On Monday, a federal appeals court tossed out Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the verdict against him in the 2023 civil suit filed by writer E. Jean Carroll.

“We conclude that Mr. Trump has not demonstrated that the district court erred in any of the challenged rulings,” the ruling said. “Further, he has not carried his burden to show that any claimed error or combination of claimed errors affected his substantial rights as required to warrant a new trial.”

In March of last year, a federal jury found Trump liable for sexual abuse after Carroll alleged that he had raped her at Bergdorf Goodman in 1996. The jury also found that Trump had defamed her with his repeated denials. Trump was subsequently ordered to pay Carroll $5 million in compensatory and punitive damages, a ruling that he has been fighting since September.

Since challenging the verdict, Trump has only repeated similarly defamatory comments about Carroll. During one press conference, he accused her of stealing her story from an episode of Law & Order and calling a photo of the two of them “AI-generated.”

Those attacks have continued. Earlier this week, Trump reposted a photo of Carroll with the caption “Should a woman go to jail for falsely accusing a man of rape? Retruth if you want justice for Trump,” hinting once again that he’s hoping to prosecute his perceived enemies upon returning to office.

Correction, December 30: This post has been updated to note that a civil court in the 2023 case found Trump liable.

On Monday, President-elect Donald Trump said that he would consider pardoning Eric Adams if the New York City mayor is convicted on charges related to accepting bribes and soliciting illegal foreign campaign donations.

“I think that he was treated pretty unfairly,” Trump told reporters from his Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago. Despite admitting to not knowing “the gravity of it all, that is, the specifics of Adams’ case, that didn’t stop Trump from downplaying the mayor’s alleged crimes to “being upgraded on an airplane.”

But anyone who has taken even the briefest glance at Adams’ long and comical indictment would know that charges levied against the embattled mayor are far more serious than Trump’s characterization. Those charges include bribery, wire fraud, conspiracy, and soliciting campaign contributions from foreign nationals. As my colleague, Anna Merlan, reported:

The indictment alleges Adams has been accepting “improper value benefits,” from wealthy Turkish nationals and officials connected to the Turkish government for at least a decade, going back to his time as Brooklyn Borough President.

Those benefits included luxury hotel stays, upgraded plane tickets, free meals at high-end restaurants, and “luxury entertainment” during his frequent trips to Turkey.

It also alleges that he and his mayoral campaign baldly and happily took what a reasonable person would construe as bribes from Turkish nationals, accepting large sums of illegal contributions through straw donors and giving favorable treatment in return, including pressuring the fire department to approve a luxury high-rise which houses the Turkish consulate, ceasing his association with a Turkish community center in Brooklyn that Turkey claimed was hostile to the government, and declining to make a statement on Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day simply because a “Turkish official” asked him not to.

“I think he was treated, you know, it’s very interesting when he essentially went against what was happening with the migrants coming in. And he made some pretty strong statements like this is not sustainable,” Trump said, suggesting that Adams’ response to migrants arriving in New York prompted the Justice Department to retaliate. “I said he would be indicted soon.”

Trump levied similar accusations against the DOJ when Adams was initially indicted earlier this year. (Not true, by the way.)

Adams, for his part, has been openly ingratiating himself to Trump, actions that have been widely interpreted as a naked effort to secure a pardon. “President Biden and President-elect Trump now agree on one thing,” Adams said after Joe Biden pardoned his son, Hunter. “The Biden Justice Department has been politicized. Does that sound familiar? I rest my case.”

It’s unclear if the president-elect will follow through on a pardon should Adams get convicted. Either way, Adams joins the very long list of MAGA loyalists and accused insurrectionists that Trump has promised to pardon once he’s inaugurated come January.

On Monday, President-elect Donald Trump said that he would consider pardoning Eric Adams if the New York City mayor is convicted on charges related to accepting bribes and soliciting illegal foreign campaign donations.

“I think that he was treated pretty unfairly,” Trump told reporters from his Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago. Despite admitting to not knowing “the gravity of it all, that is, the specifics of Adams’ case, that didn’t stop Trump from downplaying the mayor’s alleged crimes to “being upgraded on an airplane.”

But anyone who has taken even the briefest glance at Adams’ long and comical indictment would know that charges levied against the embattled mayor are far more serious than Trump’s characterization. Those charges include bribery, wire fraud, conspiracy, and soliciting campaign contributions from foreign nationals. As my colleague, Anna Merlan, reported:

The indictment alleges Adams has been accepting “improper value benefits,” from wealthy Turkish nationals and officials connected to the Turkish government for at least a decade, going back to his time as Brooklyn Borough President.

Those benefits included luxury hotel stays, upgraded plane tickets, free meals at high-end restaurants, and “luxury entertainment” during his frequent trips to Turkey.

It also alleges that he and his mayoral campaign baldly and happily took what a reasonable person would construe as bribes from Turkish nationals, accepting large sums of illegal contributions through straw donors and giving favorable treatment in return, including pressuring the fire department to approve a luxury high-rise which houses the Turkish consulate, ceasing his association with a Turkish community center in Brooklyn that Turkey claimed was hostile to the government, and declining to make a statement on Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day simply because a “Turkish official” asked him not to.

“I think he was treated, you know, it’s very interesting when he essentially went against what was happening with the migrants coming in. And he made some pretty strong statements like this is not sustainable,” Trump said, suggesting that Adams’ response to migrants arriving in New York prompted the Justice Department to retaliate. “I said he would be indicted soon.”

Trump levied similar accusations against the DOJ when Adams was initially indicted earlier this year. (Not true, by the way.)

