July 29, 2026

Wondering on Wednesday 7/29/26


Ready... Set... Wonder!

There are many days I wonder why I bother watching or reading the news - and today is certainly one of them. Here are a few examples of what's got me scratching my head.

  • On the 'eyeball' network's national news tonight, we were treated to footage from the trial of a Massachusetts woman accused of murdering her three children - in January 2023. There was the tortured father, a part of his 911 call, the sobbing mother listening to the tape for the first time, and my favorite, a prosecutor holding up the pajamas of one of the victims. And this was just day two of the trial. Am I the only person wondering why this story, in all its gory detail, is getting precious time on the national news each day? And why the trial is only just getting underway three-and-a-half years later?
  • An item from the 'peacock' network crossed my desk, letting me know the person who attacked and slashed author Salman Rushdie in August 2022 was convicted today in federal court on terrorism charges. He had previously been tried, convicted, and sentenced to 25 years in state prison for attempting to murder Rushdie. Are you wondering, too, why we're spending time and money trying the same folks in both state and federal court, even if the charges are different? And if you're OK with both trials, why did it take so long?
  • And how can we forget Sen. Bernie Morena (Rude-OH), who quite proudly shouted an f-bomb at Dr. Anthony Fauci today; we got to see that, too - without the sound (but it was deafeningly obvious what he yelled) - on the national news and on the 'family Canidae' network. I can't help wondering what Tom BrokawPeter Jennings, or Gwen Ifill would have had to say about that.
Remember those assaults on so-called drug boats, in which the US government killed dozens of people and destroyed or took control of the drugs on the boats? And how those assaults, part of Operation Southern Spear, were supposed to cut off the flow of coke into the country, make us safer, and cripple the cartels? And how proud a certain Cabinet member was about all of it? 

I'm wondering if anyone's really surprised to see this news?

Despite killing at least 221 people in dozens of U.S. airstrikes targeting alleged drug-trafficking boats in the eastern Pacific and Caribbean, Donald Trump’s administration has reportedly admitted that the attacks haven’t slowed the flow of cocaine into the U.S.

Instead, traffickers are relying on planes hopping across the interior of Central and South America, or using larger boats and sailing close to coastlines where U.S. forces are less likely to strike, according to The Washington Post, citing a previously unreported assessment from the Drug Enforcement Administration.

There's more to wonder about - there always is - but that's enough for one night. What's on your mind?

Sunday School 7/26/26: Extra Credit

For your Sunday School Extra Credit this week, I dropped by the Meet the Press (NBC) classroom to listen in on some talk about the upcoming midterms. 

For the first part of the conversation, host Kristen Welker was joined by NBC's Chief Data Analyst, Steve Kornacki. Here's how Welker set the stage:

Today marks 100 days until the midterm elections. At stake: control of Congress. Will the war in Iran -- and its impact on the economy -- hurt Republicans’ chances of holding onto power? Or can Democrats flip the House and Senate? Even as a fight rages within the party over its future. 

Kornacki dove right into the numbers, putting the landscape in perspective, he said. 

  • Trump's approval is at 41% on average across all polls, a little lower than before the 2018 midterms in his first term. 
  • In a recent Fox News poll on specific issues, "majority disapprove everywhere. His best mark is 42 on immigration." On Iran, the economy, and inflation, the numbers were apparently much worse.
  • In 2022, under Biden, the Dems lost "only a few seats" in the House, and picked up one in the Senate. That's what the Rs are hoping will happen this year, and they "think that their one chance is the image of the Democratic Party."
  • A majority of Democrats, in the same Fox poll, "have a favorable view of socialism" but that ends at the party door - socialism is "deeply unpopular" with Independents.
  • The Dems need to gain four Senate seats to get control, and they can't lose any seats, either. Their best hopes are in Maine and North Carolina, but where are the other two? Can they come from states that Trump won by double digits - Alaska, Iowa, Ohio, or Texas?
  • Iran hangs over the whole mess; in a Politico poll, "65% say the war shouldn't continue, or should continue only if it doesn't make costs worse. And 56% of MAGA share that opinion, compared to several weeks ago when it was 41%.
Later in the lesson, the panel gathered to continue discussing the midterms. Today's crew: New York Times White House correspondent Tyler Pager; Democratic strategist Adrienne Elrod; and Lanhee Chen, a fellow at the Hoover Institution

Welker asked Pager what he was hearing from his sources about Iran and the mood at the White House. He said for a while folks were optimistic that "the war would be winding down or at least not on the front of voters' minds when they went to the polls, or even after Labor Day." And now? It seems there are some concerns that fluctuating prices and continuing attacks in the war could be "a huge issue for voters."  On the other hand,
...when you talk to Republicans, they point out a few things that make them somewhat optimistic that things could go a little bit better. One, the huge cash advantage that the Republicans have in the committees. Two, the redistricting efforts that have given Republicans a fighting chance in some areas that they didn’t think they would compete in. And lastly, they think they have a message of attack, particularly around the Democratic Socialist candidates that have won, trying to paint them as representatives of the entire Democratic Party. But most voters care about the economy. And that is going to be — continue to be a huge issue for the party as they try to stave off what appears to be a losing hand heading into November.

Welker turned to Chen, asking about Labor Day as a key date, especially when it comes to getting gas prices down. She said, "The economy is always the single biggest issue" for voters considering which party to support, but noted there's some complexity to the picture for the Rs. She pointed to the redistricting efforts in red states making perhaps 10 to 15 seats more competitive, and the progressive Dems who are far to the left of most Americans.

So those are advantages, no question about it. But the challenge Republicans face is what I consider to be an expectations gap. There’s an expectation about the end of the war. There’s an expectation about prices coming down. And the reality hasn’t always met those expectations. So not only are you seeing challenges with independent voters. The bigger issue for Republicans is energy. It’s the energy of the Republican electorate. Are those most loyal Republican voters going to turn out and vote when Donald Trump is not on the ballot? That’s the big question.

And, talking about "the progressive branch of the Democratic Party," Welker noted the energy level there, and how there's a divide playing out in primaries. She talked about Michigan, where there's a primary next month with a progressive battling a moderate for a Senate seat. She asked Elrod to talk about what's at stake. 

In a nutshell? If the Dems want to take back the Senate, they have to hold Michigan, and "we have a much better shot of holding onto Michigan" if the moderate candidate wins. She also thinks that, in terms of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) candidates more generally, it's a challenge for the Ds because some of the primary winners "may not be as appealing to the electorate in the general election.

But so far, we are seeing this relatively isolated to places like New York City, you know, urban areas, and of course that little blue dot in Colorado in Denver with Diana DeGette’s loss. If El-Sayed is successful in Michigan, that will sort of blow that argument. It’ll flop that argument significantly. Because this is a state that is in the Rust Belt. It is a state that is critical to anybody winning in 2028 for the presidential - for the presidency. So if this happens there, then I think Democrats are going to have a bigger challenge.

And on the other side of the aisle, how much of a challenge does the erosion of the MAGA base on Iran pose?  Pager turned back the clock a bit to answer this one, noting that JD Vance endorsed Trump in part because "Trump would not bring the nation to war." And Vance has been "concerned and frankly opposed" to the war (from the beginning, at least according to many reports - ed.)

