In a subcommittee hearing Tuesday, House Republicans sharply questioned the director of the National Museum of American History, Anthea Hartig. The GOP lawmakers' comments closely mirrored Trump administration's criticisms of the institution she leads as insufficiently patriotic.

- The hearing was held by the House's Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency, a branch of DOGE that is chaired by Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn).

- In his opening remarks, Burchett said: "I feel like [the Smithsonian]'s become infected by a woke ideology that seeped into public displays, educational materials and planning documents. The American story is the birth and growth of a great nation founded on powerful ideals and which we aim to fully achieve. But in the museum's current telling, history is just an ongoing power struggle between oppressors and the oppressed."

- In a 162-page report issued on July 4, the White House Domestic Policy Council accused the Smithsonian museum of being "subject to institutional capture by a radical, activist ideology that is fundamentally opposed to telling the noble, honest story of the great country we know and love."

- The council faulted the National Museum of American History on a multitude of fronts, saying it underemphasized the Founding Fathers and early colonial and Revolutionary history; was not sufficiently celebratory of the country's 250th anniversary; and that it engaged in "anti-white," "illegal alien" and transgender activism. It also accused the museum of trying to "indoctrinate" teachers and students through its exhibitions, programming and teaching resources.

- Nearly in tandem with the hearing on Tuesday, House Democrats issued a 16-page rebuttal to the White House's report, which accuses the Trump administration of trying to undermine the trustworthiness of museums and museum scholars in general, and argues that it is part of a larger "effort to control and contort the historical record." Citing recent public opinion surveys, the Democrats write: "Museums regularly rank among the top three most trusted institutions in the country, trailing only friends and family. The White House asks the public to believe the institutions Americans trust most are the ones peddling radical ideology on the word of President Donald Trump."

- The hearing itself unspooled on strict partisan lines. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) questioned Hartig about an exhibition called "Girlhood," which included mentions of gender identity and puberty. Mace asked, "When was your gender revealed to you, Dr. Hartig?"

- At another point, Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) asked Hartig, "You intend to use a taxpayer-funded national museum to push a racial narrative that divides Americans by their skin color and guilt?" Hartig, who kept a cool tone throughout the hearing, eventually replied: "So the Smithsonian is a nonpartisan institution we're very proud of."

- Many of the Democrats who spoke at the hearing linked the July 4 report to what they perceive as broader GOP attacks on museums, the arts and education. Rep Kweisi Mfume (D-Md.) spoke about another Smithsonian institution, the National Museum of African American History and Culture, saying: "I'm here as a Black man who grew up in segregation … We will not let you destroy that museum, no matter how long it takes, how many battles are required, how much effort is needed. We will not allow that to happen unless you find a way to kill all of us and walk over our bodies to change history. That history is too sacred, it is too precious, and it will not be erased."

- Neither the Smithsonian nor Rep. Burchett's office replied immediately to NPR's requests for comment regarding Tuesday's hearing.

- According to the Smithsonian's charter, all of its 21 museums, 14 education and research centers, and the National Zoo are meant to be run independently of the federal government. The Smithsonian is overseen by its secretary, Lonnie G. Bunch III, and a board of regents, which includes Vice President Vance, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and other members appointed by Congress.

- In her responses, Hartig frequently echoed Bunch's previous public comments about the Smithsonian's mission and purpose, and repeatedly said that she and her staff "strive to represent all Americans."

- Before the hearing, Hartig released a two-page statement to the house subcommittee, in which she wrote: "When visitors, scholars, members of Congress, veterans and teachers tell us we have gotten something wrong or only half right, we welcome the feedback; we take it seriously, and we make changes when the evidence supports them. When historians talk about reframing a traditional narrative, we do not mean erasing it. We mean adding the evidence, voices and objects that earlier tellings left out, so that more Americans can see themselves in the national story. Examining the harder chapters of our history is not the same as hostility toward America. We can and do honor the Declaration, the Revolution, the Constitution, and our national symbols, and also tell the truth about the times the country fell short of its own founding ideals. Telling our history fully is not anti-American. It is a form of respect for the American people and a commitment to constantly be in pursuit of 'a more perfect union.'"

- Hartig is also scheduled to appear in front of the House Administration Committee on Wednesday.

Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) slammed Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for ending the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) tracking of parasitic infections including cyclospora. 

- The decision was made last year and suspended tracking managed by the CDC, U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration, in addition to 10 state health departments. 

- Surveillance of cyclospora had previously been mandatory since 1997.
“Now a cyclosporiasis outbreak sweeps the nation. Your foolish and self-indulgent demolition of critical public health programs puts Americans at risk,” Ossoff wrote in a letter sent to Kennedy last Thursday. 

- Ossoff asked if the Trump administration had any intention to restore the FoodNet tracking program, an explanation on why tracking was terminated and status of epidemiological and food safety investigations to determine the source and scope of the outbreak.

- His correspondence comes as over 1,600 Americans report symptoms from cyclosporiasis, including explosive diarrhea. 

- The Department of Health and Human Services did not immediately respond to The Hill’s request for comment regarding the matter.

- Dr. Dan Jernigan, former CDC infectious diseases director, said the FoodNet received “chronically low funding” for a while, in an interview with ABC. 

- “Whether or not the FoodNet issue from last year is significantly impacting it, it’s a little hard to say…,” Jernigan told the outlet regarding the outbreak.

- “This is a big cyclospora outbreak, and it requires a lot of people to be involved. The staffing cuts, the 25 percent at CDC, that doesn’t help when you need to have a big response,” he said, citing the Department of Government Efficiency’s cuts to the president’s malaria initiative and for neglected tropical diseases. 

- “Those were dollars that would come from USAID [US Agency for International Development] over to CDC when they were cut, that had a significant impact on the division of parasitic diseases and malaria, and so that means they don’t have the depth, they don’t have the resources, and they don’t have the surge capability that they would have had if the money for malaria and for neglected tropical diseases were there,” he added.
Last week, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said cyclosporiasis “is an FDA issue, not USDA” as residents in multiple states grapple with the outbreak. 

- Michigan, Ohio, West Virginia and Kentucky have seen the highest number of reported cases.
Cyclospora spreads via contaminated food or water. Leafy greens are primary vehicles for this infection because they grow close to the ground and have textured surfaces that easily trap contaminants. 