Adams, for his part, has been openly ingratiating himself to Trump, actions that have been widely interpreted as a naked effort to secure a pardon. “President Biden and President-elect Trump now agree on one thing,” Adams said after Joe Biden pardoned his son, Hunter. “The Biden Justice Department has been politicized. Does that sound familiar? I rest my case.”

It’s unclear if the president-elect will follow through on a pardon should Adams get convicted. Either way, Adams joins the very long list of MAGA loyalists and accused insurrectionists that Trump has promised to pardon once he’s inaugurated come January.

Seven Democratic senators are demanding answers from Dr. Mehmet Oz, Donald Trump’s nominee to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, over his long-held support for private Medicare plans and his financial ties to those programs.

In a letter first obtained by NBC News, Democrats referred to a 2020 op-ed Oz published wherein he called on the US to shift all Americans to Medicare Advantage, a private coverage option favored by Trump and the authors of Project 2025, and effectively eliminate traditional Medicare.

As the Quartz reported last month, Oz has disclosed owning as much as $600,000 of stocks in companies that benefit from private Medicare services. The TV personality, who over the years has been fiercely condemned within the medical community for promoting unfounded medical cures, also reportedly has invested millions in businesses that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is charged with regulating.

“Your advocacy for eliminating the Traditional Medicare program and replacing it with MedicareAdvantage also raises questions about your own financial conflicts of interest,” the letter from Democratic lawmakers read.

The letter comes one week after Public Citizen, a progressive watchdog group, sent a letter to the Federal Trade Commission, alleging that Oz violated the organization’s influencer marketing ethics while pushing herbal supplements on his social media accounts. Three days after the letter’s release, Oz vowed to stop promoting wellness products if he’s confirmed, according to ABC News.

Joe Biden made history as the first president to openly oppose the death penalty, vowing on the campaign trail to push legislation to abolish the practice at the federal level.

That promise was never fulfilled, and advocates against the death penalty remain disappointed. But now with only 42 days left in office, more than 130 criminal justice reform groups are urging the president to invoke his public opposition to the death penalty by commuting federal death sentences before the incoming Trump administration attempts another execution spree.

“We know from his first term that President-elect Trump has an unprecedented extreme, cruel, and unconstitutional stance on the death penalty,” Yasmin Cader, deputy legal director at the ACLU and the director of the Trone Center for Justice and Equality, told Mother Jones. “So Biden’s actions now are critical in light of that.”

The warnings are well warranted. Trump’s first term saw more federal executions than any other president in more than a century, with his final months in office overseeing an extraordinary spree to execute 13 death row inmates. Trump also loosened federal restrictions on the death penalty and paved the way for highly contested methods of executions to be introduced, including nitrogen gas executions. Many of those executed had documented cases of intellectual disabilities and mental illnesses.

“What Trump did in his first term really shows how broken the death penalty system is,” said Cader. “It is error-prone, it is racially biased, it is a drain on public resources. It doesn’t deter crime, and it doesn’t make communities safer.”

The president-elect has made it clear that he intends to lift the Biden-era pause on federal executions during his second term. He’s also particularly focused on demanding death sentences for migrants convicted of killing US citizens.

“This kind of rhetoric threatens to drive extreme sentences in other contexts because it makes every sentence less than death seem comparatively lenient,” said Cader.

The call to action comes against a broader push for Biden to commute the sentences of those targeted by the nation’s “War on Drugs,” a longstanding movement reignited after the president pardoned his son Hunter Biden, who was convicted on federal gun charges and tax offenses. As my colleague Melvis Acosta wrote:

Hunter Biden will not spend a day inside a prison cell for his offenses; the same can’t be said for tens of thousands of people serving federal prison time because of disproportionate conviction and sentencing in the starkly racist War on Drugs. Biden can still pardon many of them, or commute their sentences—and set another, more valuable precedent.

The Biden administration is also considering preemptively pardoning individuals that Trump could potentially target once he’s sworn in, including former Rep. Liz Cheney, Dr. Anthony Fauci, and former chair of the House Intelligence Committee Adam Schiff.

Since winning the election, President-elect Donald Trump has seized headlines with a series of alarming appointments for his incoming administration. Many lack the basic qualifications for their respective posts; nearly all can be fairly characterized as MAGA loyalists.

Dr. Mehmet Oz, the former TV personality and failed Republican Senate candidate, is among the more heavily scrutinized picks—and for good reason. Oz is a celebrity doctor without any experience running a large federal bureaucracy, now tapped to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, a massive agency that administers Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act. Oz also boasts a long history of peddling dubious scientific theories and treatments.

But Oz’s remarkable lack of qualifications does not appear to have dimmed Republican excitement. In fact, they seem thrilled. Sen. Lindsey Graham said he was “very excited” about the nomination; Sen. Tommy Tuberville went as far as to call Oz an “all-star” candidate. Here’s what to know about Oz and why he could be the perfect vessel to help achieve the party’s long-sought goal of dramatically gutting safety net programs.

He Has a Long History of Peddling Pseudoscience

Trained as a heart surgeon, Oz rose to fame as a daytime TV personality. In the 2000s, he made frequent appearances on The Oprah Winfrey Show, where the eponymous TV host dubbed him “America’s Doctor.” He then moved on to his own show in 2009. Throughout his 13 years on air, Oz repeatedly came under fire for pushing questionable remedies, including sketchy weight-loss supplements that landed him in the hot seat with the US Senate.

