The $400 million Qatari 747-8 has turned out to be the gift that keeps on giving - although not in the way Donald Trump envisioned. The taxpayers are on the hook for nearly $1 billion in security upgrades, and the President was so anxious to play with his new toy that he decided not to wait for the necessary equipment to be installed before using the new plane to get to Ankara for last month’s NATO summit.

The fact that he flew back on the old Air Force One generated plenty of embarrassing news copy for the president - much of it his own damned fault.

But that’s not all! It turns out that while we all saw footage of Trump getting onto the older plane, he was smuggled onto a catering truck so he could fly out of Turkey on a third jet - all because of what was described as a “credible threat” against his life.

In the meantime, the 747 we’ve been referring to as “old Air Force One” was filled with its usual flight manifest of cabinet secretaries, aides, and journalists who travel with the President. Which made all of them unwitting decoys.

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“It’s interesting because the White House Correspondents Association came out right away and said, let’s talk about how we can, you know, how we can coordinate. And it was just such a milk toasty, stupid statement,” Karoli noted.

“And somebody said, I don’t even know who, I repeated it, was, they said, you know, you tried to kill us, how can we help you?”

A few among Trump’s inner circle got to be on that third airplane, including “human printer” Natalie Harp.

Aliza asked, “Is she that dark-haired woman that’s always standing behind him? I heard that she’s got like a cattle prod or something.”

“What people are saying, and I don’t know that this is true, I haven’t confirmed it, is that she stands there and has a little button that she pushes when he falls asleep that gives him a little to wake him up.”

So on top of Trump’s losing streak - all the attempts to prove election fraud in 2020, take over the elections in 2026, his tariffs, bogus cases against protesters and people who touched the water of the reflecting pool, put his name on the Kennedy Center, and his war of choice in Iran…

…he has now shown himself to be incredibly weak. And the subject of some hilarious catering truck memes. (We’re betting there are new ketchup stains all over the gilded crap on the White House walls.)

We talked about all of that, plus this week’s midterm primaries, the terrible living conditions on the USS Abraham, which has been stuck at sea for a long nine months, and more.

View the podcast or listen to it below.

There were so many stories related to Trump’s greed and corruption that you could almost see a pattern, with less obvious crimes lurking beneath each broad assault. Like an onion. Or Russian nesting dolls.

• The revelation that in 2021, Capitol One closed nearly 400 Trump business accounts because they indicated possible money laundering.

• For $100,000 a month, Truth Social now allows users early access to Trump’s posts (which often affect markets) - basically a subscription for insider trading

• The Trump administration is running a corporate shakedown operation to fund his pet projects and award government contracts.

• The reflecting pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial continued to be in the news this week, after DOJ dropped four vandalism cases and admitted that the damage to the lining was a result of a botched installation. But Trump’s whirlwind of construction around DC continues - and it is costing taxpayers millions of dollars.

• That Qatari plane that was supposed to go into Trump’s presidential library when he’s gone? Maybe not. In fact, he may be planning to leave office with TWO Air Force One planes.

• The Trump family’s financial relationships with the crypto industry - and Trump’s policy decisions - continue to reap them windfall profits. The chumps in investing in their coins - not so much.

• Don Jr. and Eric have also become very good at investing in companies that do business with the US government. Democrats in Congress are urging an investigation.

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This is more than enough to gab about for a couple of hours. But we also wanted to touch upon the Todd Blanche nomination, and Tuesday’s primary in Michigan. And that was a LOT - especially regarding Abdul El-Sayed’s victory. Aliza and I were mostly in agreement on rising anti-semitism on the left and why that is a threat to the Democratic Party’s strong support among Jewish voters.

View the podcast above, or listen to the audio.

Liars' Ledger

Missouri Amendment 5 - Boon For Billionaires

Tomorrow, Missouri voters have a choice: Public schools or billionaires. It’s really that stark. Amendment 5 asks voters to repeal their state income tax and phase in other, unspecified taxes to cover the lost revenue. The current state income tax rate is 4 percent on corporations and a maximum of 4.7 percent on personal income above $9,191.00…

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12 days ago · 2 likes · Karoli Kuns, Donna Schwartz Mills, and Sierra Kilpatrick

As Karoli explains: “Amendment 5 asks voters to repeal their state income tax and phase in other, unspecified taxes to cover the lost revenue. The current state income tax rate is 4 percent on corporations and a maximum of 4.7 percent on personal income above $9,191.00.”