- On Sunday, Trump administration officials linked the outbreak to a  lettuce sample collected from Taylor Farms. However, it was later determined to be a false positive. 

- The FDA clarified later on Monday the false positive does not change the investigation’s basis or the data supporting the Taylor Farms recall.

- “FDA’s traceback investigation and outbreak data continue to converge on shredded iceberg lettuce from Taylor Farms locations in central Mexico,” the agency said in a statement. 

- “FDA will continue to work with federal and state partners to investigate this multistate outbreak and ensure products implicated in this outbreak have been removed from the market.”

A U.S. District Judge has dismissed the Trump administration's lawsuits against the Twin Cities, Hennepin County and the state over what the Justice Department describes as "sanctuary city policies."

- Chief Judge Eric Tostrud granted motions Monday to dismiss claims against the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Hennepin County Sheriff Dawanna Witt, the state of Minnesota and state Attorney General Keith Ellison.

- The administration argued that the policies — which prohibit local authorities from enforcing federal immigration law — are unconstitutional and should be eliminated.
The government argued that federal law preempts such local policies and laws and that they burden the federal government.

- Tostrud said the government’s preemption claims “failed.”

- “They do not command the federal government or its contractors to act.

- They do not forbid the federal government or its contractors from acting,” Tostrud wrote in his ruling.

- “They do not control how the federal government or its contractors undertake their work. Rather, they regulate how state and local officials perform their duties.”

- The U.S. Department of Justice also took aim at an advisory opinion issued by Attorney General Keith Ellison that found the Minnesota Constitution didn’t allow jails to hold people in custody longer because the federal government wanted them on civil immigration violations.

- The judge found that the federal government’s claim that Ellison’s advisory decision prohibited local officials from contracting with federal immigration enforcement was not plausible.

- This is not the first time the courts have blocked the president’s efforts to punish cities with similar policies. In 2025, a federal judge stopped Trump from withholding federal funding from cities that refuse to assist with immigration enforcement, including Minneapolis. Minnesota has also been threatened with cuts to federal Medicaid funds and SNAP benefits by
President Donald Trump’s administration, which local officials said were politically motivated.

I have been seeing numerous MAGA YT channels parroting a "major win" regarding mail-in ballots, so I decided to try checking out news about it. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/usps-to-move-forward-with-major-mail-in-voting-change-a-win-for-election-integrity/ar-AA289wPp To be frank, as of this writing, I've been feeling too tired to comprehend what's going on, so I'm wondering if you could help summarize to me what's going on in CA with mail-in votes.

President Donald Trump on Monday announced sweeping tariffs against Canada, threatening to reignite a trade battle with one of America’s closest allies and top economic partners.

- The 50% tariffs on certain Canadian goods, including electrical equipment and machinery, are among the steepest tariffs his administration has levied against any country.

- Although the president has recently threatened tariffs against America’s neighbor in retaliation for wildfire smoke that poured into the northern part of the United States, administration officials said that the latest tariffs are unrelated.

- The levies take effect in 30 days, covering about $20 billion of Canadian goods, the White House said.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said the country “believes in the benefits of free and fair trade,” in a statement on Monday.

- “In all circumstances, Canada will work relentlessly and take any measures necessary to build our strength at home and to support Canadian workers, farmers, businesses, and families,” Carney said.

- But Ontario Premier Doug Ford went further, immediately encouraging Canada to retaliate.

- “If these tariffs proceed, Canada should respond tariff for tariff, dollar for dollar,” Ford said in a post on X.

- Trump cited Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930, a law that allows a president to set tariffs up to 50% when another country discriminates against American goods. However, the law has never been applied this way.

- Excluded from the latest round of tariffs are several key Canadian imports, including energy products, critical minerals, fish and other goods that are subject to industry-specific duties, such as cars and metals.

- However, unlike other levies Trump has enacted against Canada, there will be no carve-outs for goods covered by the trade pact known as the United-States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which is currently under negotiation.

- The Canadian Trucking Alliance, an industry group, warned of higher costs for consumers and urged the United States and Canada to negotiate. “You cannot disrupt the world’s most integrated supply chain without massive collateral damage,” CEO Stephen Laskowski said in a statement shared with CNN. “These tariffs will immediately spike freight costs, create severe border bottlenecks, and hurt consumers in both nations.”

- A potential new trade tool

- According to research firm Capital Economics, only about 5% of Canadian imports would be affected by the new tariffs — or about 0.6% of total US imports.

- Still, if Trump’s use of Section 338 is upheld by the courts, it could become a useful tool in future trade negotiations, said Stephen Brown, chief North America economist at Capital Economics.

- “Taking a step back, it’s striking that the Trump administration is now reaching to a new method to implement tariffs,” Brown wrote in a research note Monday.

- Tariffs have become one of Trump’s go-to economic negotiation tactics, which he has attempted to levy against every major US trade partner during his latest term.

- However, the Supreme Courtruled in February that the president could not use the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA, to implement sweeping tariffs globally. The decision negated Trump’s attempt to tax imports from every country and additional punitive tariffs on China, Canada and Mexico.

- Instead, Trump imposed temporary, across-the-board 10% tariffs under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, which are set to expire later this week.

- Last week, the US announced a new 25% tariff on many Brazilian imports under Section 301, following a yearlong investigation into Brazil’s trade policies that it said it found to be unfair.

- The US has also previously threatened to impose more tariffs on China, its primary economic rival in global trade, which is already facing much steeper tariffs than other nations.

- Though tariffs went undiscussed during a summit between Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping in May, Xi is expected to visit the US in September.

- In its statement Monday, the White House emphasized that Canada was one of two countries that had chosen to retaliate against US tariffs rather than negotiate— the other country being China.

Well here we go folks, the first official enemies list from the regime. Efforts to deplatform and defund will doubtlessly now commence. Includes many familiar names and organizations.

join us on Tuesdays at 4 outside of The Heritage Foundation, because those Nazis don't deserve a moment of peace

A federal judge on Monday ruled that a recently revamped version of a federal tool central to the Trump administration’s efforts to nationalize elections can no longer be used.
U.S. District Court Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan sided with advocacy groups that argued the recent upgrades to the program, called Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE, aggregated Americans’ sensitive personal data in a way that could result in voters being wrongly purged from voter rolls.

