This comes just days after one of his administration’s biggest claims of noncitizen voting completely fell apart in Nevada.

The ruling may be in Trump’s favor, but the evidence isn’t.

Then, after a very long week, we reward ourselves by counting down the top MAGA Losses of the Week.

This week has everything: court cases crumbling, signs falling, and even…furries?!

And then we put the power in your hands to pick this week’s DJT Solemate Award. Each nominee gave one hell of a boot-licking performance, but only one gets to take the boot home.

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NEXT WEEK ON THE ANT HILL

• MON, SEPT 28 — TUNNEL TALK — This is the space where Defy Ants get to sound off on what’s happening right now: the headlines, the WTF moments, and the stories of defiance. Tell us what’s got the colony buzzing this week, and we’ll share some of your responses with the whole hill.

• TUES, SEPT 29 — TRIVIA TUESDAY — Test your knowledge of defiance throughout history, and we’ll give a shoutout to everyone who gets all five right AND a $15 discount on any swag in our swag store!

• WEDS, SEPT 30 — MY DEFIANCE MISSION — On Mission Wednesdays, we highlight the defiance actions Members are taking in their own communities. Tell us your story here. Every action counts!

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• THURS, OCT 1 — DEFIANCE BOOK CLUB — Our current selection is: 1984 by George Orwell. We’ll be discussing chapters 3 & 4 in our Members-only chatroom @ 2:30 pm ET. It’s never too late to join the party! Visit your library or favorite bookstore to pick up a copy.

• FRI, OCT 2 — DOGS OF THE DEFIANCE — That’s right…even our furry friends are sticking it to the man. Do you have a dog (or a cat or a horse or a rabbit or a ferret…) that would sooner lift their leg on Trump than play fetch? Send us a pic, and they might be featured in a future issue! Because fighting authoritarianism is hard work, a little fun is important too. :)

GROW THE DEFIANCE

DEFIANCE Members are absolutely crushing it, spreading the word about our club for the courageous to their friends. There is strength in numbers, and that’s exactly what defiance requires. Here’s how you can help build our numbers—and get a shoutout on the Daily with Miles and Xander:

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Donald Trump fawned over Chinese communist leaders and beamed at the billionaires he assembled last night at the White House, providing one of the most tone-deaf images of any American president in history.

I was up very late last night. Part of the reason was that I was editing a forthcoming documentary short that we’ll be releasing this year called CORRUPTIONLAND. Another part of the reason is that I was watching a spectacle that proved the point of the documentary we just shot.

The pictures and videos trickled in across social media all night of the State Dinner at the White House — Donald Trump hosting his Chinese counterparts. Chandeliers blazing in the East Room… sesame-crusted sea bass on the white plates… the president in a tuxedo, smiling behind a gaudy gilded eagle, telling the room he would have packed in a thousand more of them if only his hand-designed ballroom were finished… and Trump almost winking as he promised Xi Jinping a late-night stroll to be the first to set foot on the construction site.

It was Gatsby’s mansion. Except the party was thrown by the government and the guest of honor runs a police state, one that Trump jealously hopes to emulate. Call it the dystopian Great Gatsby. Or maybe the Great Gatsby from hell.

Outside the gates, the rest of the country was having a very different evening. Groceries cost more than they did a year ago, and a lot more than they did five years ago. Almost everything is at least 30-percent more than it was. People are furious about a presidency that has become a family business, tired of tech companies that are beginning to treat them like raw material, and scared of being replaced by machines while data centers go up in their backyards to power those machines.

I was amazed by what I saw last night. Trump assembled every one of those fears… dressed them up in a suit and tie… and toasted them. You cannot make it up. Is it stupidity? Is it indifference? Is it unconcealed greed? His knowing grin tells us, yet again, that it’s all of the above.

It’s worth noting that this is the same Donald Trump who told us over the summer — breathlessly in a primetime press conference — that China had compromised our electoral system and that the communist nation was assaulting American democracy. It was a serious accusation. But then he did nothing about it. No sanctions. No expulsions. No consequences of any kind. Not a peep since. Odd, right?