“It’s our government trying to repeal income tax in the state of Missouri, which would then create an $8 billion deficit in our state, which we are already in a deficit. And they plan to make up that deficit by increasing sales tax on services. So haircuts, plumbing, your plumber that comes, HVAC, things like that, which would be devastating to a lot of people because they already don’t pay sales tax on all those different amenities,” Kilpatrick said.

In addition to decimating funding for schools and other nice things, this proposal would add to already skyrocketing inflation (i.e., adding an additional 8% tax to your monthly Netflix bill, an emergency home repair, etc.)

We’ve all experienced the billionaire class obsession with eliminating taxes for themselves and piling the costs on to We, the People. This measure smacks of the kind of model legislation that organizations like ALEC have spent decades perfecting. If it passes in Missouri, we are certain to see similar efforts in other states.

So we’ve got a couple of asks:

• First, if you are in Missouri, vote NO on Amendment 5.

• If you know someone in Missouri, please reach out to them TODAY and ask them to please ignore the deceptive ads and vote NO on Amendment 5.

Kilpatrick’s group, Parents for Missouri Public Schools, is funded by small donations only. They aren’t taking any PAC funds. So if you can help them get the word out, please do. Because as Sierra warns, Missouri Governor Mike Kehoe is not going to stop, even if Amendment 5 is defeated this time. He’s firmly planted in Missouri billionaire Rex Sinquefield’s pocket and if this amendment is defeated, he will bring it back over and over again in order to serve his billionaire.

But at my advanced age, my brain doesn’t seem capable of forming coherent sentences after 5:00 PM. Especially after consuming whatever alcoholic beverage I’ve poured to make it palatable to even talk about the week’s news.

Because if this was an ideal world, Karoli, Aliza, and I wouldn’t need to get together to talk politics every week.

Or at least, we’d be able to discuss other important things like the war in Iran, climate change and the massive fires in Canada and Europe, Open AI’s rogue agent that escaped its experimental sandbox and hacked several other companies, the new reading curriculum adopted by the state of Texas (I would love to hear former teacher Aliza opine about that one!)

Just ten years ago, we might have spent an entire hour talking and trying to understand any one of those topics.

But right now, this is the world of Donald Trump and MAGA, and we spend an exhausting amount of time feeling outraged over the staggering lawlessness, corruption, and chaos emanating from Washington into the world.

No wonder we drink. And it’s why I don’t get this thing out until after I’ve had a good night sleep, a cup of coffee, and a quick perusal of the news to make sure the United States didn’t invade Cuba or something overnight.

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This week, we talked about the Todd Blanche vote that didn’t happen yesterday, why we must both ignore the polls and work enthusiastically on building turnout for the midterms, President Obama’s ad for Iowa Senate candidate Josh Turek, why the Democratic Party needs better communicators (and some of the ones we most admire)… and a Smashing Pumpkins video featuring Barry “Greg Brady” Williams and Flavor Flav (hey! we did manage to sneak in something actually fun!)

View the podcast above or listen below.

Beginning August 1, Karoli will be contributing to Liars’ Ledger, the new Substack from Crooks and Liars.

Liars' Ledger

Keeping the books on political spin and media malpractice. Sharp, sourced, unafraid.

By Crooks and Liars

“I mean, it's pretty, it's pretty pathetic,” Karoli said. “First of all, they're lying about how much money they need. And it's way like way low ball. So they'd have to come back and ask again at some point.”

Todd Blanche’s nomination to be the AG still doesn’t have the Judiciary Committee votes to progress to the Senate.

“See, if I were John Cornyn, here’s the thing. I read that, and of course, you’ve got to take everything that you read from like the New York Times with a grain of salt, but I read that John Cornyn and Tom Tillis were in talks with the White House, talks with the White House, about how they were going to vote in the committee. If I were John Cornyn, I would tell him to piss up a rope. I would vote everything down that he wanted,” noted Karoli.

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We also touched upon:

• The Saudi nuclear deal

• The literal enshittification of the CDC regarding their ability to trace food-borne illnesses

• Paramount-WB merger

• California billionaire’s tax

• Laura Loomer in Ukraine

• Nixon-maxxing

Finally, Karoli wanted to mention some good news for a change in Andy Kim’s proposal to provide medical coverage to the children of America, “from the minute they’re born until they’re age 26, all coverage, everything. He’s calling it Medikids. And I’m so excited about it. I know it’s not going to pass in this Congress. I know that. But it can. Something to say this is what we’re for instead of just what we’re against.”

Watch the podcast above, or listen to the audio below.