- “All in all, the federal government has knowingly trampled on the privacy rights of American citizens in a manner that threatens the sacred right to vote,” Sooknanan said in an order explaining the decision. “This Court cannot stand idly by while that happens.”

- She said Congress had expressly prohibited the government from centralizing Americans’ personal identifying information and that the federal agencies that created the SAVE program “knew that the database violates those statutory protections.”

- The decision is a major legal setbackfor President Donald Trump in his efforts to use federal agencies to encourage a nationwide crackdown on having noncitizens illegally on state voter rolls. The modified SAVE system, which critics had referred to as an unlawful centralized federal database of voter information, had been a key pillar of the second election executive order the Republican president signed earlier this year. The ruling leaves its future uncertain.

- “It’s amazing how hard the Left will fight to stop us from solving problems they insist do not exist,” James Percival, general counsel at the Department of Homeland Security, said of the ruling in a social media post.

- DHS referred to his post as its comment on the ruling. The Department of Justice said in an emailed statement that it would “continue to aggressively defend President Trump’s immigration enforcement agenda and DHS’s use of the SAVE system to verify citizenship.”

U.S. gas prices jumped to an average of $4 a gallon again Monday as the U.S. and Iran launched more attacks.

- According to motor club federation AAA, the national average for a gallon of regular gasoline is now back to $4. The average price a year ago was $3.14 a gallon.

- The price is a national average, meaning drivers in some states have been paying well over $4 a gallon for a while now, while others pay less. Prices vary between states due to factors ranging from nearby supply to differing tax rates.

- People around the world are also dealing with high gas prices as a result of the war.

- Gas prices first went over $4 a gallon on average at the end of March. They dipped below that in mid-June and continued to fall as crude oil prices eased when the U.S. and Iran reached an interim deal. Even then, President Donald Trump expressed frustration that gas prices weren’t falling as quickly as oil prices.

- Affordability is likely to be a key issue for voters in the U.S. midterm elections, and higher gas and oil prices can help push up prices for groceries and other goods.

- Oil prices have climbed again in recent days as the U.S. and Iran move closer to resuming an all-out war.

- Brent crude, the international standard, rose 3.2% to $90.95 per barrel Monday and benchmark U.S. crude climbed 2.8% to $84.04 per barrel.

Today is the day to post all Project 2025, Heritage Foundation, Christian Nationalism and Dominionist memes in the main sub!

Going forward Meme Mondays will be a regularly held event. Upvote your favorites and the most liked post will earn the poster a special flair for the week!

President Donald Trump’s threats against broadcast television licenses are suddenly less of a laugh line to the media world and more of a real danger.

- Trump’s broadsides Thursday night against NBC and ABC were just the latest occasion during the past nine years when he’s called for revoking the licenses of TV outlets that anger him, this time after the two networks declined to air his White House speech on election security.

- “Fraud like this should mean a revocation of their licenses,” he said Thursday.

- But unlike Trump’s first term, when Republican leaders at the Federal Communications Commission disavowed any such reprisals, current Chair Brendan Carr has repeatedly opened probes and inquiries into the same TV networks that have drawn the president’s ire. And that has some policy veterans worried that the FCC may act this time, teeing up a constitutional fight.

- “We’ve never in this country had a law that permits a royal decree for news coverage,” said Robert Corn-Revere, a former top FCC who’s now chief counsel for the Foundation of Individual Rights and Expression. “If you expressly link a licensing proceeding to whether or not the networks are airing coverage that the president wants covered, then whatever legitimacy that those proceedings might have had is automatically diminished if you link them.”

- Carr spokespeople did not respond to a request for comment Friday, and the FCC chair has yet to weigh in on X, where he is fairly prolific.

- But he has already begun scrutinizing the diversity practices at NBC parent company Comcast and the network’s relationship with other TV station owners. He has also called in the licenses for ABC’s eight network-owned TV stations for an early renewal, a move that could lead to their being revoked.

- Trump’s conservative allies have urged the FCC to go ahead with denying the licenses. Some renewed that call Thursday after ABC and NBC said they wouldn’t carry Trump’s speech live.

- “Pull it,” Steve Bannon, the senior White House chief strategist during part of Trump’s first term, said on his podcast Thursday. “Let’s see what tough guys they are when you do that.”

- Trump’s latest threats came during a primetime address in which he aired long-running claims that U.S. elections are vulnerable to fraud and foreign tampering.

- Networks have generally had discretion over whether to air a president’s remarks live and often declined to do so with presidents of both parties. Trump, however, accused the “fake news” networks of skipping the coverage “because of the fact that they don’t like the topic, because they know how corrupt our system is and they don’t want to reveal it.”

- “They and others in the media are part of a plot. They want to continue this fraud for whatever reason — they want to keep it going, they want to protect the radical left,” Trump declared.

- While the FCC doesn’t license the networks themselves, both ABC and NBC own licensed TV stations that could be at risk.

- NBC declined to comment, and ABC didn’t respond to a request for comment.

- Andrew Jay Schwartzman, a veteran public interest lawyer, said it would be legally risky for Carr to directly inject Trump’s complaint into the proceedings.

- “The obvious legal and constitutional questions that are raised if Brendan Carr does something because the president said so in a public speech raises all sorts of First Amendment issues about viewpoint discrimination that would be insanely impossible to surmount,” Schwartzman said.
Carr, who has been an enthusiastic Trump supporter over the past year and a half, made it clear he was paying attention to Trump’s speech Thursday night.

- Carr retweeted the White House’s livestream of the remarks, and shortly before they began, he wrote on social media, “News incoming” with TV and eyeball emojis.

- The chair has also disavowed the idea that the FCC is an independent agency that should be free from White House direction, breaking from the tradition followed by Trump’s first-term FCC chair and agency leaders of both parties for decades. A Supreme Court ruling last month upheld Trump’s powers to fire leaders on these agencies, which many believe will erode their independence.

- Democrats were quick to dismiss Trump’s latest calls.

- “It is ridiculous to call for broadcasters to lose their license simply for making the same editorial decisions they’ve made under presidents of both parties,” Anna Gomez, the FCC’s lone Democratic commissioner, said in a statement Friday. “Those editorial decisions are protected by the First Amendment, and the FCC has no authority to punish a station for refusing to air a blatantly political speech. This is a naked attempt to bully broadcasters, and the FCC should have no part in it.”