Not if you know Donald Trump. After years in the intelligence community, I know that the worries about the Chinese Communist Party trying to manipulate American democracy are very true and very alarming. So should Trump. But he doesn’t care much about that. What he cares about is that the threat is convenient for storytelling. To him, the China scare is the perfect pretext for his own meddling in the midterms, a threat to be invoked when useful and forgotten when not. How else do you explain that his answer to the supposed attack on our elections from China is to roll out the red carpet at Joint Base Andrews and grovel?

(Or at least the soldiers did. Trump and Xi looked on as U.S. servicemembers got on their literal hands and knees to smooth out the red carpet before the Chinese president walked down the steps.)

The irony was as thick as the vanilla crémeux that was served to the dinner guests (reportedly with a vibrant sour cherry confit center, set atop a rich walnut frangipane). Earlier yesterday, the White House was defending a taxpayer-funded TV ad of Trump promising that “America will never be a communist country,” running on Fox and Newsmax with the disclaimer: “paid for by the U.S. government.” Put aside the accidental satire that, while the ad was airing, Trump’s team was literally setting tables in the State Dining Room and preparing to welcome members of the Chinese Communist Party. There was a richer paradox. The people’s tax dollars were being spent on a propaganda piece for the leader… claiming that in America we don’t do “communism”… and aired on television ahead of an election he’s trying to rig.

And don’t forget that when Trump offered Xi that private tour of the ballroom, Chief Justice John Roberts was sitting at a table nearby, perhaps still working through his crisp baby bok choy and roasted garden eggplant. Three weeks ago, Roberts wrote that the ballroom was “likely unlawful” because Congress never approved a dime for it. He got outvoted by his own conservative colleagues (two of whom were also at the dinner)… and now here he was, a guest at the party, watching the president show off the thing he had just called illegal. But it’s all just a game, right?

Much like Xi, Trump didn’t bother seeking the legislature’s approval for his palace addition. He just built it and illegally moved around taxpayer dollars to make it happen. The Chinese know this move well. It’s why they call it the People’s Republic of China. They learned a long time ago that if you can’t deliver the thing, name yourself after it and call it a day. Trump knows that branding scheme, too. After all, he’s made more money since returning to office than in the rest of his career combined, while styling himself as a man of the people. Every now and then — like the other week in Dallas — he throws breadcrumbs to the plebes and promises he’ll cut them checks to make their little lives easier.

But it’s easy to forget such promises when you’re planning a big party, especially for your billionaire pals. And there were plenty of them last night. Tables full of tech executives. When I saw the guest list, that’s when I realized the evening was more farce than hypocrisy.

Of all people, Elon Musk sat at the head table with the president. This is the Musk who blew up his friendship with Trump last year by announcing that the president was in the Epstein files, which read at the time like a real act of solidarity with the 1,400 women and girls abused through that network, and a rebuke of a president who has done everything in his power to keep the files buried. Apparently it was theater. Musk laughed and smiled his way through the courses.

Mark Zuckerberg was nearby. That’s the same Zuckerberg who spent hundreds of millions of dollars on pro-democracy groups in an election that Trump tried to overturn. But then he saw where things were headed and remade himself as a MAGA bro, gold chain and all, cutting a seven-figure check to Trump’s inaugural fund. Sundar Pichai, whose company walked away from Pentagon work and opposed the first Trump administration’s travel ban, was also there... as well as Tim Cook, once a Trump critic, until he came to the Oval Office last year bearing a gift of 24-karat gold.

And the deans of the data centers turned out in force: Satya Nadella, Jeff Bezos, Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, Jensen Huang, Michael Dell, Lisa Su, and more, whose companies are pouring concrete across rural America for the server farms that’ve become the physical symbol of a country feeling priced out of its own economy and boxed out of its own future by tech. The people building the machines had a front-row seat to the man clearing the way for them.

