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With the Voting Rights Act gutted by the Supreme Court this week and Republican officials in red states in the South jumping to redraw their maps before the 2028 election cycle — and with some going to extremes to redraw district lines ahead of the upcoming midterms — Democratic leadership is planning new counter moves in a handful of states.

“All options are on the table as we get through the 2026 election and look to the future,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) told Politico Thursday. “As many governors have already indicated, we will be prepared to respond in states like New York, Illinois and Maryland, as well as in Colorado, in advance of the 2028 election.”

Lawmakers in Florida approved new maps, that they already planned to pass, on the day of the Supreme Court decision, giving Republicans a slight edge in President Trump’s nationwide redistricting battle, a war he started last summer when he pressured Republican-controlled legislatures around the nation to redraw congressional district lines to try to help Republicans hold the U.S. House this fall. When Virginia voters approved new maps that will net four additional seats for Democrats in the House, Republicans in Congress placed the pressure on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to get on with it and carve up his state some more.

Now, the Supreme Court cleared the way for Republicans to gerrymander in a few more states ahead of the midterms. Georgia and Missouri, as well as potentially Tennessee and South Carolina still have some time to make changes before election administration deadlines, and Republicans there have already indicated that’s what they want to do. In Louisiana, the governor is considering postponing the May 16 primary election in order to redrawn maps. My colleague Khaya Himmelman and I break down the latest here and here.

There’s not a ton Democrats can do ahead of the upcoming midterms. Most Democratic-led states have good government guardrails in place to prevent against the kind of frantic partisan gerrymandering that Republicans are engaging in right now. Most have some sort of independent redistricting commission that draws fair maps after each Census — hence why changes to map-drawing rules in states like California and Virginia had to be put before voters. Republican states don’t have those rules, for the most part, making it easier to gerrymander. Those Democratic-led states whose state leaders were willing to make changes ahead of the upcoming midterms to help fight Trump’s overreach have already done so.

So it appears Jeffries is looking ahead to 2028 to try to fend off what is to come. Democratic Govs. Kathy Hochul of New York, Wes Moore of Maryland and JB Pritzker of Illinois have put out statements indicating they intend to redraw in time for the 2028 election.

“Republicans have concluded that they need to cheat to win, and the Supreme Court conservatives have decided to aid and abet their scheme. Democrats are going to fight back with every tool available,” Jeffries said.

“We’re looking at every opportunity to ensure that communities of color will continue to have the chance to elect the candidate of their choice in districts that have traditionally been covered by the Voting Rights Act,” he continued, “while at the same time doing what is necessary, as occurred in California, to decisively respond to efforts by Republicans to gerrymander congressional maps.”

— Nicole LaFond

Comey Seashells Charges Part of Todd Blanche AG Audition

MS NOW has new reporting out today that suggests that fired Attorney General Pam Bondi thought that the likelihood of bringing charges against former FBI Director James Comey for, the administration alleges, lying to Congress was higher than pursuing the so-called seashell case in North Carolina. Bondi was, of course, fired, reportedly for not securing charges against Trump’s political foes fast enough.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche is known to be interested in serving as attorney general permanently and is learning from Bondi’s mistakes. More per MS NOW:

In late March, before Bondi’s firing, Justice Department aides were urging that they delay charging Comey on the presidential threat case and wait until the Senate confirmed interim U.S. Attorney Ellis Boyle to be the permanent head of the federal prosecutors’ office in the Eastern District of North Carolina, according to a person familiar with the discussions.

But after Bondi was out, and new acting Attorney General Blanche sought to win Trump’s appointment to the job permanently, the “seashells” case gained new steam, the people said. Blanche’s aides instructed Boyle to seek a grand jury indictment of Comey and he and a relatively junior prosecutor obtained one in the Eastern District on April 28.

— Nicole LaFond

Record Breaking DHS Shutdown Comes to an End

After 76-days, the record breaking Department of Homeland Security-specific government shutdown came to an end on Thursday. The House approved the DHS bill that funds all parts of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) except Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) through the end of the current fiscal year by a voice vote.

That House passage comes weeks after House Republicans refused to get behind the Senate-passed bipartisan package that cleared the Senate floor at the end of March. Just days later, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) caved to Senate GOP leadership and agreed to support the same bill but delayed voting on it for weeks — up until now.

“Speaker Johnson extended the DHS shutdown for over a month for no reason at all. This is the same bill the Senate unanimously passed five weeks ago,” Senate Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Patty Murray (D-WA) said in a statement following the House’s passage of the bill.

Republicans are in the process of working to fund ICE and CBP for the next several years — which already have huge slush funds from 2025’s One Big Beautiful Bill — through the party-line reconciliation process. Both chambers have already completed the first step in that process and passed the budget resolution, which directs relevant committees to start drafting the bill according to the toplines outlined in the budget resolution.

— Emine Yücel

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Republicans across the nation are cheering the sweeping and devastating Supreme Court ruling Wednesday that eviscerated the Voting Rights Act — and, by rendering it nearly impossible to prove that racial discrimination has taken place in redistricting, significantly diminished the likelihood that map makers who use race in drawing future congressional maps will face legal challenges.

Due to election administration deadlines for primary elections, there are only a handful of states whose congressional maps could be impacted by the Supreme Court ruling in Louisiana v. Callais today for the 2026 midterm elections — though those states comprise dozens of congressional seats. The states include Florida, Georgia and Missouri, as well as potentially Tennessee and South Carolina. Republicans in nearly all of those states have already put out statements either celebrating the victory for their states’ future gerrymandering efforts or calling for maps to be redrawn ahead of the midterms.

In Florida’s case, the state legislature, already in a pre-scheduled special session for redistricting, passed the new maps literally today, just hours after the SCOTUS ruling. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis released the new maps — which are aimed at flipping four seats for Republicans — publicly earlier this week. The maps were always expected to face a series of legal challenges in Florida, as Democrats claimed they ran afoul of voter-passed, anti-gerrymandering provisions in the Florida Constitution designed to prevent political gerrymandering and to protect minority-performing districts. As the new maps passed the state Senate this afternoon just hours after they passed the House, DeSantis claimed that the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling will also void the Fair Districts provisions in the state Constitution as unconstitutional.

DeSantis also suggested in a Twitter post celebrating the decision that his redraw of at least one of the districts in his state was done with the implications of this potential SCOTUS decision in mind.

“The SCOTUS ruling also invalidates the below provisions of the FL Constitution requiring the use of race in redistricting: …districts shall not be drawn with the intent or result of denying or abridging the equal opportunity of racial or language minorities to participate in the political process or to diminish their ability to elect representatives of their choice,” he continued.

Republicans in Georgia similarily praised Wednesday’s ruling, though Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) has not, as of this writing, put out a statement indicating whether he will direct his state legislature to act ahead of the midterms. Lieutenant Gov. Burt Jones and businessman Rick Jackson, the top two Republican candidates for governor in the state, each called for districts to be redrawn, specifically districts that were ordered redrawn after a 2023 federal court decision that found the state map discriminated against Black voters.

“I agree that in a society built on the equal protection of law, no state should be directed to draw legislative maps on the basis of race,” Jones said in a statement Wednesday. “Given that Georgia was ordered to do so in its last round of redistricting, I fully support redrawing our state’s legislative maps in compliance with today’s decision.”

“In light of today’s Supreme Court ruling, redrawing the maps must be added to the agenda,” Jackson said. “Georgia must act now to ensure secure elections in Georgia and counter the Democrats’ national assault on our elections.”

A Georgia state senator who is running for lieutenant governor also went on Twitter to call for a special session in Georgia, immediately.

“Now is not the time for Republicans to be weak-kneed,” state Sen. Greg Dolezal wrote. Georgia’s primaries are on May 19.

In Tennessee and South Carolina, candidates who are running for governor have also put out statements encouraging the state legislatures there to act on the SCOTUS ruling as soon as possible. In South Carolina, Republican gubernatorial candidates urged state lawmakers to nix the state’s one majority-minority district that is held by Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC). Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) alluded to the same, though he did not say whether this redistricting should happen now or ahead of the 2028 election.

“What happened today is a turning point,” Norman told the Times in a statement. “It means states like ours can finally take a hard look at districts that were designed to be untouchable.”

Republican leadership in other southern states like Alabama have already put out statements indicating they’re eager to redrawn maps in light of the ruling, likely ahead of the next election cycle in 2028.

There’s also the question of Louisiana, whose second majority-Black district was the subject of today’s ruling. Gov. Jeff Landry (R) did not address questions of whether district lines would or, frankly, could be redrawn ahead of the state’s May 16 primary elections for Congress. But the state attorney general suggested it might be possible for the state legislature to act beforehand. Per the New York Times:

In terms of when Louisiana will redraw its map, which was at the center of the case, the state’s attorney general, Liz Murrill, is deferring to the legislature. But she said that she believed it to be possible for the legislature to act and pass a new congressional map before the November midterm elections.

— Nicole LaFond

DoD Estimates the Iran War Already Cost $25 Billion

Acting Pentagon comptroller Jules Hurst said that the Iran war has already cost an estimated $25 billion during Wednesday’s House Armed Services Committee hearing. That’s the first time the Department of Defense has provided an estimate for the war’s price tag, which has already been going on for two months.

According to the Congressional Budget Office estimates, that’s bigger than a year’s worth of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) cuts Republicans enacted in the 2025 reconciliation bill — dubbed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

— Emine Yücel

Delaware Takes Seriously Trump’s Threat to Nationalize Elections

Delaware is taking concrete steps to protect itself from President Trump’s threats to interfere in election administration, with the recent announcement of its creation of a new election task force.

Democratic Gov. Matt Mayer signed an executive order last week, establishing the Delaware Task Force on Free, Fair and Secure Elections as a way to “safeguard Delaware from unconstitutional federal interference.”

The task force will protect against a number of threats, including: disinformation, federal overreach, voter intimidation, cybersecurity and physical security risks.

“The U.S. Constitution is clear: elections are run by the states, not the federal government,” Meyer said in a statement announcing the task force. “That’s a responsibility we take seriously in Delaware, and we will continue to administer elections that are secure, fair, and trusted by the public. If the federal government tries to highjack the will of the people, we will be ready.”

“Given the dangerous rhetoric we’ve been hearing from this federal administration, I’m very glad that Delaware is taking this proactive step to protect the most fundamental and important right we have: the right to vote,” state House Speaker Melissa Minor-Brown said in a statement last week.

In February, Trump threatened to “nationalize” elections during a podcast with MAGA conspiracy theorist and former deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino.

“The Republicans should say, ‘We want to take over,’” Trump told Bongino. “We should take over the voting, the voting in at least many — 15 places. The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.”

Of course, this is not the only evidence of Trump attempting to exert control over election administration. For the last several months, the Trump administration has also been trying to get ahold of sensitive, protected voter data from 48 states and Washington D.C. to seemingly create some sort of national voter file and exert control over election administration.

— Khaya Himmelman

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The Justice Department has indicted former FBI Director James Comey again after its initial attempts to prosecute the man who is high on President Trump’s retribution list were tossed out by a judge. The new indictment that the DOJ has secured against Comey — whom Trump has had beef with ever since his first term when he fired him as FBI director because he did not like that the FBI was investigating his campaign’s ties to Russian interference in the 2016 election — is related to a social media post Comey made.

