Good morning. I’m Thom Hartmann.
Senate Republicans are now warning that Trump’s voter ID crusade could cost them their majority in November. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton had to end a campaign rally early after hecklers grilled him about a cushy plea deal for a child molester. Donald Trump just admitted he doesn’t actually have any proof of his vandalism claims about the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. And Democrats have officially launched an investigation into ICE detaining and deporting the spouses and parents of active-duty troops.
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‘He’s Wrong’: Republicans Warn Trump’s Voter Fraud Crusade Will End Their Majorities
Donald Trump has spent months insisting that his SAVE Act is the most important thing Congress can do before the midterms. The bill would force Americans to bring a birth certificate or passport just to be able to vote, and require photo ID at the polls.
Trump has repeatedly claimed without a shred of evidence that millions of non-citizens are voting in elections, which has already been a crime for years and almost never happens. Even the Heritage Foundation – the MAGA think tank responsible for Project 2025 — has found that noncitizen voting is essentially a non-factor.
Trump has nonetheless made this his top legislative priority, telling House Republicans that the bill would guarantee them victory in the midterms. While the House passed it on a party-line vote in February, the Senate is a different story.
Trump needs 60 votes to get his bill through the Senate, and GOP leader John Thune has said time and again that the numbers just aren’t there. Republicans have tried and failed to pass a version of this bill six separate times.
Senators left Washington this weekend for their five-week recess without passing the SAVE Act, and they won’t be back until mid-September. That leaves them just three weeks to try again before entering the final stretch of the campaign cycle, all so they can fruitlessly try to pass a bill that’s doomed to fail.
Thune tried a workaround just before the recess with narrower photo ID bill written by Republican Senator Jon Husted of Ohio, hoping it might satisfy Trump. He still came up eight votes short of the 60-vote threshold.
One Republican senator anonymously told Politico that Thune was “wrong” in assuming the vote would satisfy Trump enough to leave Republicans alone. The senator argued that GOP leaders weren’t accounting for how Trump would actually react to his bill being watered down and still failing to pass.
Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina said the math just isn’t there, and warned his party had better wise up quickly if they hope to hold onto their control of the Senate. He also observed that even if the bill were to pass, it still wouldn’t inspire confidence in Republican voters to show up in November.
The GOP now has to contend with an angry Trump spending the rest of this summer berating his own party over a bill that has an impossible hurdle to surmount in the Senate. And Trump appears to not be heeding warnings that his push could be what seals Republicans’ fate in the midterms.
When Mississippi rewrote its constitution in 1890, nobody stood up and announced they were purging Black voters. They wrote in a poll tax and an understanding clause and let the paperwork do the work the law couldn't say out loud.
Ken Paxton Flees from Event After Being Called a ‘Pedophile Protector’
Texas Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton just got a taste of what Lone Star State voters actually think of him.
Paxton held a Saturday event at a GOP-themed bar in San Antonio called the Angry Elephant. It was his first stop in the Democratic-run city since late May. And even though the bar’s crowd included some Paxton supporters, not everyone in the room was on his side.
One heckler got escorted out after shouting that Paxton cheated on his wife. Paxton’s wife, Texas state senator Angela Paxton, filed for divorce last year citing what she called biblical grounds. While the two are still technically married, Paxton was seen in Europe on the 4th of July with a woman previously identified as his alleged mistress.
At another point, hecklers started accusing Paxton of child molesters. As security escorte one man out, he kept yelling that Paxton protects the Epstein class, enabled Trump — who he called the “pedophile president” — and that the Republican Party is made up of pedophile protectors.
That’s a pretty sensitive attack on Paxton, whose opponent, Democratic state representative James Talarico, has hammered the attorney general for months over a plea deal Paxton’s office cut with Adam Dean Hoffman, an attorney who pleaded guilty to sexually abusing a child. Under that plea deal, Hoffman served just 30 days in jail and only had to surrender his law license without even having to register as a sex offender.
Talarico’s campaign has accused Paxton of Hoffman off with a slap on the wrist due to his close relationship with Paxton, and Talarico himself has called for the release of what he’s referring to as the Hoffman files that delve into the details of the case and the plea deal.
After the chaotic event, Paxton took a few questions from reporters, but bailed after only taking three pre-approved questions. Right now, he doesn’t seem to have an answer for the most damning criticisms, which should be a big hint for Democrats on what to do for the next three months.
Calvin Coolidge pushed Harry Daugherty out as attorney general in 1924 after he refused to let the Senate see the Justice Department's files. When the man who enforces the law starts picking which records the public gets and which reporters get to ask about them, he isn't protecting the process, he's protecting himself.
Humiliated Trump Forced to Walk Back ‘Vandalism’ Claim After Admitting He Has No Proof
Donald Trump has once again been caught making baseless claims he can’t back up, and now he’s actually backing down.
For months, Trump insisted that “vandals” were behind the damage to his coating on the bottom of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. The project was supposed to color the Reflecting Pool a deep blue shade before 4th of July celebrations kicked off. Instead, the new lining started peeling almost immediately, and the water turned a sickly shade of green after algae blooms popped up almost immediately after reopening. Trump said “vandals” were also to blame for the algae, by the way.
The president has claimed for weeks that he has proof of the alleged vandalism, saying photos and videos would soon emerge. But Trump changed his tune on Sunday, writing on his Nazi-infested social media site that he had no photo or video of the vandalism despite doubling down on his claim that there was substantial damage done to the Reflecting Pool.
