A rather unusual series of events over the past 48 hours has exposed the extent of the CIA’s involvement in counternarcotics operations in Mexico. A brief timeline to catch you up: talkingpointsmemo.com/morning-memo...

Update: Kash Patel has filed this morning a defamation lawsuit against the Atlantic and staff writer Sarah Fitzpatrick in federal court in D.C. www.courtlistener.com/docket/73213...

Co-sign. @talkingpointsmemo.com is a must-read.

Enjoyed speaking with @texaspublicradio.bsky.social about this story www.tpr.org/podcast/texa...

A ton of prime Morning Memo fodder today, starting with The Atlantic's devastating account of Kash Patel’s first year as FBI director. Most of the piece focuses on Patel’s alleged drinking on the job. The anecdotes were numerous … and astounding: talkingpointsmemo.com/morning-memo...

CNN: "The Justice Department has removed the career Miami federal prosecutor leading the investigation into John Brennan, after she resisted pressure to quickly bring charges against the former CIA director and prominent critic of President Donald Trump, according to people briefed on the matter."

In a dramatic scene that unfolded in the wee hours this morning, members of the House defeated a ploy by the administration and Speaker Johnson to ram through a 5-year reauthorization of FISA Section 702. Here’s what happened, and what will/should happen next. 1/20

Nominally independent media institutions celebrating press freedom by serving canapés to president fake news is some bleak, black comedy but the venue is chef’s kiss

NEW: We obtained the government’s settlement agreement with Michael Flynn. As previously reported, DOJ agreed to pay $1.25 million to settle Flynn’s claims that he was wrongfully prosecuted. But docs suggest a separate settlement could be in the works: www.lawfaremedia.org/article/u.s....

Local authorities in Minnesota have charged an ICE agent for brandishing his gun in a road-rage-style incident that could end up being an important test case for whether states can successfully prosecute federal agents in Trump’s mass deportation operation. talkingpointsmemo.com/morning-memo...

A thin-skinned and prickly Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth went off on journalists in his press conference this morning, resorting to the classic “attack the messenger” defense to a unpopular war going poorly. talkingpointsmemo.com/morning-memo...

The descent of the Justice Department into a crude weapon wielded by an erratic authoritarian is gathering speed and quickening the threat to America’s fraying democracy in ways that we all feared but hoped might be kept at bay for a bit longer. talkingpointsmemo.com/morning-memo...

This is a good reminder of an important revisions to the truisms of American politics. It has long been one of those truisms, among those interested in he reality of the situation as opposed to campaign rhetoric that a US President has little control over the economy, at least in the near term …

Important stuff here from @davidkurtz.bsky.social. Trump isn’t a normal president getting upended by business cycles and trends outside his control. All the challenges/crises facing the US economy today are unequivocally the results of Trumps actions talkingpointsmemo.com/morning-memo...

TPM's @joshkovensky.bsky.social reports from Frisco, Texas, on the rancid furor on the far right that the fast-growing city's sizable Asian community is a prime example of the Great Replacement Theory in action: talkingpointsmemo.com/news/frisco-...

A great point by @davidkurtz.bsky.social. Campaign against corruption! morningmemo.talkingpointsmemo.com/p/trumps-cor...

The Trump administration is being saved again from its flagrant contempt of court in the original Alien Enemies Act case, this time by two Trump-appointed judges on the DC Circuit. talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/dc-ci...

In the aftermath of Viktor Orban’s defeat in Hungary, a typically shallow conventional wisdom has already emerged that unless President Trump gets the economy turned around, Republicans are going to have hell to pay in the 2026 and 2028 elections. talkingpointsmemo.com/morning-memo...

Amen

If you spent the weekend enjoying Spring, you’ll be forgiven if you’re a tad disoriented this Monday morning. Today's Morning Memo will get you situated in brisk and breezy fashion: talkingpointsmemo.com/morning-memo...

Staff At Minnesota Deportation Hub Received ‘Obscene’ Trump-Themed Challenge Coins Adorned With Skulls talkingpointsmemo.com/news/staff-a...

Old TPM fave Sebastian Gorka has been pretty under-the-radar on Trump’s second term National Security Council, but now he pops up as a leader of what you might call the internationalization of the administration’s effort to criminalize left-wing opposition: talkingpointsmemo.com/morning-memo...

Warned about that last month. www.justsecurity.org/133361/iran-...

In Jan, a senior Pentagon official summoned the Vatican ambassador and issued a stunning threat, The Free Press reported this week: “The United States has the military power to do whatever it wants in the world. The Catholic Church had better take its side.” talkingpointsmemo.com/morning-memo...

"Four ships were allowed to pass Wednesday, the fewest so far in April, according S&P Global Market Intelligence. Iran is requiring ships to work out toll arrangements ahead of time and then pay the fees in cryptocurrency or Chinese yuan, mediators and shipbrokers said." www.wsj.com/world/middle...

