Pre-Bunking Trump's "Big News"
Trump's election claims, with receipts. Plus: His lawyer, your attorney general. The jet leak hunt. After multiple deaths, Trump tells ICE to keep going. And scientists see something sweet in space.
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I spoke today with New Hampshire Senator Jeanne Shaheen, who was with Lindsey Graham on his final overseas trip just days before his death. We talk about what she saw, and why she is now pressing Congress to pass the Russia sanctions bill they worked on together. The legislation is designed to squeeze Putin’s war machine by punishing countries that keep buying Russian energy — but could it also hand President Trump dangerous new tariff powers?
We also discuss Trump’s renewed election-fraud campaign and Shaheen’s own barrier-breaking career, including the remarkable firsts that followed in the path she helped clear. You can watch our discussion below.
In today’s newsletter: He’s doing 2020 again. We give you the receipts. Trump’s intelligence nominee fails the 2020 test. Get ready for a very personal attorney general. The White House detectives are searching for a leak. Trump overrules DHS after two deadly stops. And before the stars, there was… sugar.
Here Are Your Headlines
Big Announcement: Trump plans to address the nation tomorrow night. He’s teasing “really, really big news” about election security and voting machines. He is expected to present what he will call new evidence of 2020 fraud. That could mean documents declassified by current DNI Bill Pulte, who reportedly pushed Trump to make this address. There are a lot of rumors swirling, so here are facts:
Election Fraud Big Picture: Multiple government agencies led by Trump’s own appointees concluded that the 2020 election was not rigged. Trump’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) called the 2020 election “the most secure in American history,” and multiple courts repeatedly rejected claims of election fraud.
Supposed Confession: Trump may present testimony from Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s former president whom the US captured earlier this year. Far-right figures have predicted that Maduro would validate Trump’s election fraud claims in return for leniency. The theory, pushed in 2020 by Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani, falsely holds that Venezuela and other “communist” actors used voting machines to flip votes to Biden. (Powell has since argued in court that “no reasonable person” would treat her claims as “fact.”) Trump repeated the claim after Maduro’s capture. Multiple investigations found no evidence for it. ODNI and CISA found “no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.”
Voting Machines: Trump has said he regretted not seizing voting machines after 2020. But he cannot order states to stop using them, choose their vendors, or replace election officials. Elections are administered by states, per the Constitution and federal law.
Are Voting Machines Secure? Voting machines face strict certification, storage, and testing requirements. In a recent Georgia audit of over 1.1 million ballot images, hand-marked ballots were 99.93% accurate and machine-marked ballots were 100% accurate.
Georgia Election: If Trump alleges interference in the Georgia election (aside from his own infamous pressure campaign on the Secretary of State), recall that in 2020 Georgia manually counted every ballot cast — over five million, the largest hand tally of an election race in US history. That confirmed Biden’s victory. The margin changed by just 0.0099%.
Georgia Senators: A viral but unsubstantiated rumor claims Trump will declare Georgia’s Democratic Senators, Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, illegitimate. He does not have the authority to remove senators. Only the Senate can expel a member with a two third vote. It hasn’t done this since the Civil War. Sen. Ossoff said that, by calling Georgia’s elections illegitimate, Trump is “calling Georgia’s voters illegitimate.”
DNI: Bill Pulte infamously used his position at the federal housing authority to target Trump’s political enemies by accusing them of mortgage fraud. The GAO is investigating whether he abused that authority.
More of the Same: At a Senate confirmation hearing Democratic senators grilled Jay Clayton, Trump’s nominee to replace Pulte as DNI. Clayton, who has no intelligence experience, refused to say that Biden won the 2020 election. “Isn’t it humiliating,” Sen. Ossoff asked, “to be unable to answer this question, to have to indulge the president’s delusions?” Clayton said he would “commit to not putting hands on the scales” of US elections. More here.
Thin Margin: Senators also questioned acting Attorney General Todd Blanche. Most Republican senators seemed supportive, but Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) said he was undecided after pressing Blanche over the administration’s failure to provide written proof that Trump’s slush fund is truly dead. A single GOP defection on the Judiciary Committee would kill Blanche’s nomination. Blanche claimed, incorrectly, that constitutional protections “are not afforded to people who are here illegally.” When asked if he is friends with Trump, Blanche replied, “I’m his lawyer — was his lawyer.” Freudian slip?
