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.

In what may turn into a constitutional showdown over the 10th Amendment and whether the federal govt can proactively shield its officers from state prosecutions by withholding evidence, Minnesota sued the Trump DOJ and DHS to get evidence in the killings ... talkingpointsmemo.com/morning-memo...

The state of Minnesota has sued the Trump administration in DC, accusing DOJ and DHS of withholding evidence in the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti and the shooting of Julio Sosa-Celis in order to protect federal agents from potential criminal charges. www.startribune.com/minnesota-su...

After a month’s long saga in which the Trump DOJ risked criminal prosecutions with brazenly unlawful efforts to install an interim US attorney for New Jersey, AG Pam Bondi finally stood down, and federal judges named career prosecutor Robert Frazer to the post. talkingpointsmemo.com/morning-memo...

DOJ blinks in DNJ US Attorney battle. The District Court has appointed a career guy, Robert Frazer to be US Atty under 28 USC 546, with apparent approval of DOJ senior leadership. 1/2 storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

The J.O.P. class action settlement requiring ICE not to deport people who came as unaccompanied children before deciding their asylum claims. Now the Trump admin admits this settlement was repeatedly violated in their rush to deport asylum seekers.

Our editor at large @davidkurtz.bsky.social has, each day, been the only person covering these hugely important hearings, which journalists must attend in person to access. Consider funding our work so we can do more of this. We have a discount right now as part of our annual membership drive.

A new twist in the prosecution of anti-ICE protesters who entered a church in St. Paul in January: The Trump DOJ has dropped all charges against a woman who was mistakenly identified as a protestor but apparently wasn’t involved with the protest at all. talkingpointsmemo.com/morning-memo...

In a stunning courtroom admission, a DOJ lawyer conceded that Trump admini has identified 91 cases where asylum seekers were deported despite a court-ordered class action settlement barring them from being removed before their asylum cases were adjudicated. talkingpointsmemo.com/news/exclusi...

Great reporting from @davidkurtz.bsky.social: More than 100 asylum seekers were wrongfully deported. Really confirms how we don't know the full extent of Trump/Stephen Miller's horrors because the victims are so marginal and so much is layered in obfuscation: talkingpointsmemo.com/news/exclusi...

BALTIMORE—A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to be prepared to provide answers in court on Monday after surprise testimony this week that more than 100 asylum seekers were deported in violation of a court-approved settlement agreement. talkingpointsmemo.com/news/exclusi...

The Trump administration continues to use the Justice Department to stonewall federal judges by producing witnesses who can’t competently testify on the issues before the court. talkingpointsmemo.com/morning-memo...