Hey everyone. Happy Friday. And Happy Memorial Day weekend.
We’ve got some news that broke moments ago to start the show. Tulsi Gabbard has submitted her resignation as Director of National Intelligence, effective June 30th. In her resignation letter to the president, she cited a recent diagnosis of her husband with a rare form of bone cancer.
President Trump has already responded on Truth Social, wishing Gabbard and her husband well, and announcing that Principal Deputy Director Aaron Lukas will serve as Acting Director of National Intelligence.
However, we do want to flag some early reporting from Reuters. A source familiar with the matter tells the outlet that Gabbard was actually forced out by the White House due to her difference over the Iran War.
While I hold the deepest policy disagreements possibly with Gabbard, my thoughts are with the Gabbard family and I wish her husband well. We will keep you informed as we learn more about the story.
Today’s main story: new reporting from Reuters reveals that Trump’s election security czar tried to ban half the country’s voting machines by labeling them a national security threat. And yesterday, Marjorie Taylor Greene, of all people, warned that Trump may try to use the Iran war as a pretext to cancel the 2028 election.
We’ll also get into how Senate Republicans bailed on their own party’s biggest bill of the year rather than fight Trump over the slush fund, NATO’s growing confusion about where our troops are supposed to be, the Iran war costing us our promise to Taiwan, and Stephen Colbert’s final goodbye.
Quick reminder before we get going. Please like, share, and subscribe. It really does help push this out to more people who need to see it.
1. Trump's Election Czar Tried to Ban Half the Country's Voting Machines — and MTG Warns He'll Cancel 2028
Late last year, White House adviser Kurt Olsen, the lawyer Trump tasked with proving widely debunked election rigging conspiracies, asked the Commerce Department to declare components inside Dominion voting machines a national security risk.
The goal: invalidate the machines used in more than half of US states before the midterms, and replace them with hand counted paper ballots that experts say are less accurate and more vulnerable than the system we have now.
Reuters reports the idea came up as Olsen and other officials brainstormed how the federal government could seize control of elections from the states. The Constitution gives that power to the states on purpose. To prevent a president from doing exactly what this president just tried to do.
Yesterday, former Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene went on Alex Jones’s show and recounted an interaction that may have been where Trump first got the idea to use national security as a way to cancel an election.
Greene said she believes Trump may use the Iran war as a pretext to cancel the 2028 election.
Now, canceling an election and running for a third term are two different things. But they share the same goal. Staying in power past the point the Constitution says you have to go. And Trump has been openly flirting with for a while now.
At a rally in Las Vegas in January of last year, Trump told the crowd: “it will be the greatest honor of my life to serve, not once but twice, or three times or four times.”
At the National Prayer Breakfast a few weeks later, he asked supporters if he should run for a third term, and they chanted back “four more years.” He told NBC’s Kristen Welker there are “methods which you could do it.” Last October he said he would “love” to serve a third term.
Here is where I land on this. I do not know what Trump is going to try next. Nobody does, including the people who work for him. What I know is that he keeps telling us he wants to stay in power, and his administration keeps getting caught trying to find the mechanism to let him. At some point we have to stop treating each new story as a surprise and build the broadest pro-democracy coalition possible to make sure it doesn’t happen.
2. Republicans Flee Town Rather Than Vote on Trump's Slush Fund
Senate Majority Leader John Thune planned to push a $70 billion ICE and border patrol funding bill through reconciliation before Memorial Day. But then Trump insisted on tacking on the funds for the so-called “anti-weaponization fund.”
Republicans were furious.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche was sent to Capitol Hill to calm them down. He briefed senators behind closed doors for an hour and a half. They came out with more questions than answers. Mitch McConnell, who has been mostly quiet lately, broke that silence with a haymaker:
“So the nation’s top law enforcement official is asking for a slush fund to pay people who assault cops? Utterly stupid, morally wrong. Take your pick.”
By Thursday afternoon, leadership had seen enough. They canceled the vote. They canceled a meeting with the White House. And they sent the Senate home for a full week of Memorial Day recess. The House followed suit and canceled Friday votes too. The biggest GOP bill of the year is now on hold until at least June.
Trump’s response was to go on Truth Social and claim he is the real victim, because his tax returns got leaked and the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago. He said he “gave up a lot of money” and could have settled for “an absolute fortune.”