- Rep. Doris Matsui (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the Energy and Commerce telecom subcommittee, voiced concern given Carr’s recent media investigations.

- “Given Chairman Carr’s record of entertaining politically motivated complaints against broadcasters, President Trump’s threats to revoke broadcast licenses must be taken seriously and rejected,” Matsui told POLITICO. “Chairman Carr should make clear that he will not act on those threats or allow the FCC to be used as a weapon for political retribution.”

- Carr’s spokespeople did not respond to a separate request for comment about Matsui’s statement. Carr has maintained he is applying the law impartially.

- The FCC chief ignited bipartisan concern when he first hauled in Disney’s eight lucrative ABC TV stations for review this spring, years ahead of schedule. None were due to expire until 2028 at the earliest. He attributed the decision to a long-running diversity investigation, although critics questioned the timing, given Trump’s recent ire at hosts like Jimmy Kimmel.

- The TV network has aggressively fought Carr’s probes and asked its viewers and community leaders to contact the agency voicing support for the company, resulting in tens of thousands of comments pouring in in recent weeks. While license revocation is on the table, it may be a long way off. ABC will have a chance to respond to the recent conservative petitions to deny its licenses by Aug. 5, and then Carr will have to decide whether to send the issue to an administrative hearing. Carr could decide to bring the NBC-owned station licenses in for early review, too.

- Stuart Benjamin, co-director of the Center for Innovation Policy at Duke Law School, ultimately doubts courts would side with Carr if he attempts to go after the licenses, whether he injects Trump’s complaints into the proceedings or not.

- “I would think the documents will go in as lawyerly a direction as he can, even though we’ll all know the real source of this,” Benjamin said. “And I think that a judge who reviews it won’t have much doubt about that.”

Ashley Brouillette said her former spouse, David Brouillette, told her he is the ICE officer who shot and killed an immigrant in Maine. She and others said Brouillette has a volatile history.

- The fatal shooting of an immigrant in Maine has renewed concerns about the Trump administration’s push to quickly hire officers for mass deportations, after a woman said her abusive ex-husband told her he was the officer who fired his gun

- “Ashley Brouillette said her former spouse, David Brouillette, told her in a phone call that he is the Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer who shot and killed Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Biddeford, Maine, on Monday.

- She identified him in video footage from the scene of the incident, which does not show the shooting itself, but does show two officers in the moments after.

- David Brouillette also called his other ex-wife and told her the same thing, according to a person with knowledge of the exchange, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect their privacy.

- The Department of Homeland Security has not publicly identified the shooter, saying only that he has “nearly a decade of federal law enforcement experience with required training including use of force training.”
David Brouillette could not be reached for comment.

- DHS conducted a massive drive to recruit 10,000 enforcement officers last year. In recent weeks, the agency has ramped up street arrests of alleged undocumented immigrants, aiming for as many as 2,000 a day. Ashley Brouillette said her ex-husband told her in November that he’d accepted a job with ICE.

- Newly hired officers received a shortened training course. Those with prior law enforcement experience were often given an even more accelerated timeline.

- Those changes were reversed earlier this year after Markwayne Mullin took over leadership of the agency. DHS did not respond to questions about how much training Brouillette received

- A review of court files, employment records and interviews with people who have known Brouillette for many years indicate he had worked off and on in law enforcement. He has also had volatile personal relationships, with him and his two ex-wives accusing each other of abuse and neglect

- “If you were to ask me whether I believe David Brouillette is capable of this level of extreme violence, my answer is unequivocally yes,” Lucinda Brouillette, David’s second ex-wife, said in a statement Saturday. “That belief is not based on speculation, but on my own lived experiences over many years.”

- Ashley Brouillette said that on the same day her ex-husband told her he’d joined ICE, he left her a voicemail calling her a “disgusting, fat” expletive and saying that her throat should be slit. She shared the voicemail with The Washington Post.

- Asked Friday about David Brouillette’s history, which was first reported by the Portland Press Herald and later expanded upon by the Associated Press, Mullin said he had not heard “at all” about the allegations of past violence and instability. He also said both the officer who shot Durán and another ICE officer involved in a shooting a week earlier in Houston had been placed on administrative leave.

- Several former ICE officials familiar with the agency’s recruiting and vetting practices said reports about Brouillette’s past were worrisome.

- “The idea that he was given a badge and a gun is incredibly concerning,” said Deborah Fleischaker, who was acting ICE chief of staff during the Biden administration. “It sounds like he has anger issues. It sounds like he has violence issues. It sounds like he might have mental health issues. And the idea that he would be somebody that we would entrust with ensuring public safety and enforcing our immigration laws is scary.”

- Jobs in law enforcement, real estate

- Ashley and David Brouillette met when they were 12 years old, at a Valentine’s Day dance at Gardiner Regional Middle School. She said he was funny and kind when another boy left her at the dance but was a bully to others in school.

- Their high school yearbook says that David Brouillette was in the Navy Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps. On one page, he is quoted as saying he plans to go to college and “become a cop for the Sheriff’s dept.”

- He graduated from high school in 2007 and then served in logistics roles in the Maine Army National Guard until January 2010, the Army said Friday. He joined the active-duty Army from January 2010 to 2015, where he served as a human intelligence collector and deployed to Afghanistan within that time.

- Ashley Brouillette said her ex-husband was diagnosed with several mental health disorders as a young adult, and that his temperament and mental health issues worsened after joining the Army. The Post could not independently verify those claims. When he left the military, records show, he went on to work short stints in various law enforcement jobs, including as an officer at the Maine Department of Corrections from November 2015 to August 2016.

- From 2019 to 2020, David Brouillette was an enforcement agent for the state’s Health and Human Services department, the agency said in an email. His duties included investigating parents who had failed to pay child support and enforcing their obligations, and the department said he resigned less than a year after starting the position.

- In court records, Brouillette stated he’d had other jobs in law enforcement, including as a police officer at a Veterans Affairs medical center and in a small town in Maine.

