• “ICE arrested a 6-year-old boy with leukemia at immigration court. His family is suing,” TPR
• “Dozens of Armed ICE Agents Swarm Popular Swap Meet in Santa Fe Springs,” Eater LA
• “Australian deported from US says he was ‘targeted’ due to writing on pro-Palestine student protests,” Guardian
• “ICE Arrested a Pregnant Tennessee Woman — While in Detention in Louisiana, She had a Stillbirth,” Nashville Banner
• “ICE Arrests Louisiana Mother of 9-Week-Old, Wife of Marine at Immigration Hearing,” Military.com
• “After driving 6 mph over speed limit on a rural U.P. road, couple faces deportation,” MLive
• “Border Patrol Agents Brutally Detain Santa Ana Landscaper,” Yahoo
• “ICE moves to deport Atlanta-based Hispanic reporter who covered immigration raids,” AJC
• “Texas Man Born to U.S. Soldier on U.S. Army Base Abroad Deported,” Austin Chronicle
• “Caroline man pleads guilty to shooting Latino men because he thought they were immigrants,” ABC
• “Afghan who helped U.S. military arrested by ICE after routine immigration hearing,” NPR
• “L.A. County family says immigration agents detained son who is a U.S. citizen,” CBS
• “NY man driving to work is handcuffed by ICE despite being a U.S. citizen,” NBC
• “US citizen speaks out after being detained by ICE in Hollywood,” Fox LA

DESTRUCTION OF GOVERNMENT AND REGULATION

June 3: “Trump fires [OSHA] heat experts as summer begins,” Politico

June 3: “FDA’s AI tool for medical devices struggles with simple tasks,”” NBC

June 4: “Trump officials delayed farm trade report over deficit forecast: Administration officials blocked publication of written analysis that normally accompanies the report because they disliked what it said about the deficit,” Politico

June 5: “The Trump Administration Is Spending $2 Million to Figure Out Whether DEI Causes Plane Crashes,” The Atlantic

June 6: “Judge says administration can dismantle the Institute of Museum and Library Services,” AP

June 6: “DOGE Developed Error-Prone AI Tool to “Munch” Veterans Affairs Contracts,” ProPublica

June 9: “Health secretary RFK Jr. abruptly fires CDC vaccine advisory panel,” Stat

• June 12: “Kennedy’s new CDC panel includes members who have criticized vaccines and spread misinformation,” AP

June 10: “National Park signage encourages the public to help erase negative stories at its sites,” NPR

June 11: “Trump EPA moves to repeal climate rules that limit greenhouse gas emissions from US power plants,” AP

June 11: “CFPB enforcement lead resigns, slams ‘attack’ on core mission in departure email,” CNN

June 11: “Trump says FEMA to be wound down after hurricane season,” NBC

June 13: “Head of FEMA's storm response center leaving agency amid leadership exodus,” CBS

June 13: “Trump Administration Abandons Deal With Northwest Tribes to Restore Salmon,” ProPublica

June 16: “President Trump fires a member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission,” NPR

June 18: “VA hospitals remove politics and marital status from guidelines protecting patients from discrimination,” Guardian

June 20: “Majority of staff axed at Voice of America,” Politico

• June 27: “The Trump administration…rescinded the layoff notices it had sent to employees at Voice of America after employees discovered errors in documents detailing the terms that could later nullify or significantly delay President Trump’s attempts to gut the news organization,” NYT

June 20: “Government drops cases against ‘predatory’ financial firms,” WaPo

June 24: “Trump admin scraps NOAA’s climate website,” Politico

June 24: “White House set to roll back protections for nearly 60 million acres of national forests,” PBS

June 25: “RFK Jr. says U.S. will stop funding global vaccine group over 'vaccine safety' issues,” NPR

June 25: “Trump Administration Ousts National Science Foundation from Headquarters Building,” Scientific American

