As Zohran Mamdani, the democratic socialist who made history last month with his stunning victory in the Democratic primary for New York City mayor, continues to rake in powerful endorsements, he made a scheduling announcement: He’s on a brief trip to celebrate his February nuptials with “family and friends.”

Such bland news wouldn’t normally require the creation of an entire social media video. But it was the trip’s destination—Uganda, where Mamdani was born and lived for seven years before moving to the United States—that Mamdani highlighted to cheekily skewer his critics head-on.

In the clip, Mamdani played on the explosion of racist attacks telling him to “go back” to Africa. He also prepared a string of pun-heavy headlines for the conservative-leaning New York Post.

“UGANDA MISS ME.”

“HE AFRI-CAN’T BE SERIOUS.”

The clip once again underscored the Mamdani campaign’s ability to use social media videos to engage with everyday New Yorkers in ways that are widely praised as authentic, a crucial ingredient to his success. In turn, Mamdani’s opponents, Andrew Cuomo and Eric Adams, have used Mamdani’s social media savvy to attack him. “Let’s be clear: They have a record of tweets,” Adams said last month when he launched his independent campaign.

Good morning! I'm in Uganda to visit family and friends.

But depending on your perspective, don't worry or I'm sorry: I'll be back by the end of the month.

See you soon, NYC. pic.twitter.com/fIOf5NcZqy

— Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@ZohranKMamdani) July 20, 2025

The Uganda trip follows a much-maligned New York Times story on Mamdani’s 2009 college application to Columbia University, in which Mamdani identified as both African-American and Asian. The leaked info used by the Times came from a right-wing eugenicist, whom my colleague Noah Lanard later reported once wished a happy birthday to Adolf Hitler, and used a racial slur when saying those who are attracted to Black people should kill themselves.

Since stunning the country with his victory last month, Mamdani has worked to charm his detractors, including powerful figures in the business community, with direct meetings. On Friday, he scored the powerful endorsement of a local health care union, which had previously backed Mamdani’s opponent, Andrew Cuomo, who told an audience at a Hamptons fundraiser hosted by Gristedes billionaire John Catsimatidis this weekend that he would move to Florida if Mamdani becomes mayor.

As President Donald Trump’s bitter feud with Elon Musk spilled into public view last month, aides to the president reportedly launched a behind-the-scenes effort to carry out Trump’s threats to terminate Musk’s contracts with the federal government. Those threats marked an alarming willingness by the president to take his wrestling match with Musk to a potentially new level of lawlessness.

Ultimately, aides to the president, the Wall Street Journal reports, concluded that SpaceX contracts were too critical to operations at the Defense Department and NASA, once again underscoring the federal government’s heavy reliance on Musk’s technologies. But it’s the review itself, that it happened at all, that should cause considerable alarm, even if it involves an unsympathetic character such as Elon Musk.

As my colleague Jeremy Schulman wrote: “In a democracy, politicians simply cannot be allowed to punish dissent by threatening to destroy the businesses of people who cross them—whether those businesses are media companies, law firms, or a defense contractor run by the world’s richest man.” Of course, such concerns can be identified nearly everywhere throughout Trump’s second term, as he uses the enormous powers of the federal government to target his perceived enemies: top law firms, cultural institutions, Biden officials, civil servants, and more. Just look at the bogus “investigation” into a renovation at the Federal Reserve as Trump openly considers firing Fed Chair Jerome Powell.

With SpaceX, Trump may have been thwarted. But that might only be temporary. As the WSJ reports, the review remains ongoing, and aides are sure to be looking into other areas of retribution against Musk as he continues pouring gasoline over their feud. (Musk, who earlier appeared to suggest that Trump may be named in the Epstein files, is now one of several prominent MAGA characters to claim a full-blown “coverup” by the president.) Whatever you might think of the billionaire, that should frighten you.

Everything is a conspiracy theory if you don’t know how anything works, and that seems especially so when you take stock of the disinformation swirling in the aftermath of the deadly Texas floods.

The Independence Day floods in Texas Hill Country have killed at least 121 people, with scores still missing. Yet even as the increasingly desperate search continues, some are pointing fingers—not at policy or failed leadership—but at a familiar punch list of conspiracy theories about weather manipulation. From HAARP and DARPA to the Deep State and Democrats, influencers and partisans are sowing distrust and misinformation by labeling the disaster anything but natural.

The tragic irony? There’s no need for a conspiracy theory when the truth is this plain: Texas floods often—and it’s getting worse as part of the growing climate crisis, arguably abetted by the very politicians now scrambling to defend the state’s preparedness.

On Monday, the Boston Globe reported that the Senate version of New Hampshire’s two-year budget bill contains language that “would prohibit public entities from supporting any program designed to improve the lives of people with disabilities.” The reason? An attack on diversity, equity, and inclusion by state House and Senate Republicans.

“The Senate’s anti-DEI provisions would prohibit state and local government entities from supporting any program related to efforts to improve ‘demographic outcomes’ for people with physical or mental disabilities,” writes Boston Globe reporter Steven Porter.

Disabled people already face challenges in hiring, both due to biases of companies and some people just needing more assistance. DEI-focused hiring programs and trainings—both for disabled people and people of color—help this problem.

The House version of the bill is also an anti-DEI attack, though it does not specifically go after disability as heavily as the Senate version of the budget. The House bill goes after race-conscious practices in hiring, which still would hurt disabled people of color. Karen Rosenberg, policy director for the Disability Rights Center, told Porter that the bills are “mostly the same, and they’re both terrible.”

As Porter writes, the curtailing of disability programs in the state can also affect disabled children.