Almost a year ago, Comey posted a since-deleted photo on his Instagram page that showed seashells arranged to spell out the numbers “86 47,” a seeming reference to removing Trump from office. While at the time Trump administration officials spun the message as a threat of physical harm against Trump — some claimed it amounted to an assassination threat — the term “86” is most commonly used as a slang term in the food service industry to get rid of something, often used when removing a food item from the menu. (“We’re out of buns, the burger is 86ed!”) Bartenders also use it when a customer has been overserved and needs to be kicked out or banned from the establishment.

The DOJ has spun that murky message into an allegation that Comey:

… did knowingly and willfully make a threat to take the life of, and to inflict bodily harm upon, the President of the United States, in that he publicly posted a photograph on the internet social media site Instagram which depicted seashells arranged in a pattern making out “86 47”, which a reasonable recipient who is familiar with the circumstances would interpret as a serious expression of an intent to do harm to the President of the United States.

A grand jury in the Eastern District of North Carolina indicted him on two counts: Threatening to kill or harm the president, and transmitting that threat via interstate commerce.

Comey deleted the image last year, not long after it sparked outcry from Trump administration officials, saying he did not mean any harm by it. “I didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence,” he said at the time. “I oppose violence of any kind.”

The Secret Service reportedly tracked Comey’s location during his family’s vacation after the photo was posted and Comey even sat for phone and in-person interviews with Secret Service agents about the matter, which was eventually dropped by the DOJ, only to be “revived in recent months,” in the New York Times words.

My colleague David Kurtz has chronicled the drama that unfolded out of the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Virginia when Trump fired officials there after they found there was not enough evidence to charge Comey with a crime, last time. Trump then tried to have Lindsey Halligan, a White House aide, installed as U.S. attorney in that office. Halligan secured a grand jury indictment against Comey in September — accusing him of lying and obstructing a congressional investigation, supposedly related to testimony he gave before Congress in 2020. That indictment — as well as an indictment that Halligan secured against New York Attorney General Letitia James, another person Trump has long wanted to target — was thrown out by a federal judge in November after finding that Halligan had not been properly appointed.

The new indictment comes as Todd Blanche, Trump’s former personal lawyer and previous deputy attorney general, leads the Justice Department in Pam Bondi’s wake, and is thought to be auditioning for Trump to nominate him as her permanent replacement. Bondi was recently fired as attorney general, reportedly because she did not secure enough indictments and launch enough investigations into Trump’s various perceived foes. Blanche is learning from his predecessor’s mistakes.

— Nicole LaFond

Trump Throws Power of Fed Gov’t at ABC Over Jimmy Kimmel

The Federal Communications Commission is gearing up to “call in all of the TV station licenses for Disney/ABC for early renewal,” CNN’s Brian Stelter confirmed on Monday, as reports popped up suggesting that federal regulators were going to review the numerous station licenses owned by ABC.

The review is officially, apparently, related to DEI policies, according to a new filing, which the Trump administration has targeted both inside and outside the government since he returned to office. But it also comes as Trump has called on ABC to fire its late night host, comedian Jimmy Kimmel. Trump professes to be angry about a joke Kimmel made last week, before the White House Correspondent’s Dinner, during a bit in which he pretended he was performing at the event and addressed Melania, saying she had a “glow like an expectant widow.” The joke, Kimmel explained this week, was of course not a call for someone to murder Trump but a reference to the president’s advanced age.

The new FCC action also comes as FCC Chairman Brendan Carr has repeatedly used his post to threaten broadcasters and news networks who cover the Trump administration in ways that Trump does not like.

Per the New York Times:

It is extremely difficult for the government to take away stations’ rights to broadcast; it must be able to make a convincing case that the stations had shown a pattern of violating rules and regulations. Even if the F.C.C. ultimately decides to block the renewal of ABC’s station licenses, the network would have ample recourse in the courts. And it would be able to continue to broadcast as the fight played out.

The federal government has never before ordered such a sweeping review of a major television network’s licenses, which allow the companies to broadcast in local markets. All told, ABC owns eight of the more than 200 local stations that carry its programming across the country, in vital markets including New York, Los Angeles and Philadelphia.

— Nicole LaFond

If You Thought Republicans’ Gerrymandering Was Bad Up Until Now …

The Supreme Court has announced it is likely to release at least one decision tomorrow, and so we undertake a TPM spring tradition that plays out dozens of time each year: preparing ourselves in case the justices rule on one of the cases we have been following closely.

Near the top of our list this year is Callais v. Louisiana, a decision that could remove one of the few tools left standing to protect minority voters in the repeatedly-gutted Voting Rights Act, opening the door for even more extreme gerrymanders.

As we’ve reported, the outcome to this case is to some extent inevitable — the Roberts Court has it out for the Voting Rights Act. The only question is how thoroughly it’ll finish the job in 2026.

The big unknown, then, is timing — a factor that is extremely important. The later in the year this almost-certainly-bad decision comes, the harder it will be for states to jump on it to use the outcome in this year’s redistricting wars. Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, Missouri and, of course, Florida, would still have windows to act if the decision comes tomorrow, according to a report out today from the nonprofit good governance group Issue One. The closer to summer we get, the harder it will be for Republican states to use the ruling to their advantage in a way that will withstand legal challenges and be in place on Election Day. That fact has prompted speculation that liberal justices might be laboring a little extra over their (admittedly very important) dissents, holding up a potential ruling. We may never know if that theory has anything to it.

We’ll see what happens tomorrow.

— John Light

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The Ballroom to Save America

As reporters on Saturday night were waiting for President Donald Trump to give a press conference from the briefing room following the White House Correspondents’ Dinner attack, a unified message began percolating online among elected Republicans and other influential right-wingers: This is why we need the ballroom.

And once the press briefing got underway, Trump made his pitch: “I didn’t want to say this, but this is why we have to have all of the attributes of what we’re planning at the White House,” he said. “It’s actually a larger room and it’s a much more secure — it’s got — it’s drone proof. It’s bulletproof glass.”

As the week begins, congressional Republicans are trying really, really hard to sell the White House ballroom as a “solution” to rising political violence and the everyday occurrence of gun violence.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) — who was present at the Saturday night dinner and was quickly evacuated — spent Monday morning on Fox News acting as the marketing team for the ballroom.

“The ballroom will be a solution for this because it’ll be on the most secure compound in the world,” Johnson said during an interview on Fox. “It won’t have hotel rooms above it and it’ll have seven-inch-thick glass, for example, on the windows so it’ll be a very safe environment to do events like this. We need a place … and the president keeps pointing it out.”

Trump began planning the construction of a large ballroom at the White House complex when he took office last year. Workers undertook the work of demolishing the East Wing of the building in October 2025 to start construction. The project has faced outrage and legal challenges. Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Richard Leon issued an order halting construction and finding that, if Trump wants his ballroom, Congress will have to approve it.

“The President of the United States is the steward of the White House for future generations of First Families. He is not, however, the owner!” Leon wrote in the colorful, exclamation point-strewn ruling. “[B]allroom construction project must stop until Congress authorizes its completion,” he concluded.

In the wake of what the Department of Justice has said was an attempt on the president’s life, Republicans see the moment to do just that.

Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) chimed in on Monday, saying “a ballroom is imperative.”

Rep. Randy Fine (R-FL) on Sunday said he is “filing the ‘Build the Ballroom Act’ to create explicit statutory authority for a White House Ballroom.” Meanwhile, Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) announced her team is working “to draft legislation ensuring the White House Ballroom is completed.”

“I don’t believe congressional approval is required for the project, but if it’ll keep activist judges on the sideline, so be it,” Boebert said in a Sunday social media post.

Across the Capitol building, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) — who at times can be a thorn in the side of the Republican agenda — said he would be “dropping a bill tomorrow.”

“Let’s build the Ballroom,” Paul said.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt went even a step further, saying the ballroom is necessary and “critical for our national security.”

“The White House ballroom project is not just a fun project for President Trump — like you will read in the media,” Leavitt said on Monday. “It is actually critical for our national security that a larger, secure building on this complex … is built to accommodate not only large amounts of guests, but also the president, the vice president, members of the Cabinet, the line of secession in this country should be able to gather freely in safety, without the fear of threats or political violence. And the White House ballroom will provide that.”

A stand-alone ballroom bill would likely need some support from Democrats in the Senate in order to pass it. But congressional Republicans are also reportedly discussing greenlighting the ballroom construction in their reconciliation bill, which would only require a simple majority vote in both chambers.

— Emine Yücel

The One Sentence That Sums Up The White House’s Hyperbolic Response To The WHCD Gunman

In the days since a gunman targeted the White House Correspondents Dinner on Saturday night, President Trump and his allies have used the incident to go after political rivals, college students, the media, and even late night television comedian Jimmy Kimmel. As we’ve noted, Trump has also argued the attempted shooting shows why he needs his controversial White House ballroom.

The suspected gunman, who was charged with multiple accounts on Monday including attempted assassination of the president, allegedly distributed an anti-Trump manifesto to family members prior to the incident where he described the president as “a pedophile, rapist, and traitor.” Because of this, the White House has attempted to cast the incident — and a larger violent climate — as a result of opposition to the president.

Of course, that effort to politicize the incident ignores Trump’s own heated rhetoric and the many incidents of right-wing violence in recent years. And the effort to connect the gunman to the need for the ballroom does not address the fact the new space would likely not accommodate the annual dinner or the many serious questions about how that project is being built and financed.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt emphasized both the criticism of the president’s opponents and the ballroom pitch in her briefing on Monday. And her remarks included one comment that underscored just how exaggerated the Trump administration’s hyperpoliticized response to the shooting has been.

“Nobody in recent years has faced more bullets and more violence than President Trump,” Leavitt said.

While Trump has indeed dealt with other assassination attempts, the idea he has been under fire more than any other person would almost certainly be news to troops in warzones or victims of the mass shootings that have become such a regular feature of American life. Later on in the briefing, Leavitt also said Trump has dealt with “unprecedented adversity and challenges” as she used this hyped up depiction of victimhood to blast his rivals.

“This political violence stems from a systemic demonization of him and his supporters by commentators, yes, by elected members of the Democrat Party and even some in the media,” Leavitt said. “This hateful, and constant, and violent rhetoric directed at President Trump day after day after day for 11 years has helped to legitimize this violence and bring us to this dark moment.”

Leavitt specifically cited people who describe Trump as a “fascist” and a “threat to democracy.” Rather than acknowledging these are legitimate critiques provoked by the president’s own behavior, Leavitt described the characterizations as the product of a “left-wing cult of hatred against the president.”

In addition to inspiring a ballroom pitch and a new line of attack against his critics, the incident at the dinner has pushed the White House to review security measures. Leavitt said officials would be meeting to discuss protocols some time this week. As she discussed those plans, Leavitt made one more comment that was, perhaps, unintentionally revelatory and provided a window into the administration’s true focus: It’s all about Trump and his needs.

“The American people should be assured there is no higher priority for the president and his staff than the president’s safety,” Leavitt said.

— Hunter Walker

More Details on What Happened

The alleged White House Correspondents’ Dinner gunman, Cole Tomas Allen, was charged with three counts during an arraignment Monday: one count of attempting to assassinate the president, and two federal gun crimes — transporting a firearm and ammunition with intent to commit a felony, and discharging a firearm during a crime of violence.

An affidavit written by a federal law enforcement officer and released Monday afternoon provides an official account of what unfolded at the security perimeter Saturday night.