Karoli and I filled her in on some of what she missed: such as the dreadful Supreme Court decision that expanded Trump’s powers to fire federal employees and commissioners at will. We surmised that Democratic FCC Commissioner Ana Gomez will not be serving for much longer.

“They've destroyed a hundred years of good governance and professionalism in the government and we're going back to a system of patronage,” I complained.

We had not anticipated last night’s announcement that he had disbanded what was left of the non-partisan Election Assistance Commission, which oversees and certifies voting systems and maintains the national form used by citizens to register to vote by mail.

This is yet another Trump administration attempt to rig the 2026 election the same way he strong-armed FIFA into bending their rules last week before the US played Belgium in the World Cup.

We all know how that turned out.

It is a reminder that despite all the redistricting, voter intimidation, last minute rule changes, and whatever else he throws at us - Trump is neither invincible, nor inevitable. We CAN take power back, and WILL - as long as we show up with our votes.

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We also talked about the President’s embarrassing performance at the NATO summit, Lorenzo Salgado Araudo -ICE’s latest murder victim, what’s happening with Mitch McConnell…

… and the scramble in Maine to find a replacement candidate for Graham Platner.

To be honest, I did not think we would have all that much to say about Platner - but it turned out, we did.

“I don’t see any way around it this …I offer a mea culpa for continuing to defend him beyond the Nazi tattoo. I should have have stopped there,” Karoli said. “That was enough of a red flag right there but I was willing to accept the explanation underneath it, and I think that I wouldn’t do that again. It’s just too big of a red flag.”

Aliza had a bit more to say about this. Actually, a lot more:

“I’m not even going to let people off the hook for …accepting that explanation…this guy kept it until 2025 and did not get it [removed] until he decided he was running for office so i do not accept any part of that explanation.”

For the rest, you’ll have to watch the video above or listen below:

In the Before Times, I could rely on the editors of newspapers like the Washington Post and LA Times to efficiently curate my news diet. Unlike now, when it takes me hours to sift through a couple of dozen newsletters and online sources daily.

Sometimes I feel like I am drowning in information - and that it’s not making me all that better-informed.

So this week, I decided to act like a tech bro: I delegated the job of creating the show notes to Claude.

I tasked the AI agent with creating a daily summary of all the Substack messages in my Inbox. (I originally asked it to look at the ones emanating from Ghost and beehiiv as well, but Claude had some trouble with that part of it - and the bulk of my subscriptions are from Substack).

Here was the agent’s first response:

Claude got that right. And my answer to the question was yes.

The results were…

…not terrible.

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So all I had to do before the podcast yesterday was organize all those daily newsletter summaries into one big compendium of what happened over the last seven days. I probably could have had Claude do that too, but I wanted - actually, I needed - to put something of myself into it.

This week, we talked about:

• Trump’s bonkers decision to hold the bipartisan bill hostage in order to get his voter-restriction SAVE Act passed

• The fact that the SAVE Act will never be passed

• “Algaegate“

• The US Postal Service’s willingness to help Trump restrict voting (a Federal judge has weighed in on that today)

• Tuesday’s primaries

• ABC’s campaign to enlist its viewers to help fight the FCC

• Bill Pulte as acting DNI and revelations about Tulsi Gabbard

The AI-generated notes included the main points - but in the end, I did not feel as vested in it as I do when I’ve done all that reading. And I really did miss the reading. Just not the hours and hours it takes to do it.

I have not decided if I will continue to use Claude to help me summarize the news. At any rate, it made for an interesting experiment.

Watch the podcast above, or listen below. And let us know what you think!

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The show notes I put together on Wednesday included a wide range of topics: Trump’s maneuvers to get Bill Pulte into the DNI seat without Senate confirmation, Kash’s cash to FBI loyalists, DOJ’s raid of an Ohio voting rights group and new case against some Minnesota protesters, Elon Musk’s trillion dollar payday and the Ellisons’ approval to gobble up Warner Brothers (and CNN), the police killing of one-year-old Kohen Wiley in Mississippi in a Wal-Mart parking lot (because they suspected someone in the car stole a $39 box of diapers)…

…and - of course - the Memo of Understanding that was being touted as a “deal” to end Donald Trump’s ill-advised, catastrophic war in Iran.

It was shaping up to be another 60 minutes I would be unable to get through without hard liquor.

But a couple of hours before we were set to go live, the text of the MOU was released - and, as usual with the clown car of incompetents that make up this Trump Administration - it was even worse than anyone expected. Karoli agreed to postpone so we could understand the details better (and I could replenish my bourbon supply).

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I was ready for another tough hour.