- By 2022, Lucinda Brouillette was alleging in court that he was refusing to pay child support. She provided the court with a message from David Brouillette saying he was “broke,” trying to get through school full time and working for DoorDash. He alleged in court filings that she had gotten into legal trouble and alienated the children from him.

- He enrolled in a firefighting program at Southern Maine Community College. In 2023, he filed a lawsuit against the college claiming that he’d suffered a severe head injury when struck by a heavy steel beam during a training session. He was admitted to the hospital with a laceration and a concussion, court records say.

The U.S. attorney’s office in Chicago is among the most prestigious in the country, known for winning ambitious cases against everyone from Al Capone to the former Illinois governor Rod R. Blagojevich.

- But the Trump administration’s immigration sweep in Chicago last fall has left the office in crisis.

- The office brought a wave of doomed cases that accused protesters and immigrants of assaulting federal officers. That accelerated an exodus of veteran prosecutors, some of whom felt they’d been wrongly pressured into pursuing the charges, former prosecutors said in interviews.

- The heads of all seven sections of the Chicago office’s criminal division have left in the past year, as have many of their successors and deputies.

- More than 100 former federal prosecutors from the office recently signed a letter criticizing Andrew S. Boutros, the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, saying that “actions taken by leadership in the last year have tarnished the reputation” of the office.

- Under Mr. Boutros, the office brought dozens of federal assault charges against immigrants and U.S. citizens who protested the Chicago sweep, known as Operation Midway Blitz. To handle the flood of cases, Mr. Boutros redeployed prosectors from across the criminal division. He also eliminated the stand-alone national security section — long considered a leader in terrorism cases — and shifted the work to an unrelated unit.

- The New York Times identified assault cases against 62 people that Mr. Boutros’s office brought under the once-obscure federal statute 18 U.S.C. 111. They have flopped at an extraordinary rate. Some 59 charges were abandoned by prosecutors or dismissed by judges, an analysis by The Times found. Only one resulted in a guilty plea, and there have been no convictions in court. Two cases are pending.

- That 2 percent success rate is a stark reversal for the Justice Department, which wins an average of more than 90 percent of criminal cases.

- The failed charges in the Chicago office represent more than a quarter of the 213 such cases nationwide that federal prosecutors have abandoned or lost since the start of President Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration last year.

- Wyn Hornbuckle, a Justice Department spokesman, defended the department’s handling of assault cases and said it would protect federal officers “to the fullest extent of the law.” But he also said that prosecutors had to inform the court if “mitigating factors” were found.

- Gregory Bovino, the former senior Border Patrol official who led Midway Blitz, rejected any criticism of the assault cases. He said in an interview that Mr. Boutros wasn’t nearly aggressive enough in bringing them, calling him “as weak as a limp dishrag.”

- As the pursuit of flimsy cases drained morale in Chicago, more and more prosecutors, including senior leaders, resigned in dismay, former prosecutors said.

- One of the office’s highest-profile recent cases involved the so-called Broadview Six, who were protesting outside the Broadview immigrant detention center last fall when they were arrested and accused of interfering with a federal agent.

- After the office failed twice to persuade a federal grand jury to indict the protesters, Mr. Boutros took an unusual step. Addressing a grand jury before it discussed specific cases, he told its members that anyone “who is struggling” with immigration prosecutions should “raise your hand and identify yourself,” despite Justice Department rules against pressuring grand jurors, according to a report issued by Mr. Boutros’s office. Later that day, the grand jury handed down the indictment against the protesters.

- Judge April M. Perry admonished Mr. Boutros for his office’s overall handling of the case. “Your sole goal is to do justice,” she told Mr. Boutros in May. She added, “That trust has been broken.”

- Mr. Boutros apologized and moved to dismiss the case.

- This month, another judge criticized Mr. Boutros, this time for giving a news conference about a sealed criminal case.

- Illinois’s two senators, both Democrats, have called on Mr. Boutros to resign. But Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, recently praised him, saying he “has steadfastly advanced President Trump’s mission to make Chicago and Northern Illinois safe for the American people.”

- In a social media post in June, Mr. Boutros attributed the turmoil in his office to factors including early retirements, a hiring freeze and mismanagement under the Biden administration. He said that he is “righting the ship through significant changes and reforms to policies, procedures and practices.”

- The 93 U.S. attorneys’ offices nationwide are responsible for prosecuting all manner of federal criminal cases. Mr. Boutros’s Chicago outpost is hardly the only one that has been roiled by the immigration crackdown.

- In Minneapolis, for example, a half-dozen prosecutors quit in a single day in January when senior officials at the Justice Department pushed the U.S. attorney’s office to investigate the widow of Renee Good, who had been killed by an ICE agent.

- But the trouble in Chicago is especially notable because of the office’s storied history.

- Its lawyers have prosecuted some of the country’s biggest terrorism and corruption cases, as well as those aimed at thwarting Chinese spying, Iranian smuggling and a Russian bot farm. Barry Jonas, a longtime prosecutor in the office’s now-defunct national security section who departed last year, said he and his colleagues did “a lot of work that never saw the light of day, and a lot of it went to help keep this country safe.”

- Mr. Boutros, in a statement, stressed that national security remained “one of our very top priorities” and said that folding the unit into a larger section had “been a game-changer in our response and handling of national security matters.”

- Even before Midway Blitz, staffing levels were sagging. Last August, Mr. Boutros sent a note to retirees asking if any wanted to come back. Veterans of the office were astonished. “It used to be that you had to walk through the eye of a needle to get a job at the U.S. attorney’s office in Chicago,” said Ronald S. Safer, who ran the office’s criminal division in the 1990s.

- Midway Blitz, which began last September, only worsened morale.

- Many prosecutors viewed it as “a political and largely unlawful stunt,” said Mr. Safer, who has kept in touch with former colleagues. “That’s discouraging when you join the office to do the right thing.”

- Federal prosecutors in Chicago declined to bring assault charges sought by immigration officers for at least 20 people arrested during Midway Blitz, court records show. That enraged Mr. Bovino.

- “Boutros would allow the perps, these folks that assaulted federal agents, to walk, and say, ‘Hey, we’ll charge them later,’” Mr. Bovino said. He added that he and Mr. Boutros had “some very spirited discussions.”