“My show is about hope,” Oz told senators in 2014. “We’ve engaged millions in programs, including programs we did with the CDC, to get folks to realize there are different ways they can rethink their future.”

In 2011, Oz told viewers to stop drinking apple juice out of concern that it contained dangerous levels of arsenic. The FDA slammed the advice, calling it “irresponsible and misleading to” make such a suggestion.

Throughout the pandemic, Oz encouraged people to use hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine, malaria medication that then-President Donald Trump heralded as an effective treatment for Covid. (It is not.) In emails reported by the Washington Post, Oz even urged Jared Kushner to help expedite the medication to patients, writing, “We have a potential pandemic solution at our fingertips.”

Oz’s previous support for Joseph Mercola, an osteopath who’d eventually become one of the leading spreaders of Covid misinformation, was also condemned. As my colleague David Corn reported:

With his cheerleading for hydroxychloroquine, Oz helped distort the national public conversation about Covid. But his greater impact on the pandemic might be his previous support for Mercola. Advancing the career of the fellow who would become a top promoter of Covid misinformation—and whose efforts may have prompted many Americans to not become vaccinated and, thus, face terrible consequences—hardly meets the oath that Oz once swore: first, do no harm.

Oz Has Invested in Private Health Care Programs

One of the major concerns raised by Oz’s critics is whether he will cut funding to Medicare and Medicaid. As the Washington Post reported, Trump’s advisers are preparing to cut Medicaid, which currently serves about 80 million low-income people, in addition to a slew of other safety-net programs, to offset the cost of extending Trump’s 2017 tax cuts.

Oz does not appear to have taken any public positions concerning Medicaid. However, he has been a vocal supporter of the privatization of health care programs. In 2020, he wrote an op-ed supporting Medicare Advantage, a private coverage option supported by Trump and Project 2025.

As William Gavin at Quartz reported, Oz has previously disclosed owning at least $600,000 of stocks in companies that benefit from private Medicare services, raising serious concerns that, if confirmed, Oz could stand to finally benefit from the services his agency oversees.

Experts have long warned that privatizing Medicare is not a viable solution for cutting government waste, and will instead potentially make health care far more inaccessible for vulnerable communities.

But there is some reason to be hopeful. As my colleague Julia Métraux reported, existing laws will make it somewhat challenging for Oz to completely wreck Medicare.

His Peers Have Questioned His Ethics—A Lot

For nearly as long as Oz has been famous, peers have questioned his motives. In 2011, ABC News’ Richard Besser accused Oz of fearmongering, stating his apple juice claims reminded him of “screaming fire in a crowded theater.” In 2015, doctors wrote a letter calling for Columbia University to cut its ties to Oz, stating that Oz had “repeatedly shown disdain for science and for evidence-based medicine.” It didn’t work at the time. But seven years later, as Oz campaigned for Senate, the university finally severed its ties.

“It took Columbia far too long to remove Oz from its otherwise distinguished medical faculty,” Dr. Henry Miller, of the Pacific Research Institute, in California, told MedPage Today. Miller called Oz “an unethical grifter whose claims and pronouncements were not supported by science, and were injurious to consumers—in the interest of financial benefit to Oz himself.”

In 2017, academics wrote a paper titled The Case of Dr. Oz: Ethics, Evidence, and Does Professional Self-Regulation Work?, in which they called the media personality “a dangerous rogue unfit for the office of America’s doctor.”

His Failed Senate Campaign Was Rife With Ableism

While running for Senate, Oz’s campaign also took several ableist potshots at his competitor, Sen. John Fetterman. “If John Fetterman had ever eaten a vegetable in his life,” Oz’s senior communications officer told Business Insider after Fetterman poked fun at the infamous crudité video, “then maybe he wouldn’t have had a major stroke and wouldn’t be in the position of having to lie about it constantly.”

Oz’s campaign also mocked Fetterman in September 2022 by including the following line in a press release: “We will pay for any additional medical personnel he might need to have on standby.”

On Monday, Donald Trump appeared to confirm that he is willing—even eager—to declare a national emergency and use the military to carry out his plans for mass deportations.

“TRUE!!!” he wrote on social media, responding to a post suggesting that reports were circulating of the president-elect’s preparedness to go to such extreme lengths to implement his cruel immigration policies.

Trump’s desire to deport millions of undocumented immigrants can be traced to his first presidency, during which migrant families were deliberately separated and sweeping workplace raids were conducted. But as my colleague Isabela Dias wrote, Trump ultimately fell short of deporting the nation’s 11 million undocumented immigrants. Now that Trump has secured the presidency once again, this time with less guardrails and internal opposition, he’s vowed to conduct “the largest domestic deportation operation in American history.” As Isabela writes:

This time around, they plan to invoke an infamous 18th-century wartime law, deploy the National Guard, and build massive detention camps—and intend on reshaping the federal bureaucracy to ensure it happens, drafting executive orders and filling the administration with loyalists who will quickly implement the policies. 

If Trump and his allies have it their way, armed troops and out-of-state law enforcement would likely blitz into communities—knocking on doors, searching workplaces and homes, and arbitrarily interrogating and arresting suspected undocumented immigrants. The dragnet would almost certainly ensnare US citizens, too.

Some of the contours of the plan already appear in motion. Last week, Trump appointed Tom Homan, the former ICE head often dubbed the “father of family separation,” as his new “border czar.”

“Mass deportation is coming,” Homan tweeted recently. “Message to every illegal alien mooching off America.”