But I think the widest smiles and biggest laughs may have come from the visitors. Honestly, maybe they were the only ones in the room who saw the whole picture. For two years this administration has made China the convenient villain for things Trump cares about — they’re the threat to our elections, the ones stirring up panic over data centers, the ones creating a trade imbalance that Trump must fix. Yet Xi’s delegation has long known what others are just starting to figure out. Trump doesn’t believe any of it. He uses Beijing as a foil for his own projects…. to take control of the elections… to profit from the data center boom… to run the American economy by brute force.

That’ll look familiar to men who built a regime on lies of their own. In Trump, they see a kindred spirit. The man who rails against communism on Fox News — and runs ads against it! — spent the evening rhetorically bear-hugging the communists scattered around his dining room.

The hangover from this dinner is going to last, though. Americans are waking up to the fact that they’re being conned. They’re gathering outside the palace walls with pitchforks; you just couldn’t hear it last night over the clinking glasses.

Your friend, in defiance,

Miles Taylor

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DEFIANCE DAILY

In case you missed it, last night’s episode of DEFIANCE Daily is below. Catch our next episode tonight at 5 pm ET!

TRACK THE TRUMP-EPSTEIN READING ROOM & BOOKMOBILE

Today, the Donald J. Trump and Jeffrey Epstein Memorial Bookmobile rolls into Kalamazoo, Michigan, at 3019 Oakland Drive. Did you know the Bookmobile holds 440 volumes of files, around 800 pages each, totaling approximately 2,500 pounds of paper? That’s a lot of evidence, and we’re shining a light on it all across the country.

Plan a visit and share with others. Check out the tour schedule HERE.

THE ANT HILL IS OUR MEMBERS-ONLY CORNER OF THE COLONY, WHERE “DEFY ANTS” GET MORE THAN JUST THE NEWSLETTER.

TODAY’S FEATURES: THE DEFIANCE WATCHLIST, THE DEFIANCE DOG OF THE WEEK, AND THE DEFIANCE BOOK CLUB

IF YOU’RE ALREADY A DEFIANCE MEMBER, THEN MARCH RIGHT IN. IF NOT, SIGN UP HERE, SO YOU DON’T MISS A THING.

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And somehow, his own DOJ helped make the case against him.

To justify the ban, they pointed to a Politico story quoting an anonymous “senior administration official.” They called it a leak.

That official? JD Vance, who was “leaking” on a press call scheduled by the White House — and reporters were specifically told to identify him that way.

Former Trump Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham joins us to talk about his latest loss and the taxpayer-funded Trump ad that made its way onto cable news last night.

Two words: Hatch Act.

Then Trump rolls out the red carpet for Xi Jinping…literally.

And after months of pressure surrounding the Epstein files, federal investigators are finally looking into two people who have been hiding in plain sight: Epstein’s longtime lawyer and accountant.

The DOJ says it investigates when “the evidence presents itself.”

So why now?

Comedian and writer Ginny Hogan (@ginnyhogan) joins us to talk about the sudden movement and what she’s seeing on the road with the Trump-Epstein Bookmobile.

Want more of Ginny? Pick up her latest book “OBEY IN ADVANCE: HOW TO SURVIVE (AND THRIVE) UNDER AUTHORITARIANISM”

Get more from Miles Taylor in the Substack app

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THIS WEEK ON THE ANT HILL

• FRI, SEPT 25 — DOGS OF THE DEFIANCE — That’s right…even our furry friends are sticking it to the man. Who will tomorrow’s “DEFIANCE Dog of the Week” be? Check out the Ant Hill in the morning! Do you have a dog (or a cat or a horse or a rabbit or a ferret…) that would sooner lift their leg on Trump than play fetch? Send us a pic, and they might be featured in a future issue! Because fighting authoritarianism is hard work, a little fun is important too. :)

GROW THE DEFIANCE

DEFIANCE Members are absolutely crushing it, spreading the word about our club for the courageous to their friends. There is strength in numbers, and that’s exactly what defiance requires. Here’s how you can help build our numbers—and get a shoutout on the Daily with Miles and Xander:

1. Go to https://www.defiance.news/leaderboard

2. Use the buttons provided to share your personal referral link on X, Facebook, or email. Or, copy the link (circled in the example below) to share it via text or other social platforms.