I've been an @talkingpointsmemo.com subscriber pretty much since they started the model. Worth every penny.

The real focus of the highly contingent ceasefire agreement was the Strait of Hormuz, which was free and open before President Trump’s elective war and is now throttled by Iran. talkingpointsmemo.com/morning-memo...

What would normally be a snoozy housekeeping matter—in this instance, to set a briefing schedule on the Trump administration’s renewed bid to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia to Liberia—went off the rails a bit in an unexpectedly strange 30-minute conference call. talkingpointsmemo.com/news/abrego-...

How did we get here? How might we get out? And what would it take for a bright future to await us on the other side? A conversation with @davidkurtz.bsky.social. www.offmessage.net/p/why-the-de...

Over the last 48 hours, President Trump has become especially unhinged, erratic, and cartoonishly bombastic about an ongoing regional war in one of the cradles of civilization. talkingpointsmemo.com/morning-memo...

Gonna do some livestreaming with my old boss @davidkurtz.bsky.social this afternoon, 2 pm ET. Productive people like y’all should be done with work then and free to watch. open.substack.com/live-stream/...

The NYT has obtained fleeting video footage of the Jan. 14 incident in Minneapolis during which an ICE agent shot a fleeing Venezuelan immigrant and then claimed he had been attacked. talkingpointsmemo.com/morning-memo...

It’s not that there’s no news value in reporting Bondi’s ouster. It’s that the old journalistic tropes for cabinet shuffles not only don’t work when every department is being run directly out of the White House, they actively mislead, blur, and obscure ... talkingpointsmemo.com/morning-memo...

“Tina Peters, Colorado Election Denier, Will Have Prison Sentence Reconsidered” electionlawblog.org?p=155224

Every single day of the Trump II presidency is another display of performative racism, but today’s news — punctuated by last night’s address on the Iran War — is especially saturated with the casual white nationalism that has come to define the Trump era. talkingpointsmemo.com/morning-memo...

Some news: (I'm thrilled too!)

It is one of the burdens of the Trump era that the silliest, most absurd things often implicate grave matters of historic import. The Republic will not rise or fall on Army helicopter pilots joyriding over the Tennessee mansion of Kid Rock, but ... talkingpointsmemo.com/morning-memo...

A sojourner truther, if you will. (So, so sorry ...)

LIVE: The Supreme Court Decides Who Is Really American In Blockbuster Arguments talkingpointsmemo.com/live-blog/su...

New reporting out this morning from the WSJ adds to the emerging picture of how the revisionist history of Trump’s 2020 election loss is merging with the effort to exert more federal control over the midterm elections: talkingpointsmemo.com/morning-memo...

You should probably be reading @davidkurtz.bsky.social's Morning Memo for @talkingpointsmemo.com morningmemo.talkingpointsmemo.com/p/trumps-ira...

The only thing more dangerous than an unbound strongman launching elective wars is when those wars go badly. No telling what Trump will do to save face, create the mirage of victory, and extricate himself from the box canyon into which he triumphantly galloped. talkingpointsmemo.com/morning-memo...

Military women and people of color somehow keep finding themselves in the crosshairs under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. A NYT story this morning is ostensibly about Hegseth personally striking 4 Army officers from the list for promotion to 1-star generals. talkingpointsmemo.com/morning-memo...

In this lawsuit there's a transcript of an infuriating exchange between the lead plaintiff and an immigration judge assigned to the Somali docket. She explains why the schedule is a travesty and laughs at the absurdity, which the IJ takes poorly, leading to a testy exchange. I'm fully on her side.

In a similar move in the J.O.P. case, the DOJ has now formally withdrawn its prior arguments that the number of deportations in violation of the settlement agreement were relatively small: www.courtlistener.com/docket/15867...

BREAKING: Judge Castel has issued a preservation order to DOJ and DHS regarding the ICE guidance about court-related enforcement and its applicability (or, as later asserted, not) to immigration "courts" after the U.S. Attorney's Office withdrew several court representations about that poliy.

I wanted to use the occasion of the resignation of a prominent climate scientist from NASA, citing the Trump administration’s attacks on climate science, to note how Trump’s foreign misadventures are inextricably intertwined with his retrograde energy policy. talkingpointsmemo.com/morning-memo...

A Venezuelan who was sent to CECOT under Trump's Alien Enemies Act proclamation, has filed suit under the Federal Tort Claims Act in DC seeking for damages for 4 months of beatings, inhumane treatment, trauma. ... 1/2 storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Jaw-dropping admission by DOJ to court. DOJ admits to having repeatedly made "material mistaken" representations to judge - ICE never had authority (under 2025 Guidance) to conduct arrests at immigration courthouses! DOJ admits court "relied on...prior misrepresentations." DOJ blames ICE (page 2)

What to call this corruption other than a wholesale looting of the federal treasury by the President to benefit his supporters using a DOJ that is run out of his White House — but gussied up with the language and procedural flourishes of a normal settlement of a legitimate legal dispute.