Trump essentially had no choice but to concede this one. U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro (the former Fox News host), officially dropped criminal charges against former Olympic athlete David Hearn, who was arrested for allegedly damaging the pool. Pirro’s office submitted a statement admitting the damage actually came from Trump’s botched installation, rather than vandalism.
Trump continues to claimed someone with the National Park Service witnessed Hearn damage the pool’s lining, though that contradicts what Trump said in May. After the coating was installed, he said the lining as so strong that it couldn’t even be cut with a knife. He even conducted an inspection with his presidential motorcade, which, looking back, is a lot more likely to damage the pool’s lining than a knife.
The Supreme Court decided in Brady v. Maryland in 1963 that the government's job in a courtroom isn't to win, it's to make sure the truth gets out even when the truth wrecks its own case. We're watching that run backward now, and a country that lets the story outrank the evidence has no courtroom left that can protect anybody.
Democrats Launch Investigation Into ICE’s Deportations of Military Family Members
Congressional Democrats announced an official investigation into the Trump administration after the Associated Press reported more than 50 spouses and parents of active-duty service members have been either detained or deported by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). More than 60 House and Senate Democrats co-signed a letter to the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs, demanding answers about whether these agencies are coordinating to deport military families.
Democrats argued in the letter that the harassment of immigrants in military families harms America’s military readiness, damages morale and breaks America’s promises to the people willing to put their lives on the line to serve.
The Pentagon declined to comment publicly, saying it would issue a direct response to Congress. The DHS defended the arrests and deportations, telling the AP that military service doesn’t automatically grant legal status or exempt anyone from immigration enforcement. The VA didn’t respond at all.
Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who’s leading the investigation along with Democrats Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Tammy Duckworth of Illinois — who is herself a Purple Heart veteran — said Trump is violating promises to service members by tearing their families apart after telling them they’d have protection. She added the detention and deportation actions were just plain cruel.
The AP found in its initial report that the Trump administration has quietly rolled back long-standing protections for military families as part of Trump’s mass deportation agenda, which is a significant break from decades of bipartisan consensus to leave military families alone. Some service members have had to take leave from their duties and delay their own deployments just to care for their kids after a spouse was detained.
Blumenthal, who is the ranking member of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, said the immigration actions on military bases were an appalling example of the needless cruelty of Trump’s deportation push. He added lawmakers will be doubling down on their efforts to get answers and hold people accountable. The Republican chairs of the Armed Services and Veterans Affairs Committees, Roger Wicker of Mississippi and Jerry Moran of Kansas, didn’t comment.
This is all pretty ironic, given that Trump established a Military Spouse Commission just last week. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s wife chairs the commission, which is meant to come up with recommendations for improving life for military spouses. Trump wrote in a letter that military spouses are essential to the readiness and retention of the armed forces. Seems like detaining and deporting them is probably not a great way to thank them.
Danitza James, who leads an group supporting military families facing deportation, told the AP that while Service members sign up knowing they may never get to come home, they trust the government to take care of their families while they’re gone. She’s now warning that trust has been betrayed at the most fundamental level.
In the middle of the Civil War, Congress passed a law letting any immigrant who served honorably become a citizen without the usual wait, because a country that asks a man to die for it has already decided he belongs here. Both parties honored that deal for a hundred and sixty years, and now we've got a government that takes the service and deports the family.
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I’m Thom Hartmann. Thanks for reading, and thanks for supporting independent media.
Here are a few stories you may have missed:
Ohio Republicans Stuck with Max Miller After He Refuses to Drop Out. Embattled Republican Congressman Max Miller of Ohio will remain on the November ballot despite persistent calls from within his own party to drop out of the race so the GOP can field another candidate. Miller has been battling allegations of domestic abuse by his ex-wife, Emily Moreno — the daughter of Republican Senator Bernie Moreno of Ohio — who said Miller once pointed a gun at her, threw hot water on her and even allegedly fractured their daughter’s clavicle. Miller had until midnight Monday morning to withdraw from the race.
Abdul El-Sayed Mocks Trump and Melania After Trump Attacks Michigan Democrat and His Wife. Michigan U.S. Senate candidate Dr. Abdul El-Sayed — who won the Mitten State’s Democratic primary last week — is now responding to Trump’s latest attack on him and his wife. Trump had posted a side-by-side photo of himself and First Lady Melania Trump and contrasted it with one of the Michigan Democrat and his wife, Dr. Sarah Jukaku, with the text “Two VERY DIFFERENT America’s [sic].” El-Sayed noted Trump was “right” when referring to two different Americas, and said the photo shows a difference between “overlords” like the Trumps who “don’t like each other,” and “two people who genuinely love each other, enjoyed some pancakes together [and] want to come together to build the kind of America where they can raise a family and know that that family is going to have the good things.”
Pennsylvania Republican Admits Trump Lost 2020 Election After Embracing Election Denial to Win Trump’s Endorsement. Pennsylvania Republican gubernatorial candidate Stacy Garrity initially claimed that Donald Trump was the true winner of the 2020 election, helping her secure an official endorsement from the president in the Keystone State’s Republican primary. But now, Garrity is walking those claims back, and saying she prefers to “look forward” rather than keep “talking about an election that happened six years ago.” In 2020, Garrity claimed “irregularities” prevented Trump from winning Pennsylvania, though she failed to provide any proof of those claims.