So obviously that is a huge concern for the base. And that was what Vance was trying to channel in some of his opposition. The other thing as Lanhee said, we have seen the Republican Party struggle when Donald Trump is not on the ballot, particularly with turnout when it relates to the base... some of these voters that are huge Donald Trump supporters, but are not as reliably showing up for the midterm elections. And so without Donald Trump on the ballot, plus this ongoing protracted overseas conflict, that is a problem for Republicans.

Chen noted the concept of "the MAGA base is a little bit misunderstood" - it's not really a 'base' for the Rs.

... what it really is, is it’s Donald Trump’s coalition. It’s a unique coalition that no other politician has been able to replicate in recent American history. When Donald Trump is not on the ballot, as we talked about earlier, it changes the dynamic, the dynamic significantly. The question of course is: does the president want to get more involved? And what does that mean for individual candidates?

She pointed to Susan Collins, running for her *sixth* term (after pledging to only serve two), as an example of the quandary facing some GOP candidates. In Maine, she'll need the so-called MAGA base, but she can't turn off the moderates who wield a lot of power in the bluish-purple state.

... she’s got to be able to turn out that base of Republican voters while still not turning off moderates who might have a different opinion of the president. Her challenge is going to be very different than you might see in other races. So, the question of how far the president gets involved - this is his base. If he wants to turn on his base, if he wants to devote time and energy to getting those people out to vote, it’s going to change the outcome of the election.

Does that make everything clearer, as we enter the push to the midterms? Iran, affordability, DSA, Trump... right now, these are the likely suspects; we'll see if that changes over the coming weeks. 

Thoughts on the midterms? Want to see me tackle something specific? (And yes, I'll be sharing some info on the DSA in an upcoming post.) Drop a comment.

July 27, 2026

OrangeVerse (LXVI): WHCA Part 1

For about an hour on Saturday night, the FOTUS rambled on and on at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner, rescheduled from April when a man tried to get into the ballroom and assassinate the president and other members of his administration. 

Other presidents who have attended usually speak for 15, 20, or maybe even 30 minutes, nothing like what GOP strategist Alyssa Farah Griffin described as "what felt like 90 minutes we'll never get back of our lives." 

There's so much to unpack, as the punditry likes to say, that I'm breaking it down into bite-sized pieces of poetry. Well, OK, Big Mac-sized bites... giant Diet Coke-sized slurps of verse, if you will. Are you ready?

Karoline
our favorite White House
Press Secretary...who just had her
second child, you and your husband.
She's great. She's done a fantastic job.
We all love her. She's done a fantastic job.
She is another one.
She can be nasty

But sometimes she has no choice, right?
Karoline
may have one of 
the hardest jobs...she
has to deal with all of you 
all of the time,
and you could be very difficult.
You can be very, very difficult people
but I'm probably being a little bit oversensitive.
Sometimes I really do think

That some of you don't like me
I read a report
I get 93% negative publicity,
93, I said, how the hell
did I win the election
by so much?
Think of it, I
don't think that's true.
I can't believe it's 93.
In the 80s maybe, but
not 93.

But this place
is the, really,
the largest group
of Trump Derangement Syndrome
people. Ever put together
at one time, I suspect. Some
of you are lucky
that our last dinner was cut short
because I brought with me
what would possibly
have been,
I'm telling you,
I had, uh...

 I had something
I was gonna go after you.
I was gonna. I feel
so badly doing this.
It's gotta be
such a letdown
Oh yay, yay.

But your lives were really in danger
the last time but for
an opposite reason.
But on the plus side, your
careers were saved and
we have a, uh, we really do.
We have a complete and total,
you know, I love the words

Complete and total
they say, but it means almost
the same thing,
I said, it doesn't matter
when you say it.
It's called emphasis.
It's called emphasis.
But everyone is now
really warming up
the new White House
military center,
drone port,
highly protected
ballroom.
It's, we have
our ballroom.

The windows are this thick.
I said to the people
well, if a bullet hits, what happens?
Nothing. Nothing.
It bounces right off, sir.
This is the greatest bulletproof glass.
I said AK-47,
that's supposed to be a big one.
I don't know so much
about the guns.

My sons know a lot.
But I said
Ah, I know it's big.
What would happen?
They go up, meaning
it could take more.
I said so, if I'm making
a speech and I hear that
pinging sound at a window
what would I do?
Sir, uh, leave the room
right away but
you're gonna be safe.
We're building something that's
gonna be amazing.
And in light of 
what we went through
I think, uh, people
understand it.
 It's 
gonna 
be 
amazing.

I wonder... what could be more amazing than Part 1? Stick around - you'll have a chance to pick your favorite part when it's done. 

Sunday School 7/26/26

For your Sunday School lesson this week, I spent time in CNN's State of the Union classroom, which was in a New York State of mind.

First up for host Dana Bash was House Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY). Bash noted the Dems are launching something called '100 Days Out Weekend of Action,' a sprint to the midterms, by hosting over 400 events across the country. At the same time, they have to figure out how to regain the majority either through the center or through the "activist left." Noting the latter group wants to "defund the police, abolish ICE, aid to Israel, open borders," she asked Jeffries if he was planning on moving on any of those issues if they win in November. 

Rather than answer her question, he said the Ds would focus on what unites them, and that's "a focus on fighting for an affordable America" because "life in this country is far too expensive," and that's something the whole party agrees on.

Too many people are working hard, they're playing by the rules, but they can't thrive and they can barely survive, not enough food on the table, not enough gas in the tank, unable to actually regularly and consistently afford to pay the rent or pay the mortgage. We want to drive down the cost of groceries, drive down and lower the cost of gasoline, drive down the cost of housing, and also make sure that health care is affordable for every single American. 

Bash tried again, asking whether the party's policy proposals will "be in line with" what some recent progressive winners want, or if they'll move towards "the moderate area" if they win the swing states.  Again, rather than answering the question, he chose bumper stickers: push back against the "one big ugly bill" and its Medicaid cuts, extend the Affordable Care Act subsidies, stop the "reckless and costly war of choice," and stop Trump's tariffs.

After two non-answers, Bash took a more direct approach, noting Jeffries has reportedly "clashed" with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who's campaigning for progressives, even those challenging incumbents, "including members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC)." She asked if Sanders and others are making it harder for the Ds to win, and if that's what led to the clash. 

Jeffries said it wasn't a clash so much as a "candid conversation" with Rep. Greg Meeks (D-NY), chair of the CBC PAC, and it was about a single North Carolina primary. He added that he thinks Sanders and House and Senate Dems "understand the stakes" - taking control of Congress,

so we can end this MAGA extremism that has been unleashed on the American people that is actively hurting hardworking American taxpayers, and actually commit to making life more affordable for the American people.

She gave him one last chance to explain how he'll handle the progressives; according to him, "not a single person" among the incoming members has raised any of the issues Bash mentioned, other than how Dems are pushing back against the administration's immigration policies, including ICE.

The last question was about New Jersey's non-citizen voting disclosure; Bash, noting that Dems say this "doesn't happen," wondered if the discovery causes a problem for the Dems.

I think that I continue to have confidence in state and local authorities in making sure that there's going to be a free and fair election in November, and, if modest or minor challenges emerge, such as the one that was disclosed voluntarily by the authorities in New Jersey, that it is immediately corrected. And that's what I expect will continue to happen. 