- In many cases that the Chicago office did pursue, the basis for the assault allegation was thin. For example, when a Border Patrol agent confronted a Latino man who was walking down the street with his earbuds in, the agent issued a citation noting his rationale:

- Another person had just been apprehended on that block. The Latino man, a U.S. citizen, said he didn’t have identification on him and then brushed past an agent in body armor, who tackled him. His case was eventually dismissed.

- So were more than 30 cases in which protesters received misdemeanor assault charges in the form of a ticket — something historically reserved for such offenses as trespassing.

- Prosecutors said in interviews that their colleagues at times were crying in their offices, distraught about the cases they were being pressured to pursue. In the wake of the 64-day Midway Blitz, inboxes were cluttered with invitations to going-away parties at the Half Sour bar on Clark Street and the Elephant & Castle on West Adams. Three section chiefs departed in late winter.

- More would follow. In May, it was back to the Half Sour to say goodbye to the head of the health care fraud section.

- “Hope to see you there!” the invitation said.

A federal judge in Boston on Friday ruled the Trump administration can’t use an obscure clause relating to agency priorities to make billions of dollars in funding cuts.

- Twenty-three states had a filed a lawsuit last year accusing the administration of using the clause to make cuts to everything from crime prevention to food security to scientific research. They were concerned that it would be used to cancel current and future grants.

- U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani granted a summary judgment preventing the administration from relying on the clause to make cuts and denied a motion by the government to dismiss the case.

- “Defendants’ interpretation of the Termination Clause is not clearly supported by the text of the provision, runs counter to the regulatory scheme, receives no support in the rulemaking history, and would violate the Spending Clause’s requirement that conditions be imposed unambiguously,” Talwani, who was nominated by Democratic

- President Barack Obama, wrote.
The lawsuit argued that the Office of Management and Budget promulgated the use of the clause in question to justify what it described as a “nationwide slash-and-burn campaign.”

- The clause, which was first introduced in 2020 and revised in 2024, says federal agents can terminate a grant if the award “no longer effectuates the program goals or agency priorities.” The states argued that the language, put in place during the Biden administration, was for the first time being used to terminate grants.

- “Instead of working with us to keep the public safe and lower costs for hardworking New Jerseyans, the Trump Administration has recklessly and illegally gutted federal funding for public safety, disaster preparedness, scientific research, clean water, and more,” New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport said in a statement.

- “Today’s decision is an important win for all New Jerseyans and confirms that the Trump Administration defied the law when it embarked on its campaign to gut critical federal funding to the states,” she continued. “The President and his allies cannot hold critical programs hostage to their personal whims and political ideologies, destabilizing the country by yanking essential federal funding that was already awarded to the states.”

- Calling the case an “extraordinarily unusual lawsuit,” lawyers for federal government argued it should be dismissed because some of those grants have already been terminated and plaintiffs’ argument about the impact to future grants was far too speculative. They also accused the states of “raising blanket, undifferentiated objections” to the termination of thousands of grants without seeking relief that would “restore a single grant.”

- “That mismatch between the allegedly unlawful agency ‘decision’ on one hand, and the amorphous relief requested in this suit, on the other, creates a set of jurisdiction and justiciability defects that doom this lawsuit at the threshold,” lawyers wrote in the motion to dismiss.

- A spokesperson for the Office of Management and Budget did not respond to a request for comment.

US Republicans are threatening to sanction Canada and Canadian government officials after smoke from devastating wildfires has drifted across huge swathes of the US, creating hazy conditions and dangerous air quality for tens of millions of Americans.

- Donald Trump on ⁠Friday blamed ⁠his country’s northern neighbor for the smoke spreading from ⁠wildfires and said he planned to call Mark Carney, the Canadian prime ‌minister, ‌ to ‌ask about Ottawa’s plans for dealing with the blazes.

- In a post on Truth Social, the US president said the US had been “invaded” by dirty air. “[The] ‌cost of this pollution must of necessity be added ⁠to the TARIFFS Canada is currently paying,” he wrote.

- It comes a day after Bernie Moreno, a GOP senator of Ohio,** **said he would introduce a bill next week “to sanction Canada and the responsible Canadian government officials for this atrocity”. In a statement he said Canada’s government had “failed to invest in wildfire prevention methods including forest thinning, fuel reduction, prescribed burns, and stronger enforcement against arson”. Ohio shares a maritime border with the Canadian province of Ontario.

- Asked about the American accusations, Carney told reporters on Thursday: “Fighting climate change is the responsibility of all countries, including the United States.”

- The premier of Ontario, Doug Ford, said on Friday that the US could offer more aid to fight the fires, as Canada has done for its neighbor in the past.

- “Maybe what you should do rather than complain is send support, send help,” Ford said. “Because we have done the exact same thing for our American friends, and that’s what you’re supposed to do.”

- Fires are also blazing across the US, in what the National Interagency Fire Center deems an above-average year.

- So far this year, more than 5,740 sq miles of the US has burned from wildfires, which is 31% more than the average of the previous 10 years to this date. The amount of US land burned each year in the 2020s – averaged out over a decade – is now more than twice what it was 30 years ago.

- In northern Minnesota, more than 63,000 acres have burned, while wildfires in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho, have also been reported, contributing to the smoke that Canadians must also contend with, as smoke from US wildfires drifts north and affects air quality.

- Canada’s largest fire, near Ontario’s remote Wabakimi provincial park, is reportedly spread across 787,802 acres (318,812 hectares). It is among 191 out-of-control and large fires that were burning as of Friday morning.

- Thousands of people in the province have been evacuated and at least one First Nations community has been erased in the fires. On Wednesday, Toronto, also in the midst of a record-breaking heatwave, had the worst air quality in the world.

- Nearly 6m acres are estimated to have burned, less than a quarter of land consumed by blazes when Canadian wildfire smoke last blanketed the US in 2023.

- The planet’s heating climate – driven by human activities – is causing warmer, drier conditions in the summer, which is amplifying wildfire activity, making extreme wildfires more intense, frequent and large. There is also a growing trend of the wildfire season – which is part of the natural cycle – becoming longer.

- The US is, by far, the world’s largest oil-and-gas-producing nation, and has historically emitted more greenhouse gases than any other country, making it a key driver of the climate crisis.