Trump’s immigration crackdown is all but certain to go beyond mass deportations. The president-elect has made clear that he intends to tear down the country’s immigration system as we know it, by ending birthright citizenship, reviving the “Muslim Ban,” and rolling back refugee resettlement. For more on how Trump’s plan would destroy the US as we know it, read Isabela’s in-depth reporting here.

On Monday, Donald Trump appeared to confirm that he is willing—even eager—to declare a national emergency and use the military to carry out his plans for mass deportations.

“TRUE!!!” he wrote on social media, responding to a post suggesting that reports were circulating of the president-elect’s preparedness to go to such extreme lengths to implement his cruel immigration policies.

Trump’s desire to deport millions of undocumented immigrants can be traced to his first presidency, during which migrant families were deliberately separated and sweeping workplace raids were conducted. But as my colleague Isabela Dias wrote, Trump ultimately fell short of deporting the nation’s 11 million undocumented immigrants. Now that Trump has secured the presidency once again, this time with less guardrails and internal opposition, he’s vowed to conduct “the largest domestic deportation operation in American history.” As Isabela writes:

This time around, they plan to invoke an infamous 18th-century wartime law, deploy the National Guard, and build massive detention camps—and intend on reshaping the federal bureaucracy to ensure it happens, drafting executive orders and filling the administration with loyalists who will quickly implement the policies. 

If Trump and his allies have it their way, armed troops and out-of-state law enforcement would likely blitz into communities—knocking on doors, searching workplaces and homes, and arbitrarily interrogating and arresting suspected undocumented immigrants. The dragnet would almost certainly ensnare US citizens, too.

Some of the contours of the plan already appear in motion. Last week, Trump appointed Tom Homan, the former ICE head often dubbed the “father of family separation,” as his new “border czar.”

“Mass deportation is coming,” Homan tweeted recently. “Message to every illegal alien mooching off America.”

Trump’s immigration crackdown is all but certain to go beyond mass deportations. The president-elect has made clear that he intends to tear down the country’s immigration system as we know it, by ending birthright citizenship, reviving the “Muslim Ban,” and rolling back refugee resettlement. For more on how Trump’s plan would destroy the US as we know it, read Isabela’s in-depth reporting here.

On Wednesday, in a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s decision to remove nearly 2,000 registered voters from the state’s rolls, after two lower federal courts deemed the purge illegal. At least 1,600 voters will now have to fight to get reinstated—with less than a week to Election Day.

“It was a lawless decision in which the Supreme Court did not explain its decision or rationale,” said Anna Dorman, counsel with voting rights advocacy group Protect Democracy.

Two months ago, Youngkin filed an executive order to purge Virginia’s voter rolls, ostensibly in a quest to prevent “noncitizens” from casting ballots. Since then, his administration has unceremoniously kicked thousands of actual citizens off the rolls, an outcome that advocates and election officials warned Youngkin about before he initiated the program. According to Dorman, most people have had their registration revoked due to simple clerical errors on DMV paperwork.

“There has been no prosecutions of any noncitizen for voting in Virginia in the last 20 years, despite Gov. Youngkin’s Election Integrity Unit searching high and low,” Dorman said. “But if there was, this program wouldn’t stop it. Those people can still just sign an affidavit and vote. So the only people actually being hurt by this are eligible US voters who are confused about whether they’re allowed to vote.”

As I reported last week, a judge with the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Youngkin’s purge violated the National Voter Registration Act, a law that stops states from removing ineligible voters from the rolls within 90 days of the election. On Sunday, an appeals court rep9ortedly upheld that decision, according to the Washington Post.

However, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority has tossed out those rulings, allowing the governor to remove as many voters as he pleases with little to no explanation of the legal reasoning.

Voting rights advocates warn that the court’s actions tie into Donald Trump’s bigger plan to undermine the results of the 2024 election. As my colleague Pema Levy reported, the conspiracy theory surrounding noncitizens voting in the 2024 election was stoked by Trump’s right-wing donors:

So who’s behind the push to make baseless claims of non-citizen voter fraud a bogeyman? According to a new report, the money funding the groups pushing the lie comes from the same stew of rightwing donors backing Trump, his authoritarian agenda, and the judges who enable him.

The non-citizen voting myth, in other words, is coming from the same activists who may seek to weaponize the lie for political gain this November. 

“This is just another attempt to launder conspiracy theories and lies in the public consciousness,” said Doman. “They’re repeating these lies so many times that even if people don’t necessarily believe any specific instance, they have a generalized sense that there is something amiss in order to deny the election results, if they don’t go their way.”

If you’ve been removed from Virginia’s rolls, all hope is not lost. Because the state allows same-day voter registration, anyone affected can reinstate their registration before voting, either during the early voting period or on Election Day. All they’d have to do is sign an affidavit confirming their citizenship at their polling location.

However, they must cast those votes in person. If you’re one of the many folks who rely on absentee ballots, then your voting options in Virginia’s elections are nonexistent.

“Anyone who wanted to vote absentee has been who has been purged under this program has been disenfranchised,” said Dorman. “That impacts college students, that impacts disabled individuals, that impacts people who just can’t get time off from work. And I think that that is contrary to the purpose of the National Voter Registration Act, which is the law that we sued under here.”

On Wednesday, in a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s decision to remove nearly 2,000 registered voters from the state’s rolls, after two lower federal courts deemed the purge illegal. At least 1,600 voters will now have to fight to get reinstated—with less than a week to Election Day.

“It was a lawless decision in which the Supreme Court did not explain its decision or rationale,” said Anna Dorman, counsel with voting rights advocacy group Protect Democracy.