Let’s be clear. “They” did not leak Trump’s tax returns. An IRS contractor did, along with thousands of other Americans’, during Trump’s first term. Joe Biden’s Justice Department prosecuted him. He got five years in prison.
But that’s not enough for Trump. He wants a taxpayer funded thank you note to the people who have stuck with him.
Republicans had two choices. Vote on a fund that pays the people who beat up Capitol Police officers, or go home for Memorial Day. They chose to go home. But they will be back in two weeks. And the vote they ran from will still be waiting. Republicans may finally be figuring out that when it comes to Trump’s self-dealing and corruption, you can run, but you can’t hide.
3. NATO Allies Openly Confused as Trump Reverses His Own Withdrawal
Two weeks ago, Trump ordered 5,000 American troops withdrawn from Europe. Most had been rotating into Poland from bases in Germany. Yesterday, he reversed himself on Truth Social, announcing he is now sending 5,000 troops to Poland. Roughly the same troops, roughly the same place.
The original withdrawal happened because German Chancellor Friedrich Merz told reporters the United States was being humiliated by Iranian leadership and criticized this administration’s lack of strategy in that war. Trump got his feelings hurt and ordered 5,000 troops out of Europe in response.
The reversal came yesterday after Trump cited his “strong ties” with Polish President Karol Nawrocki, whom he personally endorsed last year.
Our allies are confused. And they are saying so out loud. Here is the Swedish Foreign Minister at a NATO ministers meeting today.
A senior US defense official, granted anonymity to speak candidly, told the Associated Press: “We just spent the better part of two weeks reacting to the first announcement. We don’t know what this means either.”
The Pentagon is legally required to maintain at least 76,000 troops in Europe. The original drawdown would have dropped us below that. So part of what we just watched was the president quietly reversing a deployment that was about to break the law.
I firmly believe that NATO is the most successful military alliance in human history. And it is a disgrace that the President of the United States is treating it like an on again, off again teenage breakup romcom.
4. Iran War Forces US to Break Promise to Taiwan, Pause $14B Arms Sale
Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao told a Senate Appropriations subcommittee on Thursday that the United States is pausing a $14 billion arms sale to Taiwan because we need the missiles for the war in Iran.
His exact words: “Right now we’re doing a pause in order to make sure we have the munitions we need for Epic Fury, which we have plenty.”
You cannot, in the same sentence, say you have plenty of munitions and pause an arms sale to Taiwan because you don’t have enough munitions. Both things cannot be true at the same time.
Since the war started on February 28th, the US has burned through nearly all of our long range stealth cruise missiles, our Tomahawks, our Patriot interceptors, and our ATACMS. The White House is now preparing to ask Congress for an $80 to $100 billion supplemental just to refill the shelves.
And yesterday in the House, Republican leaders pulled a war powers resolution from the floor because they did not have the votes to defeat it.
The Iran war does not have congressional support. And we are now stretching our weapons supply so thin that we are reneging on commitments to the one ally that is actually a deterrent to China.
This is how a superpower gets overextended. You start a war you didn’t have to start, and then you can’t keep the promises you made to the allies who actually matter. Especially after Donald Trump’s disastrous visit to China where the United State’s commitment to Taiwan was perhaps the most important point of discussion. America must stand by our allies. Period.
5. Stephen Colbert's Final Goodbye After 11 Years Behind the Desk
Last night was the final episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. After 11 years behind that desk, and 33 years for the franchise, CBS retired the show entirely.
CBS says it was purely a financial decision. But the cancellation came right after Colbert publicly criticized Paramount’s settlement with Donald Trump in the lawsuit over those leaked tax returns. The same lawsuit that, conveniently, is now funding the anti-weaponization fund we just discussed.
I’ve been on Stephen’s show several times. He took the work seriously without ever taking himself too seriously. He was generous with his guests, including the politicians who probably didn’t deserve it. He used his platform to tell the truth and make people laugh while doing it.
The First Amendment is bigger than just protection from the government locking you up for what you say. It is the broader idea that the people in power do not get to decide who is allowed to criticize them. When a network kills its top rated late night show in the middle of a settlement negotiation between its parent company and the president that show keeps mocking, you don’t need a conspiracy theory to be worried. You just need to be paying attention.
That’s a wrap for May 22nd. Have a good Memorial Day weekend. Spend it with the people you love. Thank a veteran if you see one. We are taking Monday off, so I’ll see you back here Tuesday. And please, like, share, subscribe if you found this helpful. See you next week.
