Supreme Court Hands Republicans a Massive Win on Voter Purge Program

Suppressing votes just got a lot easier for a key Trump ally in Virginia.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday voted 6-3 to allow the Virginia election commission to resume a controversial voter purge program that has already wiped the names of 1,600 people from its voter rolls. The state says the program is designed to remove non-citizens, but two lower courts previously found the program is likely illegal.

All three of the court’s liberal justices—Justices Sonia Sotamayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson—dissented. 

Virginia’s Trump-loving governor, Glenn Youngkin, signed the controversial program into law and appealed legal challenges all the way to the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court made its decision Wednesday in a one-page order with no reasoning for the decision included.

The state of Virginia argued that the 1,600 people removed from the state’s voter rolls didn’t provide adequate proof of citizenship when registering to vote at the Department of Motor Vehicles. But voting rights advocates argued Youngkin’s program violates the National Voter Registration Act’s ban on clearing voter rolls too close to Election Day.

In the end, the conservatives on the court decided to help out Republicans in the state. And while this decision is troubling, it is perhaps unsurprising for a majority that includes Judges Clarence Thomas, John Roberts, and Samuel Alito, each of whom have been chipping away at voting rights for some time now. 

This is a notable win for Republicans in an important state. It also shows that the highest court in the land will continue to reinforce Trump’s fear mongering about noncitizen voting. And if 1,600 voters sounds marginal, Virginia’s state legislature was decided by just one vote in 2017. It’s again clear that Republicans will go to absurd lengths to help Trump—and the rest of their party—win.

This story has been updated.

Trust in Democratic institutions is at an all-time low, and at least one man is celebrating the downfall.

According to a Gallup poll published earlier this month, public trust in the executive office and the legislative branches of government is practically abysmal, with just 40 and 34 percent of Americans, respectively, believing that the institutions are trustworthy.

But somehow, the news media got even more demerits, with confidence in the information apparatus hitting its lowest point on record this year. Just 31 percent of Americans have a “great deal” or “fair amount” of faith in the industry’s ability to report news “fully, accurately and fairly.”

On Tuesday, Donald Trump celebrated his role in creating that sentiment, bragging to a crowd in Allentown, Pennsylvania, that it was, largely, thanks to him.

“That is a lot of fake news. When they lose their final ounce of credibility, they’ll probably turn good again, because they’re losing so much credibility,” Trump said.

“You know when I first started running, their approval rating—the very, very beginning, before, maybe, I even started—it was like 92 percent favorable rating. You know what it is now? Twelve percent,” he continued. “I drove it down!”

“I drove it down, numbers. I’m very proud of it. I’ve exposed them as being fake,” he added.

And while his exact numbers may be wrong, Trump’s sentiment is, actually, correct. America’s trust in the media disintegrated in 2016 during his first run for the White House, when Trump routinely platformed the notion that then–Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton was receiving more positive media coverage than he was. He also leveraged attacks on the media to undermine the industry’s coverage of his myriad scandals, including his criminal trials.

That year, confidence in news dropped by eight percentage points—the most in a single year since the metric was first recorded—and for the first time in U.S. history sank below 40 percent. It was dragged down, predominantly, by Republican respondents, whose faith in the media plummeted from 32 percent in 2015 to just 14 percent in 2016, while surveyed Democrats and registered independents reported relatively minor dents in their confidence.

Gallup began asking the question in 1972 and has seen the nation’s trust in the news media slowly drift down since it reached an all-time high of 72 percent in 1976, when investigative pieces on Watergate and the Vietnam War rocked the nation.

This year has shown the disheartening effects of that loss of trust: Newspapers and stations alike have laid off thousands of journalists, with dozens of major outlets downsizing or outright folding as the business side of the industry struggles to keep up with the market, the changing technological landscape (i.e., artificial intelligence), and rapidly changing leadership.

The same Republicans who were just yesterday telling America to grow thicker skin are clutching their pearls over a comment from President Joe Biden on Donald Trump’s supporters.

The collective meltdown comes after Biden spoke on a Get Out the Vote Zoom call hosted by Voto Latino on Tuesday evening, where he denounced the comedian at Trump’s rally who called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage.”