And then? Back to the bumper stickers: Trump and the Rs and voter suppression, their failure to lower prices, the war, skyrocketing gas prices, and Medicaid cuts, before saying this:

They have nothing to run on. We're going to run on fighting for an affordable America.

The next New Yorker in the classroom was Border Czar Tom Homan; he's a North Country native who maintains a home in Sackets Harbor, where protestors have made their views on ICE known.

Bash led with asking if he knows "specifically" what's going on with the ICE officers who were involved in the shootings in Texas and Maine, and whether they'd been reassigned or placed on leave. Homan said he hadn't been involved in the investigations and didn't know the officers' status, but said that the policy is that they'd be put on leave during the investigation. Bash seemed surprised that, "as border czar involved in this," he didn't know for sure what had happened to the agents. He made it clear that ICE reports to Markwayne Mullin, and said

I've said from day one I won't comment on an investigation, but I can tell you I haven't specifically tracked these cases, but I can tell you, per policy, they're usually put on administrative leave pending the investigation, pending sworn statements, internal affairs interviews and the entire investigation. They usually will not be put back on duty until the investigation is over and either have been cleared or, if they've got problems, then they may not go back at all.

That last comment opened the door for Bash to bring up the domestic violence allegations against the officer in Maine (which the officer has denied). According to court documents, one of his ex-wives said that "she experienced severe domestic violence in her marriage and that he always displayed violent behavior, and even that, if anything ever happened to her, he'd be the one to look at." She wondered whether someone "with those issues" should be an ICE agent. 

No, if those of those are facts, he -- I don't think he should ever have cleared vetting. When they hire somebody, they put them through a vetting process and look at all that stuff. So, I know, based on that information -- that's part of the ongoing investigation... -- did the vetting process fail? Was that information not available? Did they not know? So, there's a separate administrative investigation on what happened here.... But the vetting process, I -- if that was factual, he would have an almost impossible time to pass vetting.

Homan said all ICE employees (some 30,000 of them) go through vetting and "this is a kind of a rare instance." And this is just one aspect of the ongoing review.

So, the training is under review. I know this specific case, as far as the vetting, is under review by the internal affairs section. So we will see where it lies. But, certainly, if this person had that type of history, it would have been a vetting issue, and it should have been brought to the attention of those who makes those decisions.

That led to Bash questioning the training, as she did the vetting, pointing to the race to "find as many undocumented immigrants as possible to deport." Homan disagreed with that premise, noting that every law enforcement agency reassesses training protocols and makes changes as needed; he even did that when he was the ICE director. And, he pointed to what Todd Lyons, ICE director last year, told Congress - that while training has changed, the amount of training did not.

They just stopped the duplication. Now it's being reviewed and... look, can we add additional training?  I think Markwayne Mullin made the decision, well, let's do a temporary pause and make sure we -- the officers have what they need to be safe and do the most safe, secure arrests possible. And that review was done pretty quickly.  

Yeah, that 'pause' is a thing, right? Here's Bash:

...during what ended up being a very brief pause, like a day, the homeland security secretary, Markwayne Mullin, said that vehicle stops would be paused, and then the president very quickly overturned that directive. But while the pause was in place, you did say it was done for the safety of the officers and whether something could have been done... my question for you is, how is it possible that all of that got accomplished in just the one day that the pause existed?

Homan pointed to some immediate changes, including at least one officer with a body camera to record all stops, and a journeyman agent assigned to them, as well. 

... (Acting ICE director) David Venturella sent an instruction out that he wants at least one body camera on those vehicle stops, so we have everything on video. So, whether the officer did something right or did something wrong, whether the alien did something right or wrong, it's on video. And I'm a big supporter of video cameras. I'm a big supporter, because I want the American people to see what that officer saw when he took whatever action they took.

Frankly, everyone wants that - the public has wanted that for months. 

Moving on to the panel discussion, we've got three more New Yorkers in the game: Congressmen Tom Suozzi (D), who represents part of the North Shore of Long Island and Mike Lawler (R), who represents folks in Rockland and Putnam Counties, and Syracuse native Maya Willey, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. GOP analyst Alyssa Farah Griffin, a native Californian, was also in the mix.

Bash, herself a native New Yorker, opened with a clip from Trump's hour-long rally/WHCA dinner speech.

What do we do here? Is this supposed to be fun? I hate some people. I shouldn't say this. I'm president. I'm not supposed to hate. I'm supposed to love everybody. Sloppy Chris Christie, one of the sloppiest human beings you will ever meet.

Ilhan Omar, one of my favorites. She ought to get the hell out of our country. She shouldn't be here. She shouldn't be in our country. You can't call J.B. Pritzker a fat pig, please.

Briefly, here's what the panel thought:

  • Fara Griffin: Listen, he bombed, but the most offensive thing about it was that it wasn't funny...   and President Trump, by the way, can be funny... That did not show up...  I asked myself at the end of what felt like 90 minutes we will never get back of our lives, what was the point of that? It didn't unify him with the press, it didn't ingratiate him more, and he didn't really seem to have any goal. We're talking about Czech crystal, and then we're insulting, kind of going through the greatest hits... I'm not sure why he was there, to be honest. 
  • Suozzi: It was just mean. I thought it was just mean-spirited. It wasn't funny. It's supposed to be an entertaining, fun night, and it was just, I thought, mean-spirited.
  • Lawler: ... I think it was important for the president to go... from that standpoint, it was a positive... I think he could have been a lot funnier... Frankly, some of the stuff that is said on CNN about the president in real time is a lot harsher than anything he threw on Friday night... I definitely think the president could have brought a little more levity to it than he did
  • Willey: Unfunny, mean, all of the above...  one of the points of (the dinner) is to celebrate the First Amendment and free speech... we saw not only a refusal to allow any political satire, in the form of having a comedian there. We also saw a president attacking journalists because they won awards on topics that he didn't like...

Shifting gears to the midterms and a CBS/YouGov poll showing that 78% said the administration is not focusing enough on lowering prices, Lawler was up first; he touted his own record of focusing "almost exclusively" on affordability, including pushing the SALT limit increase and the bipartisan housing bill (enacted by 'executive indifference'), and noted

...it was a Republican House, a Republican Senate, and a Republican White House that worked together to get it done. It was bipartisan. There were a number of Democrat initiatives in there as well. But this will actually increase supply, lower prices, create greater access to capital. These are the things the American people want us to focus on, and that's what I have been focused on.

Suozzi, on the other hand, reminded Lawler that they were both at the Inauguration last January, when we were all promised prices would come down fast. And he pointed to "five specific points directly related to this administration that are raising prices."  (I count four, but who's counting?)

Everybody knows the tariffs increase people's prices, make your food more expensive every day, make your business more expensive. Everybody knows that the war is causing an increase of gas prices at the gas pump. Everybody knows this is the biggest deficit in the history of the United States of America, which causes upward pressure on interest rates, make it impossible to buy a house, to lease a car, to pay for your credit card. Everybody knows that they have cut health care premium tax credits. You and I worked together to try and save the premium tax credits...

Farah Griffin said the Rs are looking to the White House to "please get this president on message" about bringing down prices, but there's "not a great story to tell right now."

With the Iran war going -- continuing to go on, gas prices are not coming down the way that we hoped they would. The ongoing tariff regime, which we seem to announce more tariffs day in and day out, Mexico, Canada, what is next? And this is -- this is where you have got to have sound advisers around him. I imagine Susie Wiles is in his ear saying, 'you have got to get on message ahead of these midterms,' because to -- if you're the president, investigations come, accountability comes if you lose the House and potentially the Senate.