Two months ago, Youngkin filed an executive order to purge Virginia’s voter rolls, ostensibly in a quest to prevent “noncitizens” from casting ballots. Since then, his administration has unceremoniously kicked thousands of actual citizens off the rolls, an outcome that advocates and election officials warned Youngkin about before he initiated the program. According to Dorman, most people have had their registration revoked due to simple clerical errors on DMV paperwork.

“There has been no prosecutions of any noncitizen for voting in Virginia in the last 20 years, despite Gov. Youngkin’s Election Integrity Unit searching high and low,” Dorman said. “But if there was, this program wouldn’t stop it. Those people can still just sign an affidavit and vote. So the only people actually being hurt by this are eligible US voters who are confused about whether they’re allowed to vote.”

As I reported last week, a judge with the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Youngkin’s purge violated the National Voter Registration Act, a law that stops states from removing ineligible voters from the rolls within 90 days of the election. On Sunday, an appeals court rep9ortedly upheld that decision, according to the Washington Post.

However, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority has tossed out those rulings, allowing the governor to remove as many voters as he pleases with little to no explanation of the legal reasoning.

Voting rights advocates warn that the court’s actions tie into Donald Trump’s bigger plan to undermine the results of the 2024 election. As my colleague Pema Levy reported, the conspiracy theory surrounding noncitizens voting in the 2024 election was stoked by Trump’s right-wing donors:

So who’s behind the push to make baseless claims of non-citizen voter fraud a bogeyman? According to a new report, the money funding the groups pushing the lie comes from the same stew of rightwing donors backing Trump, his authoritarian agenda, and the judges who enable him.

The non-citizen voting myth, in other words, is coming from the same activists who may seek to weaponize the lie for political gain this November. 

“This is just another attempt to launder conspiracy theories and lies in the public consciousness,” said Doman. “They’re repeating these lies so many times that even if people don’t necessarily believe any specific instance, they have a generalized sense that there is something amiss in order to deny the election results, if they don’t go their way.”

If you’ve been removed from Virginia’s rolls, all hope is not lost. Because the state allows same-day voter registration, anyone affected can reinstate their registration before voting, either during the early voting period or on Election Day. All they’d have to do is sign an affidavit confirming their citizenship at their polling location.

However, they must cast those votes in person. If you’re one of the many folks who rely on absentee ballots, then your voting options in Virginia’s elections are nonexistent.

“Anyone who wanted to vote absentee has been who has been purged under this program has been disenfranchised,” said Dorman. “That impacts college students, that impacts disabled individuals, that impacts people who just can’t get time off from work. And I think that that is contrary to the purpose of the National Voter Registration Act, which is the law that we sued under here.”

On Friday, a Virginia judge ruled that Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s recent purge of close to 2,000 voters from state rolls—within 90 days of November’s election—was illegal. Now, with that election less than two weeks away, the state must reinstate all 1,600 revoked registrations.

Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Patricia Giles found that Youngkin’s purge violated the National Voter Registration Act, a federal law that prevents states from removing ineligible voters from the rolls within 90 days of the election.

Last August, Youngkin issued an executive order that included several “ballot security” measures, including the authority to revoke thousands of Virginians’ voter registrations on the suspicion that they were not US citizens—a notion rooted in a GOP conspiracy theory popularized by Donald Trump and his allies.

Since then, his administration has been purging voters in waves, claiming to have revoked the registration of more than 6,000 non-citizens (and tens of thousands of people who had simply died).

“This program puts the voter registration and the fundamental rights of all Virginians on the line based on conspiracies that have no evidence,” said Anna Dorman, counsel with voting rights nonprofit Protect Democracy.

Earlier this year, Protect Democracy joined several other advocacy groups to file a lawsuit against Virginia’s Department of Elections, accusing Youngkin of trying to “delegitimize and subvert the results of the 2024 election if Donald Trump does not win.” A few days later, the Department of Justice filed its own lawsuit against Youngkin’s administration.

Youngkin has claimed that at least 1,500 “self-identified” non-citizens were removed from the rolls, but the data tells a different story.

On Wednesday, during court proceedings, the DOE was ordered to hand over the names of the people affected by this round of removals. According to Dorman, many of those listed were US citizens.

“We’ve only had this list for 48 hours, and we have already confirmed that there are many eligible US citizens who are on this list, both naturalized citizens and people who have been lifelong Virginia voters,” said Dorman.

She added: “There are nearly 100 people on the list who have been registered and voting in the Commonwealth for more than 10 years. So claims that this is impacting non-citizens are not true.”

While advocates hailed the ruling as a significant victory for voting rights, for many, the damage was already done. Since Monday is the deadline for anyone seeking an absentee ballot, those purged can no longer request one.

“Folks have until tonight to request their absentee ballots,” said Dorman, “Unfortunately, people are not going to be able to get back on rolls before that deadline.”

Youngkin plans to appeal the ruling, stating in a tweet that he was “prepared to take this to the U.S. Supreme Court if needed.” Many other Republicans have jumped to the governor’s defense, including former president Donald Trump, who hinted at a stop in Virginia in the near future.

Sleepy Joe Biden and Comrade Kamala Harris ridiculously accuse me of wanting to “weaponize” the Justice Department, when they have done all of the weaponizing. Now, their truly Weaponized Department of “Injustice,” and a Judge (appointed by Joe), have ORDERED the Great…

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 25, 2024

Elon Musk’s obsessive quest to get Donald Trump into the White House has taken a desperate turn. On Thursday, the tech CEO tweeted to more than 20o million followers that he’s offering $100 to registered Pennsylvania voters who sign his pro-Trump petition.