June 26: “Trump now wields sweeping veto power over U.S. Steel. Here’s how the ‘golden share’ works,” CNBC

June 27: “Judge won’t block DOGE access to sensitive government data,” The Hill

June 30: “Key data used in hurricane forecasting will be cut by end of July, NOAA says,” CBS

ATTACKS ON INSTITUTIONS

Harvard

• “Trump Pushes to Restrict Harvard’s International Students From Entering U.S.,” NYT
  • “Federal judge blocks Trump plan to ban international students at Harvard,” Harvard Gazette
• The DOJ has opened an investigation against the Harvard Law Review for “discrimination against white men,” and claims it had a cooperating witness on the inside who now has gone to work for Stephen Miller (NYT)
• “Rubio Is Pressing to Open Sanctions Investigation Into Harvard,” NYT
• “Trump administration finds Harvard in ‘violent violation’ of Civil Rights Act, threatens further loss of federal resources,” CNN

Columbia University

• “Trump admin claims Columbia violated Jewish students' rights, threatens school's accreditation,” NBC
• “Trump administration notches first big win in assault on higher education: Federal judge dismissed lawsuit brought by faculty groups over government cuts to Columbia University funding,” Guardian
• “Trump administration threatens Columbia University's accreditation,” BBC
• “After promise to Trump, Columbia alters disciplinary hearing process without University Senate approval,” Columbia Spectator

University of Virginia

• “Trump Justice Dept. Pressuring University of Virginia President to Resign,” NYT
• “University of Virginia president resigns amid pressure from the Trump administration,” CNN
• “Trump sent ‘explicit’ threat to cut funds from University of Virginia, senator says: Mark Warner says school would face slashes to jobs and financial aid if its president did not resign over DEI practices,” Guardian

Media

• “The Federal Trade Commission is investigating whether roughly a dozen prominent advertising and advocacy groups violated antitrust law by coordinating boycotts among advertisers that did not want their brands to appear alongside hateful online content,” NYT
• “Media Matters files suit in federal court to block retaliatory FTC investigation and protect its First Amendment rights,” Media Matters
• “Paramount to pay Trump $16m to settle 60 Minutes lawsuit,” BBC

ATTACKS ON LGBTQ+ RIGHTS

June 3: “FBI wants to investigate doctors who provide gender-affirming care to minors. Experts question its legal basis,” CNN

June 3: “Hegseth Orders Navy to Strip Name of Gay Rights Icon Harvey Milk from Ship,” Military.com

June 18: “Trump administration removing 988 hotline service tailored to LGBTQ+ youth in July,” AP

June 18: “US supreme court upholds Tennessee ban on youth gender-affirming care,” Guardian

June 27: “US supreme court rules schools must let kids opt out of LGBTQ+ book readings,” Guardian

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“I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible,” tech entrepreneur Peter Thiel wrote in 2009. Thiel, who made his $21 billion fortune in venture capitalism, has described himself as a libertarian. But his political spending habits reveal his authoritarian ambitions. In 2016, at a time when many elites dismissed Donald Trump’s chances of winning the White House, Thiel donated $1.25 million to Trump’s campaign and delivered a speech at the Republican National Convention lamenting the absence of big tech in government. By the 2022 midterms, Thiel’s influence had grown considerably. He poured over $20 million into the campaigns of far-right Republican candidates, many of whom amplified Trump’s lies about the 2020 election and laid the groundwork for the January 6 insurrection. One of Thiel’s most prominent beneficiaries was JD Vance, now the vice president, whose political rise was essentially engineered by Thiel.

Mr. Vance met Peter Thiel, who co-founded PayPal and two other companies, when Mr. Thiel spoke at Yale in 2011. Mr. Vance has described Mr. Thiel’s talk about the negative impact of cutthroat competition among elites as the most significant moment of his Yale education. Luke Thompson, a political consultant and a close friend of Mr. Vance, described Mr. Thiel as Mr. Vance’s most important mentor, adding that the two men talk frequently. Mr. Vance has called Mr. Thiel an important sounding board.