At approximately 8:40 p.m., ALLEN approached a security checkpoint on the
Terrace Level of the hotel leading to the location of the dinner. ALLEN approached and ran through the magnetometer holding a long gun. As he did so, U.S. Secret Service personnel assigned to the checkpoint heard a loud gunshot. U.S. Secret Service Officer V.G. was shot once in the chest; Officer V.G. was wearing a ballistic vest at the time.

Officer V.G. drew his service weapon and fired multiple times at ALLEN, who fell
to the ground and suffered minor injuries but was not shot. ALLEN was subsequently arrested.

At the time of his arrest, ALLEN was in possession of a 12-gauge pump action
shotgun and a Rock Island Armory 1911 .38 caliber pistol on his person.

The affidavit included a note that you may have seen published online Sunday and which law enforcement says Allen sent to his family minutes before the attack. It was emailed in a .txt file, the affidavit says, and explains the attack and it’s goals in a strikingly casual tone.

The affidavit did not, however, include the note in full:

— John Light

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They’re Begging You, Ron

Republicans in Congress are sweating after Viriginia voters approved a change to the state Constitution on Tuesday that allows for the use of new congressional maps this fall that would potentially flip four seats in Democrats’ favor (though, the state Supreme Court may still muck up matters for Dems).

After President Trump kicked off a nationwide gerrymandering war last year, there have been some whispers of acknowledgement this week that Trump’s bullying campaign was perhaps a mistake. The president pressured Republican-controlled legislatures in states around the country to redraw their district lines mid-cycle in order to give Republicans an advantage in the midterms. But that scheme is backfiring as Democrats in a few key states have been successful in offsetting the damage of Trump’s crusade. After Democrats’ win in Virginia on Tuesday evening, Dems have managed to draw 10 news seats for themselves nationwide, compared to Republicans’ nine.

So Republicans in Congress are upping the pressure on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to gerrymander the U.S. House map in his state because they see it as an uncomplicated space to try to squeeze out another seat or two.

“Florida has the right and the intention to do it. And my view is that they should,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) told reporters on Wednesday. When he was asked specifically if the Florida legislature should approve new maps for the upcoming midterm elections, he said, “Yes, absolutely.”

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has been pretty hush hush about the details of any plans to gerrymander House districts further in the state. A special session focused on redistricting in the state legislature is scheduled to begin on Tuesday, but no proposed maps have been made public. More details, per CNN:

Key Republicans involved in redistricting say they’ve been kept largely in the dark on DeSantis’ plans. There’s no coordination on the state level because of strict state rules around partisan gerrymandering, and no maps have been officially circulated within Florida’s congressional delegation either.

“They’re just kind of firing up the software now and seeing what they can draw, but it doesn’t seem like anyone has a plan,” someone close to DeSantis’ inner circle told CNN earlier this week. “They know they have to do something, but everyone is hoping we don’t get too greedy.”

Rep. Kat Cammack (R-FL) told CNN that she could see Florida Republicans redrawing district lines in order to pick up two or three seats, but warned that it might be “dangerous” for the state legislature to try to do more than that without risking incumbents’ reelection.

“I think that we get into some dangerous territory if we’re seriously considering five,” she said.

Other Florida Republicans in the U.S. House are worried about the implications of messing with district lines again, especially those in the southern half of the state who don’t want to have to compete in a new district.

But those concerns may fall on deaf ears. DeSantis has a bad relationship with a large chunk of Florida’s congressional delegation, primarily because nearly all of its members backed Trump during the 2024 Republican primaries for president over him and he is reportedly still mad about it.

And regardless, Trump is the main driver behind the nationwide gerrymandering war and DeSantis is eager to get back in his good graces, now that his political relevance is about to be the lowest its been in years: his term is up in January.

Four Senate Republicans Block SAVE Act From Budget Bill

Four of the usual suspects in the Republican Senate Conference voted against an amendment that would’ve asked the Senate Budget Committee to find a way to cram provisions of the sweeping voter suppression bill, the SAVE America Act, into a budget reconciliation package that will include more funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection. The SAVE America ACT would mandate documentary proof of citizenship just to register to vote and photo ID for voting, among other things.

Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Thom Tillis (R-NC) and Mitch McConnell, the foursome that occasionally breaks with Trump either because they are women or because they are retiring — voted against the amendment, which was presented by Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) — blocking it.

DOJ IG Is Reviewing Release of Epstein Files

The Justice Deparment inspector general’s office is reviewing whether the DOJ’s release of the Jeffrey Epstein files is in line with the law Congress passed mandating the release of documents related to the DOJ’s investigation of the late sex offender. Per the AP:

The audit will revisit the department’s staggered and uneven release of millions of records from the Epstein sex trafficking investigation, a process that exposed it to accusations that it was attempting to protect President Donald Trump, who decades ago was friendly with the financier. It marks the watchdog office’s first significant effort since Trump took office for a second time to scrutinize the actions of a department that has been riven by tumult, including mass firings of employees and allegations of politicization of investigations.

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“There’s no cut in Medicaid,” Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. yelled numerous times over the past couple days as he testified in front of a handful of different congressional committees.

That line, and his refusal to acknowledge the historic Medicaid cuts Republicans enacted in last year’s reconciliation bill — dubbed the One, Big, Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) — was one of the few things that stayed consistent over the hours and hours of testimony he gave on Capitol Hill this week.

That and an almost verbatim opening statement he delivered to each committee he appeared before.

Despite the spin Kennedy spun during congressional testimony — and Republicans’ purposefully misleading statements on Medicaid cuts in recent weeks — the devastating cuts to the social safety net program enacted in the OBBBA are very real and have serious consequences for everyday Americans who rely on the health care program.

As Democrats questioned him about the impacts of the cuts to Medicaid, Kennedy repeatedly referred to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) February 2026 baseline projections that show an increase in Medicaid spending to suggest the program hadn’t actually been slashed. But budget experts point out to TPM that, by default, Medicaid spending increases naturally due to medical inflation — which outpaces normal inflation — and population growth.

“The fact that spending is still rising doesn’t mean there were no cuts,” Bobby Kogan, senior director of federal budget policy at the Center for American Progress, told TPM.

The reality is OBBBA cut Medicaid benefits for millions of people. The CBO has laid out estimates on the number of Americans who will lose health insurance as a result of those cuts several times since the passage of the reconciliation package.

“Make no mistake: CBO continues to estimate huge cuts to #Medicaid from OBBBA, last year’s reconciliation bill, despite Trump Admin officials’ false claims otherwise,” Gideon Lukens, senior fellow and director of research and data analysis at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said on Wednesday.

Lukens also pointed to the CBO’s most recent baseline projections that show seven million people will lose their Affordable Care Act Medicaid expansion coverage between 2025 and 2032. CBO also projects that the number of people who are uninsured will rise by roughly 11 million by 2032.

— Emine Yücel

Republicans Warn That Gerrymandering May be Bad, Actually

In the wake of Virginia voters approving new congressional maps that will give Democrats a newfound advantage in winning U.S. House seats in the state, Republican members of Congress are speaking out about the nationwide gerrymandering war that President Trump kicked off more than a year ago. It started with the president pressuring Texas to engage in mid-cycle redistricting — that is drawing new congressional district lines outside of the standard post-Census schedule in order to give Republicans an advantage in holding the U.S. House in the midterms.

Texas legislators, of course, caved to pressure from Trump — though state Democrats did all they could to prevent the passage of new maps, including fleeing the state at one point to try to prevent state Republicans from reaching a quorum to hold a vote. The new maps are expected to give Republicans five new seats in Texas. It set off a nationwide battle — Trump urged more Republican-controlled state legislatures to follow Texas’ lead while a handful of Democratic-led states worked to offset the damage Trump was doing. Virginia was one of those states. Voters approved a Dem-led redistricting referendum on Tuesday evening that paves the way for Democrats to flip as many as four seats in the state.

Some more moderate Republicans in Congress are, now, speaking out against Trump’s crusade, per Politico.

Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) said in an interview he warned the White House months ago the effort could backfire, while Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) suggested the outcome of the nearly yearlong saga should have been utterly predictable.

“Chess players think three to four moves ahead,” he said. “It doesn’t appear this happened.”

Trump himself, meanwhile, is sharing a similar sentiment: “I don’t know if you know what gerrymandering is, but it’s not good,” he reportedly told supporters Tuesday.

— Nicole LaFond

Judge Dismisses Separate Kash Patel Defamation Suit

A federal judge in Texas dismissed a defamation lawsuit that FBI Director Kash Patel brought against Frank Figliuzzi, a former FBI assistant director who later became an MSNBC contributor, and who made remarks on the MSNBC, now MS NOW, about Patel spending time at “nightclubs.”

“Yeah, well, reportedly, he’s been visible at nightclubs far more than he has been on the seventh floor of the Hoover building,” Figliuzzi said on Morning Joe last year.

Patel sued for defamation. But U.S. District Judge George Hanks Jr. said in his ruling that the statement amounts to “rhetorical hyperbole” and therefore cannot be defamation.

“Figliuzzi’s statement, when taken in context, cannot have been perceived by a person of ordinary intelligence as stating actual facts about Patel,” he said. “A person of reasonable intelligence and learning would not have taken his statement literally: that Dir. Patel has actually spent more hours physically in a nightclub than he has spent physically in his office building.”

This comes just days after Patel sued The Atlantic for defamation seeking $250 million, after it published a story alleging he drinks alcohol to excess and is absent from his job. Patel has vehemently denied the allegations, calling the article a “sweeping, malicious and defamatory hit piece” in his lawsuit.

— Nicole LaFond

Dems Push Trump Admin to Refund Consumers for Tariffs at Budget Hearing

House Democrats took an opportunity Wednesday to re-up their populist proposal urging the Trump administration to repay consumers who paid for goods with inflated prices because of the president’s now-illegal tariffs.

The push came as U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer testified before the House Ways and Means Committee about the full scope of Trump’s trade agenda. Representatives from both parties highlighted the ways the president’s tariff scheme has made life more difficult for agricultural workers, manufacturers and importers in their districts. But some Democrats tried to push Greer to commit to using the tariff refunds, which the administration was ordered to issue after the Supreme Court struck down Trump’s emergency tariffs, to repay consumers, not businesses.

“I’d like to get a commitment from you, Mr. Ambassador, to work with me and my office to make sure that we’re able to get that money back to the consumers who paid it,” said Rep. Mike Thompson (D-CA).

Thompson introduced legislation in February to refund U.S. consumers via a tax credit, legislation that is, for now, largely symbolic because the bill has no chance of passing the Republican-controlled House or Senate.

“I’m anxious to find out how the consumer is going to receive their refunds,” said Rep. Richard Neal (D-MA), the ranking member of the committee.

And Rep. Judy Chu (D-CA) compared targeted tariff exemptions that multinational corporations received after cozying up to Trump — certain electronics received tariff exemptions after leaders at tech companies including Apple, Meta and Amazon donated to Trump’s inauguration, for example — to the lack of relief from increased prices shoppers got at home.