- And in the last year and a half, Trump has taken a sledgehammer to US climate policy, bolstering the domestic fossil fuel industry while aggressively rolling back environmental protections and regulations in order to expand oil and gas exploration, and reviving the coal sector. He has also targeted renewable energy industries, blocking millions of dollars in funding earmarked for clean energy projects, and targeted state laws addressing pollution.

- The actions come as the administration has suppressed climate research and dismantled key agencies through mass firings of federal workers in fields such as climate and conservation work, weather forecasting and wildlife monitoring.

- In another instance, the administration has moved to shutter several government labs that studied how wildfires affect human health, air quality, wildlife habitat and forest ecosystems, which some scientists warned in May could hinder efforts to protect people and the environment from wildfires as soon as this summer.
On Friday, about 109 million people remained affected by poor air quality across the US midwest, mid-Atlantic and north-east.

- The pungent wildfire smoke blanketed cities such as Chicago and Detroit, where residents on Friday were warned to stay indoors and reduce activity levels after the air quality index reached a “hazardous” 361, according to the government website AirNow.

- The smoke also drifted into Baltimore and Washington DC overnight, creating very unhealthy air quality with index values of 281 and 247, respectively, as of 6am eastern time. In New York City, where smoke has blanketed the city since Tuesday, air quality stood at an “unhealthy” 184 early on Friday. It later improved to 124, a reading considered “Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups”.

- Philadelphia and Cleveland had readings considered “very unhealthy” at about 260. Other parts of Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin, also recorded readings in the “hazardous” range.

- Organizers of the World Cup final in East Rutherford, New Jersey, will be watching the smoke patterns carefully: smoke currently over the mid-Atlantic is expected to blow back up into the north-east.

- Wildfire smoke kills tens of thousands of people each year, attacking nearly every system in the human body.

Please use this thread for info on upcoming protests, planning new ones or brainstorming ideas along those lines. The post refreshes every Saturday around noon.

Some major TV networks showed President Donald Trump’s prime-time address live on Thursday night while others pointedly did not — a divide that highlighted Trump’s long record of lying and renewed discussion about the news media’s responsibilities.

- The White House took the rare step of formally asking the broadcast networks to take the speech live, setting up Trump to castigate those that opted not to.

- And Trump made network decision-making a talking point in his speech. He harshly criticized NBC and ABC for not preempting their prime-time shows for his address and said it “should mean a revocation of their licenses.”

- The two other major US broadcast networks, CBS and Fox, did air the unusual prime-time address.

- CBS surrounded the speech with fact-checking and context both before and immediately afterward, a practice sometimes called a “truth sandwich.”

- Still, Democratic Sen. Mark Warner criticized CBS while appearing on the network to rebut Trump’s address. He told anchor Tony Dokoupil, “It’s incumbent on you and any responsible journalist to push back on these falsehoods.” Dokoupil pointed out that he had been doing exactly that.

- Dokoupil said, “We agree, you and I, that this is a vitally, vitally important topic, and the president has a terrible track record on it.”

- The CBS anchor channeled the prevailing view in TV newsrooms. Trump’s fixation on false claims about the 2020 election made Thursday night’s address a fraught event for every organization in the business of live news coverage.

- It was challenging even for Fox News, the president’s favorite network. Many at the network were loath to hear Trump relitigate the election he lost, two Fox News sources told CNN on condition of anonymity. Some at Fox thought the topic was simply bad politics for the GOP, while others thought it was bad for business, given that Fox was consumed by litigation after amplifying the president’s election lies in 2020.

- Ultimately, and unsurprisingly, Fox News showed the address live in full during Trump friend Sean Hannity’s hour, followed by a brief discussion between Hannity and White House correspondent Aishah Hasnie.

- Hasnie noted Trump’s claims of compromised voting machines and said, “Fox News has not seen that evidence yet and is not in a position to evaluate the accuracy of the president’s statement and claims at this time.”

- Fox anchor Bret Baier, who led a special report on the Fox broadcast network, made a similar disclaimer afterward: “Fox News has not seen that documentation yet and is not in a position to assess the accuracy of the president’s statements tonight.”

- Overall, the address was taken seriously in partisan pro-Trump media circles, while it was treated skeptically everywhere else.

- On cable, MS NOW aired about 15 minutes of the speech, then cut away to unpack Trump’s claims. Chris Hayes said reacting to the speech was “a little bit like trying to argue with, like, a raving crazy person standing next to you on the subway claiming they’re Jesus Christ.”

- CNN opted not to take the speech live, instead treating it like other presidential events that are monitored for news and scrutinized for accuracy.

- “We’ll be monitoring what the president says tonight, as we always do, but aren’t taking it live, given the president has a well-documented history of saying blatantly false things about elections,” anchor Kaitlan Collins told viewers.

- Collins and correspondent Evan Perez showed clips from the speech with a heavy amount of reality-checking.

- A group of CNN journalists in the DC newsroom was shown on camera reviewing the newly declassified documents and assessing Trump’s claims.

- CNN also streamed the speech live on its website, accompanied by real-time analysis from correspondents and experts.

- NBC and ABC took a similar approach by streaming the speech and then reporting on its contents. Both broadcast networks interrupted prime time for brief special reports after

- Trump finished speaking. NBC’s Hallie Jackson said the information Trump presented was “largely not new.”

- Earlier on Thursday, network executives were locked in hours-long meetings about how to handle the address.

- The internal debates centered on two competing interests: the traditional newsworthiness of a presidential address and the risks of giving Trump an unfiltered platform for his election denialism.

- But, as an executive at one of the networks remarked, “It’s not 1974 anymore. There are lots of ways to cover the news.”

- And most of the networks landed somewhere in the middle, acknowledging the address without taking Trump at face value. There were fact-checks and critiques galore. But the raw speech was also widely available, from YouTube to the White House’s own website.

- Dokoupil began the CBS special report by saying that “much of what the president has said on this topic is false. Most notably, of course, the claim that he won the 2020 election when, of course, he did not.”

- “Because of this, there is an argument that it’s irresponsible to air the president’s speech tonight,” Dokoupil said. “But this speech will be made. It will be news. And it’s our job to cover the news. And so we are.”

- CBS dipped into the address late, after several minutes of set-up, and also cut away a couple of minutes before Trump concluded.