Louis Esposito, executive director of ABLE NH, an advocacy group for people impacted by disability, said there have been so many additional pressing concerns—including a disagreement between the House and Senate over a proposed cut to Medicaid provider rates—that the implications of the anti-DEI provisions in the state budget legislation haven’t garnered as much attention as they warrant.

Esposito said the proposals could have far-reaching ramifications in education. If a school offers a training session on neurodiversity, for example, would that be deemed a DEI violation? School leaders who are unsure might avoid such topics, at the expense of equity and inclusion for students with disabilities, he said, especially since the proposals would direct the state’s education commissioner to withhold all public funding from schools deemed noncompliant.

The House and Senate will have to come to an agreement and pass a two-year budget bill before July 1.

On Sunday evening, The New York Times published details of another potentially damning security scandal involving the chat app Signal and discussions of “detailed information about forthcoming strikes in Yemen on March 15″—this time centered on a group chat created by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

Citing four people with knowledge of the group chat, the report describes strikingly similar details to those revealed last month by The Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg, who earlier disclosed that he had been inadvertently added to a different Signal group chat discussing the same Yemen war plans.

According to the Times, Hegseth shared information that “included the flight schedules for the F/A-18 Hornets targeting the Houthis” in a “chat that included his wife, brother and personal lawyer.” The Times noted that Hegseth’s brother, Phil, holds a job at the Pentagon, as does his lawyer, Tim Parlatore. His wife, Jennifer, has recently become notable for accompanying her husband to high-profile meetings abroad.

The Times reports:

Unlike the chat in which The Atlantic was mistakenly included, the newly revealed one was created by Mr. Hegseth. It included his wife and about a dozen other people from his personal and professional inner circle in January, before his confirmation as defense secretary ,and was named “Defense | Team Huddle,” the people familiar with the chat said. He used his private phone, rather than his government one, to access the Signal chat.

The continued inclusion following Mr. Hegseth’s confirmation of his wife, brother and personal lawyer, none of whom had any apparent reason to be briefed on operational details of a military operation as it was getting underway, is sure to raise further questions about his adherence to security protocols.

The report cites a US official claiming that there was no national security breach: “Nothing classified was ever discussed on that chat,” the official said. Nonetheless, news of the second Signal group comes amid a dramatic leak probe at the Pentagon that has resulted in the departure of top Hegseth advisors and aides. Read the full Times report here.

This weekend, national protests broke out once again to demand an end to creeping authoritarianism and to defend the rule of law—sparked by the chaotic opening months of the Trump administration, defined by the flouting of judicial authority, executive overreach, and a subservient Congress. You can find a wrap-up of those protests, organized under the banner “50501”—meaning “50 protests, 50 states, 1 day”—here.

Over on Bluesky, we asked readers to share their own images from wherever they showed up, and we were flooded with responses, from tiny towns and a highway overpass, to sprawling cities—all forming a vivid, grassroots tapestry of resistance.

Readers sent photos and videos from Clarksburg, West Virginia; Columbus, Ohio; Denver, Colorado; Flagstaff, Arizona; Hartford, Connecticut; Honolulu, Hawaii; Indianapolis, Indiana; Las Vegas, Nevada; Lisle and Macomb, Illinois; Livonia, Michigan; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Monterey, Paso Robles, Sacramento, San Francisco, San Jose, and Thousand Oaks, California; New York City, New York; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Portland, Oregon; Raleigh, North Carolina; Rochester, New York; Roswell, New Mexico; St. Paul, Minnesota; Suffolk, Virginia; and more.

Here are some of your highlights. Keep them coming. And make sure to follow us to join our thriving Bluesky community.

Monterey,CA

— (@estella09.bsky.social) 2025-04-20T15:43:55.396Z

Raleigh, NC #50501movement

— ☝️SoSayU (@sosayu.bsky.social) 2025-04-20T15:38:27.508Z

Thousand Oaks, CA. Great turnout and response from passerby. Only about 4 thumbs down or middle fingers. Lol

— (@katgw.bsky.social) 2025-04-20T15:36:22.800Z

#Indianapolis #FiftyFiftyOne

— Dunes Girl (@pattib-resilience.bsky.social) 2025-04-20T15:37:56.987Z

Roswell NM

— (@curmudgeongirl.bsky.social) 2025-04-20T15:36:21.859Z

From Portland Oregon

— TheMoonKnight (@themoonknight.bsky.social) 2025-04-20T15:35:47.121Z

Clarksburg, WV

— Elise (@bnat4.bsky.social) 2025-04-20T15:43:14.101Z

Columbus, Ohio

— Linnykins (@linnykins.bsky.social) 2025-04-20T15:42:23.686Z

We showed up in St Paul, Minnesota. Stand up! Fight back! #resist

— Kim J (@kaj0724.bsky.social) 2025-04-20T15:41:05.502Z

Sacramento

— Ron Loutzenhiser (@rloutz.bsky.social) 2025-04-20T15:39:35.960Z

Hartford, CT

— Chris Sands (@ctsands87.bsky.social) 2025-04-20T15:40:29.357Z

I25 Pedestrian Bridge in Denver

— (@thegreatwoodini.bsky.social) 2025-04-20T15:40:19.194Z

Young people, old people, veterans, dogs and everyone in between (about 500?) of us came out to #Resist in I’d say edging towards purple, rural Paso Robles, Ca on 4/19/25 NO KINGS protest day💪🏼🇺🇸

— (@shellyrn24.bsky.social) 2025-04-20T15:56:07.692Z

San Jose, CA

— Keith Blom (@keiththerunner.bsky.social) 2025-04-20T15:51:58.960Z

Paso Robles, Ca! #NoKings #RESIST

— (@shellyrn24.bsky.social) 2025-04-20T15:57:41.448Z

Rochester, NY 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

— Amy Adrion (@amyadrion.bsky.social) 2025-04-20T16:01:36.979Z

Turnout was strong in Honolulu on April 19.