“Everyday people like my constituents in Southern California watch in disgust as this administration refuses to do anything to refund them the money they were forced to spend due to tariffs we knew were illegal all along,” Chu said.
Wednesday’s rhetoric is part of a continued, albeit sporadic, campaign from Dems in an election year to galvanize voters by relating tariff-related inflation to affordability issues more broadly. It remains to be seen whether shoppers (i.e. voters) will begin to view individual tariff refunds as an issue they can influence at the ballot box. Greer’s response to Thompson’s search for a commitment to get tariff money back to consumers suggested the administration is not seriously considering the issue: He referenced the Customs and Border Protection portal — which is available exclusively to corporate importers.

— Layla A. Jones

Consider Joining TPM As a Memeber!

If you have not yet thought about joining the TPM community as a member, we ask that you take some time to consider it today. We are still in the thick of an annual membership drive and are spreading the word about why TPM is an independent news outlet that is worth helping to keep afloat.

If you need more convincing, we have a video for you: TPM founder Josh Marshall sat down with Elizabeth Spiers, a founding editor of Gawker and a contributing writer for the New York Times Opinion section, to discuss why independent media matters more than ever.

We hope you’ll consider joining us today!

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This might not be the most important headline to break news today, but longtime readers of Where Things Stand may know that this author enjoys reveling in Gov. Ron DeSantis’ humiliation — at Trump’s hands.

The Florida governor is reaching the end of his current gig as the conduit for the MAGA agenda in the state of Florida. DeSantis will have to leave office in January when his second term is up and he is reportedly “begging” President Trump for a job in his administration. Specifically, DeSantis wants the open attorney general position, the job his state’s former attorney general, Pam Bondi, once held until Trump lost patience with what he apparently felt was her sluggish pace in investigating and prosecuting his political foes.

DeSantis is reportedly also interested in the Defense Department’s top job — watch out Pete Hegseth — and he’d even take a spot on the Supreme Court if the opportunity arises! But attorney general would do just fine, too, Axios reported in a new piece out this afternoon, citing six anonymous sources who were “briefed on the discussions.”

“Ron was begging me to be AG,” Trump reportedly told an unnamed “confidant” recently, in Axios’ words. The two reportedly met at Trump’s National Doral Golf Club in Miami two Sundays ago. During the lunch, the longtime frenemies discussed what might be next for the Florida governor — whose political career Trump has long taken credit for and whose once-presumed takeover of the MAGA mantle Trump ensured would not come to fruition when he emerged as the clear frontrunner for the Republican nomination again in 2024.

DeSantis announced his candidacy for president long before Trump officially announced he was running for a second term and there was a brief but comedic period of time during which pundits openly speculated whether DeSantis would take the MAGA movement off of Trump’s hands after Trump lost his reelection bid in 2020. DeSantis spent his first term and the beginning of his second term as governor making his own spin on anti-woke ideology synonymous with Florida Republican politics and many saw the policies of his time as governor as a test run for where MAGA could go next.

DeSantis did ultimately help write the blueprint for what the most bombastic bits of Trump’s agenda could look like at the state level — his state legislature emerged as pioneers in writing anti-DEI policy into state law and he was responsible for manufacturing outrage about LGBTQ indoctrination in our nation’s schools, while helping to usher in a whole new era of anti-trans sentiment among Republican voters. But he was humiliated out of becoming MAGA’s heir apparent during the 2024 Republican primaries and its been unclear what terms the two were on ever since.

Until now, per Axios:

Said another source: “There was a conversation at that lunch. I don’t think AG is real. But he’s gonna be looking for work and Trump likes him.”

— Nicole LaFond

Senate Budget Comm Republicans Kick Off the Reconciliation Process

Senate Budget Committee Chair Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on Tuesday unveiled Senate Republicans’ budget resolution — the blueprint and the first step to officially start completing the budget reconciliation process that congressional Republicans believe will get Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) even more funding.

Republicans’ push to fund ICE and CBP through the party-line process comes as Senate Democrats have been refusing to provide their votes to give more money to those agencies without the implementation of serious and meaningful reforms to the practices of federal law enforcement agents under those agencies. That demand came after the recent spate of killings carried out by immigration enforcement agents.

“Republicans rejected any commonsense reforms for these agencies such as wearing identification or getting a warrant before breaking into homes,” Senate Budget Committee Ranking Member Jeff Merkley (D-OR) said in a statement in reaction to the budget resolution. “Instead, the Republican plan is more money for more secret police tactics that are terrorizing communities across America.”

The budget resolution text tasks the Senate Judiciary Committee and Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee with drafting the party line bill and sets a ceiling of $70 billion for each committee.

Though that’s a $140 billion ceiling for the total of the bill, Republicans expect the final reconciliation package to be around $70 billion.

Senate Republicans are aiming to adopt the budget resolution this week. A procedural vote to start considering the budget resolution passed on a party-line 52-46 vote Tuesday afternoon. The upper chamber could start the vote-a-rama as soon as Wednesday though many senators believe it will come on Thursday.

— Emine Yücel

Nine Accused of Sexual Misconduct Still in Office

The National Women’s Defense League — a nonprofit group that is dedicated to fighting sexual misconduct in state level politics — put out a new report in light of recent sexual misconduct-related resignations from Congress. The report focuses on instances of sexual misconduct that have been reported against members of Congress since 2006. At least 30 members of Congress from 13 states and Guam have been accused publicly of sexual misconduct in the workplace while in office, it said.

“When you include accusations of sexual misconduct outside of the workplace and instances that took place prior to serving in Congress, there are 49 members that have been accused publicly that include 137 accusations overall,” the NWDL’s report said, suggesting that the actual amount of sexual misconduct incidents may be three times as high because only 30% of survivors tend to report the incidents. The House Ethics Committee put out a rare public statement on Monday, asking “anyone who may have experienced sexual misconduct by a House Member or staffer, or who has knowledge of such conduct” to report it to the panel.

The NWDL also found that 77 percent of sexual misconduct accusations against members involve legislative staffers and “97 percent of those accused are men targeting women.”

“While some have left office, across all of our data sets in this report, nine of the accused members remain in Congress. Over the last 20 years in the instances reported here, 20 accused members resigned,” the report said. “Taken together, these findings demonstrate that sexual harassment and misconduct in Congress is prevalent, targeted and underaddressed. It spans professional and non-professional contexts, often persists across career stages, and is reinforced by inconsistent accountability mechanisms.”

You can read more from the report here.

— Nicole LaFond

Warsh Won’t Say Trump Lost 2020 Election

TPM reporter Layla A. Jones is out with an insightful analysis of today’s confirmation hearing for Trump’s Federal Reserve Chair nominee Kevin Warsh, which you can read here. In one memorable exchange, Warsh appeared to suggest that Federal Reserve independence must be “earned.”

When it came time for her to ask questions, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) dug in on that point, emphasizing that allowing the Fed to run independent of outside influence from Trump takes courage; “independence takes courage,” she said.

“Let’s check out your independence and your courage,” Warren continued. “We’ll start easy. Mr. Warsh, did Donald Trump lose the 2020 election?”

He would not answer the question directly.

— Nicole LaFond

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‘A More Aggressive and Robust Approach’

In the wake of two high profile resignations from male members of Congress who were accused of sexual misconduct and, in the case of Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA), assault, the House Ethics Committee issued a rare call for information about any known instances of sexual misconduct by members.

As the panel tasked with investigating and policing lawmakers’ behavior, the committee said in a new statement released Monday that it is committed to investigating sexual misconduct by members and making its findings public. “The Committee strongly encourages anyone who may have experienced sexual misconduct by a House Member or staffer, or who has knowledge of such conduct, to contact the Committee,” the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights or the Office of Employee Advocacy, the statement said.

In asking victims of alleged sexual misconduct by members to come forward, the panel also reaffirmed its commitment to protecting any victims or survivors who might share information with the ethics panel:

The greatest hurdle the Committee faces in evaluating allegations of sexual misconduct is in convincing the most vulnerable witnesses to share their stories. Accordingly, the Committee’s practice has been to release only the information that is necessary to hold Members accountable for misconduct and address public reporting that impacts the integrity of the House. The Committee does not release transcripts of its interviews or share the source of allegations. The Committee will continue to prioritize witness confidentiality and safety, so that those witnesses feel comfortable coming forward and providing the Committee the opportunity to hold wrongdoers accountable. Where the Committee finds evidence of sexual misconduct, it will continue to publicly release its findings and seek appropriate sanctions.

The statement comes after the recent resignations of Swalwell and Rep. Tony Gonzalez (R-TX). Swalwell resigned from Congress and dropped his bid for governor of California after reports about his alleged misconduct surfaced last week, including allegations from multiple women who claimed Swalwell sexually assaulted them when they were drunk. Swalwell has vehemently denied the accusations.

Gonzalez recently acknowledged he had a sexual affair with a staffer who later died after she set herself on fire. Sexual relationships between staff and lawmakers have been against House rules since the #MeToo era. Both Democratic and Republican women in the House have called for the House Ethics Committee to expedite its handling and investigating of sexual misconduct allegations against members of Congress.

“If we have clear evidence, they’re out,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) said. “I don’t even know that it needs to go to a vote of the House.”

The committee said it has “adopted a more aggressive and robust approach to allegations of sexual misconduct,” according to the Monday statement.

— Nicole LaFond

Trump Says His Energy Sec Is ‘Totally Wrong’

President Trump contradicted his own Department of Energy official, who over the weekend said that gas prices might not drop below $3 until next year.

“I don’t know. That could happen later this year. That might not happen until next year,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright told CNN on Sunday.

“But prices have likely peaked and they will start going down,” Wright continued. “Certainly, with a resolution of this conflict, you will see prices go down. Prices across the board on energy prices will go down.”

His attempt to put a cheerful spin on the price of oil wasn’t enough for the president, apparently.

“No, I think he’s wrong on that. Totally wrong,” Trump told The Hill on Monday, saying that he believes gas prices will plummet “as soon as this ends,” which appears to be a reference to Trump’s ongoing war with Iran.

There you have it, American consumer.

— Nicole LaFond

New Tariff Refund Portal Can Repay 63% of $166 Billion Owed

The new tariff refund portal — offering businesses a first chance to reclaim funds they were forced to pay for Trump’s blanket tariffs, which were blocked by the Supreme Court — went live Monday.

Designed and managed by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries portal, or CAPE, launched two months to the day from when SCOTUS struck down Trump’s emergency tariffs after finding the statute the president used to levy them did not give him that authority. Monday’s website launch marked phase one of the process to repay importers the $166 billion in now-illegal tariffs, plus interest. Phase one is limited to tariffs paid that have not been liquidated into the U.S. Treasury, or that are within 80 days of liquidation, CBP said in a press release.

TPM previously reported that fewer than 27,000 out of an eligible 330,000 importers had enrolled in the CAPE system as of late March, and that those importers represented some of the largest U.S. businesses, suggesting small businesses were being left behind. As of April 9, according to a court filing from CPB official Brandon Lord, the number of enrolled importers has more than doubled since late March to 56,497.

Groups like the American Association of Exporters and Importers described to TPM challenges smaller importers without in-house counsel and administrative capacity may face enrolling in a complex, multi-step refund process. To that end, the Liberty Justice Center — which represented some of the small businesses who sued over Trump’s International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) tariffs — touted its Tariff Equity Refund Resource for America program, created to support small businesses in getting their money back from the U.S. government, in a press release Monday.

“We fought to stop unlawful tariffs, and now we’re making sure small businesses actually see that money returned,” Sara Albrecht, chair of the Liberty Justice Center, said in a statement Monday.