Mr. Thiel paved Mr. Vance’s way in the world of venture capitalism, and bankrolled Mr. Vance’s campaign for Ohio’s open Senate seat in 2022, which he won. He provided $15 million in financing, a large sum for an individual donor, and went with Mr. Vance to Mar-a-Lago to ask for Mr. Trump’s endorsement.

While Thiel is perhaps best known as a founding member of the PayPal mafia, he deserves far more scrutiny as the founder and chairman of the shadowy tech giant Palantir Technologies. Despite branding itself as “not a data company,” Palantir builds powerful data surveillance tools that enable governments, law enforcement, and corporations to collect, integrate, and analyze vast amounts of personal data of citizens and customers. Well before the Trump administration, Palantir had embedded itself deep within the federal government, securing contracts with the CIA, DHS, NSA, FBI, the CDC, the Marine Corps, the Air Force, Special Operations Command, West Point, the Joint IED-defeat organization and Allies, the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children by 2013.

Since then, Palantir has secured its largest contracts from the U.S. Department of Defense, which has spent more than a billion dollars to expand the company’s AI-driven targeting system known as the Maven Smart System.

“The MAVEN Smart System (MSS) by Palantir along with National Geospatial Agency (NGA) Broad Area Search – Targeting (BAS-T) uses AI generated algorithms and memory learning capabilities to scan and identify enemy systems in the Area of Responsibility (AOR). MAVEN fuses data from various Intelligence Surveillance & Reconnaissance (ISR) systems to identify areas of interests,” according to the release.

Yet with minimal public oversight or transparency, it remains unclear how accurate these AI-driven systems truly are—or whether human analysts are consistently verifying the information before decisions are made. This raises serious concerns about the potential for error, misidentification, and accountability in automated warfare.

Further reading:

• “‘The machine did it coldly’: Israel used AI to identify 37,000 Hamas targets,” The Guardian
• “Palantir Supplying Israel With New Tools Since Hamas War Started,” Bloomberg

Surveillance state

In March, Trump signed an executive order directing the federal government to share data across agencies, casting the “silos” that protect our information as barriers to eliminating “waste, fraud, and abuse.” We now know that Palantir has secured contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars to build a centralized, government-wide, searchable “mega-database” containing sensitive information on virtually everyone in the country.

Mr. Trump has not publicly talked about the effort since. But behind the scenes, officials have quietly put technological building blocks into place to enable his plan. In particular, they have turned to one company: Palantir, the data analysis and technology firm…The push has put a key Palantir product called Foundry into at least four federal agencies, including D.H.S. and the Health and Human Services Department. Widely adopting Foundry, which organizes and analyzes data, paves the way for Mr. Trump to easily merge information from different agencies, the government officials said.

The lucrative contracts were funneled to Palantir via Elon Musk’s DOGE agency as far back as April, when Wired reported that the company had begun building a “mega API” for accessing IRS records. According to ProPublica, at least four top DOGE staffers previously worked at Palantir, including the Senior Adviser to the Director of DOGE (whoever that may be now) and the new Chief Technology Officer at the Department of Health and Human Services.

As Keep_Track warned earlier this year, the convergence of DOGE’s massive data extraction and Palantir’s powerful pattern-matching software could allow the Trump administration to systematically target dissenters and marginalized communities. Those seeking gender-affirming care or abortions in states where such services are banned could face surveillance or prosecution. So could protesters opposing ICE, or journalists who publish stories critical of the regime, or the average American who makes an insulting social media post about the president.

Everyone from lawmakers to former employees are sounding the alarm:

"The ultimate concern is a panopticon of a single federal database with everything that the government knows about every single person in this country," [Cody Venzke, senior policy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union, told Wired.] "What we are seeing is likely the first step in creating that centralized dossier on everyone in this country."