And then Thursday morning, I noticed that the Obama Center opening was being live-streamed at 9 AM Pacific time. I’m so glad I did.

The celebration was an antidote to the toxins that Trump and MAGA have been injecting into the nation’s bloodstream for the last ten years.

It took me back to the heady morning of January 20, 2009 and the joy and hope of Barack Obama’s first inauguration - when it seemed as if this country had turned a huge corner.

Yesterday’s celebration had everything: past presidents of both parties, world dignitaries, members of Congress, ACTUAL celebrities (on stage and in the audience), and thousands of regular people who were there because they love this country and the Obamas’ vision of what it can and should be.

Karoli had also streamed the event yesterday, so we were in remarkably good spirits when we eventually got together for our own live chat.

Michelle Obama reminded us of all that her husband had accomplished in his eight years in the White House, and (unlike the three of us) she continues to go high when rebuking the current regime.

Barack Obama delivered the speech we should be hearing on the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. I plan on streaming it again on July 4 to counter-program whatever awful circus Trump will be holding in Washington.

In the end, we did manage to talk about most of the bad stuff that was in the show notes. But we did it from a place where we remembered that we can still have nice things if we work for them. And that’s so much healthier than guzzling bourbon.

View this week’s podcast above or listen below.

And just about every week, Aliza has reminded us that we must not forget the thousands of women who were used and abused by Epstein and his web of wealthy and powerful men. And that justice still has not been served.

Despite the lessons of the last ten years, I do still cling to some magical thinking along the lines of the truth wants to be free. And that there is such a thing as karma. And whatever is in the unreleased Epstein files will eventually find its way out - no matter how hard Trump’s Justice Department tries to hold on to them.

On Tuesday, we learned just how much the Administration tried to keep that information under wraps, especially as it related to Donald Trump. (The URL above is a gift link, in case any of you still have not been able to read the whole thing).

“The thing that makes me sick about all of this is just that these people live in a different world. They live in a different universe where it’s okay to just throw away people, you know, to use them and toss them,” Karoli said.

(She also had some choice words for reporters who save the most important stories for their book deals - but those were uttered on Tuesday, before we recorded the show.)

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Other topics we covered this week included:

• That monstrosity on the White House south lawn (“there is a rendering out there, an AI rendering of the claw as one of those baby things that they lay, you know, when they do tummy time”)

• Midterm elections and trumped-up allegations of cheating in California

• The new nominee for DNI

• And Hunter Biden’s masterclass in dealing with online trolls.

I should warn you: this was a drinking podcast. By the time I’d finished the notes, I was feeling so despaired by the mass of bad stuff and meanness, I got out the shaker and made a 4 PM Manhattan. Karoli was recovering from a terrible day of travel from Michigan back to California, so she poured herself some wine. And we kind of bullied Aliza into joining us (hey, it was already 7:00 where she lives, so she likely would have enjoyed some bourbon anyway). We did make her hiccup.

View the podcast above or listen to the audio below.

(Moral of the story is to take special care when latching the back of your unfamiliar rental car, as one of your bags may end up tumbling out.)

So after 40 years of using a computer keyboard for my writing process, I am making do with just my phone - and I do not like it.

Needless to say, this message is going to be shorter than usual.

Thankfully, the loss of my computer had absolutely no effect on the quality of discussion with Karoli and Aliza yesterday. We managed to cover the latest with:

• The $1.776 billion slush fund (withdrawn? Still happening? Who knows?)

• Bill Pulte’s elevation to DNI (withdrawn after we recorded? Who knows?)

• Todd Blanche’s official nomination as Attorney General

• Tuesday primaries

• The murder of 60 Minutes

• And the controversies swirling around Maine senatorial candidate Graham Platner.

Despite all the chaos: it’s good to be back.

We talked about Dell getting a big ol’ government contract after Trump had a cozy meeting with them…nothing to see there, we’re sure! And the interesting decorating choice to coat the iconic bronze statues around the Lincoln Memorial in 24-carat gold. Art of the tacky? Art of the grift? Sorry, Arts of War and Arts of Peace, bronze means 3rd place to the Sphincter-in-Chief. Don’t get us started on the cage match on the White House lawn.

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On the bright side, the $1.776 billion-with-a-”b” slush fund for J6 insurrectionists is on wobbly legal legs (we knew that, but that hardly means it won’t go forward). On the dark side, Trump’s DOJ scrubbed every f*cking press release mentioning J6 from its website.