Lord, the CBP official, said in a March court filing that the phase one refund process should cover 63% of the 53 million IEEPA import entries, representing more than $104.5 billion.

— Layla A. Jones

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‘I Hope He Doesn’t Retire … But If He Does …’

As the end of the Supreme Court term inches closer, Republicans’ nudging of Justice Samuel Alito toward the exits has become more public.

President Trump broached the topic for the first time Wednesday on Fox News.

“In theory, it’s two — you just read the statistics — it could be two, could be three, could be one,” he said to host Maria Bartiromo. “I don’t know. I’m prepared to do it. But when you mention Alito, he is a great justice.”

“Justice Alito is an unbelievable justice, and a brilliant justice, and he gets the country,” he added. “He does what’s right for the country. It’s the law, and he goes by it as much as anybody, but he gets to the point. That’s good for our country. So … one way you should be, ‘Oh, I’m thrilled,’ but he’s so good.”

Republicans are increasingly eager for Alito, 76, to retire at the end of the term before the midterms threaten their Senate majority. Alito’s imminent publishing of a legacy-shaping book— So Ordered: An Originalist’s View of the Constitution, the Court, and Our Country — is seen as another indication that he might be planning to depart. The book will be published October 6, the same time as the Court’s first argument session of the new term.

Justice Clarence Thomas, 77, has been speculated about less, perhaps because he’s about two years away from becoming the longest serving justice in Supreme Court history.

Public pressure on the two has been surprisingly muted thus far, given the salience of judicial actuarial math since Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death during Trump’s first term. But Trump’s remarks accompany some other indications that calls will grow louder in conjunction with the nearing midterms.

Fox News reported earlier this month that Alito had been treated for dehydration at a hospital in March following his attendance at a Federalist Society event. The timing of the previously undisclosed event becoming public knowledge is notable.

And another prominent Republican, former Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley (R-IA) sidled up to the topic this week.

“I hope he doesn’t retire,” he told reporters of Alito. “But if he does retire, I’m going to suggest that either Lee or Cruz be put on the Supreme Court.”

— Kate Riga

Vought Doesn’t Even Have a Ballpark for How Much the Trump Admin Spent on the Iran War So Far

The cost of the ongoing war with Iran, that President Trump has dragged the U.S. into, was one of the most popular lines of questioning in today’s Senate Budget Committee hearing where Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought testified.

Vought was initially asked by Ranking Member Jeff Merkley (D-OR) for a ballpark number on how much money has been spent on the war so far.

“I wouldn’t want to make a characterization of that at this point,” Vought said, refusing to even provide a ballpark figure.

Later, he was pressed by Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, on the same issue.

“You have no idea — none — how much has been spent on the war so far?” Murray asked Vought.

“We don’t have that figures right now. I think in part because it’s fluctuating on a day in, day out basis,” Vought responded.

“You can’t even give us a range?” Murray pressed.

“No, I’m not gonna give you a range because I don’t want to be inaccurate,” Vought said.

“You’re just not gonna tell us because you don’t want us to know how much is being spent … I just find it outrageous that as director you’re not willing to tell us what those costs are. It’s your job to know,” Murray said.

Vought also confirmed that the White House is working on a supplemental request, but said the Trump administration has not yet made a decision on how much funding it will ask Congress to approve for the Iran war.

He said they “want to continue to assess” the ongoing war, including “how long the operations will last,” before they send over a request.

The president’s budget request already included a call for a $1.5 trillion budget for the Department of Defense — formally requesting $350 billion to be approved through the party line reconciliation process — for the upcoming fiscal year.

If that request is approved it would be the largest boost to the military’s budget in modern history, not counting the times the U.S. was involved in a war where they had boots on the ground.

— Emine Yücel

Franklin Graham Jumps to Trump’s Defense

The son of one of the most prominent Christian evangelists in history is bending over backwards to defend President Trump after the evangelical community began turning on him — mildly — for posting a photo of himself depicted as Jesus Christ. Rev. Franklin Graham posted on Twitter Thursday, telling his followers that we should all take Trump at his word when he says that he thought that the image was actually showing him as a doctor.

“When I looked at the illustration, I didn’t jump to the same conclusion as some. There were no spiritual references — no halo, there were no crosses, no angels. It was a flag, soldiers, a nurse, fighter planes, eagles, the Statue of Liberty, and I think this is a lot to do about nothing,” Graham said, calling the backlash “ill-intended speculation.”

It’s a totally disengenuous thing to say, especially coming from such a leading evangelical figure who has presumably been around common Christian illustrations and depictions of Christ since birth.

But Franklin Graham is no Billy, as my dad (a Nazarene preacher) says, and has been serving as a sort of hacky conduit to the evangelical community for Trump since he was first elected in 2016. A sampling of my old headlines for TPM, for some context:

2018: Son Of Billy Graham Defends Trump From Affair Allegations: He’s ‘Changed’

2019: Franklin Graham Hits Buttigieg For Being Gay: ‘Not Something To Be Flaunted’

2019: Pastor Apologizes To Congregants ‘Hurt’ By Decision To Pray Over Trump On Stage

2019: Franklin Graham Calls For ‘Special Day Of Prayer’ To Protect Trump From ‘Enemies’

— Nicole LaFond

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Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought has been undermining Congress and its constitutional power of the purse since President Donald Trump came back to office last year.

While congressional Republicans have done a lot to help erode Congress’ power as a check on the executive branch during Trump II, Vought has made their authority-ceding easy.

Under the leadership of Vought, the OMB and the Trump administration have lawlessly impounded federal funds approved by Congress — according to several decisions from the Government Accountability Office (GAO). The Trump White House also managed to make congressional Republicans authorize a constitutionally backwards rescissions package last year and also attempted to squeeze through an illegal pockets rescissions package.

Wednesday was the first time, since his confirmation hearing, that Vought was up on Capitol Hill to testify in front of a committee. During a House Budget Committee hearing on the president’s budget request for the upcoming fiscal year, Vought made it clear his fundamentally backwards beliefs about the powers the executive branch has over congressionally appropriated money have not changed one bit.

During his testimony, Vought proudly said he “believes in impoundments” — which are illegal.

When asked if he agrees that “the Constitution clearly gives Congress the power of the purse,” Vought responded: “To set the limit on what an appropriation should be …. We believe vitally in the Constitution’s ability to make sure that we can’t spend $1 that you haven’t appropriated.”

In plain speak, that’s Vought laying out his belief that the money Congress appropriates each year is to set a topline limit. Meaning, as long as the president does not spend more than what has been appropriated by Congress, he is within his right to refuse to spend any amount of money appropriated. Which is what the Trump administration has done over and over again since 2025.

Vought also previously made it clear he believes it is unconstitutional for a law to prohibit the president from impounding funds.

But experts tell TPM the president has to spend all the money the way it is signed into law in an appropriations bill — and that Vought’s claim that the president has the unilateral constitutional authority to ignore spending laws is incorrect.

In fact, if the president decides he does not want to spend some of the money that was already appropriated by Congress, he has to get permission from Congress to do so via a rescissions package or a deferral request.

Vought is scheduled to testify in front of the Senate Budget Committee Thursday morning, where Senate Democrats will likely question him more on impoundments and the Trump administration’s lawlessness. More on that tomorrow.

— Emine Yücel

‘Partisan’ = You Don’t Agree With the Trump Admin

During today’s hearing, Vought also made his disdain for the Government Accountability Office — the nonpartisan legislative branch agency tasked, in part, with determining if the executive branch and the president are impounding funds in violation of the Impoundment Control Act (ICA) — very clear.

“GAO is typically wrong. They’re very partisan. They are typically on the exact opposite of wherever the Trump administration is,” Vought said on Wednesday in response to a question around the GAO’s findings that the Trump administration illegally withheld funds.

“Unfortunately, I know you all look to them,” Vought continued. “They are a branch of the legislative body. We have a very different view with regard to the merit of their opinions.”

Rep. Scott Peters (D-CA), who asked the question about GAO’s findings and if Vought disputes them, pushed back.

“I understand that the GAO is part of the government you don’t like — we don’t get to decide what parts of the government we follow. We don’t,” Peters said. “We have laws that are there for a reason, and I guess we should expect that you would abide by those procedures. But you know, whether it’s tariffs, or the war, or the way you’ve manipulated the budget … the administration just does not want to deal with Congress.”

— Emine Yücel

Thune Wants DOJ to ‘Wrap Up’ Its Powell Probe

Just hours after Trump threatened to fire Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell during a Fox Business interview, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) urged the president to wrap up his Justice Department’s sham criminal investigation into Powell and the Fed.

“I think it’s in everybody’s best interest to wrap up the investigation,” Thune reportedly said on Wednesday. “I’ve said that before, it would be better if it winds down.”

It’s a rare show of pushback against the Trump administration for Thune.

And Thune’s comments come as the Trump administration appears to be doing anything but wrapping up and winding down its weaponized investigation purportedly over the cost and scope of renovations on a Federal Reserve building. On Tuesday, two federal prosecutors in U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro’s office were turned away during a pop-up visit to that building’s construction site — in what appears to be a performative stunt designed to help Pirro demonstrate how hard she is working to carry out Trump’s retribution.

All this attempted political overlording has only hurt Trump and his goals to manipulate the Fed into lowering interest rates. Powell’s term is supposed to end on May 15 and Trump nominated a replacement who seems to have enough Republican support to be confirmed, except… Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), who has lauded Trump’s nominee, Kevin Warsh, as qualified, has repeatedly vowed to block any Federal Reserve nominee until the investigation into Powell is over.

“I think at some point they’re going to have to deal with the committee and they’re going to have to deal with Tillis,” Thune said Wednesday.

In the meantime, Powell said he will stay on as chair until his replacement is confirmed and went so far as to say he hasn’t decided whether he’ll stay on as a governor through 2028, which would be rare. It’s unclear — and unlikely — that Trump has the legal jurisdiction to fire Powell. He was blocked from removing Fed Governor Lisa Cook and her case wound its way up to the Supreme Court, which is expected to issue a decision on the matter before the end of this term.

— Layla A. Jones

Mike Johnson Made Him Delete It

The details dripping out about the AI Jesus painting of Trump continue to be amusing.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) was reportedly among the close allies who advised Trump to take down the image he posted on Truth Social, a fake painting that depicted him healing people, as Jesus Christ.

“I did ask him to delete it,” Johnson told reporters on Tuesday.

He did not elaborate beyond that, but Politico has the details. Apparently other members of Congress were among those who called Johnson telling him to talk to the president about taking it down:

Johnson, a devout Christian, and members of his GOP leadership circle, which includes several Catholics, immediately received phone calls from lawmakers, constituents and church groups incensed about the post, according to three people granted anonymity to share private conversations.

It’s unclear who in the Republican conference called Johnson angry about the post. One of the few Republicans still in Congress who is willing to publicly break with Trump — both on the topic of sacrilegious Truth Social posts, as well as other issues, like Trump’s war in Iran and the Justice Department’s handling of the Epstein files — is Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH). After Trump posted the image, Davidson subtweeted Trump with Revelations 2:5, a Bible verse that urges repentence for one’s sins lol. He later doubled down, calling Trump’s post “very troubling.”