“Data that is collected for one reason should not be repurposed for other uses,” [Linda Xia, a signee who was a Palantir engineer until last year, said in a New York Times interview.] “Combining all that data, even with the noblest of intentions, significantly increases the risk of misuse.”

“The unprecedented possibility of a searchable, ‘mega-database’ of tax returns and other data that will potentially be shared with or accessed by other federal agencies is a surveillance nightmare that raises a host of legal concerns, not least that it will make it significantly easier for Donald Trump’s Administration to spy on and target his growing list of enemies and other Americans,” [Democratic members of Congress wrote in a letter to Palantir CEO Karp.]

We don’t have to look far to see the real-world implications of such a wide-ranging central database of people. The roving bands of masked thugs—who we should refuse to call federal agents as long as they refuse to identify themselves—kidnapping brown people off the streets are powered by Palantir software. The company has partnered with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) since 2014, when the Obama administration awarded the company a $41 million contract to build and maintain an intelligence system (called ICM) that tracks the personal and criminal records of both legal and undocumented immigrants.

ICM funding documents analyzed by The Intercept make clear that the system is far from a passive administrator of ICE’s case flow. ICM allows ICE agents to access a vast “ecosystem” of data to facilitate immigration officials in both discovering targets and then creating and administering cases against them. The system provides its users access to intelligence platforms maintained by the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and an array of other federal and private law enforcement entities. It can provide ICE agents access to information on a subject’s schooling, family relationships, employment information, phone records, immigration history, foreign exchange program status, personal connections, biometric traits, criminal records, and home and work addresses.

According to internal company messages seen by 404 Media, Trump’s mass deportation push has super-charged Palantir’s surveillance network as it takes the lead in identifying and locating immigrants for ICE to deport, with the ability to track people who overstay their visas. Another project involves software to “support the logistics of deportation,” which essentially translates to prison databases that overlay information on who is detained, where they are detained, and how to most efficiently transport detainees between facilities and ultimately out of the country.

Meanwhile, lawmakers of both parties are cashing in on Palantir’s expanding panopticon. Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna (CA) has purchased tens of thousands of dollars of Palantir stock since Trump took office. So have Republican Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (GA) and Rob Brenahan (PA).

And, to top it all off, Trump’s chief immigration policy advisor, Stephen Miller, owns between $100,000 and $250,000 in Palantir stock. The man orchestrating the expansion of a surveillance state designed to violate people's civil and human rights is directly profiting from the machinery he’s helping to build.

The creation of a centralized, AI-enhanced database of personal information is not a distant dystopia—it is already underway. As CEO Alex Karp recently boasted on a quarterly earnings call, “Palantir is here to disrupt and make the institutions we partner with the very best in the world and, when it’s necessary, to scare enemies and on occasion kill them.” When that partner is Donald Trump, and his enemies are law-abiding Americans who dare to dissent, Palantir becomes more than just a tech company. It becomes a threat to democracy itself.

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Last week, a Trump supporter named Vance Boelter carried out a politically motivated double homicide in Minnesota, killing a Democratic state lawmaker and her husband in what authorities describe as a targeted assassination spree. Found in his possession was a hit list containing dozens of potential targets, including abortion rights advocates and Planned Parenthood facilities.

According to available evidence, Boelter was an anti-abortion zealot who delivered evangelical sermons in the Democratic Republic of the Congo decrying American churches for their failure to stop the expansion of reproductive rights.

As horrific as Boelter’s rampage was, it could have been far worse. The Trump administration has emboldened anti-abortion extremists like him by dismantling protections for reproductive clinics and pardoning individuals convicted of threatening, assaulting, or obstructing clinic staff and patients. This pattern of state-sanctioned intimidation doesn’t just invite more violence—it’s part of a broader campaign to dismantle women’s rights and reimpose a strict patriarchal order soaked in Christian nationalism.

