Trump Is Spiraling Out of Control and GOP Senators Are Still Coddling His Feelings

INSIDE: SAVE America Act ... Trump's Election EOs ... Republican Election Fraud

WASHINGTON, DC - JUNE 24: U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to the media as he departs after meeting with Republican senators at the U.S. Capitol on June 24, 2026 in Washington, DC. President Trump is visiting Capitol Hill to attend a closed-door luncheon with the Republican Senate Steering Committee to push his SAVE America Act, which would impose strict voter ID and proof-of-citizenship requirements in federal elections. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.

Republican Senators Try to Patch Things Up With the President

Even by our fully debased standard of grading President Donald Trump on a curve, yesterday was a rolling catastrophe of astonishing political blunders. Not even the kind that seem like gaffes to normies but energize his base with high-fiving celebrations of owning the libs. No, Trump didn’t own the libs yesterday. The only person he owned was himself. And yet, Senate Republicans remain submissive, even after showing small flashes of fight.

Voters of both parties are worried and stressed about housing costs and affordability, so any sane politician would seize the opportunity for a photo op of his support for a bipartisan housing bill. Instead, Trump, who lives in a gilded penthouse and private golf club when he’s not in residence rent-free at the White House, which he is needlessly renovating with taxpayer money, unexpectedly cancelled a scheduled signing ceremony (via Truth Social, of course), saying he would not sign the bill unless Senate Republicans passed the SAVE America Act, a voter suppression bill. Wow, this guy really knows how to negotiate, doesn’t he? As any viewer of Schoolhouse Rock knows, the housing bill will become law without his signature, and then he will have missed the opportunity to show everyone how much he cares. Instead, he hands Democrats an opportunity to show voters how much he only cares about his delusions and conspiracy theories, and not about addressing their struggles to afford housing.

Headlines about Trump’s lunch with Senate Republicans yesterday were dominated by the shouting matches, especially with Louisiana’s Bill Cassidy, triggered by the tensions he has stoked with his own party, stemming from his SAVE America Act demands, his anger over the passage of the Iran war powers resolution, and other matters. While such a confrontation seemed to mark a new era in Trump-GOP relations, definitively declaring a turning point was perhaps premature. Late last night the Senate, with Cassidy switching his position, voted against another war powers resolution in a procedural vote GOP leadership brought to the floor for the sole purpose of assuaging Trump after his blow-up with Cassidy earlier in the day. According to the Washington Post, Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) and John Barrasso (R-WY) successfully pressed Cassidy to change his vote.

The Reflecting Pool Debacle Gets More Ridiculous and Embarrassing

Following his Capitol Hill showdown, Trump met with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in the Oval Office, where he reprised his conspiracy theories about his botched reflecting pool renovation, insisting there is photographic proof of “thugs” vandalizing it. “They took razor blades and they cut patches like that, 350 feet long. A lot of them are like a foot, a foot, a foot. They cut the lining and there’s pictures of the guy bending over. I don’t know if anybody saw that, but there are pictures of the guy,” he said. Reporters, of course, have asked the White House, the National Parks Service, and the Department of the Interior to see these photos for themselves. This is not just a “Trump claimed, without evidence” moment. Trump is just making stuff up — not unprecedented for him, but notable because the reflecting pool debacle is such a huge, visible, and easily comprehensible tale of corruption and incompetence that it will prove much more difficult for him to bullshit his way out of it.

While Trump fabricated his story about the vandalism of the reflecting pool, which he has portrayed as a great affront to himself and the country’s heritage, he claimed during the same meeting not to have seen actual photographic proof that an American Tomahawk missile struck an elementary school in Minab, Iran, at the outset of the war, killing 175 people. Although the proof of the U.S. strike has been reported in major news outlets, Trump nonetheless claimed to have not seen these reports, saying, “I have to wait for it to be complete,” adding later, “I don’t think it was us.”

Trump Is Trying to Blame Global Oil Shocks on “Liberal” U.K.

Responding to questions about the resignation of British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, and the likely ascension of newly elected Labour MP Andy Burnham to the role, Trump said, “I hear he’s extremely liberal,” which apparently bothers Trump because “that means he probably won’t open up the North Sea.” Trump claimed to have unsuccessfully pressed Starmer to “open up the North Sea,” by which he meant drill for oil there. This only became an issue after Trump’s war in Iran caused oil shocks around the world. So now Trump will judge Burnham on his “liberalism,” which Trump defines as not bailing him out of this historic self-inflicted wound.

Trump Declares “Golden Age” At Great American State Fair Launch

Trump gave a campaign style speech on the National Mall last night to kick off his Great American State Fair, which many states have declined to participate in. He announced several weeks ago that he would be speaking at the launch after numerous musical acts backed out of performing at his overtly partisan event. Last night he repeated some of his usual grievances and lies, and then boasted that the country is in a “golden age,” claiming, “There’s never been an age like this.”

Courts Deal Trump Losses in His Effort to Control Elections

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has ruled against the Trump administration’s attempt to force state election officials in Michigan to turn over its voter rolls to the federal government. The court affirmed a lower court ruling by a Trump-appointed judge, dismissing the Department of Justice’s lawsuit filed to obtain the sensitive voter information. The ruling is binding on all states in the circuit, including Kentucky, where the DOJ has also sued state officials. This is the first appellate court to rule on the administration’s unprecedented power grab, along with nine trial courts who rebuffed Trump. In another case in which states challenged Trump’s 2025 executive order purporting to control elections, U.S. District Judge Denise Casper held Wednesday that significant parts of the order were unconstitutional, including its requirement to provide proof of citizenship when using the federal voter registration form, and its prohibition on counting mail ballots postmarked but not received at election boards by Election Day.

Election Fraud!

Thomas Pischke, a Republican senator in the South Dakota state legislature, is facing two felony counts for falsifying signatures for candidates for state Republican Party positions without their knowledge. “It’s a bad optic for the party,” said Jim Eschenbaum, the state GOP chair.

Judge Blocks Trump DOJ Attempt to Subpoena Trans Patients’ Medical Records

A federal judge in New York has blocked DOJ’s attempts to subpoena New York City hospitals for private medical information of trans youth who obtained gender-affirming care at their facilities. Chris Geidner has all the details at Law Dork.

Harrowing Read

Mother Jones’ Samantha Michaels profiles the Perez family, whose four children, all U.S. citizens, were left to fend for themselves after ICE detained both their parents. The Perezes, who live just seven miles from Mar-a-Lago, are among more than 146,000 U.S. citizen kids whose parents were detained by ICE between January 2025 and April 2026.

A Catholic at Pete Hegseth’s Prayer Meeting

After outcry over apparent snubs of Catholics at the Pentagon and anti-Catholic statements by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s religious mentor, Doug Wilson, Hegseth’s monthly prayer meeting yesterday featured a Catholic speaker. Jonathan Morris, a former priest, is also a Fox News contributor who has appeared on the network with Hegseth. Brian Kaylor watched it so you don’t have to.

Frozen Embryos Are People, Too, Says HHS

Moira Donegan takes a look at a Department of Health and Human Services call for grant applications, part of a revival of a George W. Bush-era program to raise awareness about frozen embryos. She finds that the Trump administration is referring to them as “children who already exist and are in need of a family.” The phrasing, she writes, “lends ammunition to anti-choice groups that have sought recognition of fetal and embryonic personhood in the courts, and who can now claim that embryos are already persons under the law as evidenced by the fact that they are treated as such in federal policy.”