Political memoirs written by ambitious politicians are rarely written to tell the truth about a life. Instead, they are written to correct the public record before someone else does. By the time a politician sits down to write a first draft, the story of their career has already been told through newspaper profiles, investigative reporting, and the occasional scandal. A memoir offers the chance to rewrite that story from the inside: to smooth out the contradictions, elevate the moments of principle, and quietly explain away the advantages that made the whole thing possible.
Officials from 23 different states (and the District of Columbia) are taking Donald Trump to court over a brazenly unconstitutional executive order that looks to limit Americans’ voting rights.The executive order, signed on Tuesday, banned the U.S. Postal Service from delivering mail-in ballots to anyone not on a preapproved list compiled by the USPS itself. Trump and his cronies like to claim mail-in voting is rife with fraud—despite a lack of evidence and the fact that the president likes to vote by mail himself. But the executive order’s solution to this is sketchy at best. Why, and how, does the USPS get to choose who can vote by mail?Perhaps even more insidious is another section of the executive order, which calls on the federal government to compile its own list of voters in each state, which will then be sent to states 60 days before each federal election—presumably along with a bunch of threats that they better not find anyone who doesn’t match their list voting.States, of course, have been responsible for keeping their own voter rolls for centuries, but this executive order threatens to change that. And which federal department has the president tasked with creating nationwide voter rolls? Why, the Department of Homeland Security, of course! You know, the same department that has repeatedly been caught lying in court, and which executed two Americans in the street just a few months ago! What could go wrong?The good news is that lawsuits have already curbed some of Trump’s voting-related executive orders. This suit, filed in Massachusetts District Court, will hopefully be no different.“The President’s latest attempt to interfere with the States’ administration of their elections is as unprecedented as it is unconstitutional,” the states’ complaint reads. “Under our Constitution, the President has no authority to restrict voter eligibility or mail voting to lists of voters pre-authorized by the federal government.”
The conservative leader of Catholics in the U.S. military had some damning words for Pete Hegseth and Donald Trump’s holy war on Iran. Speaking in an interview on CBS’s Face the Nation set to air Sunday, Archbishop Timothy Broglio, the head of the Archdiocese for the Military Services and one of the most conservative Catholic prelates in the United States, said it was “hard to cast this war as something that would be sponsored by the Lord.”Broglio criticized Hegseth’s bloodthirsty prayers for violence against “those who deserve no mercy” at a recent Pentagon Christian service. “It’s a little bit problematic in the sense that the Lord Jesus certainly brought a message of peace, and I think war is always a last resort,” Broglio said.When asked directly whether he believed the war was justified, he replied, “I would think under the just war theory, it is not.”He explained that the war was “compensating for a threat before the threat is actually realized” and said he would “align” himself with Pope Leo XIV, who has urged a diplomatic resolution to the conflict.
President Trump has made only one comment as reports of yet another U.S. combat plane going down directly contradict his constant comments that Iranian air defense is completely devastated. On Friday afternoon, The New York Times reported that an A-10 Warthog crashed in the Persian Gulf region over the Strait of Hormuz around the same time an F-15 was shot down in Iran. The report came from two U.S. officials speaking anonymously about the matter, but they did not offer additional details.While the lone pilot of the A-10 is safe, only one of the two pilots from the downed F-15 has been rescued. Trump has remained shockingly silent as these two significant military losses occurred back to back. He’s had no public events Friday and has not acknowledged the jets in any posts. His most recent post after news of the second crashed warplane, around 3:20 p.m. on Friday, read “KEEP THE OIL, ANYONE?” He did not acknowledge the fallen aircraft or missing servicemember. It makes no sense to rant about how the war is already won when Iran clearly still has some level of defense capability available. This story has been updated.