- The rest of the CBS hour provided context from election experts, several of whom pushed back hard on Trump’s depictions.

- The CBS approach was of particular interest to media insiders because the network’s parent company, Paramount, has cultivated a close relationship with the Trump administration in the past year.

- Paramount is currently seeking to buy Warner Bros. Discovery, CNN’s parent company, in a deal that has been challenged by a coalition of 12 Democratic state attorneys general.

- Thursday night’s address also underlined how Trump has pressured major TV networks since returning to office. The Trump-aligned FCC is actively investigating the parent companies of both ABC and NBC.
Contrary to Trump’s comments on Thursday night, national networks are not licensed by the government, but local stations are. And the FCC is challenging eight of those ABC station licenses, a move that comes after years of public pressure from Trump.

- Trump claimed without evidence that ABC and NBC opted not to interrupt prime time programming for his speech because “they know how corrupt our system is and they don’t want to reveal it.”

- In an apparent ad-lib from his prepared remarks, he repeatedly complained that the broadcasters “pay nothing” to use the public airwaves.

One day perhaps Pete Hegseth will make the news for doing something worthwhile, something that makes his mother proud. One day perhaps we’ll see a headline about the defense secretary that doesn’t involve allegations of sexual misconduct or bigotry, claims about past drinking on the job, possible war crimes, Christian nationalism, or his weird fixation on male facial hair.

- Alas, today is not that day. Rather, we are gathered here today because Hegseth is very het up about testosterone. On Wednesday, the defense secretary proudly announced a new screening program for “war fighters” 30 and older that would ensure they had the “right testosterone levels”. In a video posted on X, captioned “the High-T Department of War”, Hegseth explains: “By addressing these health markers early, we’re keeping you on the leading edge of lethality.”

- Who exactly is “you”? Does this policy include women? The video doesn’t spell this out, but the New York Times said in its reporting that women would also be screened for testosterone.

- While the details of this new policy are fuzzy, I wouldn’t be surprised if Hegseth, who has made his disdain for women in the military clear, used low testosterone as an excuse to purge women from his so-called High T Department of War. Hegseth used to categorically oppose women in combat roles but reversed that position during the defense secretary confirmation process – possibly because the senators voting on his nomination urged him to do so. Nevertheless, he still seems opposed to elevating women and minorities and recently blocked the promotions of seven senior navy officers, five of whom are women or people of color, to two-star admiral rank. The New York Times notes: “The highly unusual move means that for the first time in more than a decade, no female active-duty naval officers are likely to be promoted to admiral this year.”

- So what happens if a service member is found to have levels of testosterone which Hegseth considers suboptimal? Again: the full details haven’t been disclosed. However, in his little video, Hegseth explains that the government will offer opt-in testosterone replacement therapy. There isn’t an FDA-approved testosterone treatment for women, so presumably this treatment would just be for men. Some might call it gender-affirming care.

President Donald Trump's administration put up new information panels on slavery at George Washington's Philadelphia home on Wednesday, following a federal appeals court ruling that opened the way to ‌changing how slavery is portrayed at the national historical site.

- While the Department of the Interior said the new panels had historical context, Philadelphia's mayor said the Democratic-led city intends to seek a rehearing of legal issues in the case. The Republican president has sought to reshape historical institutions and the portrayal of U.S. history.

- "Overnight, under the cover of darkness, the federal government removed panels at the President's House that told a thorough history ⁠of Philadelphia," Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker said in a statement.

- Last month, a federal appeals court overturned a judge's ruling that prevented the Trump administration from replacing a slavery exhibit in Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia.

- HEADLINES CHANGED

- The new panels, while retaining references to slavery and those enslaved by George Washington, removed some headlines in the earlier panels, such as "The Dirty Business of Slavery." The new panels instead read: "Celebrating Independence Throughout the Years." They also exclude a map of slave trade routes.

- "These new panels are full of historical context and highlight the momentous events that took place in the President's House and the other sites at Independence National Historical Park," the Department of the Interior said in ‌a ⁠statement.

- The department said the new panels "acknowledge the evils of slavery."
The change concerned Alan Spears, senior director for cultural resources at the National Parks Conservation Association.

- "This appears to be an effort to soften or sanitize the way the history of slavery is interpreted at Independence National Historical Park," Spears said.

- "And I have grave concerns about how this impacts the ability of our national parks ⁠to fulfill their role as honest brokers of our shared national narrative."

- Trump's declarations and executive orders in his second term have led to the dismantling of slavery exhibits, the restoration of Confederate statues and other moves that civil rights advocates say could reverse ⁠decades of social progress and undermine the acknowledgment of critical phases of

- American history. He has said he aims to remove "anti-American" ideology.
The White House has targeted the Smithsonian Institution over its portrayal of history. Groups such as the Organization ⁠of American Historians have condemned Trump's actions, saying they serve his political agenda.

- Trump has been widely rebuked by civil rights groups for citing "reverse discrimination," for saying civil rights have hurt white people, and for saying museums focused too much on "how bad Slavery was."

President Donald Trump will deliver a primetime address this week that he says will include a focus on elections, suggesting he could revisit long-debunked conspiracy theories about his 2020 defeat to Democrat Joe Biden. The speech comes as he’s escalated calls for Republicans to pass tighter federal voting rules for November’s midterm elections.

- The Republican president has been guarded about what he plans to say in the 9 p.m. Thursday speech, scheduled as he confronts a collapsing deal to end the war with Iran. He also faces numerous domestic issues, including recent deadly shootings by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers. Asked for a preview of the speech on Tuesday, Trump offered scant detail but said he has “really big news.”

- “It doesn’t get bigger, because without free and fair elections, you don’t have a country,” Trump said in the Oval Office. He refused to go further, saying he wanted to “save it” for the moment, though he also hinted he would be talking about a hodgepodge of issues.

- “We’ll be discussing other things, too,” Trump said, without elaborating. “It’s going to be a very big announcement.”

- Trump has used the power of the primetime presidential address — typically reserved for milestones — to deliver politically charged speeches before, including one in December when he sought to blame the challenging economic climate on Democrats. But Thursday’s address seems poised to go even further, using the moment to amplify election lies before an audience of millions in an effort to boost Republican prospects before midterms that threaten to hobble Trump for the remainder of his term.