— Nicole LaFond

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‘What Being Commander-in-Chief Is About’

It’s been reported that former Attorney General Pam Bondi was fired because, although she spent much of her time as AG trying to carry out President Trump’s retribution agenda, she was not successful enough — both in speed and outcome — at investigating and prosecuting his political opponents. There were also reports that Bondi gave Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) some sort of advance notice about the potential release of investigative files on a past FBI inquiry into his relationship with a Chinese spy 10 years ago. In light of recent events … who knows what was going on there.

But taking the mantle from Bondi — at least temporarily while President Trump decides whether to give the top gig to his Environmental Protection Agency chief Lee Zeldin or another ally in the DOJ, like Harmeet Dhillon — acting Attorney General Todd Blanche is making it clear publicly that he believes a weaponized-for-Trump DOJ is the best kind of DOJ.

During a press conference last week, Blanche suggested that the Trump-obliterated firewall that once existed between the White House and the Justice Department was something that should be left in the past if a president wants to properly lead a nation.

“We have ⁠thousands of ongoing investigations and prosecutions going on in this country right now,” Blanche said during a press conference last week. “It ​is true that some of them involve men, women and entities that the president in the ​past has had issues with and believes should be investigated. That is his right and indeed it is his duty to do that, meaning to lead this country.”

He insinuated a similar belief system is held by Americans, too. In remarks to NBC News on Tuesday, Blanche said Americans should be “happy” that Trump, and his personal vengeance mission, has infiltrated DOJ. During the interview, Blanche was asked about an October 2025 episode, during which Trump accidentally posted something on Truth Social that he meant to send to Bondi directly. In the post, he asked “Pam” why “nothing is being done” to “Comey, Adam ‘Shifty’ Schiff, Leticia???”

Blanche told NBC News that incident was another example of Trump being transparent with the American people and setting “high expectations.”

“That type of communication from President Trump should make every American happy,” Blanche said. “It means that there’s an executive, a chief executive, that is making sure every one of his Cabinet members are working as hard as they should.”

Telling the DOJ what to do, is “what being the commander in chief is about,” he concluded.

Whether the public ring-kissing is enough to secure the gig for Blanche permanently is hard to say, but he is certainly pulling out all the stops. Per Reuters:

Blanche declined to say on Tuesday whether he wants to be nominated to the vacant attorney ⁠general ​post. He said the decision was up to Trump, and ​if the president nominated someone else and asked Blanche to leave his role in the Justice Department, “I will say, ‘thank ​you very much, I love you, sir.’”

— Nicole LaFond

DOJ Sides With Proud Boys, Oath Keepers: Asks Judge to Toss Seditious Conspiracy Convictions

When Trump took office last year, he didn’t pardon everyone on Jan. 6. Some defendants who were convicted of seditious conspiracy, like Stewart Rhodes, Dominic Pezzola, and Ethan Nordean, had their sentences commuted — the slate was not entirely wiped clean, though they were free to go.

That could be over now. On Tuesday, federal prosecutors working for U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro asked the DC Circuit to throw out convictions in the seditious conspiracy cases against the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys.

That, should a panel of judges agree, will remove the convictions. Some in the greater Proud Boy community already hope that it’s a signal for something more: that their lawsuit demanding the DOJ cough up cash for damages over its prosecution of the group will bear lots and lots of money.

— Josh Kovensky

Trump Defiant About Jesus Pic

The president is sticking to his story that he thought the AI-generated painting of him as Jesus Christ that he shared on Truth Social was depicting him as a doctor. He also insulted some of the people who were offended by the post. When CBS News asked him why he deleted the image, he said he did so to clear up any confusion.

“Normally I don’t like doing that, but I didn’t want to have anybody be confused. People were confused,” he said.

“I viewed that as a picture of me being a doctor in fixing — you had the Red Cross right there, you had, you know, medical people surrounding me,” he said. “And I was like the doctor, you know, as a little fun playing the doctor and making people better. So that’s what it was viewed as. That’s what most people thought.”

He also went on to tell CBS that he has “done more for the Catholic Church than any president in the last hundred years.”

There you have it, Christians!

— Nicole LaFond

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‘An Antichrist Spirit’

Most hardcore evangelical Christians can reverse engineer a case for why any given politician or influential emerging world leader is probably the antichrist. What’s rare is when the hysteria sticks, and there’s a consensus around why — as seems to be the case with growing sinister feelings about President Trump this week.

There have been multiple reports and think pieces in the last several weeks about the ways in which President Trump has lost his grip on a base of supporters that, famously, would’ve let him get away with shooting someone on 5th Avenue. There are now some former allies who are also questioning if he is maybe, actually the antichrist. It’s in part due to his decision to involve the United States in another regime change war in another Middle Eastern country after campaigning on a platform of isolationism. It’s also partially due to some of his social media posts that have, apparently, crossed the line for his Christian supporters.

When he posts the f-word and mockingly uses the Muslim word for God in a Truth Social post on Easter Sunday, he makes it harder for his evangelical supporters to look away. When he posts what appears to be an AI-generated painting of himself depicted as white Jesus, we’re stepping further into the territory of unforgivable blasphemy for a demographic that has long stomached his moral shortcomings for the sake of getting Roe v. Wade overturned and other cultural wins.

In a shocking turn — and what one might interpret as the rare admission of wrongdoing — the AI image President Trump posted on Truth Social over the weekend was deleted this afternoon. The image appeared to depict him in a Jesus-like role, healing a man and surrounded by adoring and prayerful Americans, including a soldier and a bunch of other patriotic imagery. He posted the image not long after he went on a tirade against Pope Leo XIV on Sunday night and it was immediately met with condemnation, both from some of his past political allies and evangelical influencers who have rarely criticized him.

“It’s more than blasphemy. It’s an Antichrist spirit,” former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) posted on Twitter on Sunday.

“I don’t know if the President thought he was being funny or if he is under the influence of some substance or what possible explanation he could have for this OUTRAGEOUS blasphemy,” wrote Megan Basham, a widely followed conservative Christian writer. “But he needs to take this down immediately and ask for forgiveness from the American people and then from God.”

“This post is, frankly, disgusting and unacceptable, but also a profound misreading of the American people experiencing a true and beautiful revival of faith in Christ in the midst of our broken culture,” Isabel Brown, a Daily Wire podcaster and a right-wing influencer whose content is consistently pro-Trump, wrote.

The post was reportedly taken down while Trump was in a meeting with his Religious Liberty Commission, according to WaPo. The commission includes prominent evangelical figures like Paula White-Cain and Rev. Franklin Graham, the son of the famous evangelist Billy Graham. I grew up within the evangelical church, and know that adherents are very serious about their reverence for depictions of Christ. (And while I can’t speak from personal experience, one might assume Catholics have deeply held opinions about whether it is appropriate to yell at the pope.) It’s possible Trump did not comprehend the gravity of the matter since he only started hanging out with conservative Christians when it became politically advantageous for him to do so.

Before the post was removed, Trump claimed to reporters at the White House that he thought the image depicted him as a doctor, not Christ himself.

“I thought it was me as a doctor, and had to do with Red Cross, as a Red Cross worker, which we support,” Trump said.

“It’s supposed to be me as a doctor, making people better. And I do make people better. I make people a lot better,” he continued, before suggesting it was “fake news” that the image showed him as Christ. It tracks that Trump might not know what the average depiction of Jesus might look like since his favorite book of the Bible is “two Corinthians” and he has not spent much time in church.

Both Greene and others who were once in Trump’s orbit — like former Fox News host Tucker Carlson — have insinuated in recent days that the angel of darkness might be kicking off Armageddon before our very eyes. Time, and The Mark, will tell.

Swalwell Resigns

Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) announced he plans to resign from Congress after allegrations of sexual assault surfaced over the weekend, prompting him to drop out of the race for governor of California. The news comes as the House Ethics Committee announced it would investigate the allegrations and amid growing calls for an expulsion vote.

Judge Tosses Trump’s Lawsuit Against WSJ

A federal judge has tossed out a defamation lawsuit that President Trump tried to bring against the Wall Street Journal after it reported on a disgusting birthday message that Trump reportedly wrote for Jeffrey Epstein’s 50th birthday.

U.S. District Judge Darrin Gayles said Trump came “nowhere close” to proving the “actual malice” necessary to bring a successful defamation case. “Quite the opposite,” he wrote in the decision. Per Politico:

“President Trump’s conclusory allegation that Defendants had contradictory evidence and failed to investigate is rebutted by the Article and is insufficient to establish actual malice,” the judge wrote. The actual malice standard requires Trump to prove that the Journal either knew the article was false at the time it was published or acted in reckless disregard of indications that it was likely false.

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While the Justice Department actively attempts to shield fired-Attorney General Pam Bondi from having to sit for a deposition before the House Oversight Committee about the DOJ’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files, the first lady is actively calling for more Epstein related hearings.

This was not on my bingo card…

In a bizarre and increasingly rare public statement on camera this afternoon, First Lady Melania Trump denied ever having a relationship with Epstein, the convicted sex offender and financier who died while in federal prison after being charged with trafficking young girls, or with his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell.

“I’ve never been friends with Epstein. Donald and I were invited to the same parties as Epstein from time to time since overlapping in social circles is common in New York City and Palm Beach,” she said, adding that her “email reply to Maxwell cannot be categorized as anything more than casual correspondence.” This is a reference to an email that surfaced in a recent document dump from the Justice Department that appears to show someone named “Melania” sending an email to “G” about a “nice story about JE in NY mag.” While the sender names are visible, the email addresses for both the sender and recipient are redacted.

The first lady also denied being a “victim” of Epstein’s and she said that he did not introduce her to her husband, an apparent response to rumors about the origins of Melania Trump’s relationship both with Trump and with Epstein, which her staff has described as “defamatory.”

“The false smears about me from mean-spirited and politically motivated individuals and entities looking to cause damage to my good name to gain financially and climb politically must stop,” she said.

She then pivoted to call on Congress to hold public hearings with survivors of Epstein’s abuse — just as her husband’s own compromised Justice Department tries to get America to move on from the Epstein files now that Bondi has been fired. Todd Blanche, who was the deputy attorney general and who is filling in as acting attorney general, told Fox News last week that, “to the extent that the Epstein files was a part of the past year of this Justice Department, it should not be a part of anything going forward.”

“Give these victims their opportunity to testify under oath in front of Congress with the power of sworn testimony. Each and every woman should have her day to tell her story in public, if she wishes, and then her testimony should be permanently entered into the Congressional Record,” the first lady said. “Then and only then, we will have the truth.”

Democrats on the House Oversight Committee have already put out statements saying they agree with the first lady’s calls for public hearings with survivors. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), a Republican on the House Oversight Committee who voted with Democrats and four other Republicans to subpoena Bondi back in March, thanked Melania Trump on Twitter after her public remarks.

“Now is the time for Congress to act,” Mace wrote. “Epstein was not alone. Several prominent male executives resigned from their powerful positions after this matter became widely politicized. Of course, this doesn’t amount to guilt, but we still must work openly and transparently to uncover the truth.”

— Nicole LaFond

Ex-Proud Boys Leader Gets Involved in AG Search

Former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio and Cynthia Hughes, who has been involved in advocacy work for Jan. 6 defendants, have taken it upon themselves to sooth fears within some factions of the MAGA movement about Harmeet Dhillon, who, reportedly, may be up for a promotion. Dhillon, who currently leads the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, is reportedly being considered for either attorney general or associate attorney general. Some MAGA supporters who are thirsty for revenge for Jan. 6 defendants don’t think she has done enough to investigate the Jan. 6 investigators during her time in the DOJ so far. Dhillon has openly feuded with critics about the matter on social media, too.