She also said they missed the boat and he should have held a big event for the housing bill, saying

... he completely missed the opportunity there. It's remarkable the inability to see what the American people voted for him to do and then deliver on it.

Willey gets the last word, noting that the messaging is not enough, and furthermore, 

... the truth is, these are self-inflicted wounds. These are not natural occurrences in high prices. These are the creation of decisions this administration has made, the Iran war being a really big and obvious one lost on no one.

And that's a wrap. Did you learn anything? Did the New Yorkers represent the state well? Drop a comment!

July 23, 2026

Quick Takes (v75): Treat Everyone the Same

According to an article from one of my local news stations, Onondaga County, where I live, has received a renewal of a New York State Department of Health grant to help educate residents on the benefits of a healthy diet and regular exercise.

I'm fine with that; as the article notes, CDC data from 2023 indicates "around 37% of the county's population is obese and around 9-10% have diabetes."   Further, 

The northeastern and southwestern parts of Syracuse both have the highest rates of obesity and diabetes in the county. They also have the highest rates of physical inactivity.

And, 2022 data shows that around 4% of county residents don't have health insurance, so they're likely not getting the health care and education they'd typically get from a primary care physician. 

Taken together, my area is ripe for this kind of program, and hopefully the money will be spent efficiently and effectively, helping move the dial a bit. 

So what's the post about? Not the grant, but the comments from people inside and outside our community that belittle and denigrate others. Here's a taste:

Talk about throwing good money after bad, ridiculous waste. No amount of money is going to change the food choices of the obese population.

We could do a lot better if we did not allow people to use EBT on fast food, junk foods, soda, etc. A physical should have to be done. People who smoke should not be allowed EBT services.

Put the people that are on EBT etc.. Put them on MREs and watch what happens.

Now, in the overall scheme of things, these aren't half as bad as many comments that typically accompany stories about SNAP recipients or others, some of whom are living at 400% of the federal poverty level and are still eligible for government benefits. 

Bur whenever I see a comment on an article like this, or on MAHA statemenrs from RFK Jr., or Dr. Oz, Dr. Phil, or Dr. WhoEver suggesting that folks who get food assistance should have a physical before they can enroll, or not get benefits if they're obese or a smoker, and not be allowed to get soda or snacks, or a steak, or lobster, or even a stupid birthday cake for their child, I think,

OK, let's do this! If we want strict rules for people who receive benefits paid for by us taxpayers, let's be fair and apply them to everyone.

I hope you're aware it'll be a LONG list:
  • all federal, state, and local government employees, and their families
  • all elected officials, from dogcatchers to governors to senators to the president, and their families
  • everyone who receives a government pension, and their families.
  • everyone on Social Security, disability, unemployment, and workers' comp
  • everyone on Medicare and Medicaid
  • everyone in the military, and our veterans, and their families
  • everyone who works at any company, college, university, K-12 school, hospital, nursing home, rehab center, charitable organization, foundation, institution, many day care providers, or any other entity that receives government money through a contract, grant, reimbursement program, or bailout, and their families, and
  • dairy farmers, crop farmers, and livestock farmers, and their families
This means everyone in law enforcement and their families; your kids' favorite teachers, lunch ladies, coaches, and bus drivers, and their families... It also means anyone who receives a tax benefit, on things like OT, tips, Social Security, mortgage interest, car loan interest, home office expense, 'stuff teachers buy' expenses, mileage reimbursement, property tax write-off, and so on - and their families.

Have you found yourself on the list yet?
Before you know it, almost everyone would be unable to have junk food, soda, lobster, energy drinks, or anything like that without a medical exam, and, (if we channel our conspiracy theorist gremlins), without a household visit; an audit of grocery purchases; a review of corner store, dollar store, bodega and gas station surveillance footage; a complete rmedical history and health insurance claim review; and so on.

And, if you're approved, you'll have a food intake monitor, an exercise monitor, and 24-hour monitoring via cameras in your cupboards, fridge, freezer, and on your stove.

All this, just to make sure you're not abusing your benefits by eating the wrong food and not working out, or treating your child to a birthday cake on the taxpayer's dime.

Is that really what we want? Is this really who we are?

July 21, 2026

Sunday School 7/19/26: Extra Credit

For your Extra Credit this week, I spent time in the Face the Nation (CBS) classroom, focusing on the election security issues we've been discussing since the FOTUS addressed the nation in a televised and widely streamed chat last week. Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) joined Margaret Brennan for a bit; I recapped some of his chat with ABC's Jon Karl in yesterday's Sunday School post. 

Brennan opened this part of the discussion noting that it's "been public for years" that our intelligence folks determined China tried to influence our election by changing what we think, not by hacking or anything like that. She asked Warner, a long-time member of the Senate Intelligence Committee (IC), if it had ever been given any evidence backing up this statement from Trump: 

This evidence shows that the election system we have dangerously exposes – and really exposes like levels never thought possible, to hacking, exploitation and foreign interference. 

"Absolutely not," Warner said, adding that the speech was full of "absurdities and falsehoods," and said that "the only election that Trump is concerned about is 2020. That was the election that his administration was in charge of," and that he "forgets or just omits" Russia. He confirmed the IC hasn't received any report from the administration's analysis of the 2024 election.

 After itemizing moves by the administration, including cutting funding for the Cybersecurity Agency (CISA), abandoning the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), which allows states to share voter information to help identify duplicate registrations, deceased voters, and so on, and tanking the Election Assistance Committee (EAC), Warner said this:

Why is he doing all these things? I believe it's because Donald Trump intends to interfere in this year's elections. He knows, if there is a free and fair election, his policies will be rejected at record levels.

Brennan asked (twice) what Warner meant by interference. 

Whether that takes - I think that what we just saw was, this was the opening shot, the opening shot of trying to undermine Americans' confidence that their vote will be actually counted and mean something... I fear as well that if he tries to pull something that could potentially - he's not ruled out bringing ICE to the polls. He's not even ruled out the idea of trying to bar certain voting machines.

Brennan then turned to CBS News contributors David Becker, the executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, and Chris Krebs, the former director of CISA during the 2020 election cycle. Notably, Krebs was fired by Trump for saying that the 2020 election was secure, and that's where Brennan started this segment, asking if anything he heard from Trump changed his assessment.

Not - not at all. In fact, I would say that it further bolsters my confidence in the security of the 2020 election, between what has been released, disclosed last week, and all the information and the results of court challenges and other things in the intervening six years.

Brennan, noting that Trump was particularly aggressive towards Krebs, asked him to describe "the Chinese role in the 2020 election." He said there was an "honest debate and discussion" about China's intent across the intelligence community.

But ultimately, when it came out in the intelligence community assessment that was released in the spring of 2021, it was that China had a preference, and that they were not in favor of President Trump, but their efforts were principally limited to influencing the American public, seeking to pay journalists, media. But it was an influence effort...