If you’re a registered Pennsylvania voter, you & whoever referred you will now get $100 for signing our petition in support of free speech & right to bear arms.

Earn money for supporting something you already believe in!

Offer valid until midnight on Monday.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 18, 2024

This $100 deal is an expansion of a previous bargain he levied with swing state voters earlier this year, where he offered $47 to any voters located in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Nevada, Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, and North Carolina who’d be willing to refer a friend to the petition.

However, this $100 special offer is exclusively for Pennsylvanians.

According to the site, the goal is to get “1 million registered voters in swing states to sign in support of the Constitution, especially freedom of speech and the right to bear arms.”

The tech CEO tweeted this offer shortly after hosting his first solo political event at a Pennsylvania town hall on Friday night, in which he reportedly peddled debunked election conspiracy theories.

While this petition isn’t his only bid to flip the swing state in Trump’s favor, (last week, Musk offered to go door-to-door in Pennsylvania to petition for the former president), it’s certainly one of his stupidest ones.

As my colleague Tim Murphy writes :

This particular approach has drawbacks, for the same reason paying people to gather signatures often does: You’re incentivizing bad data, which is what you really don’t want in a get-out-the-vote operation. Paid petitioners get in trouble all the time because the signatures they collect don’t match real people, or were submitted without a voter’s knowledge. The PAC says it has some safeguards in place, and that you won’t get your $47 until both the referrer and referee are verified. But the money creates a reason for real people who don’t support Trump to sign up and take Musk’s cash. It’s a great way for Harris-backing undergrads at Arizona State to get beer money—it’s certainly easier than giving plasma.

It’s possible this is a genius move from a man with an evolutionarily advanced brain, in other words. But it’s also possible that Musk is simply doing the rich guy thing—and the classic rich tech guy thing—of walking into a new situation and assuming all of his ideas are important. 

On Saturday, Musk will speak at a Pennsylvania megachurch with strong ties to the New Apostolic Reformation, a religious movement that believes Christians are called to take over the government.

Correction, October 19: An earlier version misstated the date of the tweet. It was tweeted on Thursday, October 17.

Elon Musk’s obsessive quest to get Donald Trump into the White House has taken a desperate turn. On Thursday, the tech CEO tweeted to more than 20o million followers that he’s offering $100 to registered Pennsylvania voters who sign his pro-Trump petition.

If you’re a registered Pennsylvania voter, you & whoever referred you will now get $100 for signing our petition in support of free speech & right to bear arms.

Earn money for supporting something you already believe in!

Offer valid until midnight on Monday.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 18, 2024

This $100 deal is an expansion of a previous bargain he levied with swing state voters earlier this year, where he offered $47 to any voters located in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Nevada, Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, and North Carolina who’d be willing to refer a friend to the petition.

However, this $100 special offer is exclusively for Pennsylvanians.

According to the site, the goal is to get “1 million registered voters in swing states to sign in support of the Constitution, especially freedom of speech and the right to bear arms.”

The tech CEO tweeted this offer shortly after hosting his first solo political event at a Pennsylvania town hall on Friday night, in which he reportedly peddled debunked election conspiracy theories.

While this petition isn’t his only bid to flip the swing state in Trump’s favor, (last week, Musk offered to go door-to-door in Pennsylvania to petition for the former president), it’s certainly one of his stupidest ones.

As my colleague Tim Murphy writes :

This particular approach has drawbacks, for the same reason paying people to gather signatures often does: You’re incentivizing bad data, which is what you really don’t want in a get-out-the-vote operation. Paid petitioners get in trouble all the time because the signatures they collect don’t match real people, or were submitted without a voter’s knowledge. The PAC says it has some safeguards in place, and that you won’t get your $47 until both the referrer and referee are verified. But the money creates a reason for real people who don’t support Trump to sign up and take Musk’s cash. It’s a great way for Harris-backing undergrads at Arizona State to get beer money—it’s certainly easier than giving plasma.

It’s possible this is a genius move from a man with an evolutionarily advanced brain, in other words. But it’s also possible that Musk is simply doing the rich guy thing—and the classic rich tech guy thing—of walking into a new situation and assuming all of his ideas are important. 

On Saturday, Musk will speak at a Pennsylvania megachurch with strong ties to the New Apostolic Reformation, a religious movement that believes Christians are called to take over the government.

Correction, October 19: An earlier version misstated the date of the tweet. It was tweeted on Thursday, October 17.

Elon Musk’s obsessive quest to get Donald Trump into the White House has taken a desperate turn. On Thursday, the tech CEO tweeted to more than 20o million followers that he’s offering $100 to registered Pennsylvania voters who sign his pro-Trump petition.

If you’re a registered Pennsylvania voter, you & whoever referred you will now get $100 for signing our petition in support of free speech & right to bear arms.

Earn money for supporting something you already believe in!

Offer valid until midnight on Monday.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 18, 2024

This $100 deal is an expansion of a previous bargain he levied with swing state voters earlier this year, where he offered $47 to any voters located in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Nevada, Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, and North Carolina who’d be willing to refer a friend to the petition.

However, this $100 special offer is exclusively for Pennsylvanians.

According to the site, the goal is to get “1 million registered voters in swing states to sign in support of the Constitution, especially freedom of speech and the right to bear arms.”

The tech CEO tweeted this offer shortly after hosting his first solo political event at a Pennsylvania town hall on Friday night, in which he reportedly peddled debunked election conspiracy theories.