Karoli has optimism about James Talarico’s chances to win Texas’ U.S. Senate seat over uber-corrupt Ken Paxton, but I don’t think I’d know what optimism felt like if it bit me in the ass. Talarico is a talented politician with a lot more brains and charisma than Paxton, but we’re talking about a state that repeatedly sends Ted Cruz – likely the most loathed even by members of his own caucus – to Washington, but here’s hoping Texas surprises us!

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There’s lots more, including a rant by yours truly that we can probably all be grateful came at the end of the podcast, so that it had no choice but to be short. What was it about? Let’s just say it gives a very simple answer to the quintessentially American question of why white men go around shooting people who threaten nothing but their imagined superiority.

Next week Donna returns!!! Yaaaaaay! And it was so much fun seeing our familiar friends watching live with us, , , my big sis , and Kevin Kelley. You each make us feel like you’re keeping us company, keeping our facts straight, and keeping us sane. We love you and all our readers and listeners! MWAH!

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Instead we celebrated the fact that Republican senators stripped the billion dollar funding provision from their reconciliation bill after the Parliamentarian said it would require 60 votes to pass. President WhinyAssTittyBaby then went to his Truth Social account to DEMAND the Parliamentarian be fired. Senators shrugged.

Of course, this is probably because Senate Majority Leader Thune was a little miffed about President WATB endorsing wildly corrupt Ken Paxton in Texas for Senate instead of the in-house GOP Texas extremist John Cornyn after early voting was underway in Texas. It seems like that sealed Thune’s resolve for a quick minute.

Get more from Donna Schwartz Mills in the Substack app

Available for iOS and Android

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Undeterred, the White House announced they would be building the dreadful arch without Congressional approval, which should be interesting to watch. Where will the money for THAT come from?

Possibly from the ill-gotten gains that President WATB has received? Aliza and I had some thoughts about that, too.

Or perhaps they’re planning to use the $1.776 Billion Dollar Sedition Fund for it? How do YOU feel about handing over a $5 bill for you and every member of your family to pay off violent January 6 rioters and other seditionists? It’s doubtful that this will actually come to pass since the DOJ has to go to Congress for the funds and Republicans are already shaking their heads and saying no.

Meanwhile, back in normal America, we’re all struggling with high gas prices, high grocery prices, lower paychecks, and all but the 30% of us who still approve of him for some reason are tired of the warmongering and lies.

However. We had some words for Democrats (looking at YOU, Jared Polis) who undermine the very rule of law by commuting the sentence of Tina Peters, who committed grievous crimes and compromised elections in the name of protecting them.

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We also ran down Tuesday’s primaries, including Massie’s massive loss to Gallrein, which was less about Trump’s revenge tour and more about the amazing amount of money put in the race against Massie. Keisha Lance Bottoms’ nomination for Georgia governor was cause for celebration, along with Jon Ossoff’s official nomination for re-election to the Senate.

All in all, it’s been quite the week. We’ll be back next week with another installment of “What Is President WATB crying about now?” Or possibly, “Did we really have to invade Cuba?”

Thank you to Debrianna, Kevin and Conover for joining us live!!! See you soon!

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Then there was that piece in the New York Times that noted the way he was greeted.

The Chinese understand that we are a global superpower in decline. Tim Snyder coined an excellent description of what electing Trump a second time has turned out to be: Superpower Suicide. And our demise continues, every single day.

Just look at the stories that broke just before we went live yesterday, including ABC’s report that Donald Trump plans to settle his lawsuit against the government for $1.7 billion to benefit the January 6 insurrectionists.

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Karoli’s response to that was a gesture (instead of one of our usual f-bombs).

“I’m speechless. I can’t even think of anything else to say. It’s either this or punch a wall,” she said.

The Supreme Court also decided that Americans may continue to access mifepristone via telemedicine and mail while the 5th Circuit decision (to ban it nationwide) is on appeal. This was good news - but temporary.

And it’s all happening with the backdrop of the post-Callais frenzy to redistrict away all minority representation.

“I really want people that are listening to this or watching this or whatever, not to be discouraged about the fact that these all these redistricting efforts are going on, said Karoli, “because at I don’t know if you’ve watched any of like Joyce White Vance or any of these people but as they do this they are liquidating and and diluting their own strength in these districts… Anti incumbent energy is high. There’s no reason to expect that even if they do these redistricts and these things that it’s going to matter that it’s going to make a difference.”