— (@sayitwithaloha.bsky.social) 2025-04-20T16:04:02.919Z

Macomb, IL. Population 15,000ish.

— Chris Sutton 🌎 (@mapyoda.bsky.social) 2025-04-20T16:02:57.100Z

Belfast, Maine bsky.app/profile/sara…

— Sara in Maine (@sara207.bsky.social) 2025-04-20T16:11:47.294Z

PHILLY #NOKINGS

— Karen Getz (@getzie.bsky.social) 2025-04-20T16:11:17.207Z

Protesters across the country once again poured into the streets this weekend for a day of mass action denouncing the Trump administration. It was the second large-scale outpouring this month, following the coordinated “Hands Off” protests. Saturday’s events took place under the banner of “50501”—a grassroots effort aimed at mobilizing “50 protests, 50 states, 1 day,” with over 700 gatherings held in both big cities and small towns nationwide.

The protesters’ targets were wide-ranging—the deportation regime, Elon Musk and DOGE, the rise of authoritarianism, tariffs, trans rights, and more—but one figure naturally dominated the protest signs: Trump. And a historical echo was not lost on some organizers, who pointed to Saturday marking the 250th anniversary of the start of the American Revolutionary War—the historic struggle to free a nation from monarchy. Protesters around Boston chanted “no kings.”

Here are some photo highlights from across the day’s events.

On Thursday, the Washington Post reported that Elon Musk’s DOGE fed sensitive data into artificial intelligence software as a way to help decide which of the Department of Education’s programs were wasteful, to try and slash its budget.

President Donald Trump is expected to soon release an executive order that would reduce education spending as much as possible while recognizing that he cannot get rid of the department itself. That can only be done by an act of Congress—Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) recently reintroduced such a bill in the House.

As I previously reported, the Department of Education plays a crucial role in making sure disabled kids receive the same access to education across states, and distributes funding for the needed accommodations. Disabled people are used to being told that those accommodations are too expensive, which is one cause for concern with DOGE’s use of AI for this purpose.

Ariana H. Aboulafia, who leads disability rights efforts for the DC-based nonprofit Center for Democracy & Technology, says it’s important to remember that federal funding for students with disabilities is crucial in ensuring they have fair access to learning. “Any efforts to use unproven, AI-driven technology to make funding cuts could lead to excessive harm to this community,” she told me. “In this instance, it is unclear whether the AI model in question even works for this purpose, but it does appear to raise serious security questions given the sensitivity of the data that is being shared.”

AI is not a neutral source, and research has indicated that it has ableist biases. For instance, a 2024 study found that ChatGPT gave a lower score to resumes that indicated a disability. “Many cuts to the Department of Education, whether they are determined through the use of AI models or human decision-making,” Aboulafia says, “will have a disproportionate and significant impact on students with disabilities.”

When Donald Trump first took office, the streets of Washington, DC, and cities around the country, erupted in protest and resistance. The 2017 Women’s March, held the day after his inauguration, was heralded at the time as the biggest protest in U.S. history. This year, the crowds only measured in the thousands. Other day-of gatherings appeared similarly small, perhaps due to the blisteringly cold temperatures that drove the pageantry inside. The spontaneous panic that once gripped the mobilized masses seemed diluted.

Instead, Mother Jones video correspondent Garrison Hayes found vocal resistance in a historic place of protest that has endured many disappointing election results across decades: inside a Black church.

Reverend Al Sharpton’s National Action Network hosted a Martin Luther King Jr. Day event, which coincided with the inauguration, and used it as an opportunity to challenge Trump and embolden attendees. “We shed too much blood. We spent too many nights in jail to think that Trump can turn us around,” he said. “We are right here. We are not going back.”

Hayes also spoke to attendees. One, Alexa Donaphin, was wearing a sequined MLK Jr. shirt and described herself as a veteran defender of civil rights for the vulnerable.

“Even though I’m not gay, I’m not trans, I’m not poor, I’m not an immigrant, I’m not a migrant—I’m none of those things, but those people matter, and their rights matter,” she said. “I’ve been fighting since my hair was a different color than it is now,” she said, noting her gray hair.

“My whole life, I grew up in the segregated South. I know what it’s like to drink from a colored water fountain,” she continued. “I know how it feels to be othered. I know how it feels to be marginalized, and I can’t sit by idly and do nothing while that continues and, in fact, escalates.”

“If America is to survive the next four years,” Hayes concludes, “it could probably stand to take some notes.”

The weather in Washington, DC, has plunged into the 20s, with a 40 percent chance of snow showers—and a 100 percent chance of bumping into someone who voted for Donald Trump. Our DC bureau chief, David Corn, bundled up against the chill and braved the slushy queues to speak with ecstatic Trump supporters who began attending a series of celebrations in the capital Sunday. The events were moved indoors to protect against the extreme cold.

Thousands of MAGA faithful packed into the Capital One Arena for an inauguration eve event. David joined the lines.

While in line, David interviewed die-hard Trump supporters about their reasons for backing the president-elect. Among them was Andrew Williams, who praised Trump for not being like the other GOP war hawks. But what about Trump’s proposed military annexation of Greenland? David asked.

He also watched—and recapped—Trump’s victory rally, which included a long segment about Jesus from a duo of women who call themselves “Girls Gone Bible.”

Meanwhile, our video correspondent Garrison Hayes took to the streets to ask Trump supporters what they are looking forward to. Some gave specific answers, such as the erosion of DEI requirements, while others offered vague calls for “unity.” One woman shared more ambitious plans: “I would vote for him to be king,” she said—perhaps jokingly. Watch for yourself:

This post will be updated with dispatches from the day. Stay tuned.

