Trump’s Ultimatum to Republicans Sparks Shutdown Fears

On Monday, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson visited Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago following the attempt on Trump’s life. Two days later, the Republican presidential nominee is publicly pressuring Johnson and his fellow Republicans in Congress to follow his orders on the spending bill, pushing the entire country to the brink of a government shutdown.

On Wednesday, the House is set to vote on a continuing resolution to extend government funding—to which Johnson is attaching the SAVE Act, a MAGA-backed bill that would require proof of citizenship to register to vote.

The spending plan with the SAVE Act attached is expected to fail, and, as NOTUS reports, “at that point, the question is whether [Johnson] can just bring up a clean continuing resolution to avoid a shutdown, or if he’ll have to engage in more … ‘failure theater.’”

On Wednesday afternoon, Trump chimed in on Truth Social, exhorting Republicans to take a hard line on the SAVE Act. “If Republicans don’t get the SAVE Act, and every ounce of it, they should not agree to a Continuing Resolution in any way, shape, or form,” Trump wrote, recklessly indifferent to the prospect of a government shutdown.

Trump’s post asserted, baselessly, that “Democrats are registering Illegal Voters by the TENS OF THOUSANDS,” and concluded, “BE SMART, REPUBLICANS, YOU’VE BEEN PUSHED AROUND LONG ENOUGH BY THE DEMOCRATS. DON’T LET IT HAPPEN AGAIN.”

The Brennan Center has deemed the SAVE Act a “misguided” piece of legislation, since noncitizen voting is already illegal and “vanishingly rare.” David Dayen at The American Prospect writes that the act is largely aimed at sowing doubt about the legitimacy of the 2024 election and making “people who have the legal right to vote … too nervous about potential harassment by law enforcement to do so.”

A network of county election officials in Georgia is strategizing behind the scenes to help Donald Trump in the upcoming 2024 presidential election.

The Guardian, along with Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, obtained emails through a public records request from a group calling itself the Georgia Election Integrity Coalition, which includes election officials from at least five counties in the state. The emails show favoritism by the group toward Trump, as well as efforts by the group to show fraud in the 2024 elections, despite no vote yet having been cast.

Emails were sent between the officials, as well as election deniers in Georgia and around the country. These included groups like the Tea Party Patriots, or TPP, and the Election Integrity Network, or EIN, a group founded by former Trump adviser Cleta Mitchell. Members include Michael Heekin, a Republican member of the Fulton County board of elections, and his colleague Julie Adams, Debbie Fisher of Cobb County, Nancy Jester of DeKalb County, and Roy McClain of Spalding County. All of them have a history of refusing to certify election results, and Adams works directly for the TPP and EIN.

In the emails, members discuss how to combat scrutiny, in one case regarding a letter from a Democratic attorney warning officials against refusing to certify election results. Adams sent a different email under her Tea Party Patriots address with a meeting agenda including an item about a “New York Times reporter traveling to several counties in Georgia.”

Trump’s supporters on the Georgia state election board, despite facing ethics complaints, have already changed the rules to make it easier to delay or refuse to certify election results. Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, despite being criticized by Trump, now says the former president’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election wasn’t a big deal. These emails show further evidence of what could be a plan to not only cast doubt on unfavorable election results in two months but also to swing the state in Trump’s favor, in a much more coordinated manner than the fake electors effort in 2020.

MAGA Republicans seem weirdly upset that inflation is going down.

The Federal Reserve announced Wednesday that it will cut interest rates by half a percentage point, a move that signals inflation has decreased significantly. The announcement comes after Donald Trump and J.D. Vance spent months attacking the Biden administration for high levels of inflation, even as it fell to the lowest rate in years.

At a Vance rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, the Ohio senator’s audience didn’t seem too happy about the change.

Vance was asked for his reaction to the Fed cutting rates, which would “alleviate inflation for a lot of people.” Before he could answer, his crowd started to boo.

This response was particularly odd considering the fact that cutting interest rates has the potential to actually be good news for everyone.

Lowering the prices of consumer goods, such as groceries, is an issue affixed at the center of the presidential race, despite the fact that it’s not necessarily within the president’s control.

There are a few reasons for what’s happening here. The first is that the crowd just plainly didn’t understand what cutting interest rates would mean. The second is the same reason that Vance responded with, saying that “a half a point is nothing compared to what American families have been dealing with for the last three years.” So, in that way, the first option and the second option are pretty much the same thing.

And then there is the third option, which was illustrated by Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville.

“The Fed’s drastic rate cut is so shamelessly political,” Tuberville wrote in a post on X. “Our nation’s central bank has no business moving rates this close to an election and is clearly trying to tip the balance in favor of Kamala Harris.”

