DOJ Demands California Purge Voter Rolls—or Else

The Trump administration is giving California 48 hours to purge its voter rolls of people it thinks are noncitizens, or else.

A letter first obtained by Reuters details the administration’s demand for “immediate action to ensure that noncitizens do not vote in the upcoming federal election.” The Department of Justice wants California to scroll through a flash drive of “likely noncitizen” voters that it provided. It’s not clear what evidence the administration is basing that off of. The move comes just a few weeks after the Supreme Court ruled to allow Homeland Security to revive the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, also known as SAVE.

The Trump administration states it’ll have “no choice but to seek emergency relief” if California doesn’t comply. That could include purging voters before the midterm elections, which will take place in less than three weeks. Early voting began in California on October 5.

While the administration hasn’t revealed how large the thumb drive file is, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin thinks that there are over 190,000 noncitizens registered to vote in California, a number that California Secretary of State Shirley Weber said she had “serious doubts” about the “reliability” and “accuracy” of.

This is just the most recent chapter of President Trump’s monthslong campaign to sue states for their voter registration data in order to target undocumented immigrants. In reality, noncitizen voting remains incredibly marginal. A Census Bureau analysis of voting in the 2020 election found that roughly 24,000 noncitizens were included in a report that examined over 128 million voting records. In 2016, meanwhile, noncitizen votes accounted for just 0.0001 percent of the votes cast, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.

Republican Representative Andy Harris couldn’t handle a debate audience laughing at his explanation for high gas prices.

On Tuesday night, during a debate in Cambridge, Maryland, with his Democratic challenger Dan Schwartz, both candidates were asked about President Trump’s recent deal with Russia for diesel fuel.

“Making a deal with Russia to lift sanctions on their diesel when they are actively working with Iranian forces to kill our troops is not only wrong; it’s disgusting,” Schwartz said, “and it follows the pattern of this administration pardoning criminals.”

The audience didn’t interrupt Schwartz, but they had a problem with Harris’s answer.

“The facts are diesel prices have gone up. There’s no question about it. Why has it gone up? Because the Democrats have environmental regulations—” Harris tried to respond, only for audience members to groan, laugh, and shout at the Maryland first district congressman and chair of the right-wing House Freedom caucus.

“See this is the problem,” Harris complained to the crowd. “You all say all believe in the First Amendment, but only if you agree with you. You should let me finish the sentence, ma’am. You are rude!”

Glenna Heckathorn, president of the League of Women Voters of the Mid-Shore and the debate’s moderator, told the crowd to remain civil and asked the two candidates to calm their supporters.

“It’s very important that you guys are able to hear from both of us tonight,” Schwartz said. Harris didn’t oblige.

“My people aren’t interfering with Mr. Schwartz. It’s only one way,” Harris said.

Harris was clearly avoiding the real reason for higher fuel prices: President Trump’s ill-advised Iran war. Before the war, diesel prices were less than $3 per gallon, but now, they are well over $6 per gallon. Iran’s control of the Strait of Hormuz, and fighting between the Houthi militia and the Saudi-backed Yemeni government near the Bab el-Mandeb Strait have disrupted the flow of oil from the Middle East.

Shortly after the debate, Harris, a staunch MAGA Republican who has avoided in-person town halls since 2023, tried to get a reporter arrested for recording his speech to a group of journalists. Harris incorrectly stated the reporter was breaking the law as she asked about his support for the war.

Is Elon Musk using SpaceX to kneecap Starlink access in Ukraine on behalf of President Donald Trump?

A Ukrainian military official claimed Wednesday that Musk’s SpaceX had interrupted functioning of the country’s military-grade Starlink terminals, Reuters reported. Presidential adviser Serhiy Beskrestnov wrote on Telegram that Ukrainian defense forces “did not receive warning about this limitation, and this led to the disruption of several missions.”

The disruption comes just days after Trump publicly criticized Ukraine for continuing to attack Russian oil refineries in the wake of the U.S. lifting sanctions on the sale of Russian oil, and called for the removal of  Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

Musk weighed in on Trump’s comments on social media Saturday, writing: “Zelensky has gone too far.”

Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, whose country pays for Ukraine’s Starlink access, responded to reports of the disruption. 

“Hey, @elonmusk, big man, are you playing politics with your products again? As your European customers, we are watching you,” he wrote on X. Musk did not respond. 

If the disruption really is some kind of political intervention, this is only further proof that Europeans—or really, anyone in the world—cannot rely on any of Musk’s products, as they will be at the whims of the billionaire technocrat that still finds himself at Trump’s beck and call. 

In a last-ditch attempt to alleviate financial strain ahead of the midterm elections, the Trump administration announced last week that the U.S. would temporarily waive sanctions on Russian diesel sold to the global market through April 2027. Trump claimed that Russia would “immediately” supply more than roughly 2.2 million barrels of diesel fuel to the American and global marketplace. (A small drop in the bucket, all things considered.)

More is more with Donald Trump.

The president’s reaction to the deadly tiger attack that occurred in England over the weekend involved subjecting his Truth Social followers to video footage of the horrific encounter—as well as clips of several other big cat maulings.

William Chapman, a former child star in his mid-20s, climbed down from an elevated viewing platform into a tiger enclosure in Yorkshire Wildlife Park on Saturday. The graphic footage depicted the park’s rare Siberian tiger, named Altai, clawing and tearing into Chapman, dragging him around by the neck. In portions of the footage, Chapman can be seen wagging his finger at the animal, or heard shouting “no,” before he lays lifeless on the ground.

“Don’t ever mess with nature!” Trump wrote Tuesday afternoon, circulating a portion of the recording of Chapman’s death before signing off: “President DJT.”

One minute later, Trump shared another video—following up the disturbing real-life encounter with a compilation of various big cat attacks set to cartoonish music. The montage was not accompanied by another caption, though some of the clips appeared to be generated by artificial intelligence.

Neither of the posts were well-received by the general public.

Ron Filipkowski, a former federal prosecutor and editor-in-chief of MeidasTouch, wrote on X that he had “no idea why Trump’s Truth Social account has posted multiple videos of people getting mauled by animals.”

“Either he’s been hacked or Natalie Harp is sending some kind of message,” Filipkowski added, referring to the executive assistant that predominantly handles the president’s relentless social media presence.

“Why is Donald Trump posting grisly video footage of a person getting mauled to death by a tiger in the UK this weekend?” reacted The Bulwark’s Andrew Egger. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

It’s not clear if new White House press secretary Katie Zacharia ever actually worked as an attorney—but it is becoming increasingly clear that she was connected to the Chinese government in the past.

Speaking alongside Donald Trump Tuesday, Zacharia informed reporters inquiring about her self-purported legal qualifications that she passed the bar exam when she “moved to China.”

Popular Info’s Judd Legum found that, after analyzing state bar association databases from all 50 states and Washington, Zacharia never actually passed the qualifying legal exam anywhere in the country. But she couldn’t have passed the Chinese equivalent of the bar exam, either, as it’s actually forbidden for foreigners to do so.

Zacharia’s LinkedIn work history places her at Zhong Lun, an elite Chinese multinational law firm, between 2011 and 2013. She worked at the Beijing-based firm as an associate on the international practice team, months after she obtained her J.D. from Pepperdine Caruso Law. Zacharia’s LinkedIn also notes that she spoke Chinese at an “elementary proficiency.”

Like many major Chinese businesses, Zhong Lung operates in an environment in which it can be influenced by the regional government. Since it was founded in 1993, the firm has provided legal services to numerous Chinese government agencies and state-owned enterprises. Some of those entities include China’s Ministry of Justice, People’s Bank of China, the Ministry of Commerce, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Natural Resources, Ministry of Ecology and Environment, and other regulatory bodies, according to the firm’s webpage.

Within that same time period, Zacharia also worked as the manager of fundraising and communications at Compassion for Migrant Children, a Beijing-based nonprofit that provided education and material support to rural migrant workers. The group also noted in an archived profile that it “engage[d] the Chinese government and local educational officials for greater and longer lasting impact.”