On a long flight in the mid-aughts, I decided to read The Case for Israel by Alan Dershowitz. I thought of it like giving myself an assignment, the kind of thing I tended do when I was younger. I wanted to understand an argument I expected to disagree with.

But this proved to be a mistake. The Case for Israel is not a good enough book to reward that kind of exercise. I found it chock-full of conventional pro-Israel arguments that avoid the most difficult questions about Zionism.

And yet it is an important book, maybe more so now than in 2003, when Alan Dershowitz was not advising the White House.

I had occasion to reconsider The Case for Israel in 2018, when Dershowitz let it be known that he had recently begun counseling Donald Trump on Middle East policy. I reported that Dershowitz had also recently agreed to a contract to provide advice to an American lobbyist who represented Qatar, an arrangement that arguably undermined the independence of the advice Dershowitz offered the White House. Asked about this, Dershowitz hotly volunteered, unprompted, that he was an “expert” on Israel because he had written books, most notably, The Case for Israel, on the subject.

The problem with this argument is that the book, which I reread this year, is terrible. It would be bad even if you agreed with it. It is, first all of, kind of a gimmick. Like one of those famous coaches hawking business tips, Dershowitz tapped his fame as a defense lawyer to structure his book as a “defense of Israel…in the court of public opinion.” There are 32 chapters where he outlines what he says are common anti-Israel arguments, which he rebuts in sections that largely summarize what even then were well-worn pro-Israeli bromides.

And the book does not actually address the most compelling pro-Palestinian arguments. You might, for example, expect a chapter titled “Did European Jews Displace Palestinians?” to answer that question. The reader may look here for the author to acknowledge that yes, Israelis expelled hundreds of thousands of Palestinians during the Arab-Israeli War in 1947-1948, even if he then attempted to justify that ethnic cleansing.

But Dershowitz doesn’t do any of that. Instead he details the historical presence of some Jews in Palestine, which is not responsive to his own question. He says many Jews, prior to the war, bought land in Palestine from absentee landlords, which is also off topic. And he downplays the extent of the Palestinian population in Israel at the time. He just ignores the well-documented Israeli efforts to expel Palestinians. (This policy was detailed in Benny Morris’ 1988 The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, which Dershowitz cites, for other purposes, in the same chapter.)

Dershowitz has been accused of plagiarizing material in this book from Joan Peters’ 1984 book From Time Immemorial, a claim he denied so hard he once reportedly tried to get then-California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to suppress publication of a book detailing the accusation. (Dershowitz has not responded to my request for comment regarding these accusations.) Regardless, the book seems hastily written. Like other Dershowitz writing, it sounds like he dictated parts of it in an airport bathroom and never revised.

But despite its shortcomings, this book informs the views of people who are about to resume making US policy on Israel. Expert or not, Dershowitz really did advise Trump on Israel during the president-elect’s first term. And he also offered advice to Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner that informed the so-called Abraham Accords. (Dershowitz later nominated Kushner and his deputy Avi Berkowitz for the Nobel Peace Prize, a proposal undermined by Hamas’ October 7 attack and ensuing war.)

Dershowitz last month claimed he is assembling a “legal dream team” to defend Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant in the International Criminal Court, which issued arrest warrants for the men. The former OJ Simpson defender is still trying to make the case for Israel. Dershowitz is also a confidant of Mike Huckabee, Trump’s pick for ambassador to Israel. So Dershowitz’s views continue to have influence.

To be clear, I’m not suggesting reading this book. From Time Immemorial might be a better choice. But it’s worth considering that this lazy, reflexively pro-Israel thinking is again informing Middle East policy. The Case for Israel is important. And it’s really bad.

Rep.-elect Sarah McBride (D-Del.) is not taking Rep. Nancy Mace’s (R-S.C.) bait.

In her first interview after Mace’s weeklong, social media–fueled campaign—which included nearly 300 posts on X—to ban her from the women’s bathroom in the House of Representatives offices, McBride showed how a member of Congress who is actually interested in governing, not grabbing headlines, acts.

“I’m in Congress to deliver for my constituents, to make health care, housing, and child care more affordable,” McBride said in a Sunday interview on MSNBC’s The Weekend, adding that she plans to support pro-union legislation as well as bills focused on paid leave and affordable childcare. “I’m so grateful to have this opportunity. I think on November 5, Delawareans showed the country what I’ve known throughout my life: that in our state of neighbors, we judge candidates based on their ideas and not their identities.”

Mace kicked off this past week by introducing a resolution seeking to bar transgender members and employees in the House from using the bathrooms that correspond to their gender identity in the Capitol building, baselessly alleging that allowing trans women to use women’s bathrooms “jeopardizes the safety and dignity” of cisgender women. (In fact, research has found that there is “no link” between trans-inclusive bathroom policies and safety, and that reports of “privacy and safety violations” in bathrooms, changing rooms, and locker rooms are “exceedingly rare.”) Though Mace’s resolution did not mention McBride—the first openly transgender person elected to Congress—by name, Mace admitted it was “absolutely” meant to target her.

On Wednesday—which also happened to be the annually recognized Transgender Day of Remembrance, a day meant to memorialize trans people murdered in violent acts of bigotry—House speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) threw his support behind Mace’s effort, telling reporters he was simply formalizing what has long been an “unwritten policy”; he also noted in an emailed statement that all Members have private bathrooms in their offices and there are several unisex bathrooms throughout the Capitol. But Johnson has not clarified how the policy will be enforced or whether he will include it in the rules package the House will vote on in early January.

