Right-Wing Agitation For Violence Against Protesters Swells
This is your TPM evening briefing.
Local officials in Adams County, Pennsylvania are condemning a social media post shared by the county sheriff on Facebook that featured an image of a white pickup truck with red splatters across the front bumper, hood and tires. The image posted by Adams County Sheriff James Muller was captioned “The All New Dodge Ram Protester Edition.” The red splatters are very clearly supposed to be blood.
I won’t even embed the post — which has since been deleted — because it is genuinely gross to look at. But for the morbidly curious, you can find a screenshot of it from the local NBC affiliate here. Muller, a Republican, reportedly shared the image on Facebook amid the nationwide “No Kings” protests this weekend, as demonstrators in municipalities across the country marched against a slew of Trump administration policies and actions. Specifically, protesters were moved to action by Trump’s use of the military to stage a birthday spectacle for himself, and his decision to deploy the military domestically to crack down on mostly peaceful efforts to block ICE raids in Los Angeles earlier this month.
Both the Adams County Board of Commissioners as a unit and individual commissioners on the board released statements this week condemning the sheriff’s post, with one commissioner calling it “unacceptable.”
It’s part of an ongoing story, the ominous demonization of First Amendment-protected protest by Republicans in power, both implicitly via the Trump administration’s National Guard overreach as it cracks down on protesters in California, and explicitly via statements from local sheriffs and GOP governors alike. In Florida last week, Brevard County Sheriff Wayne Ivey, a Republican, warned that any protesters who got violent during the county’s “No Kings” marches, would be killed: “If you throw a brick, a firebomb, or point a gun at one of our deputies, we will be notifying your families where to collect your remains at because we will kill you graveyard dead,” Ivey said.
During an interview on a podcast published last week, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis told Floridians not to worry about it too much if they ended up hitting a protester with their car.
“We also have a policy that if you’re driving on one of those streets and a mob comes and surrounds your vehicle and threatens you, you have the right to flee for your safety. If you drive off and you hit one of these people, that’s their fault for impinging on you,” DeSantis said.
As I noted last week, these fantasies of violence grow out of a years long right-wing agitation to inflict violence on protesters who are exercising their rights and demonstrating against things MAGA doesn’t agree with. In the wake of protests in 2020 against the murder of George Floyd, Republican state legislatures across the nation passed laws cracking down on lawful assembly. Many of those new laws were aimed at giving sweeping new immunities to drivers who, intentionally or not, strike protesters with their vehicles.
The ramifications of these laws are now playing out in real time.
ICE Arrests NYC Comptroller, Mayoral Candidate
By now you’ve likely seen reports that New York City Comptroller and mayoral candidate Brad Lander was arrested by ICE — or handed over by ICE to law enforcement and arrested — while trying to help escort an immigrant out of immigration court in lower Manhattan this afternoon. It’s the latest of several such detainments of a high profile elected Democrat in as many weeks — Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) was arrested when trying to ask DHS Secretary Kristi Noem a question during a public press briefing last week. Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-NJ) is also facing charges over a clash outside of an ICE detention center after New Mayor Ras Baraka (D) was arrested and not charged last month.
DHS is claiming it wants to bring charges against Lander, who has been one of the top polling candidates in the ranked choice Democratic mayoral primary heading into early voting this week. Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin accused Lander of assaulting law enforcement and impeding a federal officer in a statement this afternoon.
As of early Tuesday evening, it is still unclear if federal prosecutors in Manhattan will actually bring charges against Lander. Other mayoral candidates have put out statements calling for Lander’s release. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul called the arrest “bullshit,” and later said she had heard he would not be charged. Based on video his wife posted on his Twitter page, it appears that Lander was attempting to help accompany a migrant defendant out of immigration court. He can be heard on video telling the ICE agents surrounding the defendant that they needed to show a judicial warrant in order to detain the defendant. He was then shoved up against a wall and handcuffed. It’s difficult to stomach, but I’ll link the footage here.
Based Mike Lee Browbeaten Into Deleting Tweets
After being chased down by Sen. Tina Smith (D-MN) on Monday, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) deleted some of his more heinous tweets mocking the weekend shooting of two Minnesota Democratic state lawmakers and their spouses. One of them featured a photo of the alleged shooter in a mask with the caption “nightmare on Walz street,” a nod to the delusional conspiracy theory that Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) had ordered the killings. Lee left up tweets saying “my guess: He’s not MAGA” in reaction to a photo of the alleged shooter, and a retweet of Elon Musk’s claim that “the far left is murderously violent” with a vehement “fact check: TRUE.” Evidence emerged quickly suggesting that the alleged shooter is a Trump supporter, and the FBI said in an affidavit that his hit list was “mostly or all” Democratic politicians.
— Kate Riga
The Big Ugly Bill
A series of polls released in recent days indicate the House-passed “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” is broadly unpopular with the majority of Americans except with self-proclaimed MAGA Republicans.
A Quinnipiac University poll found that 53% of voters oppose the House-passed reconciliation package. Meanwhile, only 27% said they support it while 20% did not offer an opinion, according to the poll which was released last week.
Similarly a recent KFF poll found the reconciliation package is highly disliked. Sixty four percent of adults said they have an unfavorable view of the legislation and only 35% said they had a favorable view, per KFF.
The KFF’s poll also showed high support for Medicaid work requirements, with 68% saying they are for it. That included half of Democrats and nine in 10 Republicans. However, when respondents were informed of the barriers that work requirements would create, support for the provision dropped.
Amid the unpopularity of House Republicans’ reconciliation package, the Senate Finance committee, which is responsible for changes made to taxes and social safety net programs like Medicare and Medicaid, released the text for their portion of the reconciliation package Monday afternoon, where they proposed deeper cuts to Medicaid and other programs to make President Trump’s 2017 tax cuts permanent.
— Emine Yücel
In Case You Missed It
The latest in California’s suit against the Trump administration federalizing the National Guard to descend on LA: Ninth Circuit Mulls How Far the White House Went in Deploying Troops to LA
Senate Republicans Propose Gutting Medicaid Further To Make Trump Tax Cuts Permanent
Tina Smith Calls Out Mike Lee’s Rancid Social Media Posts
They’re Giving The Whole Game Away
Yesterday’s Most Read Story
The Biggest Loser: The Public Is Rejecting Trump’s Degenerate Police State Antics
What We Are Reading
MAGA’s Plan to Remake an Iconic New York Landmark
A Senator’s Fall From Grace Ends in a Grim Federal Lockup
White House Eyes Rarely Used Power to Override Congress on Spending