She continued with what I thought was an excellent rant:

“People are mad and it’s time, you know, I mean, look at me. I’m mad. I’m mad about all the money he’s spending on the reflecting pool. I’m mad that he’s trying to make heroes out of insurrectionists. I’m mad that he embarrasses us on the world stage every damn day. I’m mad that he obsesses on his ballroom and the stupid arch instead of like paying attention to the things that are really important in this country. And I’m mad that he’s even in there. Every day that he’s there, he defiles the White House and our government every day. And so, by the way, does the Supreme Court. They defile their position. The six radical Republicans on the Supreme Court defile their position every day.”

View the podcast, or listen below.

During the discussion, we referenced a piece in the Bulwark that we feel is a must-read: from Harris deputy digital director Rob Flaherty, where he offered his own autopsy on the 2024 campaign and thoughts on how we should be campaigning now.

We also recommend Brian Beutler’s commentary on Democratic timidity at a time when the other side respects NO rules.

On Monday, the United States launched “Project Freedom” in the Strait of Hormuz. On Tuesday, it was all over.

We’re not any closer to ending Donald Trump’s foolhardy war against Iran. But the S&P 500 is up 11% since the bombs started dropping, and that’s really what it’s all about, right?1

The three of us were in a mood yesterday, with Aliza threatening to take up smoking and Karoli just utterly disgusted with the avalanche of corruption. And I confessed to being kind of checked out, because I’m embarking on a big vacation next week and instead of reading my stack of Rick Steves books I have to pay attention to what the big orange dumb**k in the White House is doing daily and I’m tired.2

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But we did manage to cover some news:

• The new price tag for Trump’s ballroom

• The new price tag for the war (it’s costing us a LOT more than the government has told us

• The Callais decision, redistricting, and the sheer racism underpinning it all

• More 2026 election news (fallout from Indiana, Sherrod Brown in Ohio, Chedrick Green in Michigan, and California’s train wreck of a gubernatorial race).

We also talked about an interview Neil Gorsuch gave this week, and Karoli has a few more choice words to say about that.

View the podcast above, or listen below:

Aliza’s California Adventure

This week, Aliza mentioned how much she enjoyed visiting Karoli and me in Southern California last month - and I promised to post some photos. So here you go.

Republicans know they are going to be absolutely ROUTED in November. So it seems they seem to have decided to triple down on their dizzying pace of imposing Project 2025, hoping to lull us into losing our focus (and maybe our determination).

The regime got a huge boost this week from the Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision in Callais v Landry, which put the final nail in the coffin of the Voting Rights Act.

Not gonna lie: This is BAD. Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry immediately seized upon the ruling and declared a state of emergency and postponed the state’s May 16 House primary election so they can squeeze out their existing Black-majority districts - which is now legal.

“Isn’t it convenient how they timed that drop?” asked Karoli. “Like if you if you’d waited another week, it wouldn’t have made any difference in the midterms. But, you know, Alito being Alito, he just gave it enough time to, you know, drop it in time.”

Not all the red states will be able to take advantage of Callais to gerrymander the hell out of their districts in 2026. Governor Brian Kemp announced that it won’t happen this cycle in Georgia because their voting has already begun. The real damage will be felt in 2028.

Karoli points out that “the obvious solution is that we have to change this crazy court …whether we take those matters out of their jurisdiction entirely. Or whether we expand the court.”

And we can DO those things with solid majorities in the House and Senate.

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If we previously felt that showing up in droves to vote this year was important - it just became existentially so.

This week, we also touched upon:

• The Democrats’ win over DHS funding

• Pete Hegseth’s lame testimony to Congress

• Trump’s stupid ballroom and obsession with putting his name and face on everything

• King Charles’ visit

• Brendan Carr vs. Jimmy Kimmel 2.0

• The mishegas at the White House Correspondents Dinner

• and today’s May Day economic action (NO WORK. NO SCHOOL. NO SHOPPING.)

View the podcast, or listen to the audio below.

For years, the right wing democracy-hating right wing radicals have idolized Hungary’s Christian nationalist “illiberal democracy.” Project 2025 was modeled on Viktor Orbán’s authoritarian playbook. And among the things we learned after the election is that the Hungarian government was even funding CPAC.

We had already known that Orbán had been throwing Vladimir Putin’s monkey wrenches into the European Union for years.

The Trump regime dialed Orbán’s playbook up to 11: purging career civil servants, packing the government with loyalists, dictating policy to educational and cultural institutions, paving the way for their allied oligarchs to take over our media, and pocketing every asset that isn’t nailed down.

Orbán led the nation for sixteen years, which gave his party time to rig and gerrymander the nation’s electoral system to the extent that he could remain in power forever.

That’s why seeing him concede Sunday’s election was a political earthquake felt around the world.