“I worried that the heart of this country wasn’t big enough to love someone like me, and over the last decade, I have been able to bear witness the change that once seemed so impossible to me as a kid.”

Johnson also has not addressed whether or not he condemns the threats of physical violence Mace and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) reportedly made against any trans person who violates the bathroom ban. (I’ve repeatedly asked Johnson’s spokesperson if he condemns these threats and if members would face consequences for carrying them out, but have yet to receive a direct answer.)

Getting what she wanted did not make Mace dial back her bigotry, though: She has continued to repeatedly misgender McBride and denigrate trans people on social media. But on Sunday, McBride dismissed all that as “noise”—without mentioning Mace by name—and said she is focused on honoring the weight of history in her new role.

“I have to be honest, this week was awe-inspiring, being at orientation, despite all of the noise,” McBride said. “Because as you were there, you realize you are in the body that Abraham Lincoln served in. We walked onto the House floor, and you’re in the space where they passed the 13th Amendment and the 14th Amendment, where women got the right to vote. You’re sitting in the chairs in the job where people passed the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act. And you feel that responsibility, but also you feel that you are part of a tradition, because every single one of your predecessors served in incredibly tumultuous, challenging times, and enough of them fulfilled their responsibilities to be stewards of our democracy and that is our calling in this moment, and I feel it very deeply.”

Sarah McBride: "I worried that the heart of this country wasn't big enough to support someone like me. And over the last decade, I have been able to bear witness to change that once seemed so impossible to me as a kid that it was almost incomprehensible … I carry that with me." pic.twitter.com/YKLnhQMeJl

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 24, 2024

She also spoke about her own trailblazing role in Congress, which she said proves that anything is possible. As a college student, she said, “I worried that the heart of this country wasn’t big enough to love someone like me, and over the last decade, I have been able to bear witness the change that once seemed so impossible to me as a kid—that was almost incomprehensible—and I have seen it not only become possible, but become a reality. And I carry that with me in this moment, because I think in so many ways, this country—on both sides of the political divide—this country is facing its own crisis of hope. And I know we still have both the individual and collective capacity meet the scope and the scale of the challenges that we face. And I know, because I have seen it, that nothing is truly impossible.”

Mace, meanwhile, spent the morning posting a Bible verse about the creation of “woman” all over social media.

Donald Trump’s Cabinet appointees are not the only source of controversy in his transition back to the White House.

On Thursday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) wrote the Administrator of the General Services Administration (GSA), which manages the functioning of federal agencies, to warn that the Trump transition team has refused to sign memoranda of understanding with the Biden-Harris administration. All prior presidents-elect have signed the agreements, which outline how the administrations will work together; one of them, for example, would allow the FBI under the current administration to conduct background checks on Trump’s nominees. Another would facilitate the Trump team’s national security clearances required to receive classified intelligence briefings before he assumes office. “The Trump team’s unprecedented refusal to sign agreements with the outgoing administration threatens the American public by hamstringing incoming officials’ ability to govern responsibly,” Warren writes.

The refusal to publish the ethics code heightens “the risk of the incoming administration governing for the benefit of special interests rather than the American public.”

On top of that, Trump’s transition team has yet to publish a full ethics code on the GSA website addressing how he will deal with his conflicts of interest, as required by a law that Trump himself passed in 2020. Warren’s letter notes that while the Trump team has published its own ethics code, “it includes nothing about how President-elect Trump will manage his own extensive financial conflicts of interest—which experts anticipate will be one of the most alarming corruption challenges of the incoming administration.” The refusal to publish the ethics code, Warren says, heightens “the risk of the incoming administration governing for the benefit of special interests rather than the American public.”

As the New York Times reported Sunday, it’s possible these “special interests” could, in fact, be helping to fund the Trump transition: Because the Trump team has not signed a memorandum of understanding with the GSA that was due Sept. 1, they have been able to shield the names of donors to the transition. If the Trump transition had entered into the agreement, they would have to publicly disclose donors, each of whom would have an individual giving limit of $5,000—but the Trump team would have been able to access $7.2 million in federal funds to help with the costs of the transition.

Trump is also reportedly the first president to circumvent this agreement, which seems to suggest his team thinks he can raise more from donors without being limited to the $5,000 cap per individual donor. But as one expert told the Times, it could come at a serious ethical cost:

“When the money isn’t disclosed, it’s not clear how much everybody is giving, who is giving it and what they are getting in return for their donations,” said Heath Brown, a professor of public policy at John Jay College of Criminal Justice who studies presidential transitions. “It’s an area where the vast majority of Americans would agree that they want to know who is paying that bill.”

In her letter to the GSA, Warren asks them to respond by December 5 to questions about how the agency is engaging with the Trump transition and the impacts of the Trump team’s lack of compliance with federal law. Spokespeople for the Trump transition team and the GSA did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Mother Jones on Sunday morning.

What changes if more people showed up to vote?

One answer emerges by comparing Minnesota and Tennessee—two states with vastly different voter turnout rates. Minnesota leads the nation, with nearly 80 percent of eligible voters participating in the 2020 election. With that, Minnesotans have elected leaders who have advanced a popular agenda: universal school meals, free public college tuition, paid family and medical leave, and the restoration of voting rights for formerly incarcerated people. According to polling, each of these proposals is broadly popular across the entire country.

By contrast, in Tennessee, voter turnout in 2020 was only 59 percent—enabling a very unpopular Republican supermajority to ignore calls for stricter gun control, despite widespread support. Instead, they’ve focused on banning diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and enacting some of the country’s harshest abortion laws. Tennessee once had abortion protections, but a historically low-turnout election in 2014 paved the way for today’s restrictive policies.