Tarrio and Hughes penned and published a letter to MAGA supporters on Thursday, asking the president’s fans to give Dhillon “a fair shot” if she is ultimately promoted.

“If Harmeet Dhillon is indeed stepping into a larger role, we’re willing to give her a fair shot,” they wrote. “We’ll support what’s right, and we’ll oppose what’s not. And we will hold her, as we would anyone in that position, to the highest standard.”

— Nicole LaFond

Kanye West, RFK Jr. and the Swelling Anti-Flouride Disinfo Movement

An unlikely character is haunting dentists’ offices: Kanye West.

A lifetime ago in October 2020, Kanye West was a guest on The Joe Rogan Experience. The discussion turned to his history of mental illness and his experience of being medicated. He went on to raise a once-fringe conspiracy theory: “But we’re all on medication right now. Did you use toothpaste with fluoride today? It blocks your pineal gland. And they put children on it.”

The pineal gland is a small pinecone shaped mass of tissue in the brain that secretes melatonin. In some alternative healing circles, it is equated with the third eye because of its placement towards the center of the brain. Some anti-fluoride activists claim that the use of fluoride can lead to its calcification, based on a small number of highly limited studies. The evidence to support this claim is weak, but it continues to circulate online — and the idea has recently gained more traction within the MAHA movement.

While most Americans still support community water fluoridation, today a small but growing number of people are refusing topical fluoride treatment at preventative dental care offices, particularly parents on behalf of their kids, according to dentists and hygienists. Topical fluoride is typically applied in the form of a gel or varnish to the teeth by an oral health professional; research has shown that it is highly effective in reducing and even reversing cavities, especially in children.

Donald Chi, a pediatric dentist and public health researcher who has studied topical fluoride hesitancy, told TPM that among his patients, Kanye West in particular is “one major source of disinformation” about the safety of topical fluoride. Other sources include alternative dentists-turned-influencers, as well as RFK Jr. and his ongoing war on ingested fluoride.

TPM has more on the unintended consequences of the anti-fluoride movement in a new piece out this week, read it here.

— Farrell Brenner

Check It Out

Over at The Informant, TPM alum Nick Martin and researcher Haley Orion have an incredible new piece based on a leaked trove from the white supremacist group Patriot Front.

According to the site, the secret documents and posts show an ex-Navy SEAL named Corey Scott is a member of the extremist group, which has roots in the infamous Charlottesville rally and is known for staging masked parades and propaganda displays. Scott played a key role in a war crimes trial involving a fellow SEAL, Eddie Gallagher, whose case attracted the attention of President Donald Trump and others in his orbit. The Informant’s story is just the latest evidence of the links between white nationalist extremism and the MAGA movement.

— Hunter Walker

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Not So Fast

It appears as though members of the House Oversight Committee, including some Republicans, are not going to let ousted Attorney General Pam Bondi get away with skipping her deposition now that she is no longer attorney general.

House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-KY) subpoenaed Bondi for an April 14 deposition before the committee to answer questions about the Justice Department’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case and the relase of the department’s investigative files on the wealthy financier who was charged with sex trafficking before he died in prison. Bondi had not yet officially confirmed the date of her testimony when she was unceremoniously fired by Trump last week, reportedly due to her apparent failure to secure timely indictments and investigations into Trump’s perceived political enemies. The panel said in a statement today that they plan to continue seeking a date for her to testify.

The DOJ reportedly sent Comer a letter this week requesting that Bondi be relinquished from her deposition duties since she was fired from the DOJ. Per Politico, which obtained a copy of the letter to Comer:

“We kindly ask that you confirm that the subpoena is withdrawn,” wrote assistant attorney general Patrick Davis, adding that DOJ “continues to believe that additional compulsory process is unnecessary in light of our demonstrated willingness to voluntarily assist your oversight efforts.”

Democrats on the panel have already indicated that they believe Bondi must still answer the committee’s questions, despite her ouster.

“Now that Pam Bondi has been fired, she’s trying to get out of her legal obligation to testify before the Oversight Committee about the Epstein files and the White House cover-up,” the panel’s ranking member Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA) said in a statement Wednesday. “Our bipartisan subpoena is to Pam Bondi, whether she is the Attorney General or not. She must come in to testify immediately, and if she defies the subpoena, we will begin contempt charges in the Congress. The survivors deserve justice.”

It appears panel Republicans are on the same page:

“The Department of Justice has stated Pam Bondi will not appear on April 14 for a deposition since she is no longer Attorney General and was subpoenaed in her capacity as Attorney General,” a House Oversight Committee Republicans spokesperson said in a statement to Politico Wednesday. “The Committee will contact Pam Bondi’s personal counsel to discuss next steps regarding scheduling her deposition.”

It’s been an open question whether Republican Oversight Committee members might still enforce the subpoena after Bondi’s departure. But Comer broke with other Republican panel members, alongside four other Republicans on the committee, to join Democrats in voting to subpoena Bondi in March, indicating he may still be interested in hearing from her despite her ousting from the DOJ.

Iran War Powers Vote Incoming

Democratic leadership in Congress is planning a handful of actions to at least make some noise about President Trump’s ongoing, unauthorized and increasingly hysterical war in Iran, which may or may not be ongoing. While leadership did not join the chorus of calls from Democratic members of Congress yesterday to invoke the 25th Amendment and/or impeach Trump, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is planning to force a vote on a war powers resolution in the upper chamber next week.

“Congress must reassert its authority, especially at this dangerous moment. No president, Democrat or Republican, should take this country to war alone. Not now. Not ever,” Schumer said at a press conference Wednesday. “Republicans will once again have the opportunity to join Democrats and end this reckless war of choice. The public must demand that Republicans join with us to approve the War Powers Act.”

While similar measures have already failed repeatedly in the Senate, it appears that Republicans may try to bake authorization for Trump’s military operation in Iran into an impending budget reconciliation package that they’re expected to use to give Trump billions more in funding for his war.

Meanwhile, in the House:

Americans Against Data Centers

A small city in Wisconsin, just outside of Milwaukee — currently home to a Trump-backed data center AI project — has voted to block the development of future data centers in the city. Advocates say their efforts could serve as a blueprint for residents seeking to fight the development of AI data centers in communities around the nation.

More details, from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

The referendum won with 66% of voters answering ‘yes’ on the ballot question, asking whether to approve an ordinance that would add a public checkpoint to the approval process for TIF districts over $10 million. The ordinance was proposed by residents part of a grassroots, local anti-data center group, called Great Lakes Neighbors United, that opposed the $15 billion AI data center for Oracle, OpenAI and Vantage on the city’s north side.

Relatedly, a new piece in TPM Cafe today: Trump Wants to Build Massive New Detention Centers. States Are Blocking Their Construction.

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Invoking the 25th?

Some Democratic members of Congress are doing what they can to sound the alarm about an unhinged president threatening to make good on his social media promise that “a whole civilization will die tonight,” including urging Trump’s Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment and calling for impeachment.

Democratic leadership has not yet joined in. There is reportedly some talk of sending a letter to Cabinet officials or attempting to force an impeachment vote in the House, Axios reported. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) is keeping his messaging focused on an upcoming war powers vote that the party wants to try to force in the House.

It’s not clear what tonight will bring. As my colleague Hunter Walker reported, Trump’s latest threats against the “whole civilization” of Iran and Iranian civilian infrastructure have helped grow the divide among the isolationists in Trump’s MAGA base who are not backing his actions in Iran, and other, more mainstream Republicans who are.

The Democratic members of Congress who Trump threatened to charge with sedition over a video they posted on social media have put out strong statements today doubling down on their guidance to the military, reiterating that service members have a duty to not follow illegal orders. Their initial offer of that advice originally prompted Trump to suggest they had committed an offense that was punishable by hanging.

“I know that our service members up and down the chain of command know their duty and the law to refuse illegal orders. Even as the Commander-in-Chief tells the world otherwise,” Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) posted on Twitter this afternoon. “It’s moments like these that are why we made the video to service members last year. And I hope and believe our troops — especially those in command — will have the moral clarity to push back if they are given clearly illegal orders.”

Slotkin, other Democrats, legal experts and former military officials have been warning all day that if Trump acts on his threats to target civilian infrastructure in order to punish the Iranian regime for not reopening the Strait of Hormuz, he will have committed war crimes — based on both the Pentagon’s own Law of War manual and international laws established by the first Geneva Convention. While the U.S. has avoided, at least up until this point, directly targeting civilian infrastructure, the U.S. and Israel’s combined attacks have killed an estimated 1,400 civilians in Iran since Trump dragged the U.S. to war there in February, according to a recent report put out by human rights groups.

Per the Washington Post:

Jameel Jaffer, a longtime human rights lawyer and lecturer at Columbia University, said Trump’s latest threat to extinguish a “whole civilization” meets the “very definition of terrorism — to seek to achieve political ends through violence or threats of violence directed at civilians.”

He noted that the Pentagon’s own law-of-war manual clearly prohibits threats of violence whose primary purpose is to spread terror among civilians. “Military personnel,” Jaffer said, “have an obligation not to carry out orders they know to be unlawful.”

Until now, the United States largely has been hitting military targets in Iran such as ammunition depots, ballistic missile manufacturing facilities, mobile launchers and naval ships. But Trump has threatened that, as of Tuesday 8 p.m., he will order the military to target clearly civilian facilities and do so indiscriminately, rather than weigh whether each is a valid military target whose destruction would not cause undue civilian harm.

“If the President takes the actions he has threatened to take, countless Iranian civilians will die, it will massively escalate this war, and the United States will be seen as a country without a moral or ethical compass,” said Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ), another Democrat who participated in the video last year who has been targeted by not just Trump, but Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth personally. “That will make Americans less safe right now and risk the lives of thousands of service members. The consequences will have a lasting and damaging effect on our nation.”

WTF Are Republicans Saying?

While many Republicans in Congress are either downplaying Trump’s rhetoric as a negotiation tool — Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE), a retiring moderate who often breaks with Trump, shrugged the whole thing off as “negotiating Trump style” — or not saying anything, a few have urged the president to maybe think twice here.

• Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), for example, told the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday that Trump would lose him as an ardent defender in Congress if he makes good on his threat to bomb Iran “back to the Stone Ages,” calling his threats “a huge mistake.” “I hope and pray that President Trump is just using this as bluster,” he said.

• Rep. Nathaniel Moran (R-TX) limply implied in a tweet that targeting civilians might be unconstitutional: “So, let me be clear: I do not support the destruction of a ‘whole civilization.’ That is not who we are, and it is not consistent with the principles that have long guided America,” he wrote.

• ??? “President Trump is trying to actually turn the temperature down,” Rep. Pat Harrigan (R-NC) told Fox News.

• Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-CA) suggested in a Twitter post that Congress might need to consider taking some action to either authorize or conduct oversight on Trump’s actions in Iran: “Congress has a responsibility to conduct oversight with respect to ongoing military operations and our obligations under both U.S. law and international agreements to which we are a signatory,” he said.

• Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) bravely calls for de-escalation: “The oppressive, terror-spreading regime of the Islamic Republic must be distinguished from the people and the civilization of Iran. Everyone involved — especially the President and Iran’s leaders — must de-escalate their unprecedented saber-rattling before it is too late.”

