Hey everybody. Happy Friday, and thanks for being here.
Our top story today: the White House pulled its nominee to run ICE because of opposition from within the President’s own party. The guy was Markwayne Mullin’s old bodyguard, and that friendship was the entire case for putting him in charge. The main holdup was Chairman Rand Paul, who reportedly wanted DHS to turn over files on the two American citizens killed by federal agents in Minneapolis. But the White House decided losing their hand-picked nominee was a better deal than handing over those files.
We’ll also get into RFK’s anti-vax tour as the measles outbreak spirals out of control, another cabinet secretary’s family cashing in, Massie locking in a vote on the Epstein files, and the Attorney General breaking a fifty-year norm to hit the campaign trail.
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Let’s get to it.
1. Trump’s ICE Nominee Collapses
Back in June, Trump announced a nominee to lead ICE named Lance Schroyer. He was a state trooper in Oklahoma. His main qualification was that he’d been the bodyguard for Markwayne Mullin when Mullin was a senator. When Mullin took over DHS, he brought his friend along as a senior adviser. A few months later, Trump nominated him to run ICE.
But the nomination went nowhere. It sat in committee all summer without so much as a hearing. The hardliners thought he wasn’t up to the job, and Rand Paul flat out refused to move it until DHS handed over internal files about the two American citizens who were killed in Minneapolis. He never got them. So yesterday, the White House pulled the plug.
So where does this leave ICE? The agency will continue to be run by the acting director, a former executive at a private prison company who was never confirmed by the Senate. And this is the game we’ve seen this administration play over and over again. By law, an acting director can only serve for so many days. But if the President sends a nomination to the Senate, that countdown stops. And if the nomination gets pulled, the countdown starts over.
So in a perfect world, I’m sure Trump would’ve loved to see Mullin’s guy get confirmed. But I also don’t think he minds how things played out. He wants ICE to have as little oversight as possible. And keeping the agency in the hands of an unelected, unconfirmed loyalist gives him exactly that.
2. RFK's Measles Disaster Grows
Right now, Pennsylvania is dealing with a severe measles outbreak. Four people have died, all of them unvaccinated. The latest victim was an 18-year-old who passed away this week. From a disease this country beat 26 years ago.
Instead of urging vaccinations to quell the outbreak, our HHS secretary took the opportunity to give a keynote speech at a conference for Children’s Health Defense, the anti-vax organization he founded and ran for over a decade. He spoke for an hour and a half, telling the attendees they have a strong and steadfast friend at the White House. He also repeated false claims that vaccines are linked to a range of chronic health conditions. And when it came to the measles outbreak, this is what he had to say:
That’s the HHS secretary talking about these victims like they’re a PR problem.
Look, the complications RFK is talking about are exceedingly rare: literally one in a million. He spent his entire career sowing the seeds of doubt about vaccines, and has continued to do so as the nation’s top health official. It’s no wonder a quarter of Americans now report having doubts about vaccines. And unfortunately, we are starting to see the consequences of that statistic.
3. Duffy's Family Cashes In
Michael Alfonso is 26 years old, and his resume is all over the place. He produced a MAGA podcast, worked in construction, and now works part time for a church in Wisconsin. But his most important qualification is the fact that he’s Sean Duffy’s son in law. Now he’s running for the DOT secretary’s old house seat with Trump’s endorsement.
The Bulwark found his donor list, and it reads like a lobbying disclosure from DOT: Airline PACs. Trucking companies. Railways. UPS and DHL. At least 25 people who have personally lobbied DOT gave to the campaign. Less than five percent of the money comes from small donors. And a lot of these people aren’t even Republicans. One of them is a longtime Democratic donor who worked for the DNC. So why would she give? Is Alfonso just that persuasive? Well, her husband’s company happens to be waiting on an approval from the DOT. Sound fishy?
And as always, there’s more. A trucking CEO from Tennessee donated to Alfonso’s campaign. Weeks later, Duffy’s department renewed his company’s safety exemption for another five years. A construction executive gave in March. Two months later, Duffy personally announced that the executive’s company had won the contract to rebuild Penn Station. An air traffic software company gave in March too. By June, it had an 875 million dollar FAA contract. And the list goes on.
Duffy is closely involved with the campaign. He shows up at the fundraisers, and even moved a million and a half dollars from his old war chest into a super PAC backing him. Alfonso says he answers only to God and the voters. But the people writing him checks aren’t in his district, and they don’t need his vote in congress. They need his father-in-law’s signature.