While this petition isn’t his only bid to flip the swing state in Trump’s favor, (last week, Musk offered to go door-to-door in Pennsylvania to petition for the former president), it’s certainly one of his stupidest ones.

As my colleague Tim Murphy writes :

This particular approach has drawbacks, for the same reason paying people to gather signatures often does: You’re incentivizing bad data, which is what you really don’t want in a get-out-the-vote operation. Paid petitioners get in trouble all the time because the signatures they collect don’t match real people, or were submitted without a voter’s knowledge. The PAC says it has some safeguards in place, and that you won’t get your $47 until both the referrer and referee are verified. But the money creates a reason for real people who don’t support Trump to sign up and take Musk’s cash. It’s a great way for Harris-backing undergrads at Arizona State to get beer money—it’s certainly easier than giving plasma.

It’s possible this is a genius move from a man with an evolutionarily advanced brain, in other words. But it’s also possible that Musk is simply doing the rich guy thing—and the classic rich tech guy thing—of walking into a new situation and assuming all of his ideas are important. 

On Saturday, Musk will speak at a Pennsylvania megachurch with strong ties to the New Apostolic Reformation, a religious movement that believes Christians are called to take over the government.

 Correction, October 19: An earlier version misstated the date of the tweet. It was tweeted on Thursday, October 17.

With less than a month to go until Election Day, Democrats are scrambling to persuade Black men to cast their ballots for Kamala Harris amid polls showing Donald Trump gaining momentum among Black voters. This week alone, the vice president’s campaign introduced the “Opportunity Agenda for Black Men,” a set of policy proposals that marked the Harris campaign’s most overt attempt at appealing to Black men yet.

So it landed as somewhat of a surprise, or at least a risk, that Barack Obama, ahead of his first campaign appearance for Harris last week, chose to blame sexist attitudes among Black men for any reluctance they may have in backing Harris. “Y’all know some of those brothers,” Obama said, quickly drawing backlash. “Demeaning,” is how the “Black Men for Trump Advisory Board” described it.

But it wasn’t just pro-Trump voters who found Obama’s remarks problematic. Plenty of Democrats took issue with what they saw as unfair scolding, including former Ohio state Sen. Nina Turner.

“I was disappointed that the former president would talk to Black men like that, especially given the statistics showing that Black men are the second largest voting bloc in the Democratic Party,” Turner, who is Black, told me in a phone interview. She added: “In a representative democracy, people have the right, even Black men, to vote with their conscience.”

As Turner points out, Black voters, and especially Black men, have drifted away from the Democratic Party for years now, a trend the Trump allies have tried to capitalize on through various efforts that include cognac and cigar-themed events. Placing such outsized emphasis on sexism, according to those disappointed by Obama’s remarks, is misguided, especially when Black voters remain one of the most reliable Democratic voters compared to other demographics. To Turner, the Democratic Party would be far better served by focusing on the working class.

“My party keeps talking about joy. Well, there is no joy when you can’t afford gas and food and the rent is going up.”

“My party keeps talking about joy,” said Turner, referencing the theme of the Democratic National Convention this summer. “Well, there is no joy when you can’t afford gas and food and the rent is going up. There’s no joy with 60 percent of American people saying they live paycheck to paycheck.”

Still, some welcomed Obama’s remarks as a rare willingness to call out longstanding issues of sexism among Black men in their communities, even if the delivery may have been botched. After all, Obama specifically acknowledged that Black men were far from the only racial group to hold such sexist attitudes.

“The tone was off and undeserved, but the message was there,” Andi Pringle, the executive director of Registration Nation, said. “The point he was trying to make was yes, men may have issues, but you need to get past it because what’s on the other side is worse. There is no choice here.”

To Pringle, the trend of Black men leaning more conservative than previous generations is not an anomaly but rather a symptom of deep-rooted sexism in America.

But while responses to Obama’s pointed speech may have been split, many agreed that Harris’ proposals—which include programs to forgive loans for small businesses, legalize marijuana, and increase access to cryptocurrency—are a step in the right direction for Black male outreach.

“I think [these proposals] are a really good sign,” said Turner. “African American men should be approached like any other demographic: With policies that help to enrich and lift their lives, make their lives better. Why? When you make Black men’s lives better, you definitely help lift the Black community.”

“In a representative democracy, people have the right, even Black men, to vote with their conscience.”

“Black men need to be encouraged, seen, and given space to have a voice. Right now, we’re all about mobilization,” said Pringle. “We don’t have time for much else.”

Such urgency is warranted considering the historic levels of support among Black conservatives supporting Trump’s return to the White House. My colleague Garrison Hayes explores this rapidly expanding movement in the following video, “I Spent a Week with Black Republicans,” and will be discussing the issue further in an upcoming episode of Reveal. Stay tuned.

Donald Trump’s record of hypocrisy and grifting now appears to extend to his “God Bless the USA” Bible. A new report from the Associated Press reveals that nearly 120,000 copies of the former president’s $60 Bibles are printed in China, the same country he’s spent most of his political career lambasting.

Those copies, according to records obtained by the AP, were shipped in February and March, likely making a $7 million profit for Trump.

As we previously wrote, these Bibles aren’t just average publications of a holy text. They include a handwritten chorus of Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA,” as well as a custom embossing “in remembrance of the day that God intervened during President Donald J. Trump’s assassination attempt,” available in special edition copies.

All of which made the potential decision to mandate Trump’s Bible in Oklahoma’s schools deeply alarming. As I wrote last week:

On Friday, the nonprofit news outlet Oklahoma Watch reported that the superintendent’s bid documents included specific standards for the Bibles set to be used in Oklahoma classrooms, standards only met by two editions.