So, good news isn’t really good news unless Trump is the one behind it. That’s what you get for trying to govern, I guess.

Donald Trump took his promise of the largest mass deportations in U.S. history to horrific new heights over the weekend, when he promised to begin a policy called “remigration.”

In one of the former president’s several outlandish missives, Trump ranted about his anti-immigrant immigration policy. Among promises to “stop all migrant flights” and “suspend refugee resettlement,” he vowed Saturday to “return Kamala’s illegal migrants to their home countries (also known as remigration).”

Stephen Miller, the ghoul behind some of Trump’s harshest immigration policies, reshared the post. “THE TRUMP PLAN TO END THE INVASION OF SMALL TOWN AMERICA: REMIGRATION!”

Whenever Miller, with his affinity for white nationalism, backs up an immigration policy, one can usually assume it’s for the purpose of making America a white nation—and lo and behold, that’s exactly what “remigration” means.

The Associated Press described “remigration” in 2019 as “the chilling notion of returning immigrants to their native lands in what amounts to a soft-style ethnic cleansing.” Essentially, remigration would mean forcing non-ethnically European immigrants and their families to leave the U.S., even if they are citizens. The horrific policy proposal is a direct response to the racist “great replacement” theory, which has been pushed by many right-wing U.S. politicians, including J.D. Vance.

While “remigration” is not a commonly used word in U.S. politics, it is slightly more in evidence in European politics, where far-right politicians have pushed to maintain a homogeneous cultural and ethnic society.

For example, Herbert Kickl, the leader of the Austrian far-right party, advocated in June for a “remigration commissioner.” In August, Kickl urged “remigration” while introducing the party’s manifesto advocating for “homogeneity” in Austria, rather than diversity. He also has previously said that remigration could be used to revoke the citizenship of non-whites who “refuse to integrate.”

Martin Sellner, the activist head of the so-called Identitarian Movement, which extols the superiority of European ethnic groups, posted about Trump’s use of the word on X. “#Remigration has had a massive conceptual career,” Sellner wrote in German. “Born in France, popularized in German-speaking countries and now the term of the hour from Sweden to the USA!”

So did Trump know he was using the obscure language of the far right? It seems likely.

“He knows what he is doing,” Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a history professor who studies fascism and authoritarianism, told Mother Jones. “He chooses his words carefully.”

This story has been updated.

An Ohio sheriff who threatened local supporters of Vice President Kamala Harris is doubling down on his dangerous rhetoric, insisting that people need to “accept responsibility” for their political leanings.

Portage County Sheriff Bruce Zuchowski took to Facebook on Tuesday to elaborate on his controversial remarks that spurred the sudden, protesting resignation of a county commissioner from the local Republican committee.

“As the Chief Law Enforcement Officer of Portage County, I have sworn to protect ALL citizens of my County. Recently, I placed a post on my personal facebook page that may have been a little misinterpreted??” Zuchowski wrote on his official page.

“I … as the elected sheriff, do have a First Amendment right as do all citizens. If the citizens of Portage County want to elect an individual who has supported open borders (which I’ve personally visited Twice!) and neglected to enforce the laws of our Country … then that is their prerogative,” Zuchowski continued. “With elections, there are consequences. That being said … I believe that those who vote for individuals with liberal policies have to accept responsibility for their actions! I am a Law Man … Not a Politician!”

The warning came days after Zuchowski willingly threw himself into electoral politics in their yards in a Facebook post that referred to the vice president as a “Flip-Flopping, Laughing Hyena.” He suggested Friday that his constituents send him the personal addresses of locals with Harris’s campaign signs in their yards.

“I say … write down all the addresses of the people who had her signs in their yards!” Zuchowski wrote on Friday. “Sooo … when the Illegal human ‘Locust’ (which she supports!) Need places to live … We’ll already have the addresses of their New families … who supported their arrival!”

The post was seemingly made in reference to a virulent conspiracy theory spread by top Republicans, including Donald Trump and J.D. Vance, about Haitian immigrants eating other residents’ pets in Springfield, Ohio—roughly 200 miles away from Zuchowski’s district.

Since Vance and Trump began elevating the myth last week, Springfield has received at least 33 bomb threats, forcing it to evacuate and temporarily shutter several of its schools, colleges, festivals, and a significant portion of its government facilities, including City Hall, the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, the Ohio License Bureau, the Springfield Academy of Excellence, and Fulton Elementary School.

Multiple city officials, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, and even Vance himself have stated in no uncertain terms that the conspiracy is false.