Nearly 80% of the electorate voted. And Peter Magyar’s Tisza Party won a supermajority in the legislature - 137 of the National Assembly’s 199 seats - making him the next Prime Minister of Hungary.

“Everybody should really pay attention to this because it’s huge,” Karoli said in this week’s podcast. “But also it is a lesson in how one disgruntled guy who used to be a member of the party that Orban was in, decided to start his own party and go all over the country and to all the farmhouses and all the rural areas and everything else and just get people lit up. He got them protesting in the streets. I mean, it wasn’t just him, but he organized, right? And he got them to the people that were in the streets and the people that were voting in the rural areas. And he literally everywhere, basically, Orban lost, right? Like it was an undisputable loss.”

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Budapesting the election means to show up. Those who call No Kings Day and other mass protests merely performative are wrong - they are a visible signal that a majority of the country is not OK with losing our democracy. They reinforce the resolve of those who participate and those who see it happening. And they are kind of a gateway drug toward turning regular people into political activists.

Some of the other topics we talk about this week:

• The blockade of the blockade (of the blockade?) in the Strait of Hormuz

• Eric Swalwell and the California Governor’s Race

• The Department of Justice’s decision to try to erase the seditious conspiracy convictions of some January 6 organizers

• That weird White House DoorDash stunt

View the podcast above, or listen to the audio below.

That has never felt more true than this week, as we all needed to talk out our feelings of fear, disgust, and absolute rage over Donald Trump’s war crimes (and yes, a credible threat to commit genocide - as the ones Trump issued this week - is a violation of both US and international law).

You know it’s bad when people like Candace Owens and Alex Jones are talking 25th Amendment. (In the podcast, I also cited Megyn Kelly and Tucker Carlson - but they merely pronounced Trump’s Easter messages as “evil.”)

The country cannot take two more years of this. The world can’t take two more years of this.

Aliza put on her ex-teacher’s cap and reminded us of some basic Civics: The 25th Amendment can only be invoked by the Vice President and the Cabinet. But the other means of removing a dangerous government official is by impeachment, and that is done by Congress. And that is where WE come in.

Karoli reminds us that as we are still a democracy, we have some agency in all of this: We can urge our members of Congress to vote to impeach him.

This is not 2019 or 2021. We have an unhinged president with no guardrails and a cabinet of toadies. The MAGA base is fracturing under the pressure - and the politicians in Congress can read the cratering polls (even Republicans). Call your Congressperson. Call your Senators. (The 5 Calls app makes it easy.) Urge your friends to do the same.

We’re Americans and we will have to live with the shame of this moment for the rest of our lives. Let’s also remember we did something about it.

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Staying Sane in Hell

Thanks to the red-pilled billionaires who are trying to Victor Orbanize our media, my attempts at keeping informed involve wading through A LOT of newsletters. This weekend, many of them were absolutely terrifying.

Karoli said she purposefully chose not to read those (if only I listened to her advice more often!) She pointed out that the economics of platforms like this one push creators to emphasize the negative. This spurred a discussion of the ones we read that counter that point of view, and we promised to share with you our favorites:

Aliza is a big fan of the Thread posts of Ariella Elm, who catalogs the many successes of Democrats in office (often ignored by the media).

Karoli recommends the just-launched Substack of former CBS News reporter Scott MacFarlane, who is doing what Bari Weiss does not want: straight reporting of the news without an agenda.

I am a big fan of Robert Hubbell, who explains what is going on calmly without losing sight on what this regime can and cannot do. He is generally an optimist, and I need that dose of perspective each day.

Jess Craven’s Chop Wood Carry Water newsletter is a wonderful compendium of ways to actively fight this regime. She’s positive and inspiring.

The Grassroots Connector is another one that highlights our successes and offers ideas for getting involved.

Do you have a favorite resource that’s not mentioned here? Please add it to the list in comments.

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View this week’s podcast above, or listen to the audio:

I have to confess: I had a lot of fun talking about this with Karoli and Aliza! (As if chattering away while the Titanic is sinking could be deemed as “fun.”)

I did not view Trump’s speech, as he did me a solid by scheduling it for the exact time of our family’s West Coast Passover seder.

So my impression of the speech has been gleaned from the news accounts I read yesterday morning. It turns out that I did not miss anything. It was just another hodgepodge of Trump’s Truth Social feed, as summarized by Robert Hubbell of the Today’s Edition newsletter:

• Trump washed his hands of responsibility for reopening the Strait of Hormuz.