Trump Dismisses Tucker

Tucker Carlson suggested that Trump was the anti-Christ and begining the “first step toward nuclear war” on Monday evening, adding hysteria to the evangelical and Christian right’s tendency to label most foreign policy moves either by Trump or other presidents as the beginning of the End Times.

“Is it possible that the president sees this in bigger terms? Sees this as the fulfillment of something? An elevation of some higher office beyond president of the United States?” Tucker pondered.

“Tucker’s a low IQ person that has absolutely no idea what’s going on,” Trump told the New York Post Tuesday. “He calls me all the time; I don’t respond to his calls. I don’t deal with him. I like dealing with smart people, not fools.”

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A day after dropping the f-bomb on Truth Social in an Easter Sunday post where he threatened to attack massive swaths of Iran’s infrastructure if the “Fuckin’ Strait” is not opened, President Trump doubled down on those threats from the White House podium on Monday, again threatening to bomb the country back to “the stone ages.”

“We have a plan, because of the power of our military, where every bridge in Iran will be decimated by 12 o’clock tomorrow night, where every power plant in Iran will be out of business — burning, exploding, and never to be used again,” he said during a rambling press conference Monday, referencing his previous (supposed) ultimatum to Iranian regime leaders to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

“Do I want to destroy their infrastructure? No,” the president continued. “It will take them 100 years to rebuild. Right now, if we left today, it would take them 20 years to rebuild their country, and it would never be as good as it was. And the only way they’re going to be able to rebuild their country is to utilize the genius of the United States of America.”

When asked how sweeping and debilitating attacks on Iran’s bridges and power plants might punish the people of Iran, whom Trump has claimed to be liberating — among a revolving door of rationales for bringing the U.S. to war there — Trump said Iranian civilians “would be willing to suffer that for their freedom.”

Israel has also been issuing similar threats to Iran if it doesn’t end its blockade of the straight, which typically allows for transport of almost a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas supply. Trump is, of course, fixated on getting the strait reopened because he is suffering a political beating at home over a war that is bipartisanly unpopular and causing a surge in gas prices ahead of the midterms.

Democrats are already warning that Trump’s escalated threats are being made by an entirely “unhinged” and flailing president, and taking such a destructive military action would amount to a war crime.

“He’s definitely threatening a war crime against the people of Iran because he’s essentially saying that if they don’t open the Strait of Hormuz that he’s going to destroy their civilian infrastructure, destroy power plants, destroy bridges,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told NBC News Monday.

“The American people already recognize that this illegal war of choice is a big mistake,” he said.

— Nicole LaFond

He’s Also Threatening to Jail Journalists

During his lengthy press conference, which he held at the White House alongside Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Dan Caine, Trump also outlined his ambitions to jail journalists at whichever news outlet first reported on the existence of a second U.S. airman who was missing after an attack on an American fighter jet in Iran late last week.

Hegseth, Caine and Trump described the details of the mission to rescue both the pilot and the other American servicemember. The pilot was rescued within a few hours of the shoot down, but the other airman was stuck in Iran and not recovered until Sunday.

“We think we’ll be able to find it out,” Trump said of figuring out the identity of a source who may have shared that intelligence with the news media. “Because we’re going to go to the media company that released it, and we’re going to say, ‘National security. Give it up or go to jail.’”

— Nicole LaFond

Just Has to Learn Spanish First

Trump, during his press conference, also got into his apparent interest in running for president in Venezuela, where, he claims, people are begging him to be their new leader. 🙄

“Just so you understand, the people of Venezuela, they say if I ran for president of Venezuela — I’m polling higher than anyone has ever polled in Venezuela, so after I’m finished with this, I can go to Venezuela, I will quickly learn Spanish — won’t take too long, I’m good at language — and I will go to Venezuela, I gotta run for president.”

“Done with this” might be as close as we get to him admitting he won’t try to stay in office past 2028.

— Nicole LaFond

Why Aren’t More Dems Brutalizing Him for This?

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D) spoke out about Trump’s recent remarks in which he declared that the federal government should not be funding social services or safety net programs because it’s too busy fighting wars.

“That’s nonsense,” Moore said during an interview that aired Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “And that’s not what any of us want. We don’t want to be fighting foreign wars while you’re taking away our health care.”

“I think the president still does not have a full articulation as to why gas prices are going up in the first place, or what’s going to be necessary or required to be able to bring them down,” he continued.

Trump’s remarks came around the time last week that discussions were first beginning to emerge among Republican lawmakers about how to fund Trump’s war in Iran. They, too, were openly questioning whether Congress might need to cut Medicaid and Medicare again in order to do so, implying the budget reconciliation process might require them to though, as my colleague Emine Yücel has reported, that is not in fact how reconciliation works.

— Nicole LaFond

Kaine Questions if Congress Should Give a Mammoth ‘Blank Check’ to Hegseth’s DoD

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) on Sunday was skeptical of the Trump administration’s $1.5 trillion request for the Department of Defense for the next fiscal year.

“I have a hard time seeing that size of an increase as being justified,” Kaine, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told NBC News.

If the request — the details of which were outlined in the president’s budget request last week— is approved it would be the largest boost to the military’s budget in modern history, not counting the times the U.S. was involved in a war where they had boots on the ground.

Kaine indicated he is concerned about handing a “blank check” of this size to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth amid his recent decision making — including his call to fire Army chief of staff, Gen. Randy George and several other high ranking officers last week.

“Here’s a question we have to ask, which is it’s not just about the dollars, it’s about the Pentagon managing the money,” Kaine said. “You just watched the secretary of defense fire very respected Army leadership in the middle of a war — respected leadership on both sides of the aisle in both houses — and there’s deep questions about why.”

“I don’t think Congress is going to be in a mood to write a blank check to a leadership team, a civilian leadership team that seems so inept these days,” he added.

— Emine Yücel

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We (TPM reporter Emine Yücel and Executive Editor John Light) spoke about a wild few weeks on Capitol Hill, with Senate Republicans caving to Senate Democrats, House Republicans caving to Senate Republicans, a huge bill for Iran, and renewed attempts to pass the sweeping, voter-suppressing SAVE Act. Chaos at airports thanks to an until-recently-unpaid TSA looms over all of it. There’s a lot that Congress is (in theory) handling right now with (in practice) limited success. We unpack it.

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Retribution Attack Dog?

President Trump fired Pam Bondi as attorney general on Thursday, just hours after reports began to surface suggesting he may have informed her before his national address on Iran Wednesday night that she was getting sacked. She will be replaced by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, another of Trump’s former personal lawyers, for now. Multiple outlets are reporting that he may nominate Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lee Zeldin as Bondi’s permanent replacement.

Trump has reportedly been upset with Bondi for multiple reasons months, including over how she has handled the release of the files on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. But his main source of frustration was that she did not make enough progress in investigating and prosecuting his perceived political enemies, NBC News reported.

That’s the role of the Justice Department, in his view, after all.

Specifically, he was reportedly frustrated with how she handled the impending release of files related to a decade-old investigation into Rep. Eric Swalwell, a California Democrat who has emerged as one of Trump’s most vocal critics in the House and who is running for governor of California. Per Semafor:

Trump was also frustrated with Bondi because he believes she may have alerted California Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell to an effort by the administration to release files from an investigation into his relationship with an alleged Chinese spy, one of the sources told Semafor.

There are some reports that Bondi begged Trump to keep her job, but that Trump viewed the supposed offense as unforgivable. The two reportedly had a “tough” conversation on Wednesday evening and Trump confirmed reports of her dismissal in a Truth Social post Thursday, saying she was leaving the administration for an unspecified “private sector” job. Other reports indicate she may be given another job in the administration or Trump may appoint her as a judge. Regardless, he’s considering nominating his EPA administrator to take over.

CNN reports that Zeldin and Trump have “remained close” since Zeldin lost his bid for New York governor in 2022 to Democrat Kathy Hochul and left Congress. Zeldin was making regular appearance at Mar-a-Lago during Trump’s campaign for the White House in 2024, according to CNN.

But Trump’s interest in tapping the EPA head to replace Bondi may be rooted in more than comradery, if reports about the reason for Bondi’s firing are true — that she wasn’t taking enough successful strides in Trump’s political revenge death march.

Zeldin demonstrated early on in Trump’s second term that he was willing to use his post at the EPA to do Trump’s retribution work, whether it made sense or not. Let me unpack an episode from February of last year that TPM covered pretty closely. This was right around when the Trump administration first began dissolving the longstanding firewall between the Justice Department and the White House in a scandal that seems quaint by today’s standards.

Denise Cheung was a federal prosecutor in charge of the criminal division of the Washington, D.C. U.S. Attorney’s Office who offered her resignation to then-acting U.S. Attorney Ed Martin after being pressured by Martin to open a grand jury investigation into a Zeldin-pushed conspiracy theory about Biden-era Environmental Protection Agency grants.

In her resignation letter, Cheung said there wasn’t enough evidence to open an investigation into Zeldin’s belief that the Biden administration’s EPA improperly distributed climate funding to non-profit organizations before the start of Trump’s presidency. When he took over the EPA, Zeldin immediately moved to rescind some $20 billion in grants that had already been allocated for climate projects by President Biden’s EPA. At the time, he said he had come across evidence in an “extremely disturbing video” that, he claimed, suggested the funds had been improperly dumped into bank accounts at the end of Biden’s term. In reality, the video shows an apparent former Biden-era EPA employee talking about distributing climate funding to “nonprofits, states, tribes” before Trump got back into office.

The video was made and produced by none other than Project Veritas, a known purveyor of disinfo and conspiracy theories. It was also the only supposed proof Zeldin used to justify his decision to freeze $20 billion in climate grants and to demand an investigation.

It seems those demands may have been dropped with Cheung’s resignation — or maybe later, with Martin’s ousting — but Zeldin has remained successful in keeping that $20 billion in climate funds frozen for more than a year while lawsuits against Zeldin’s decision to rescind the funds remain tied up in court.

Trump: Federal Gov’t Can’t Pay for Social Safety Net Because ‘We’re Fighting Wars’

Congressional Republicans are salivating over another potential opportunity to make cuts to social safety net programs in order to, they claim, fund Trump’s war in Iran — even though they don’t actually have to cut Medicaid to offset the costs of non-reoccuring spending, which Emine Yücel unpacks here. Trump seems to agree with them.

While delivering remarks to a private group gathered for an Easter luncheon at the White House Wednesday, Trump said that it is “not possible” for the federal government to provide funding for Medicaid, Medicare and other child care programs. He claimed that states should actually “take care” of that funding themselves and the federal government should keep its focus on military funds. Per NBC News:

He went on to say that he told Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought: “Don’t send any money for day care, because the United States can’t take care of day care. That has to be up to a state. We can’t take care of day care. We’re a big country. We have 50 states. We have all these other people. We’re fighting wars. We can’t take care of day care. You got to let a state take care of day care, and they should pay for it too.”

No One’s Safe

Per The Guardian:

Donald Trump has privately asked cabinet members in recent weeks whether he should replace his director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, venting frustration that she shielded a former deputy who undercut his rationale for war with Iran, according to two people briefed on the discussions.

It’s not exactly a surprise that Trump is also losing patience with Gabbard, who, in my opinion, went out of her way to make it clear that she did not personally agree with many of Trump’s decisions regarding his war in Iran during recent testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee.

You can read about that here: Gabbard Distances Herself From Her Own Testimony About Iran

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