In my new video, I run the numbers. Watch:

Free school meals. Childcare. Health care. The thing is, when voters show up, popular things happen. @garrison_hayes runs the numbers 👇 pic.twitter.com/whW7MLjj7l

— Mother Jones (@MotherJones) November 3, 2024

The differences between Minnesota and Tennessee make it clear: Turnout has sweeping consequences. Go vote.

The idea that women might vote differently from their husbands made Fox News star Jesse Watters’ brain melt live on air this week.

Referring to his current wife, Watters, with his trademark smirk, told his colleagues on The Five, “If I found out Emma was going into the voting booth and pulling the lever for Harris, that’s the same thing as having an affair.” This, from a man who admitted to his employer in 2017 that he was in a relationship with a colleague 14 years his junior—something that reportedly led to his divorce from his first wife. “What else is she keeping from me?” Jesse mused, prompting guffaws from his fellow panelists.

Beyond hypocrisy, Mother Jones creator Kat Abughazaleh argues that Watters’ reaction reveals the fierce undercurrent of sexist resentment coursing through this year’s campaign, typified by Donald Trump, who just this week ominously vowed to protect women, “whether the women like it or not.”

It’s an issue that Democrats and their anti-Trump allies have been eager to highlight, including former congresswoman and top Harris campaigner Liz Cheney, who told CBS’ Face the Nation on Wednesday, “I think you’re going to have, frankly, a lot of men and women who will go into the voting booth and will vote their conscience, will vote for Vice President Harris.”

“They may not ever say anything publicly,” she added, “but the results will speak for themselves.”

Michelle Obama also seized on this dynamic. “Just remember that your vote is a private matter,” she told a Michigan rally last weekend.

Soon, that private decision could have very public ramifications—for the entire country.

Genuine question: Do influential white people routinely tell members of the white community to not vote?

Every four years, it seems like noteworthy figures within the Black community repeat a familiar refrain: Black voters should withhold their vote to prove a point.

In 2020, it was musician Ice Cube, and in 2024, it’s activist Dr. Umar, both using their considerable platforms to push a consistent, if overused, message to Black people: Don’t vote until politicians make concrete promises to you. These calls for inaction are often mistaken for activism and overlook the fact that both major parties have made commitments to Black voters in past and present elections.

“Have you ever noticed,” I ask in a new video, “that conservative white voters are rarely, if ever, told they should withhold their vote?”

“Have you ever noticed,” @garrison_hayes asks in a new video, “that conservative white voters are rarely, if ever, told they should withhold their vote?”

His new video looks at why that is. WATCH 👇 pic.twitter.com/OLeRwYZtzW

— Mother Jones (@MotherJones) October 29, 2024

I explain that Christian Nationalists have a long history of supporting policies aimed at reducing the voting population in order to accomplish, as my colleague Ari Berman describes it, “minority rule.” Consider Paul Weyrich, co-founder of the Heritage Foundation—the recent force behind Project 2025. In 1980, during a far-right conference in Dallas, Weyrich made his hostility toward democracy clear: “Our leverage in the elections, quite candidly, goes up as the voting populace goes down.” The strategy is obvious: It fundamentally relies on Black voters staying home.

I have extensively covered the ongoing debate surrounding Black voting this election cycle. Watch my in-depth exploration of the rise of the Black MAGA movement below.

After Elon Musk unveiled a scheme to pay $100 to registered Pennsylvania voters who sign a pro-Trump petition, Democratic officials—and legal experts—are sounding the alarm.

As my colleague Arianna Coghill reported yesterday, Musk made the announcement to his 202 million X followers on Thursday, telling them the offer was valid through midnight on Monday. On top of that, Musk also says he is giving away $1 million a day, every day until the election, to petition signers in swing states. The funds appear to come from the billionaire’s America PAC, which he founded in support of Trump—and reportedly pumped with $75 million.

While the petition does not explicitly mention Trump, its support for his ticket over Vice President Kamala Harris is clear. It tells signatories they are signaling their “support of the Constitution, especially freedom of speech and the right to bear arms.”

Unsurprisingly, officials have concerns.

Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-Pa.) told Kristen Welker of NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, “there are real questions with how he is spending money in this race,” adding, “I think it’s something that law enforcement could take a look at.” (A spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office said officials were aware of the concerns but could not comment on whether they were investigating.)

WATCH: Every day until Election Day, Elon Musk says he’ll give $1M to a voter who has signed his super PAC’s petition “in favor of free speech and the right to bear arms.”@JoshShapiroPA: “That is deeply concerning. … It's something that law enforcement could take a look at." pic.twitter.com/2mZY1b5YaL

— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) October 20, 2024

Meanwhile, Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) told the New York Post in an interview that “Musk is a concern,” adding, “not even just that he has endorsed [Trump], but the fact that now he’s becoming an active participant and showing up and doing rallies and things like that.”

Legal experts went further. Rick Hasen, professor of political science and director of the Safeguarding Democracy Project at UCLA School of Law, wrote that Musk’s promises are “clearly illegal,” citing federal election law that prohibits paying for voting or registering to vote, including via lottery. Adav Noti, executive director of the nonprofit Campaign Legal Center, told ABC News that the giveaway’s requirement that petition signers be registered voters “violates the federal ban on paying people to register to vote.” (The Department of Justice declined to comment.) Musk does not appear to have publicly replied to the critiques, and X no longer responds to journalists under his ownership.

This is far from the first time that Musk has wielded his absurd levels of wealth and power to try to sway the election in Trump’s favor: As I have reported, research has found that Musk’s sharing of election disinformation racked up billions of views on X.

Update, Oct. 21: This post was updated with a response from the Department of Justice.