A method, he said, China has been using since the early- or mid-2000s. It's not new, he said; "they did turn up the heat, and they are still doing it today. He said, "we have a significant and serious counterintelligence and counterespionage problem with China." And, responding to Trump saying folks did not disclose anything to him, "or to anyone else" or to Congress, Krebs offered this:

In January of 2020, there was a National Intelligence Community memorandum about the 2020 election that talked about the vulnerabilities we saw on systems and the work we needed to do there, but it also talked about the intent of adversaries. And there were countless memos after that...a lot of these products were in senior executive and policymakers' binders, their intelligence binders every single day. We used those to get out there and talk to the American people. I wrote an op-ed in September of 2020 for the general public that discussed various threat actors, including China. So, I have a hard time believing that it didn't get up into the Oval.

Brennan, before leaving this topic, said. "As China was described as attempting to influence, it was Iran and Russia, primary actors directly undermining the election in some of those 2020 statements. It sounds like you're saying he didn't read the memo" (emphasis added). Krebs agreed.

July 20, 2026

Sunday School 7/19/26

 I spent a little time wandering the halls at Sunday School yesterday, and thought I'd recap some of what was going on in ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos classroom. Jon Karl was in the host's chair this week, and spoke first with Energy Secretary Chris Wright.

Karl mentioned our attacks in Iran, after the deaths of two service members, and wondered if there was more retaliation planned. 

Yes, look, the president’s mission is essential for peace in the Middle East and peace in the world. And that is to prevent Iran from achieving nuclear weapons and to degrade their ability to terrorize their neighbors and the world and global commerce. So, yes, this mission will go on until the mission is done.

Karl repeated that he's asking specifically about retaliation for the deaths of two Americans, and Wright, again, answered a different question.

It’s tragic to lose American lives, but this is a mission that will save countless lives going forward. His focus is on degrading the Iranian ability to terrorize the world, to hold world commerce hostage, as they are doing right now, and to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons. That is unchanged.

The conversation switched to oil. Wright says we are now "assuring that -- that oil and gas and other products can flow through the Strait of Hormuz, with or without Iranian cooperation" while we continue to "degrade" their military and, at the same time, look for a diplomatic solution.

President Trump wants to end it with a peaceful agreement with Iran, but it takes two parties to do that. If they’re -- if they’re -- if they’re ready to do that, that’s the way it will end. If not, we will continue to assure flow of traffic through the Strait without Iran’s cooperation.

Wright strongly disagreed with Karl's contention that traffic through the Strait was effectively stopped, and tossed out some numbers, saying around 7,000,000 barrels are moving through the waterway and slightly less than that through "bypass pipelines," which he said was 2/3 of what moved through before the war and "dramatically up from where we were" the last time he was on the show back in March. And he said that "almost all the public data" he's seen is wrong, adding that

... we count the volume of oil that goes through. The ship numbers are down more dramatically. But, of course, we’re flowing larger tankers now to keep the world markets as well supplied as we can.

Switching gears, Karl noted the president's stated focus on election security as a "top domestic priority," but questioned why his budget cuts $700M from CISA, the cybersecurity agency. Wright said he "wouldn’t look at the inputs, the money spent. I’d look at the outputs, the quality of United States cybersecurity. That’s never been higher than where it is right now under President Trump."

And then, I guess because it's mandatory to do so, Karl asked whether Joe Biden won the 2020 election. Wright said, "He was president for four years. Clearly so," and then, when pressed, said, "Look, I'm not an election evaluator, but it sure seems to me like he did."

Senator Mark Warner (D-VA), the ranking member on the Senate Intelligence Committee, was the second interview. Karl opened by asking how the president should respond to the killing of our two service members. 

Well, first of all, I join with all Americans in condolences to these soldiers. Remember, as we think about this five-month war, this is a war of choice. As a member of the Gang of Eight, there was no imminent threat from Iran against America. So, Donald Trump chose to go to war. It took him two weeks to lay out what he thought his goals were going to be.

And then, he ticked through those goals. I'll condense his response:

  • Regime change: We got a worse crowd than before. 
  • Getting the enriched uranium:  It's still there... 
  • Getting rid of Iran’s missile and drone capability. Obviously, we’ve not been successful there.
  • The Strait of Hormuz: he sees " no path in the short term how the Strait is going to be settled."
He expressed his frustration on the drone point in particular, including that they're inexpensive in comparison to our using $2.5M missiles to shoot the drones down, and that the president has refused the offer from Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskyy to give us the technology to build our own drones.

In the end, here's where Warner landed: 

This war of choice has been a disaster. It has been a disaster militarily. It has been a disaster in terms of how we’re viewed around the world. It has been a disaster to our friends and allies who have questioned whether we will keep our promises. I’m anxious if it takes a classic Donald Trump move, declare victory tomorrow and be done. But the continuation of this war at this pace will be a continuing disaster.

Karl wondered what happens if we do leave; the Iranians are firing at ships in the Strait, and at our bases throughout the region, and asked how we end it. Warner mentioned "diplomacy negotiated by diplomats who actually know what they're doing," an obvious shot at Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, a couple of real estate developers who I think don't even officially work for the government. He pointed to the JCPOA, the Obama deal that Trump ditched, as an example of what worked.

But we're not going to  - I don't believe anyone thinks we're going to bomb Iran into submission. And I sure as heck do not believe that - short of troops on the ground- that there's any meaningful way forward to get out that enriched uranium.

Last question on this topic: does Warner agree with cutting off all funding for the war? He says the Department of Defense will ask for more money, and that we're depleting some of our stockpiles, but he also notes

there is $89B...that DOD is sitting on that has not been allocated to specific programs. There are shortages in the region. DOD, use that money first to replenish our supplies. And if the president wants to continue this war, come to Congress, make his case to the American people and to Congress rather than continuing what I think now is, frankly, an illegal action, because he never went through that process.

Turning to the election and the president's pitch the other night, Karl wondered if "there was anything new" in what the president released. Warner said that, over the last decade as chair or vice-chair of the Intelligence Committee, "there's probably no issue I've been more obsessed about..." In that time, his main concern has been Russia, "far and away" the most prominent foreign country in the game, "usually on behalf of Trump." And,

Iran has been very active as well, usually against Trump. North Korea has been active. China’s got the capabilities, but they’ve been more -- less about which candidate and more like, 'can we just make Americans lose confidence?'

And what about the Chinese getting those 220 million voter records?

Well, listen, I'm much more concerned about the fact that the Chinese hacked into the OPM data a number of years back and got personal information about anybody working in the federal government. I'm more concerned about the fact that they tapped into many insurance companies and have got personal information about all of us.

They have incredible data capabilities. And again, the secretary, respectfully, our cybersecurity activity is CISA. It has worked with the private sector. He's cut it like mad. We have another part of election security, and remarkably, Jon, a lot of this election security apparatus was set up, done under President Trump's first term. They did a good job.

The "another part" of election security he's referring to is the Elections Assistance Commission, from which Trump fired all the Democrats and forced out the Republican commissioners. 

... it works with local registrars, state registrars, making sure we vet voting machines... You know, this guy is not looking for a secure election because if we have a free and fair election, he and his allies are going to get beat historically this fall.

Karl then asked about "this so-called SAVE America Act" and how Dems are opposed to it, and he asked Warner if "requiring photo ID to register to vote" is something they should get behind, based on polling that around 80% of all Americans and 71% of Dems say they favor it. That led to a discussion about what Virginia, where they both live, requires. Ultimately, you show ID to register, you don't need to show ID to vote, and they allow 'affidavit' attestations, which can be challenged. Warner says that constitutes voter ID of one form or another. 