Remember the wedding paid for by Putin’s friend? It’s the same old playbook. You can’t bribe the DOT directly. But you can accomplish the same goal if you give some money to the secretary’s son in-law. It’s not a very elaborate scheme, but that’s just how shameless MAGA has become.
4. Congress Forces the Epstein Vote
Yesterday, Congressmen Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna announced they have secured 218 signatures, which would force a House vote on a second Epstein bill. That includes every Democrat. And four Republicans, who pushed it over the line.
Now you might be asking, why do we need a second bill? Because the first one didn’t work. Trump signed it ten months ago, and the Justice Department is still holding back more than three million files. What it did release was riddled with redactions and missing records.
And that’s exactly what was wrong with the first bill. It ordered the Justice Department to release the files, and then it trusted the Justice Department to follow through. Unsurprisingly, that didn’t work, given how Attorney General Todd Blanche has personally handled Trump’s legal and political agenda. Just this Wednesday, a federal judge threatened to hold Blanche in contempt for defying a court order to turn over FBI interview notes from the Epstein investigation.
But this time around, the bill has some real teeth. It takes the power away from Blanche and the DOJ, and it gives it to the victims, who can take the department to court. So can states, and so can members of Congress. That means a federal judge decides what gets released, not the Attorney General who’s already facing contempt for burying evidence.
So the good news is the House is going to have to vote on this bill. And with 218 signatures on the petition, it will almost certainly pass. The bad news is we are going to have to wait, because Johnson sent everyone home to buy some time. But if November goes the way we all hope it does, Democrats will have subpoena power right as this fight comes to a head.
5. The Attorney General Goes Campaigning
When Blanche faced his confirmation hearing, Senators repeatedly asked him the same question: would he serve the Constitution, or the president he had once defended in court? He dodged the questions of course. But occasionally, he happened to slip up:
Which one is it, Todd? Since his confirmation, the Attorney General has been busy on the campaign trail. Last month, an event on Long Island for the Republican challenging New York’s governor. Last week, a speech at the Republican midterm convention. This week, a rally for a GOP Senate candidate in North Carolina. At every stop he dutifully praised Trump.
A watchdog group filed a complaint under the law that bars government officials from using their office to influence elections. The Justice Department called the accusations baseless. But Blanche isn’t helping that shameless denial. He told the Associated press he wasn’t endorsing candidates, just “talking about the great work that president Trump is doing.”
For fifty years, attorneys general have promised to uphold the law over political agenda. And they have meant it. But not in this administration.
Todd Blanche’s predecessor, Pam Bondi, never learned that lesson. She swore allegiance to Trump and turned the Justice Department into his law firm. And Blanche has continued her work. He has not only pushed Trump’s political agenda on the campaign trail but also his legal agenda at the DOJ. That means pursuing investigations into the president’s enemies, while blocking ones into Trump’s sketchy friends and donors.
With each passing week, Blanche reminds us that he is, not was, President Trump’s lawyer. And he certainly isn’t acting like the Attorney General of the United States.
Some other stories that caught my eye:
Protect Democracy released a new report this week putting hard numbers on the redistricting wars, which have escalated since President Trump pressured mid-decade gerrymandering in Texas. Between 2024 and 2026, nine states redrew their congressional maps. The result: 34.8 million Americans, about one in ten, will vote in a new district this fall. But the disruption runs deeper than that top line. Nearly one in five Americans now votes in a district where more than a quarter of the electorate is new, and at least eight incumbents are running for reelection in districts they have never represented. The authors warn the country may be “returning to the dynamic last seen in the 19th Century,” when many states redrew their maps every election or two. This redistricting wave may only accelerate after the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in Louisiana v. Callais, which freed states to dismantle “opportunity districts” in pursuit of partisan gerrymandering. Officials in Maryland, New York, and at least five other states have explored redraws before 2028.
The Trump administration is weighing at least 12 data center projects on federal public lands, far more than previously known. The Washington Sun reported this week that the Bureau of Land Management is reviewing proposals covering at least 17,600 acres across six Western states. A BLM spokesperson said every proposal will go through an environmental review that enables “responsible infrastructure development that can deliver benefits to the American people.” That review is thinner than it sounds. The administration has rolled back NEPA regulations and narrowed the public’s opportunities to weigh in. And transparency is another problem. Many of the projects had never been reported, leaving local officials from five states blindsided by the federal deliberations. While public lands have long hosted mining, grazing, and energy production, the development of data centers is unprecedented. So far only one such project has been approved, and it is on hold after a legal challenge.
