Trump’s Assault On Separation Of Powers Made Explicit In His Megabill Vote Whipping

INSIDE: GOP 'holdouts' do what they do ... Trump nominee's trutherism ... DOJ threat to election officials

WASHINGTON, DC - JUNE 27: U.S. President Donald Trump. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

In yesterday’s edition of Morning Memo, we unpacked the various ways in which House Republicans have, since President Trump arrived back at the White House, repeatedly demonstrated to him that they have no interest in using their authority to serve as a constitutional check on the executive branch.

Trump has apparently made his power grab on the legislative branch even more explicit in his conversations with House Republicans in the last 24 hours.

As we’ve documented in our coverage of House Republican leadership’s ongoing (at the moment) effort to get their conference to rubber stamp the Senate version of Trump’s megabill, Trump has once again become House Majority Whip. It’s a mantle he’s taken up many times in the 119th Congress, both to force Republicans to reelect Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) as speaker and to strong arm members who are famously anti-continuing resolution to vote in favor of a continuing resolution.

The White House is employing the same tactic to get the Senate bill through the House this week. During his hours-long speech on the House floor this morning, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) warned the public about the dynamic: Trump is likely making backroom deals with holdouts to entice them to support legislation they actually oppose.

“Don’t you have some responsibility … to say to the American people what happened?” Jeffries said earlier today. “What deals were cut, what occurred in the back room? Yes. It will all come out. One way or the other.”

During an interview with CNBC this morning, Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) alluded to an assurance he received from Trump — that the president would fix whatever issues Republicans had with the legislation he wants them to pass via executive action.

“We met with President Trump, and, you know, he did a masterful job of laying out how we could improve it, how he could use his chief executive office, use things to make the bill better,” Norman said Thursday morning. “We accepted the bill as is. What’s different is President Trump is going to use his powers.”

It’s all of a piece with the constitutionally backwards approach Trump and his allies in Congress have taken to governing throughout his second term. At this point, they’re barely participating in the charade that lawmakers have authority that is separate but equal to Trump’s.

And, Scene

And, so, things appear to be going as they have throughout Trump II on Capitol Hill. Following an afternoon and evening of handwringing by some House Republicans about the massive hole the Big, Beautiful Bill would blow in the national debt, and handwringing by others about how extreme the bill is, nearly everyone got in line and voted to move it forward. President Donald Trump and White House budget director Russ Vought reportedly spent hours putting the screws to these holdouts, affirming this year’s dynamic: Trump, and the apparent fear he instills, is the one thing that can get the historically unruly GOP congressional conference in line.

In the end, only Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), who represents a district north of Philadelphia that often votes for Democrats, voted “no” on advancing the bill, joining with all Democratic members.

Big Lie Lives On

The Department of Justice is considering bringing charges against state or local election officials that it deems to have taken insufficient steps to protect their computer systems, the latest way in which Trump’s 2020 Big Lie — that he won — has animated his second administration.

The New York Times:

The department’s effort, which is still in its early stages, is not based on new evidence, data or legal authority, according to the people, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe internal discussions. Instead, it is driven by the unsubstantiated argument made by many in the Trump administration that American elections are easy prey to voter fraud and foreign manipulation, these people said.

Should the administration pursue this, it would suspend the threat of criminal charges over the heads of state and local election officials as they do their jobs.

Only the Best People

Trump official Paul Ingrassia — currently the administration’s nominee to head the Office of Special Counsel — has considerable baggage, including his attendance at a rally hosted by neo-nazi Nick Fuentes and his work for the legal team of far-right influencer Andrew Tate, who faces allegations of rape and human trafficking in multiple countries.

CNN uncovered a new item for the list: He shared a 9/11 truther video. Last year. On Sept. 11.

Only the Best People, Pt. II

Trump made it official this week, nominating his former lawyer and spokesperson Alina Habba to be the U.S. attorney for New Jersey. Habba has been serving in that role in an acting capacity, during which time Democratic lawmakers in the state have been arrested, followed by a set of bizarre charging decisions. A federal magistrate judge criticized her office’s hasty arrest, followed by a quick dismissal, of trespassing charges against Newark Mayor Ras Baraka. Habba is, meanwhile, pursuing assault charges against U.S. Rep LaMonica McIver (D-NJ).

Subtle

A new Idaho law bans the display of “political, religious, or ideological views, including but not limited to political parties, race, gender, sexual orientation, or political ideologies” in schools. This, immediately, is going as well as you might expect, with the state attorney general (and former member of Congress) Raúl Labrador finding that a teacher must take down a banner that reads “everyone is welcome here” above an image of hands with various skin tones.

“These signs are part of an ideological/social movement which started in Twin Cities, Minnesota following the 2016 election of Donald Trump,” a statement from Labrador’s office reads.

DC’s DOGE Shock

The American Prospect has a report on how DOGE’s massive disruption for federal government staffing has upset D.C.’s economy.

TPM’s Layla A. Jones wrote on a similar topic last week, reporting:

In the DMV region, encompassing D.C., parts of Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia, more than 500,000 people work directly for the federal government, according to data from the 2023 American Community Survey and 2025 Current Employment Statistics compiled by the Economic Policy Institute this year. These numbers don’t account for the vast network of external government contractors reliant on federal dollars. Massive job and contract cuts stand to alter the socioeconomic geography of the Beltway in a way the New York Times compared to the devastating impact of the collapse of manufacturing on the Midwest.

The Right’s Assault on Citizenship

The always great John Ganz:

It’s long been my contention that the attack on citizenship is the most serious and frightful aspect of the Trump phenomenon and the one that makes it most deserving of the epithet fascist or totalitarian. “MAGA,” in its innermost being, means “death to America.” If they successfully destroy American citizenship as enshrined in the Constitution they will have destroyed the country. We will be, all of a sudden, somewhere else. It may be called the United States of America, but it really won’t be. It won’t feel like a big cataclysm, happening all at once. It will come not with a bang but a whimper. It will be a chaotic and shambolic existence where more and more people have to scramble to ensure they have the right papers or are in the right zone. It will be stupid and laughable, a “system” not particularly hard to outwit, but unspeakably dire in its consequences if one happens to through a crack. And likely, for most, they will have little to worry about. Superficially, life will continue much as before. But we will be a sad shadow of that former country, at times recognizable in its old outlines, but fading fast.

……………And On That Note, Happy Fourth of July, Everyone!

Morning Memo will be back on Monday. Enjoy your hot dogs.