Karl asked again if we should have a national standard requiring ID to be shown. Warner pointed out the irony of what happens now.

If you can show any photo that (w)as government-stamped, it would be fine. Certain states will say, we're going to let you show your NRA gun license, but you can't show your student ID. If you're going to have a set of IDs, let's have it across the board as long as it comes from some official point. But this is not about voter ID. The SAVE Act is about voter disenfranchisement... 

Lisa Murkowski, a host of Republicans, don't want the SAVE Act because they know it's anti-voter... the folks who have mail-in voting, Utah is as Republican a state as anyone. They've done mail-in voting for decades. Donald Trump wants to decrease voter participation and undermine confidence in our system.

I know one thing that would improve people's confidence: if the folks who come into the classrooms actually answered the questions they were asked, and if the people asking the questions focused on what's important. 

Jon Karl did a reasonable job from the host's seat, except for the attempted 'gotcha' he asked Chris Wright about the 2020 election. But neither Wright nor Warner addressed the question of how America should respond to the deaths of Americans in the past few days. In response, an "if it were me, I'd..." would provide information and possibly lead to an interesting follow-up or two.

What would you like to have heard from Wright and/or Warner?  Drop a comment! And if you're interested, you can find my thoughts on Trump's remarks here.

July 17, 2026

What He Said, and What He Didn't

There was a prime-time gabfest last night, with the president talking about himself, of course, and about our country and others. The gist of it, after he got past the chest-thumping, was that our elections aren't safe and won't be unless Congress passes the SAVE America Act

I removed the chest-thumping, in the interest of everyone's sanity, and added commentary; you know I can't help myself, and if you didn't want commentary, you wouldn't be here.

But we still have a major challenge that must be urgently addressed, because no country can be great without fair and honest elections. You have to trust your country because, if there can be no trust, there can be no greatness.

And that's very simple — no trust, no greatness. For many years I've called for bold, swift and decisive action to protect the integrity of America's elections. And, of course, he's called the 2020 election rigged zillions of times. In fact, he said even months before the 2020 election that the only way he could lose was if it was rigged; he did lose, so it must have been rigged. And he's said that basically every election where anyone he endorses doesn't win is rigged. They are all rigged; just ask him! Every American deserves to know that, when they cast their vote, that vote will be counted accurately in a system, (and, despite my best efforts, a good number of people still believe that's the case) and that is to make that system secure. One where cheating and interference are not just difficult, but virtually impossible. Unfortunately, the system we have today falls catastrophically short of that standard. That is absolutely not true. Even the Heritage Foundation's data says so. Tonight, I'm announcing the immediate declassification and release of critical intelligence, revealing shocking vulnerabilities in our election infrastructure. 'Shocking vulnerabilities' and verified 'cheating and interference' are vastly different things. 

This evidence shows that the election system we have dangerously exposes and really exposes, like levels never thought possible, to hacking, exploitation, and foreign interference. Just as disturbingly, this vital information has for many years been covered up and hidden from you, the American people — our beautiful, our great American people. I wonder, does that include 'the enemy from within (Dems like Adam Schiff), and the enemy from within, in my opinion, is more dangerous than China, Russia, and all these countries," the haters and losers, the Dumocrats, and all the other terms he's used to disparage anyone who doesn't agree with him? 

But that all changes right now. The documents we will release starting tonight have been gathered by the White House Government Transparency Task Force, a great group of people, along with the staff of the president's Intelligence Advisory Board, supported by our top intelligence agency chiefs who have all personally reviewed the findings we are presenting this evening and fully confirmed their authenticity.

You can see these documents for yourself at whitehouse.gov, that's whitehouse.gov, go check it out. Our purpose in disclosing this information is not to weaken confidence in elections, but to earn that confidence by confronting vulnerabilities and correcting them very, very quickly, and that's what we're doing. Um, no, that's not what's happening. You're identifying potential vulnerabilities, but you don't address them with your signature solution.

The documents cover five major areas of concern. First, they show that, over a period of years, starting during the 2020 election cycle, the People's Republic of China carried out what is believed to be the largest compromise of election data in history, resulting in China's illicit acquisition of 220 million US voter files. American voter data is readily available for a variety of reasons. 

That information includes names, addresses, phone numbers, political party preferences and other sensitive data that would be needed to register to vote and engage in other nefarious activities, which is exactly what was happening.  No evidence of nefariousness was presented. This data loss presents an unprecedented election security nightmare. The intelligence even shows that China assigned a data exploitation unit specifically to this new project. The information may present an 'election security nightmare,' but it is readily available in most states. And no evidence was presented that a security lapse or breach occured.

Compounding the travesty, the second set of documents we are releasing reveals that members of the Deep State — a very, very famous group of people, in many cases (and I can't WAIT to see who these famous people are! —  in our intelligence agency, worked to actively suppress and downplay information about the extent of China's sinister election meddling, covering it up from both the president and the American people like nobody thought was possible.

US spy agencies began learning about the compromise of voter registration files in 2020, when they discovered that tens of millions of voter data — think of that, tens of millions of voters’ data — in 18 states have been bought, stolen or hacked by China. Yet those responsible for sounding the alarm instead kept the information secret and hidden. Bought, stolen, or hacked - which is it? And if it was obtained illegally, why no threat or warning to President Xi Jinping? Maybe some new tariffs like the ones he's threatened to place on Canada for their border-hopping wildfire smoke?

They did not disclose to me as president or to anyone else. As widely reported at the time, he was notoriously uninterested in briefings and didn't even read his President's Daily Brief. Was this information hidden, or wasn't it on the list of things he liked to hear about? And to the best of our knowledge, they did not inform Congress. In fact, all they kept saying is, this is the most secure election in the history of our country — a standard, very pat line that was divvied out to say. And dozens of audits, performed by Rs and Ds alike, in states red, blue, and purple, have uncovered no significant fraud in the 2020, 2022, or 2024 elections.

The cover-up of this colossal security breach is even more disturbing in light of the additional information showing that China engaged in other election-related activities to undermine my first administration and our 2020 campaign. And at the same time, Russia Russia Russia was trying to influence our election to ensure that Trump won; that wasn't mentioned during his remarks, but it's supported by the evidence.

They did not want — and they just didn't want it. They fought like hell not to have it, Donald Trump to win, and for good reason. As the documents we are releasing show, CIA reporting explicitly stated, and I quote, in mid-2018, the Chinese Communist Party's policy was to leverage all domestic and foreign elements that were opposed to the US president in an effort to reduce the US president's votes and make him resign or prevent his reelection. Is this a good time to mention the US government's efforts to influence elections in other countries, such as sending the Vice President to Hungary to personally urge voters to keep Viktor Orban in office? Or efforts by Rudy Giuliani and others to get Ukrainians to dig up dirt on Joe Biden?

Isn't that nice? Also, in mid-2018, China was working to influence the results of the US midterm elections and later the results of the 2020 presidential election itself. Separately, in mid-2019, the Chinese government's strategy against the United States was focused on undermining domestic confidence in the US president.

They wanted to just make you sound like your president wasn't so hot, when actually your president has done a great job. His approval ratings tell a different story... And they did everything possible to do exactly that. Going on this document says, and this is by the CIA, the strategy included efforts to use Chinese contacts with big US companies to influence US business leaders to turn against the president of the United States of America. It would be hard to imagine this working; he maintained very strong support from business leaders throughout his first term.