Update, Oct. 22: This post was updated with a response from the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office.

With just over two weeks until Election Day, both candidates are plunging into nonstop rallies and interviews in a bid to get in front of as many voters as possible. (Though notably, Trump has backed out of several recent high profile media appearances, including a sit-down with 60 Minutes.)

Vice President Kamala Harris sat for a contentious exchange with Fox News host Bret Baier this week, and headlined rallies in the swing states of Wisconsin, Georgia, and Michigan. Former President Donald Trump, for his part, sank to new lows during a suite of appearances—lobbing crude insults at his opponents and rambling incoherently. Let’s review Trump’s very weird week, which, even by Trumpian standards of shock, veered into increasingly alarming territory. Let’s go day-by-day:

Monday

At a Pennsylvania town hall Monday night, Trump ranted about Hannibal Lecter, renewed his longstanding attacks on the “fake news,” and then abandoned answering questions entirely to listen to “Ave Maria,” “Hallelujah,” and “YMCA” for a half hour as he swayed on stage.

"Turn it up louder!" — Trump calls for Ave Maria to be played again while his favorite chart is displayed, which he says "I sleep with every night. I kiss it." pic.twitter.com/bLCOBNuCjI

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 14, 2024

Tuesday

At an interview with Bloomberg editor-in-chief John Micklethwait on immigration and economic policy, Trump took a question about inflation as an opportunity to bash Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), an architect of the Green New Deal: “She never even studied the environment in college. She went to a nice college. She came out. She just said—the Green New Scam. She just named all these things.” (Ocasio-Cortez studied international relations and economics at Boston University.)

That exchange was indicative of the interview at large: While Micklethwait repeatedly pressed Trump on the specifics of his economic policies and their potential impacts—higher prices due to tariffs, the loss of immigrant labor due to his proposed mass deportation plan—the former president went on tangent after tangent. When Micklethwait asked him if Google should be broken up, for example, Trump responded with a grievance about voting in Virginia. When the host called him out for his meandering, Trump offered his now-common but unsatisfying explanation: “It’s called the weave.” Other highlights: Trump called Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.) “Newscum” and claimed the insurrection represented “a peaceful transfer of power.”

Trump: New scum I call him

Micklethwait: There are CEOs out here if they said that sort of thing about a rival CEO they would be sacked.

Trump: They don't have to go through pic.twitter.com/eqbLuTwaaN

— Acyn (@Acyn) October 15, 2024

And at an all-women’s town hall hosted by Fox News host Harris Faulkner taped Tuesday, Trump called himself “the father of IVF”… despite the fact that the Dobbs decision—which he made possible by appointing three of the five Supreme Court justices who overruled Roe v. Wade—has undermined IVF access and Senate Republicans twice blocked a vote on a Democrat-led bill to protect the fertility treatment.

Trump: “I’m the father of IVF”

FACT CHECK: IVF is under threat across the country because Trump ended Roe v. Wade and his Project 2025 plan could effectively ban IVF altogether. pic.twitter.com/tEOUiufDjO

— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) October 16, 2024

His campaign dismissed the bizarre remark as a joke. But as former President Barack Obama said at a rally for Harris in Arizona Friday night: “I do not know what that means. You do not either.”

Wednesday

At a town hall for Latino voters hosted by Univision, Trump called Jan. 6, 2021—the day he unleashed a mob on the Capitol in an attempt to overthrow the 2020 election—”a day of love.” He also falsely claimed “nobody died” other than Ashli Babbitt, and “there were no guns.” January 6, as my colleague Mark Follman has covered extensively, was in fact a heavily armed insurrection.

He also doubled down on the racist lies his campaign helped spread about Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio eating house pets, claiming without evidence they are “eating other things, too, that they’re not supposed to be.”

Question: Do you really believe that these people are eating people’s pets?

Trump: I was just saying what was reported. And eating other things too that they’re not supposed to. pic.twitter.com/GAXezwPkqe

— Acyn (@Acyn) October 16, 2024

Friday

During a sit-down with Fox and Friends, Trump took viewers’ questions… including softballs from children who asked about his favorite animal and favorite former president. We’ll just leave one of his responses here:

A six-year-old asks Donald Trump what his favorite farm animal is:

"I love cows. But if we go with Kamala you won't have any cows anymore. I don't want to ruin this kid's day. I love cows, I think they're so cute and so beautiful."pic.twitter.com/qNxVPQ2suQ

— The American Conservative (@amconmag) October 18, 2024

Saturday

To cap it all off, at a rally in Pennsylvania, Trump called Harris a “shit vice president” and spoke about the penis size of golfer Arnold Palmer. Yes… really.

Trump: You’re a shit Vice President pic.twitter.com/cB2w7nknQM

— Acyn (@Acyn) October 19, 2024

Trump 10 minutes into his Arnold Palmer story: But when he took showers with the other pros, they came out of there. They said, oh my God. That's unbelievable. pic.twitter.com/kRLKWixpT8

— Acyn (@Acyn) October 19, 2024

All this makes it no wonder, then, that Harris is drawing voters’ attention to Trump’s rambling incoherency and insults. “He has called it the weave,” she said at a rally in Detroit Saturday. “I think we here will call it nonsense.”

Correction, Oct. 20: An earlier version of this story mistakenly referred to Vice President Kamala Harris as the former VP.

Thinking before you speak publicly is an important skill. Idaho State Sen. Dan Foreman, a conservative Republican, apparently did not get the memo.

As Boise State Public Radio, an NPR affiliate, reported on Thursday, a “meet the candidates” forum was held on Tuesday evening in Kendrick, a town with a population of about 300. Foreman attended, as did others running for District 6 state House and Senate seats. (Idaho has 35 legislative districts, each with one senator and two representatives.)