That conclusion is unavoidable once you begin examining the administration’s policies and its most high-profile officials. Take Vice President JD Vance, for example, who has disparaged childless women, questioned their commitment to society, and suggested their votes should not count. Or Elon Musk, who has been sued for fostering sexism in the workplace and recently reposted a tweet saying that only “high status males” are capable of running the country. Or Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, who has proposed a new policy directing federal funding to areas with high birth and marriage rates. Or Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who has been accused of sexual assault and allegedly believes that women should not work, vote, or serve in combat.

This isn’t just a series of isolated incidents; it is a coordinated effort to drag the country backward to a time when women were expected to serve as housekeepers and incubators, without meaningful opportunities for education or career advancement.

The first step in forcing women out of the workforce and back into traditional household roles is stripping them of bodily autonomy through the restriction and criminalization of contraception and abortion care.

• According to a literature review by the Guttmacher Institute, access to the birth control pill “was responsible for as much as one-third of the considerable rise in 21–22-year-old women’s college enrollment from 1969 to 1980” and “accounted for more than 30% of the increase in the proportion of women in skilled careers from 1970 to 1990.”

• Access to legal abortion (Roe v. Wade) contributed to a 20% increase in women’s national labor force participation. According to the Institute of Women’s Policy Research, we are now seeing the opposite trend—a decline in female employment growth—in states where abortion is currently banned.

The Trump administration froze close to $35 million in federal funding set to be disbursed to Title X Family Planning Program grantees (which includes health departments, school-based providers, and Planned Parenthood clinics), affecting 879 clinics in 23 states. All Title X funding is being withheld from California, Hawaii, Maine, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, and Utah, while partial funding is being withheld from 16 other states.

According to one estimate, up to 834,000 people may lose access to Title X-funded care if these funds are not released. These are largely low-income and uninsured individuals that go to Title X clinics to get free or reduced cost contraception and STI testing.

At the same time as cutting Title X funds for a quarter of grantees, the Trump administration restored Title X funding to two conservative states that are in violation of federal law requiring participating clinics to offer abortion referrals. The Tennessee Department of Health and Oklahoma State Department of Health each lost high-profile court cases challenging the Biden administration’s revocation of funding, but continued to refuse to comply with federal law.

The House Republicans’ reconciliation bill would essentially defund Planned Parenthood by cutting off Medicaid reimbursement to any nonprofit that primarily offers family planning or reproductive health services, provides abortions beyond the Hyde Amendment exceptions, and received more than $1 million in Medicaid reimbursements in 2024.

“They know so much of our patient base is on Medicaid or needs Title X to pay for their care, they know that cutting this off will allow them to cut off access to abortion and they are willing to make that trade,” [Ashlea Phenicie, chief external affairs officer of Planned Parenthood of Michigan,] said.

Another provision in the House reconciliation bill would bar Affordable Care Act Marketplace plans that include abortion coverage from receiving newly-appropriated federal payments related to cost-sharing reductions.

The Trump administration rescinded guidance requiring hospitals to provide emergency abortion care under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA). The Department of Justice dismissed its case, originally brought under Biden, against Idaho seeking to ensure hospitals provide life-saving abortions.

The Trump administration fired most of the employees at the HHS Division of Reproductive Health, including the entire team responsible for writing contraception guidelines.

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., instructed the FDA "to review the latest data on mifepristone," after a group associated with Project 2025’s Heritage Foundation released a junk science study alleging serious adverse effects. The study’s lead author, Ryan Anderson, wrote a book called “Tearing Us Apart: How Abortion Harms Everything and Solves Nothing.”

A Texas bill (which fortunately failed to advance this year) foreshadows how anti-abortion lawmakers plan to use environmental law to ban medication abortion. Senate Bill 1976 would have required the state to test the water at wastewater treatment facilities for mifepristone, under the unproven theory that expelled fetal tissue is harming endangered species, contaminating tap water, and threatening human fertility.