The Chinese government sought to identify US journalists who had reported negatively on the US president and pay them large sums of money to write more negative articles about him, as many as they could and they didn't care what they said. The Chinese government wanted the US president to lose the next election. You probably don't know this, but sometimes, I seek an hourglass figure...  While the Chinese may have wanted to see more negative stories about Trump (as if there weren't enough of them flying around already), there's no confirmation they were successful in this alleged effort, just like there's no evidence I've been successful in my mission.

And the reason they wanted me to lose is because they knew I was wise to them. Charged them billions and billions of dollars' worth of tariffs and built the strongest military anywhere in the world. We have the strongest military anywhere in the world. These are exact quotes from the CIA reporting. The name of the person doing the quote is now under review, but it gets even worse.

Raw intelligence obtained by the FBI in 2020, yet buried by rogue bureaucrats, stated that China's activities even included an attempt to manufacture illegal ballots for Joe Biden. Documents show that during this period, dozens of significant CIA and NSA reports about China's election targeting were kept out of the presidential briefing. Raw intelligence, experts will tell you, is notoriously unreliable and often isn't shared until it can be validated.

These were briefings I would get almost every day; everything was kept out that was of importance. One email among intelligence analysts admitted that they had, quote, deliberately massaged the presidential daily briefing to withhold information regarding Chinese activities related to the election. Another official inside the FBI wrote that she was running, quote, a shadow government, unquote, to keep intelligence about China's election meddling from becoming known and to keep it away from the honorable press. This is explained by Fox News, including that "The documents, however, do not establish Trump's broader allegation of a politically motivated conspiracy." Rather, it was a difference of opinion on intelligence matters.

Other officials who witnessed such efforts perceived the motivations to be blatantly political. Recently, we found significant numbers of burn bags information, and this is a group of bags that were used to destroy information, given by President Barack Hussein Obama to be burned, it was supposed to be burned. I have no idea what this even means, other than that three-name guy continues to live rent-free in the FOTUS' head.

These bags were supposed to be at a different level by different people, incinerated and checked, but it never happened. Maybe we got lucky. We believe this was not done on purpose, but rather through gross incompetence of the people that were supposed to burn the bags. But the findings are stunning.

Today, I'm asking the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Department of Justice, the FBI and the CIA to investigate how and why such crucial information was hidden. To fire those involved in the cover up and to file criminal charges, if appropriate, against these people. It would be appropriate to investigate whether any crimes were committed; can we expect that the people in charge of those areas during Trump's first term will be among those investigated? And, of course, we don't have a DNI, and the guy who's been nominated has no intelligence experience. The qualifications of the FBI director are highly suspect as well, but yes, let's give it our best shot.

Yet concealing China's meddling was only the beginning. The third set of documents we are releasing proves that for many years, Americans were blatantly lied to about the security of our election infrastructure, including electronic voting machines and ballot counting systems, dishonest, almost all. Hold please, while I put on my seatbelt for this part: our election infrastructure itself is 'dishonest'?

They're vulnerable and they're easily compromised and people within our government knew that. Tonight, we're publishing a series of previously classified US intelligence community assessments and other reports proving that our government has long known these machines are extremely exposed to attack. As one assessment states, we judge that the United States' adversaries, including at a minimum Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, as well as non-state groups have the capability to compromise US election infrastructure. If that's true, we should certainly try everything we can to limit that ability.

That's unquote but that's some statement, isn't it, made by supposedly great patriots of our country? LOL! The people who support his allegations are "supposedly great patriots of our country?" The document goes on to further state that, quote, we assess that centralized election-related data repositories, such as voter registration databases, poll books, and other official election websites are most vulnerable to exploitation, and adversaries could use this access to these systems to disrupt election processes within the United States of America. Centralized election-related data repositories are bad? Aren't the FOTUS and his minions demanding that states turn over all their voter information to the federal government, which would actually put it in a 'centralized election-related data repository' rather than allowing the states to control their own data? Aren't they threatening to withhold Congressionally apportioned funds from states that don't comply?

Tonight, we're releasing all of those findings and spanning from January 2020 to June 2026. This is a cyber threat aimed at the very heart of our democracy. Many people have questioned whether it could actually be possible to electronically manipulate vote totals or change election results on these terrible machines.

Today, we are releasing documents that show the CIA obtained reporting of a specific plot to do a big number in favor of the corrupt Maduro regime in Venezuela, and that's exactly what happened, conspiring to digitally rig their own country's elections in 2020. And that's what they did. This reporting included precise details about methods to regime develop, to digitally alter vote totals in ways that could not be detected, even with an audit, no matter how deep they went. Reporting suggests Maduro simply ignored what the machines showed and announced totals that differed from those recorded. This is more about a person acting badly than an 'election infrastructure' failure. And we have our own example of this happening right here in the US, right? "I just need to find 11,780 votes," the most memorable line from Trump's call with Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia Secretary of State, in which he sought to overturn the state's results.

This intelligence underscores why we must take urgent action to ensure that our own system can never, ever be hacked or compromised like it was in the past. Was it? Where's the evidence? Venezuela is not America (yet, anyway). The fourth set of documents reveals that even when significant evidence of fraud has been detected, it has been buried and covered up. Among the disclosures tonight are FBI files detailing evidence of alleged fraud by a large-scale voter registration operation in Michigan.

In 2020, Michigan State Police raided a Democrat Get Out the Vote Organization, corrupt group in Muskegon, and were so concerned by what they found. They were just so concerned, they couldn't believe it, actually, that they contacted the FBI in Detroit. The documents state that some canvassers admitted to FBI agents that they signed voter registration forms in other people's names, submitted fraudulent registration for people who did not exist, and received gift cards tied to the number of applications that they produced. Fraudulent voter registration is illegal in every state in America. Multiple investigations found no evidence that any fraudulent voter registrations were submitted or that any fraudulent votes were cast.

In other words, it was pay, play and cheat. The FBI agents working on the case believe that crimes were committed, yet the Biden Department of Justice slow-walked the investigation and killed it. Actually, the Trump DOJ killed the investigation in September 2025, finding "no criminal violation or a priority threat to national security." Tonight, I'm asking the FBI director to ensure that the matter is fully investigated and to work with the Department of Justice to prosecute those responsible for any crimes.

Finally, to reveal just how vulnerable our elections continue to be, we are releasing the results of a stunning investigation by the Department of Homeland Security. According to the DHS review, state voter rolls and public records, they identified approximately 278,000 alleged non-citizens who are registered to vote in federal elections. 

Since Democrat states refuse to share their voter files the real number is actually much higher than that. Right - because there are allegations of non-citizens being registered to vote, there must be many more of them, because math... You know, like drug prices being 600%, 800%, or even 1500% lower under the current administration. Yet even this limited analysis found more than a quarter of a million foreigners illegally registered to vote. Put together, these disclosures reveal an election system so broken and so vulnerable that no one can possibly defend it. It is not defensible. Where is the data showing how many of them voted? Where is the proof that these people are all non-citizens?  Those are both important questions, the latter particularly so, because the Department of Homeland Security's SAVE database is inaccurate,

Hundreds of millions of US voter files are in the hands of foreign governments. Our machines and ballot counting systems are exposed to hacking and manipulation and corruption. China and other countries have been trying to meddle in our elections. Evidence of fraud has been buried. Hundreds of thousands of non-citizens and dead people are listed and active on the voter rolls. Repeating these statements doesn't make them true, and the risk of tampering or other vulnerabilities does not mean that those vulnerabilities have been or will be exploited.