According to the documents, the books must:

• Be bound in leather or a leather-like material
• Include the Pledge of Allegiance, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights
• Be either the old or new version of the King James Bible

Supplier Mardel Christian & Education reportedly searched through the 2,900 versions of the Bible it carries and found that none fit the bill—but Trump’s “God Bless the USA Bible” does.

Trump’s Bible is, of course, just one of many odd business ventures he has started in this election cycle alone, including $400 golden sneakers.

Donald Trump’s record of hypocrisy and grifting now appears to extend to his “God Bless the USA” Bible. A new report from the Associated Press reveals that nearly 120,000 copies of the former president’s $60 Bibles are printed in China, the same country he’s spent most of his political career lambasting.

Those copies, according to records obtained by the AP, were shipped in February and March, likely making a $7 million profit for Trump.

As we previously wrote, these Bibles aren’t just average publications of a holy text. They include a handwritten chorus of Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA,” as well as a custom embossing “in remembrance of the day that God intervened during President Donald J. Trump’s assassination attempt,” available in special edition copies.

All of which made the potential decision to mandate Trump’s Bible in Oklahoma’s schools deeply alarming. As I wrote last week:

On Friday, the nonprofit news outlet Oklahoma Watch reported that the superintendent’s bid documents included specific standards for the Bibles set to be used in Oklahoma classrooms, standards only met by two editions.

According to the documents, the books must:

• Be bound in leather or a leather-like material
• Include the Pledge of Allegiance, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights
• Be either the old or new version of the King James Bible

Supplier Mardel Christian & Education reportedly searched through the 2,900 versions of the Bible it carries and found that none fit the bill—but Trump’s “God Bless the USA Bible” does.

Trump’s Bible is, of course, just one of many odd business ventures he has started in this election cycle alone, including $400 golden sneakers.

In June, Oklahoma’s Trump-supporting top school official, Ryan Walters, ordered the state’s schools to teach the Bible in class—and this week, his department put in a $3 million proposal to buy 55,000 Bibles for Oklahoma schools. But out of the thousands of versions available for purchase, it seems only two holy books fit the state Department of Education’s strict criteria: one sold by Donald J. Trump, and one sold by his son Don Junior.

Surprise, surprise.

On Friday, the nonprofit news outlet Oklahoma Watch reported that the superintendent’s bid documents included specific standards for the Bibles set to be used in Oklahoma classrooms, standards only met by two editions.

According to the documents, the books must:

• Be bound in leather or a leather-like material
• Include the Pledge of Allegiance, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights
• Be either the old or new version of the King James Bible

Supplier Mardel Christian & Education reportedly searched through the 2,900 versions of the Bible it carries and found that none fit the bill—but Trump’s “God Bless the USA Bible” does.

As we reported earlier this year, Trump began hawking the “God Bless the USA” Bible—about $60 a pop—in March, a month after he started selling his $400 sneakers and other ungodly expensive pieces of merch.

The only other book to fit the bill? The “We The People Bible,” endorsed by Donald Trump Jr., at a price of $90.

Superintendent Ryan Walters’ office stands by the criteria, telling the Hill in a statement, “There are hundreds of Bible publishers, and we expect a robust competition for this proposal.”

The move is unsurprising from Walters’ administration. Last November, the Oklahoma superintendent endorsed Trump, promising that under the ex-president, “This cancer that is the teachers union will be driven out of our schools.” Walters also plans to join the GOP candidate’s reelection team, claiming he’s “excited to see [Trump] dismantle the Department of Education.”

Update, October 4: This story has been updated to credit Oklahoma Watch, which reported the Oklahoman article previously cited.

In June, Oklahoma’s Trump-supporting top school official, Ryan Walters, ordered the state’s schools to teach the Bible in class—and this week, his department put in a $3 million proposal to buy 55,000 Bibles for Oklahoma schools. But out of the thousands of versions available for purchase, it seems only two holy books fit the state Department of Education’s strict criteria: one sold by Donald J. Trump, and one sold by his son Don Junior.

Surprise, surprise.

On Friday, the nonprofit news outlet Oklahoma Watch reported that the superintendent’s bid documents included specific standards for the Bibles set to be used in Oklahoma classrooms, standards only met by two editions.

According to the documents, the books must:

• Be bound in leather or a leather-like material
• Include the Pledge of Allegiance, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights
• Be either the old or new version of the King James Bible

Supplier Mardel Christian & Education reportedly searched through the 2,900 versions of the Bible it carries and found that none fit the bill—but Trump’s “God Bless the USA Bible” does.

As we reported earlier this year, Trump began hawking the “God Bless the USA” Bible—about $60 a pop—in March, a month after he started selling his $400 sneakers and other ungodly expensive pieces of merch.

The only other book to fit the bill? The “We The People Bible,” endorsed by Donald Trump Jr., at a price of $90.

Superintendent Ryan Walters’ office stands by the criteria, telling the Hill in a statement, “There are hundreds of Bible publishers, and we expect a robust competition for this proposal.”

The move is unsurprising from Walters’ administration. Last November, the Oklahoma superintendent endorsed Trump, promising that under the ex-president, “This cancer that is the teachers union will be driven out of our schools.” Walters also plans to join the GOP candidate’s reelection team, claiming he’s “excited to see [Trump] dismantle the Department of Education.”

Update, October 4: This story has been updated to credit Oklahoma Watch, which reported the Oklahoman article previously cited.