Donald Trump is his own worst enemy, and last night a federal judge reminded him of that again.

Judge Timothy Kelly ordered the White House to immediately restore the hard passes of reporters from CNN, MSNOW, and Politico, which Trump yanked last week after bemoaning their coverage of him. Kelly found the outlets were likely to win their argument that the passes were pulled without due process, and he wasn’t buying the administration’s national security excuse either.

Government lawyers argued the outlets posed a “national security” threat, pointing to reporting on “top-secret” East Wing bunker construction, leak investigations, and Secret Service security upgrades. One problem: Donald Trump himself already told everyone his real reason: “I think we have a right to clean out fake news.” The “national security” case got even weaker when the White House’s defense cited a June story about Iran negotiations as proof of a leak. The source for the reporting was actually JD Vance, speaking on a White House-sanctioned press call the administration itself set up.

The funny part is that Trump saw this coming. When the case was assigned, he whined on Truth Social that the outlets had drawn a great judge “for them.” Kelly is the same Trump appointee who restored Jim Acosta’s press pass back in 2018. Trump lost this same fight eight years ago… and he picked it again anyway.

Are you seeing a trend here, by chance? Trump says he has enemies everywhere. And he’s right. They seem to be multiplying, but he made almost all of them himself. Just look at his own party right now.

According to the Washington Post, at least seven Republican House candidates in battleground races have scrubbed or downplayed him on their campaign websites. Florida’s Maria Elvira Salazar went further and cut an ad standing in front of the White House saying his immigration crackdown has gone too far. Iowa’s Zach Nunn and Mariannette Miller-Meeks voted with Democrats to try to end Trump’s foolish war with Iran. Candidates who spent years begging for his endorsement are now treating Trump’s blessing like a kiss of death.

Elected Republicans are even starting to turn on him. Republican Senator John Curtis is demanding a subpoena for Don Jr. after ProPublica reported that Umar Kremlev (an oligarch close to Russia’s President Vladimir Putin) helped bankroll his Bahamas wedding party, including a private island and a fireworks show. GOP Senator Thom Tillis called it “colossally bad judgment at best,” and other GOP senators say they’re on board with a probe. Trump’s defense is that his son paid the guy back (which he also can’t seem to confirm).

You can literally map out how badly Trump’s brand is causing the GOP to lose. Republicans are pouring money into deep-red states like Texas, Iowa, Florida, and Alaska, states Trump won easily in 2024, and JD Vance had to fly to Kansas to shore up Senator Roger Marshall for fear that the plains state could swing to the Democrats. That’s what happens when the guy at the top of your ticket is dragging everyone down with sky-high gas prices… a war nobody wanted… and a new corruption story every single day.

I hear from a lot of Democrats who are nervous the momentum against Trump can’t hold for six more weeks. I get it. But trust me on this one, because I worked for the man. He has precisely zero discipline. He can’t go a week without picking a new fight, breaking another federal rule, or doing something that drags his name back into the headlines or into a federal courtroom for all the wrong reasons. He’ll keep doing our work for us.

Just listen to what the MAGA side is saying underneath their breath. Republicans desperately want him to go away before November 3. And he won’t. He’s told voters to pretend he’s on the ballot, and he’ll keep chaining himself to his party right up to election day, even if it’s political suicide.

For a guy who hates losing, he sure seems determined to do it again.

Your friend, in defiance,

Miles Taylor

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DEFIANCE DAILY

In case you missed it, last night’s episode of DEFIANCE Daily is below. Catch our next episode tonight at 5 pm ET!