• Trump said (a) regime change wasn’t a goal of Operation Epic Fury, (b) the US achieved regime change nonetheless by killing the leaders of the Iranian regime in place on February 28, and (c) the “new group is less radical and much more reasonable than the previous regime.” (This is another lie)

• Trump took every position imaginable on Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile and nuclear capability. (t was obliterated, But in February 2026, Iran was on the verge of a nuclear attack, if Iran tries to weaponize its enriched uranium still in its possession, “We’re going to bring them back to the Stone Age, where they belong.”)

• Trump said that his illegal war against Iran would end on the same timeframe as “infrastructure week”—i.e., sometime “in the next two or three weeks.”

• Trump threatened to commit war crimes against the Iranian people.

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So it’s no wonder that he picked yesterday to distract us with Bondi from his war of choice to distract us from the Epstein files.

His sinking poll numbers continue to plummet, the 2026 blue wave continues to gather steam, and his only hope of avoiding two years of investigations and impeachment hearings is to try to keep us away from the polls.

So of course, we discussed the Trump v Barbara Supreme Court hearing (otherwise known as the birthright citizenship case) - and his unprecedented presidential presence in the audience (an attempt to bully the Justices he appointed)…

And his illegal attempt to choose the nation’s electorate via executive order…

And the on-again off-again DHS funding deal, which brought us to that other fired mean girl, Kristi Noem and the apparent corruption of her (ahem!) chief of staff Corey Lewandowski.1

We even got a few moments to revel in the joy of seeing the Artemis II launch with a courageous crew that would give Pete Hegseth nightmares.

Watch the podcast above, or listen to the audio:

Donald Trump’s 2024 election win was not a landslide. It was barely a plurality: 49.8% to 48.3% for Kamala Harris. And current polling indicates that if the presidential election were held today, many of those Trump voters would choose the Democrat. ANY Democrat.

That’s why Trump’s new Florida state House representative is a Democrat, and why we’ve flipped 27 seats in special elections so far. It is why so many politicos are predicting a blue wave in this year’s midterms.

And it’s why Trump is fighting so hard to suppress our votes with the SAVE Act.

In the meantime, Trump’s poll numbers are plummeting further as his war of choice in Iran supercharges oil prices into the stratosphere.

The global economy will soon be suffering from higher food prices, scarcer pharmaceuticals, and more expensive manufactured products like semi-conductors.

And yet, there are some who are winning in this scenario:

• The mysterious traders who seem to know exactly when a Trump announcement is going to make the markets rise

• Mohammed bin Salman, who is apparently whispering in Trump’s ear to stay the course

• Bibi Netanyahu, who surely believes the war will boost his standing with Israeli voters (which may backfire on him)

• And Iran, which now finds itself able to sell its own oil on the world market because Trump lifted sanctions in an attempt to tamp down those oil prices. While we are bombing them.

• Oh, and Russia too.

You really can’t make this stuff up.

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Aliza and I also talked about the SAVE Act, ICE in the airports, how the Senate Democrats are holding fast against funding Homeland Security, and the latest news from the House about the Epstein files.

Watch the video or use the audio player below.

We are still getting used to using Substack as our video platform. Some of its functions are really robust - but a little glitchy. We’ve had instances in the past where one of us was frozen or could not even get onto the platform (this is why we changed the time for our weekly live chat when we realized that at 6 PM Eastern time, we were competing for resources with huge publishers, like Joy Reid and Jim Acosta).

When Karoli or Aliza have frozen, they exited and re-entered and were able to continue, and Karoli urged me to try that. But as video host, the only option to exit that I could see on my screen was to hit the “End” button - which would have ended the video entirely. And we had live viewers!

So I stayed on, and listened to my brilliant partners finish the video and honestly - this is why it is important to find yourself some smart people to work with. I still participated via the chatroom function (which I don’t usually get to use much because I’m so busy yakking).

We talked about the war. We talked about Trump’s unfitness for office (the war will be over when he feels it in his bones???). We talked about the MAGA split over the war, and counterterrorism chief Joe Kent’s resignation.

There was a lot of activity in the Senate yesterday, and we had quite a bit to say about Rand Paul’s face-off with DHS nominee Markwayne Mullin. During a hearing on Worldwide Threats, Tulsi Gabbard said it’s not her job to analyze the intelligence for the president (she is the Director of National Intelligence and that is exactly what her job is supposed to be!)

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We talked about TPUSA is getting decommissioned by the College Republicans and why.

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And of course, we talked about the SAVE Act, which is the Trumpists’ “Great White Hope” for suppressing enough of the vote to stave off a big blue tsunami in November.

Watch above or listen to the audio below.