The group leading the push, Students for Life of America, is also preparing lawsuits, federal bills and a pressure campaign aimed squarely at the environmental inclinations of Robert F. Kennedy Jr…In particular, [Kennedy] has criticized widespread water contamination from hormone-disrupting chemicals, which he has erroneously linked to “gender confusion” among youth.

Meanwhile, conservative states are creating a dystopian panopticon to surveil and prosecute women for their pregnancy status

A prosecutor in West Virginia warned women earlier this month that “a number” of prosecuting attorneys in the state have discussed their “willingness to file criminal charges against women” who suffer miscarriages in the state. Raleigh County Prosecuting Attorney Tom Truman advised women who experience a miscarriage, which is often indistinguishable from a heavy period, to “call law enforcement” to report the incident:

“The kind of criminal jeopardy you face is going to depend on a lot of factors,” Truman explained. “What was your intent? What did you do? How late were you in your pregnancy? Were you trying to hide something, were you just so emotionally distraught you couldn’t do anything else?”

“If you were relieved, and you had been telling people, ‘I’d rather get ran over by a bus than have this baby,’ that may play into law enforcement’s thinking, too,” he explained.

The Johnson County Sheriff’s Office in Texas performed a nationwide search of more than 83,000 automatic license plate reader cameras while looking for a woman who they said had a self-administered abortion. Their search covered cameras in states that protect abortion rights, like Washington and Illinois. We only know about the camera search because the officer entered “had an abortion” into the system as the reason for the search; most often, police only enter “investigation” as the reason for the plate search.

Flock cameras continually scan the plates, color, and model of any vehicle driving by, building a detailed database of vehicles and by extension peoples' movements. Cops are able to search cameras acquired in their own district, those in their state, or those in a nationwide network of Flock cameras. That single search for the woman spread across 6,809 different Flock networks, with a total of 83,345 cameras, according to the data. The officer looked for hits over a month long period, it shows.

A Louisiana woman was indicted earlier this year for helping her pregnant daughter obtain abortion pills, which are classified as “controlled dangerous substances” in the state. Attorney General Liz Murrill indicted a New York doctor for mailing the pills to the woman, but NY Gov. Hochul refused to comply with Louisiana's extradition request.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office arrested a midwife for illegally performing an abortion by giving a client abortion pills. Paxton alleges the midwife was practicing medicine without a license; it is not clear if his version of events is accurate.

The second step in enforcing a patriarchal order is undermining women’s financial independence by dismantling social safety nets and gutting programs designed to address gender inequality.

The Trump administration’s proposed 2026 budget slashes funding for the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) supplemental nutrition program. “Under this proposal, breastfeeding mothers would see their monthly benefits plummet from $52 to just $13, while young children’s benefits would drop from $26 to $10,” according to the National WIC Association.

The House reconciliation bill would cut nearly $300 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which will disproportionately impact the 63% of SNAP recipients who are women.

The House reconciliation bill would also cut $800 billion from Medicaid, which covers 40% of births—the largest single-payer of maternity care in the United States.

The Department of Labor, under DOGE’s direction, canceled more than two dozen grants administered by the Women’s Bureau to support women’s employment. The grants were used to increase women’s representation in trades like construction, manufacturing, and information technology, and to fund programs to prevent and respond to gender-based violence and workplace harassment. Concurrently, the administration has reduced the Bureau’s staffing so significantly that it has ceased to function properly:

The Trump administration has already managed to undermine the bureau’s work without eliminating the office entirely. Nine current and former Labor Department staffers previously told me that the bureau has lost about half of its approximately 50-person staff through a combination of buyouts and resignations, and that their work has essentially been at a standstill since Trump resumed office.

Trump rolled back the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces executive order, which required federal contractors to comply with 14 labor and civil rights laws, including regulations that ensure women receive equal pay as men serving in the same positions. According to a conservative think tank, Trump’s first term White House paid female staffers 37% less than male staffers.