Digging In: The Trump administration is intensifying its probe into who might have leaked details about Trump’s Qatari-gifted Air Force One. CNN reports that Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and FBI Director Kash Patel are personally running the investigation out of the West Wing. And some officials have reportedly been asked to turn over their phones. Four New York Times reporters were subpoenaed over their reporting on this story. AG Blanche testified he personally authorized those subpoenas. More here.
No Pause: Trump overruled a DHS memo suspending the use of traffic stops by immigration agents, reportedly surprising senior ICE officials. DHS and ICE issued the memo after agents shot and killed two people during traffic stops last week; neither was ICE’s intended target. The killings sparked widespread backlash. Trump insisted there would be no suspension of the controversial enforcement tactic “on my watch.”
Camera Off: Lawmakers are questioning why the agents involved in both killings were not wearing body cameras. DHS committed to rolling them out “rapidly” after the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in January. Congress provided $20 million for body cameras in April. Yet Rep. Sylvia Garcia said ICE’s acting director told her fewer than a third of officers have been issued cameras. DHS, border czar Tom Homan, and Maine Sen. Susan Collins blamed Democrats and the partial government shutdown — which ended more than two months ago — for the delay. Liam LaFountain, the mayor of Biddeford, Maine, where agents recently killed Joan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, noted that the city’s police have worn body cameras for a decade, despite an annual budget of less than $10 million. He described ICE’s failure to properly equip its agents despite its much larger budget as “a severe indictment.”
Another Death: A man died in Florida after fleeing from immigration agents yesterday. He ran onto a busy road, and was struck and killed by a semi truck. He has not been identified. More here.
Sanctioned: A bipartisan group of senators has released details of a bill to increase pressure on Russia, originally championed by the late Sen. Lindsey Graham. It would impose mandatory sanctions on Russian individuals and entities involved in the war, including the country’s shadow fleet of tankers and major financial institutions. Trump could waive the sanctions, but would have to explain why doing so is “in the national interests of the United States.” The bill also authorizes Trump to impose tariffs of up to 100% on the five largest buyers of Russian oil and gas, with exemptions that could protect US allies. It could be the first time Congress has authorized the use of tariffs as an explicit geopolitical weapon. Some Democrats oppose the bill for this reason, warning it could grant Trump powerful tariff authorities that he may abuse. Graham maintained it would kneecap Putin. More in my interview with Sen. Jeanne Shaheen above.
Major Shift: The House voted down a proposal by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) to halt billions in aid, much of it military, to Israel 314–104. Massie was the only Republican who voted in favor. The other 103 “yes” votes were all Democrats, and another 10 voted present — collectively representing more than half the caucus. The issue also split Democratic leadership, with Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries voting against and Whip Katherine Clark voting in favor. The vote shows how sharply Democratic support for Israel is shifting — and how deeply the issue divides the party. “The days of ‘Israel, right or wrong’ being the mainstream of American politics are over,” said the president of J Street, a progressive pro-Israel nonprofit advocacy and lobbying group.
News That Doesn’t Suck
Everything Nice: Life on Earth wouldn’t be possible without sugars. Not just because they taste so good. Certain sugar molecules form the structural backbone of DNA and RNA, both essential for life. But where did sugars come from? This question has long eluded scientists. Lab experiments failed to recreate them under the conditions believed to exist early in Earth’s history. Sugar molecules, however, have been found on ancient meteoroids that crashed into Earth billions of years ago, and on asteroids in space. Could sugar have arrived here from space? Scientists searched the stars for signs of something sweet. For years, they found nothing. Until now. Researchers in Spain have discovered a complex sugar called erythrulose, found in raspberries and used in tanning products, in space. They trained two radio telescopes on the Milky Way’s interstellar medium, the vast expanse of space between solar systems. Conditions there are extreme, but can create molecules including, perhaps, sugars. By comparing detected radio frequencies with those recorded in a lab, the team confirmed, to their surprise, that they were definitely detecting erythrulose. In doing so, they showed that complex sugars can be “synthesized in interstellar space,” as one researcher explained, “before stars and planets are born.” It’s an important step toward understanding how life may have formed on Earth. And showing it may have formed somewhere else, too.
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I will thank outer space every time I make chocolate chip cookies from now on.