And yet we still have elections with no voter ID (this is false; even if voter ID is not required at the polling place, it is required to register, and signature verification is a valid form of ID - and frankly, harder to fake than an ID - just ask an under-age drinker), no proof of citizenship, and tens of millions of ballots floating aimlessly through the mail (Yes, aimlessly being potmarked hours away from the local post office where they're mailed, for example.) As one example of the insanity, California's recent election for mayor of LA and governor, was held on June 2nd, long time ago, but it was just completed a few days ago, on July 10th. Think of that, much more than one month.

Took a month to count the votes. I wonder what they were doing. They counted in-person votes; they recieved over 8,423,000 ballots that were postmarked by Election Day and recieved timely per state law; they validated the signatures on the outside of the ballot with the signature on file BEFORE the ballots were opened; they mailed notices to anyone with a signature mismatch that there was an issue and provided details on how to 'cure' their ballot within ten days; they reviewed everytihng related to the cured ballots, then opened the ones that were attested to as being correct, and counted them. In short, they followed the law, and made sure that every legitimate vote was counted, which is what is supposed to happen. This is worse than any third-world country. There's no third-world country that has elections like we have. Right - they just make stuff up, or demand that people lie for them.

In a rare move, NBC and ABC fake news have both said that they would not cover this speech. They knew what it was about, 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. Yep - all the third-world leaders claim the press is against them, is an enemy of the people, and is fake news. Which is why the networks you're upset with all streamed the broadcast for anyone who wanted to watch. 

They want to continue this fraud for whatever reason. What? They want to keep it going. They want to protect the radical left. Huh? They can't have a great country um..? and that's true; you can't have a great country without free and fair elections. We have those here in America, and we have laws to prosecute people who try to get around the laws. Fraud like this should mean a revocation of their licenses. "Fraud like this" meaning the fake news you hate but love to criticize, denigrate, lie about, and sue, deciding to stream you rather than broadcast you? How is that fraud?  They use our public multibillion dollar in value airways for absolutely no money. Other than license fees, application fees, purchasing a station fees, and/or the FCC public auction fees... plus the cost of selling their souls to keep on the good side of whichever bully is in charge in DC.

They pay nothing. All we want is honesty in our elections and honesty in reporting. Does that include fact-checking? They pay nothing for multi-billion dollar assets. Great damage has been done to our country. Our elections were left vulnerable to being rigged and stolen, and the trust of the American people was lost. Actually, the American people's trust was stolen... This cannot be allowed to continue. The person who has single-handedly done more damage to American trust in our elections? Donald J. Trump, who has convinced people that the Democrats are so smart they could rig a presidential election but didn't bother to rig any races on the ballot. Donald J. Trump, who, knowingly on a recorded line, asked someone to find him just enough votes to win, and didn't care that he was being recorded. Donald J. Trump, he of the January 6th insurrection, who loved the people that were there, chanting to hang his vice president.

Every American, whether you're a Republican, Democrat, independent or otherwise, should be able to agree that we deserve the most secure, honest, and fair election system anywhere in the world. Secure elections should be a partisan — really, should just, we should be together Democrats, Republicans, independents, everybody, and it should not be a partisan issue. It's not a partisan issue - we all want free and fair elections, and as far as any investigations have shown, for the most part we have them. Every state has laws to deal with various types of election fraud, and people are caught and prosecuted for violations - Democrats and Republicans alike. That is as it should be. And as far as anyone has determined, there is NO evidence of fraud sufficient to influence an election. 

It should cause to unite us, not to divide us. This should be a cause, we should be united, not divided. In light of the brand new and irrefutable information, I have revealed tonight my administration is in the process of notifying the states whose election data was compromised by the People's Republic of China and many others. Again, nothing has shown that the information was compromised, or even that enough information was obtained to allow it to be compromised.

We will be working closely to mitigate any harm and we're taking swift action to ensure that sensitive voter data is better protected so we can never be bought, we can never be hacked, and we can never watch a stolen election again. That does NOT mean that all voter data should be provided to the Federal Government. One person who should know, at least as well as anyone, is the FOTUS, whose tax information was stolen and shared, along with the data of over 405,000 other individual and corporate taxpayers. Also, the voter information of everyone receiving a mail-in ballot certainly should NOT be shared with the US Postal Service, either.

Tomorrow, the Secretary of Homeland Security will hold a briefing to outline his department's recent work confirming cyber vulnerabilities in our electronic voting systems.

They are bad. We're in the process of informing governors, Senators and members of Congress of potential issues in their states. If you look at voting today, it's in such bad shape in so many states, and we are committing to fix it and we're also committing to be working with those states and local jurisdictions to help them fix and patch known technical vulnerabilities before the midterm elections. Oh, the irony! This is the guy who just fired the Election Assistance Commission folks, the leaders of the very federal agency charged with assisting states with election security, after previously getting rid of the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. You can't make this stuff up.

We have very important elections coming up. We want those elections to be honest. I've also ordered DHS to notify every state about noncitizens on their voter rolls and direct them to remove all ineligible voters from the lists immediately. But most importantly, addressing this alleged crisis of election security demands that Congress must pass the SAVE America Act. How easy is that to do, unless you want to cheat. This is an absurd comment.

The only reason you wouldn't do it is you want to cheat because your policies are so bad, and your candidates are so pathetic that you can't get away or can't get elected any other way. Actually, those are the very reasons why a president would demand Texas redraw its Congressional districts off-cycle to gain him five more seats. And it's why other red states jumped on the redistricting bandwagon to curry favor with him. And why blue states foolishly fell for it, too. This landmark bill requires that all voters must show photo voter ID. How simple is that? Could I have your photo, please? Photo voter ID. He knows that is not what the bill asks for, and pretending that's all it is? It's a bald-faced lie. All voters must provide proof of citizenship. 

Are you a citizen of our country, please? And hopefully there will be no corrupt mail-in ballots, which, if you watched California and so many other places, mail-in ballots are inherently corrupt. Again, California ensured that the mailed-in ballots were NOT corrupt. So, you would have no mail-in ballots except for illness, disability, military deployment, or travel if you're going away on business or vacation. And what about you? Which of those reasons applied to your mailed-in vote in Florida's primary?

These reforms are urgently needed to stop the vulnerabilities that I've mentioned. He knows, everyone in DC knows, and anyone that has read the SAVE America Act knows that the bill does NOTHING to address voting machine vulnerabilities, foreign attempts to influence how Americans vote or who our candidates are, attempts to influece the press to report in a specific way about a candidate, individuals who make bad choices to earn bonuses or get gift cards, people who ignore actual vote tallies and use their own made-up numbers, people who try to get others to change vote totals, people who don't include things when they brief their bosses, selling or sharing voter data, or networks that don't put evyerthing the president wants on the air. To all Americans, I ask you to pick up your phone tomorrow, call your Representatives in the House and Senate and demand that they pass the SAVE America Act without delay. Together, we will restore faith and confidence in our country, and we will be bigger, better and stronger than ever before. The bill will NOT restore faith and confidence in our country, or in our elections, 

Thank you. God bless you. God bless our great military. And God bless America. Thank you very much. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO MY COMMENTS.