“Donald Trump has no character. He doesn’t give a damn about the Latino community.… Just the other day, a speaker at his rally called Puerto Rico a floating island of garbage,” Biden said on the call. “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporter’s—his hatred, his demonization of Latinos, it’s unconscionable, and it’s un-American.”

Trump and his biggest fans quickly jumped on the remark, claiming that Biden meant “supporters” plural, while the former president said that he was specifically referring to Hinchcliffe.

“While I am running a campaign of positive solutions to save America, Kamala Harris is running a campaign of hate,” former President Donald Trump posted on X early Wednesday morning. “Now, on top of everything, Joe Biden calls our supporters ‘garbage.’ You can’t lead America if you don’t love the American People.”

“This is disgusting,” J.D. Vance wrote on X. “Kamala Harris and her boss Joe Biden are attacking half of the country. There’s no excuse for this. I hope Americans reject it.”

Senator John Cornyn—who remained suspiciously quiet as Trump and Vance spread made-up rumors about Haitian immigrants eating pets—called the comments “despicable.” Wisconsin Senate candidate Eric Hovde even used it in a campaign ad equating it to Hillary Clinton’s “basket of deplorables” comment in 2016.

Even if Biden had meant “supporters” plural, this kind of moral grandstanding is just disingenuous. This is a campaign that has referred to the vice president as a “devil,” said she had “pimp handlers,” made up pet-eating rumors that led to bomb threats shutting down Springfield, Ohio, and then still has the nerve to tell everyone to “stop getting so offended” when people get appropriately offended. They don’t have much room to talk.

Despite the evidence, Donald Trump is still trying to convince voters that no one cared about the racist joke made about Puerto Rico at his Madison Square Garden rally.

During an interview with Fox News on Tuesday evening, the Republican presidential nominee claimed that he has “really great relationships” with “Hispanics”—so much so that they shower him with physical affection every time he runs into them.

“Every time I go outside, I see somebody from Puerto Rico, they give me a hug and a kiss,” Trump said.

But in the same breath, Trump recalled the apparently fond memory of throwing paper towels to a crowd of pleading Puerto Ricans after the U.S. territory was devastated by Hurricane Maria, leaving the vast majority of the island without power, food, water, and medical aid.

“I got in trouble for that too, because we were having fun. We had a lot of people, and I was throwing paper towels to the back, they were all having fun,” Trump told Fox before complaining that the media negatively covered the stunt. (At the time, San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz called Trump’s 17-minute meeting “abominable” and described him as the “miscommunicator-in-chief.”)

The comments are a continued effort by the Trump campaign to clean up the former president’s image after comedian Tony Hinchcliffe joked at Trump’s Manhattan campaign stop that Puerto Rico was a “floating island of garbage.”

“I don’t even know who put him in. And I can’t imagine it’s a big deal. I’ve done more for Puerto Rico than any president, I think that’s ever, that’s ever been president,” Trump told Fox on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, behind the scenes, Trump’s campaign is working overtime to separate the  former president’s image from the racist joke, which has drawn condemnation from across the political spectrum. Other Republicans have also spoken out about the gross insult, including Senator Rick Scott and Representative Maria Elvira Salazar.

During an interview with ABC News on Tuesday, Trump made the whole situation worse by outright denying knowing anything about the unsavory joke, telling the network that he hadn’t even heard the line and that he didn’t know the comedian before “someone put him up there.”

Trump’s failure to personally condemn Hinchcliffe’s comments has also cost him with Puerto Rican voters across the country—particularly in Pennsylvania, where Puerto Rico–connected nonpartisan groups are circulating a letter urging members to vote against Trump.

Only one week from Election Day, Republicans’ closing message is that they plan to take away people’s health care, specifically the Affordable Care Act, if the party retains control of the House.

House Speaker Mike Johnson told the crowd at a rally in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, on Monday that “health care reform’s going to be a big part of the agenda.”

“When I say we’re going to have a very aggressive first 100 days agenda, we got a lot of things still on the table,” Johnson said at the rally meant to be in support of Republican Representative Ryan Mackenzie.

One person at the rally, in a reference to the health care bill passed by Democrats under President Obama, asked Johnson, “No Obamacare?”

“No Obamacare,” Johnson replied, rolling his eyes according to NBC News. “The ACA is so deeply ingrained, we need massive reform to make this work and we got a lot of ideas on how to do that.”