After Trish Carter-Goodheart, a Democrat running for a House seat, pointed out that discrimination and racism exist in Idaho, Foreman reportedly lost his temper and told her to “go back where you came from.”

Among the various problems with that statement, Carter-Goodheart happens to be a member of the Nez Perce tribe, which has a reservation smack in the middle of District 6. She was where she came from. Foreman, as the radio piece noted, was born in Illinois. (Foreman did not respond to Boise State Public Radio for comment.)

Foreman is not the only Western politician to make offensive remarks about Native Americans recently—Republican US Senate candidate Tim Sheehy admitted to doing the same, and his Democratic rival, incumbent Jon Tester, has made it a campaign issue.

Tester: The statement you made degrades Native Americans. You're a big guy, apologize. 

Sheehy: Do you apologize for opening the border? 

Tester: I didn't open the border. When we had a opportunity to fix the border, you said we want to play politics with this pic.twitter.com/FRbM23aD3R

— Acyn (@Acyn) October 1, 2024

Republican Rep. Lori McCann—who is running against Carter-Goodheart—told the radio station that she agrees with her opponent’s assessment of what happened, which Carter-Goodheart summarized in a statement released on Wednesday:

Last night, I entered what should have been a respectful and constructive public candidate forum. Instead, I was met with hateful, racist remarks from State Senator Dan Foreman, who screamed at me to “go back where you came from.”

The question on the floor was about a state bill addressing discrimination. One of the candidates responded, claiming that “discrimination doesn’t exist in Idaho.” When it was my turn to speak, I calmly pointed out that just because someone hasn’t personally experienced discrimination doesn’t mean it’s not happening. Racism and discrimination are real issues here in Idaho, as anyone familiar with our state’s history knows. I highlighted our weak hate crime laws and mentioned the presence of the Aryan Nations in northern Idaho as undeniable evidence of this reality.

That’s when Sen. Foreman lost all control. His words to me: “I’m so sick and tired of this liberal b*llsh*t! Why don’t you go back to where you came from?!”

I stayed. I stayed because I wanted to show our community that I can, and will, handle difficult, unpleasant situations. After the forum, several members of the crowd came up to me and offered their support, apologizing for Sen. Foreman’s behavior. But it’s not the people in the crowd who need to apologize.

I need to thank the women who stood with me against this hate: Representative Lori McCann, Kathy Dawes, and Moscow City Councilwoman Julia Parker. You had my back when it mattered, and I appreciate your strength and solidarity.

What happened last night was a reminder of why this election matters. I am a proud member of the Nez Perce tribe, fighting to represent the land my family has lived on for generations. People like Dan Foreman do not represent our diverse community, and I will continue to stand against the hatred and racism they spread. Our state deserves better. Our community deserves better. We deserve better.

Less than a week before Melania Trump is set to release her memoir, the former first lady appeared to break ranks.

“Melania Trump passionately defends abortion rights in upcoming memoir,” read the headline. The Guardian, which had obtained an early copy, went on to include excerpts that see Melania declaring it an “imperative” to guarantee a woman’s autonomy. “Restricting a woman’s right to choose whether to terminate an unwanted pregnancy is the same as denying her control over her own body,” she reportedly writes. “I have carried this belief with me throughout my entire adult life.”

These views, of course, appear in direct opposition to the extreme anti-abortion record of her husband, Donald Trump, as he seeks to return to the White House. They arrive as the former president, who frequently boasted of his singular role in helping to overturn Roe v. Wade, contorts himself on an issue that has proven electorally diabolical for Republicans.

So in comes Melania—and with her, one of the most persistent storylines of the Trump era: Donald Trump may be an extremist but the women around him are supposedly a moderating force. His wife in particular, with her projected sense of mystery and speculation that she is the silent victim of an awful man, has served as a convenient vehicle for this narrative.

If people do still indeed invest in the fiction that Melania is a covert champion of progressive values, that she is the defiant, least-awful member of MAGA, then haven’t the last eight years shown how useless she is?

It was a strange thing to believe in the first place. But with nearly a decade of evidence proving otherwise, it strikes me as equal parts baffling and damning that the narrative survives. In fact, countless people have posted the Guardian‘s excerpt without context on social media, as if it’s a bombshell. (The Guardian posted another excerpt this morning in which Melania claims she tried to convince Trump to abandon his administration’s family separation policy, again without much skepticism.)

Then, a familiar news cycle: National news outlets repeated both headlines. Here’s CBS News, airing the conclusion that this is an unmistakably pro-choice message from the former first lady:

@cbsmornings

Former First Lady Melania Trump voices support for abortion rights in her new memoir, saying there is “no room for compromise when it comes to this essential right that all women possess from birth. Individual freedom.”

♬ original sound – CBS Mornings

Now to be clear, it may very well be true that Melania harbors secret pro-choice views. But should we care? The former first lady—who eagerly pushed pernicious birther lies about Barack Obama—has always been a willing contributor to her husband’s rot, a longstanding complicity that most recently featured Melania giving air to conspiracy theories surrounding Trump’s shooting. Experts have warned such partisan exploitation could lead to retaliatory violence.

But if people do still indeed invest in the fiction that Melania is a covert champion of more progressive values, that she is somehow the defiant, least-awful member of the MAGA kingdom, then haven’t the last eight years shown how feckless she is? After all, Roe is gone; family separations occurred but “I really don’t care, do u?”; and a return to the White House is all but certain to be far worse.

Still, fiction or not, there are books to sell and cryptic videos to film. Meanwhile, the media seems perfectly fine, even happy, to keep laundering this grift. Just apparently not for $250,000.