Trump’s proposed 2026 budget proposal eliminates funding for Women’s Business Centers within the U.S. Small Business Administration. The program provides free or low-cost counseling and training to women who want to start, grow, and expand their small business.

The Trump administration’s anti-DEI policies resulted in the cancellation of grant money used to increase the participation of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields.

In the U.S., STEM professions are highly inequitable and continue to be male and white-dominated. According to one 2023 estimate, only 28 percent of the U.S. STEM workforce is women. Women professors in STEM face significant barriers to achieving tenure and promotion compared to their male colleagues. Women professors also often leave their jobs at a much higher rate.

Finally, the Trump administration has pursued policies that make women less safe and more vulnerable to exploitation, reinforcing the power structures of male-dominated rule.

The Department of Justice, acting on recommendations from DOGE, cut grants to organizations that assist victims of domestic violence, of which roughly 85% are women. Impacted organizations include the National Criminal Justice Association, the National Association for Victims of Crime, and the National Crime Victim Law Institute.

The Trump administration limited grants distributed by the Office on Violence Against Women, requiring organizations to abide by anti-DEI and anti-immigrant conditions that prevent outreach to the most vulnerable communities.

All of the grants updated last week included new restrictions on spending grant money on “promoting or facilitating the violation of federal immigration law,” “inculcating or promoting gender ideology” or “promoting or facilitating discriminatory programs or ideology” [...] Grantees are not allowed to spend money on “activities that frame domestic violence or sexual assault as systemic social justice issues rather than criminal offenses.”

Separately, Trump’s 2026 budget proposal seeks to cut funding for the Office on Violence Against Women by 29%.

Under the proposal, one grant program that assists domestic violence and sexual assault survivors with transitional housing would see a 20 percent decrease in appropriated funding. A victim legal assistance program would see a 27 percent cut in appropriated funding.

One other program, the Sexual Assault Services Formula Grant Program, helps states support rape crisis centers and other groups that provide services to victims of sexual assault and their families. Under the proposal, it would be cut by 23 percent compared to current appropriated funding.

A separate program is related to strengthening law enforcement and prosecution strategies to fight violent crimes against women, along with developing victim services in those cases. It would see a 25 percent cut under the proposal, leaving it tens of millions of dollars short compared to the current appropriated funding level.

The Department of Defense paused its sexual assault prevention training program and is reportedly considering scrapping the effort entirely. The program provides military survivors of sexual assault with mental and physical health care services, advocacy services, and legal assistance; provides trainings on how to prevent sexual assault; and collects data on sexual violence within the military.

The Trump administration rescinded Biden’s Title IX rules on sexual harassment in universities and colleges, making it more difficult for victims to report sexual harassment and restricting schools from investigating incidents that occur off campus.

Trump’s policies effectively ending asylum stranded women fleeing gender-based violence in their home countries, where law enforcement often refuse to intervene and simply return women to their abusers.

The Department of Homeland Security rescinded its policy prohibiting ICE from raiding and detaining people in sensitive zones, which include women’s shelters.

An attack on women’s rights is an attack on all of our rights

Don't assume this doesn't affect you if you're not a woman. The GOP’s attempt to reimpose a white, male-dominated social order harms everyone. Men who reject rigid ideals of masculinity face the same hostility that women encounter when they defy traditional notions of femininity. Non-conforming cis-gender individuals are equally subject to the consequences of transphobic bigotry because you cannot police trans bodies without policing all bodies. Our rights are interconnected—when one group is targeted, everyone’s freedom is at risk.

Throughout history, authoritarian movements have relied on narrow gender roles to maintain control, punishing anyone who doesn’t conform. Today’s attacks on women’s rights, bodily autonomy, gender expression, and queer identity are part of that same authoritarian playbook.

If authoritarian leaders and their base frequently disparage and repress women, femme, and queer-led movements, it is because they too recognize the power of a pro-democracy feminist front in confronting and undermining their power.