“If you take government bureaucrats out of the health care equation and you have doctor-patient relationships, it’s better for everybody. More efficient, more effective,” Johnson added. “That’s the free market. Trump’s going to be for the free market.”

Johnson later promised to take a “blowtorch to the regulatory state.”

Johnson’s promise to ax Obamacare isn’t an offhand remark. Earlier this month, Senator Tom Cotton also promised that if Donald Trump wins the election and the GOP takes control of the Senate, Republicans could “make health care more affordable, more tailored and more personalized than the one-size-fits-all option.”

During his four years as president, Trump tried and failed to repeal the ACA, even though the GOP controlled the House and the Senate for two years. During his presidential debate with Kamala Harris last month, Trump reiterated his desire to get rid of the health care law, but when pressed, said he only had “concepts of a plan.”

Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, has elaborated on the Trump administration’s current plan, which is to undo much of the ACA’s framework, including its prohibition on health insurance companies’ ability to charge more for preexisting conditions. Johnson’s and Cotton’s comments reveal that he has allies among the Republican leadership on Capitol Hill. The question is whether voters want to elect Trump and allow the GOP to reverse the health care reforms of the previous decade.

Robert F. Kennedy’s bewildering campaign has shot itself in the foot for the umpteenth time.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled 8-1 against RFK Jr.’s request to be removed from presidential ballots in Michigan and Wisconsin. Justice Neil Gorsuch was the only dissenting vote.

The third-party spoiler turned Trump advocate has been pathetically attempting to help the former president by removing his name from swing state ballots, while remaining on the ballot elsewhere. But even the Supreme Court has had enough of the stunt.

Kennedy’s lawyers tried to argue that his name remaining on the ballot was “in violation of his First Amendment rights,” and that his recent advocacy of former President Trump was being “compromised.” Wisconsin, however, argued that the request would require absurd tasks like handcrafting and placing “millions of stickers.”

Michigan too warned that early voting is already underway and it would be impossible to reprint and redistribute ballots just one week before the election. Michigan reported that over 1.5 million voters have already returned absentee ballots with Kennedy’s name as a voting option, and 263,000 people have voted early.

The court agreed—it was far too late. In two separate orders, the Supreme Court rejected RFK Jr.’s emergency requests.

Kennedy remaining on the ballot in Michigan and Wisconsin is all but guaranteed to take more voters from Trump than from Harris in those crucial swing states.

This story has been updated.

Team Trump continues to reveal that the only thing on their minds for their first 100 days in office will be revenge.

Speaking with Vaughn Hillyard at Donald Trump’s incendiary Madison Square Garden rally on Sunday, billionaire CEO and co-chair of Trump’s transition team Howard Lutnick discussed what went wrong with Trump’s first Cabinet and how he’ll ensure that his next is “the best of the best.”

Lutnick also dismissed Trump’s former chief of staff John Kelly, former Defense Secretary James Mattis, and former Vice President Mike Pence, each of whom have deemed Trump an authoritarian threat, as merely “disgruntled former employees.”

“[Trump] thought they were generals. He should’ve realized they were Democrat generals. They moved against him. Think about this—Mattis, Kelly, and [former Secretary of State Rex] Tillerson met every other morning to try to keep Donald Trump away from what they wanted to do.… That’s treason, it’s just wrong.”

Casually suggesting that critics of the former president should be charged with treason is yet another massive red flag that has become all too common within the Trump campaign. And while it’s beside the point, none of the aforementioned “disgruntled former employees” are Democrats. Mattis is unaffiliated with a party, Kelly, is a registered independent, and Tillerson is a lifelong Republican.

Lutnick’s threat aligns with the numerous other threats of prosecution that Trump has levied throughout his campaign. In recent weeks, he has begun warning that he’ll use the military to go after the “enemy within,” even naming targets he has in mind. And while some Trump supporters think that this is all just talk, others, like Lutnick, are taking Trump’s words and running with them.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis was dealt a setback in his efforts to ban TV advertisements for a state ballot initiative expanding abortion rights.

A federal judge, Mark Walker, on Tuesday extended a temporary restraining order that blocks the state government from taking action against the ads for 14 days or until he rules on his initial preliminary injunction, likely delaying his decision until after Election Day on November 5, when the initiative will be decided by Florida voters.

DeSantis, through lawyers at the Florida Department of Health, has threatened to charge TV stations that run the ads, sending out cease and desist letters to them after the stations started running the commercials earlier this month. Brian Barnes, a lawyer for the department, said in federal court Tuesday prior to Walker’s ruling that one of the ads was confusing and could stop mothers from seeking emergency care.

Florida currently bans abortion after six weeks of pregnancy. The ballot initiative, Amendment 4, would increase access to abortion until fetal viability, typically considered to be around 24 weeks. DeSantis’s decision to go after the TV stations that have run ads supporting the amendment has already led to backlash from within the state government, with one lawyer in the Department of Health, John Wilson, resigning over DeSantis’s authoritarian tactics.

“A man is nothing without his conscience,” Wilson wrote in his letter.

DeSantis has also used other state powers to fight against the ballot initiative, using his official X account to spread misinformation, even as two hurricanes raged through Florida. The state has also sent police officers to the homes of people who signed a petition supporting the ballot initiative, which DeSantis has defended by invoking conservative fears of voter fraud. But, as Walker ruled Tuesday, there are constitutional lines the governor can’t cross.

Judge Aileen Cannon has refused a motion to recuse herself from the trial of Donald Trump’s would-be assassin.

Last month, Ryan Wesley Routh was arrested at the Mar-a-Lago golf course and charged with attempting to assassinate Trump.

In a seven-page decision released Tuesday, Cannon dismissed a motion from Routh’s attorney, arguing that the former president’s constantly praising her did not create the “appearance of partiality.”

“As Defendant acknowledges, I have no control over what private citizens, members of the media, or public officials or candidates elect to say about me or my judicial rulings,” Cannon wrote. “Nor am I concerned about the political consequences of my rulings or how those rulings might be viewed by ‘some in the media.’”

“I have never spoken to or met former President Trump except in connection with his required presence at an official judicial proceeding, through counsel,” Cannon wrote. “I have no ‘relationship to the alleged victim’ in any reasonable sense of the phrase.”

Cannon made the unprecedented decision in July to toss out the felony classified documents case against Trump by ruling special counsel Jack Smith’s appointment was unconstitutional. Her move has been criticized by legal scholars but repeatedly celebrated by Trump.

Earlier this month, it was reported that Cannon’s name is on a list of possible candidates for Trump’s attorney general, if he wins the election next week.

As paper ballots are lit on fire by vigilantes and Donald Trump threatens to punish the “enemy from within,” Meta is not only allowing extremist groups on its platform but even is auto-generating anti-government militia Facebook groups.

According to data compiled by the Tech Transparency Project for Wired, after January 6, the number of Facebook groups and pages used by the alt-right to organize with each other has only grown. The Tech Transparency Project found more than 200 Facebook pages and nearly 200 anti-government pages that recruit for extremist movements. Nearly two dozen of these pages and groups have been created in the past six months.

Meta has not only looked the other way but even used its own technology to auto-generate these groups for militias. Though some chapters of American Patriots Three Percent (AP3) on the platform have been moderated or banned, in May, Facebook automatically created a page for an Arizona chapter of AP3. In June, it did the same for an AP3 “training range” in New Mexico. On the site, Facebook’s explainer reads: “This unofficial page was created because people on Facebook have shown interest in this place or business. It’s not affiliated with or endorsed by anyone associated with AP3 Training Range.”

“Nearly four years after the January 6 attack on the capitol, Facebook remains a significant recruiting and organizing tool for militias like the AP3, despite creating policies that ban them,” Katie Paul, the director of the Tech Transparency Project, told Wired.

This isn’t the first time that Meta has been caught auto-generating pages for terrorist or white supremacist groups. In 2020, a whistleblower alerted the Securities and Exchange Commission to the issue.

Most recently, groups such as the “Patriot Group” or “The Party of Trump,” the latter of which has 171,000 members, have urged their members to do ballot dropbox “monitoring,” including encouraging Trump supporters to stand guard at ballot boxes with AR-15s.

With the election a week away, as Paul asks: “How can Meta be trusted to effectively thwart extremists that have a record of engaging in and stoking political violence when its own systems create business pages for them?”