TRACK THE TRUMP-EPSTEIN READING ROOM & BOOKMOBILE

The Donald J. Trump and Jeffrey Epstein Memorial Bookmobile, was in Chicago, Illinois, yesterday. Make sure to watch DEFIANCE Daily (above) for a glimpse of it from Epstein survivor Sharlene Rochard, advocate Camilla, and our very own producer, Mercedes.

Plan a visit and share with others. Check out the tour schedule HERE.

THE ANT HILL IS OUR MEMBERS-ONLY CORNER OF THE COLONY, WHERE “DEFY ANTS” GET MORE THAN JUST THE NEWSLETTER.

TODAY’S FEATURES: THE DEFIANCE WATCHLIST AND SHOW US YOUR ANT-ITUDE

REMINDER TO MEMBERS: OUR BOOK CLUB CHAT TAKES PLACE TODAY! The DEFIANCE Book Club will be meeting on in our Members-only chatroom to discuss chapters 1 and 2 of 1984 by George Orwell @ 2:30pm ET. See you there!

IF YOU’RE ALREADY A DEFIANCE MEMBER, THEN MARCH RIGHT IN. IF NOT, SIGN UP HERE, SO YOU DON’T MISS A THING.

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We opened today’s Mission Wednesday with a panel of election-law experts to size up the threat heading into November.

Mark Blumberg, a former DOJ Civil Rights Division prosecutor; Kathy Boockvar, who served as Pennsylvania’s Secretary of State through the 2020 election; and Ankush Khardori, a former federal prosecutor who now writes the Open File newsletter, walked through how DOJ letters demanding voter rolls and warning of “criminal liability,” plus a thousand DOJ monitors headed to the polls, are less about stopping fraud than about intimidating the officials who run our elections.

Mark said the goal is to make officials “more malleable,” so they don’t push back when the administration challenges results after the fact.

We also dug into a real-world example of that intimidation campaign: the Fulton County ballot seizure. Ankush walked us through how the warrant used to justify seizing 2020 ballots was built on an affidavit containing conspiracy theories that state election officials had already debunked — theories the Justice Department left in, while leaving the debunking out.

As Ankush put it, “it takes either ignorant or unscrupulous investigators and prosecutors to do such a thing” — and a magistrate judge who, in hindsight, should have known better than to take the DOJ’s claims at face value.

Considering everything they are up against, Kathy summed up exactly why the DEFIANCE has election officials’ backs: “Election officials are the best human beings on the planet. Genuinely, they are working 24-7, 365 to make sure every one of us can vote.”

Then, onto our Weekly Mission Briefing.

BOTTOM LINE UP FRONT: PROTECTING THE PEOPLE WHO PROTECT OUR VOTE

The beating heart of DEFIANCE.org is our Weekly Mission Briefing. Every Wednesday at 5p ET, we take real action to counter Donald Trump’s abuses of power.

This week, our mission is protecting the poll workers and election officials this administration is trying to intimidate, starting with the organization already doing that work.

So here’s what we did about it this week…

FIRST, we welcomed back Stacey Young of Justice Connection (@justiceconnection), the organization DEFIANCE has been proud to support since its founding. Stacey’s team has built a pro bono network of more than 250 former DOJ alumni who represent federal employees facing retaliation, connecting whistleblowers to lawyers, congressional offices, and the media when they need to come forward.

SECOND, Stacey walked us through Justice Connection’s new public dashboard, which makes DOJ’s own data searchable — so claims like Kash Patel’s inflated arrest numbers can be checked and debunked in real time. And with Election Day approaching, Justice Connection is expanding pro bono support to poll workers who may find themselves targeted this November.

THIRD, a DEFIANCE member surprised Stacey with a $5,000 grant on behalf of the community to support Justice Connection’s work protecting poll workers — and Miles tripled it on the spot to $15,000.

YOU MADE THIS POSSIBLE.

YOUR MISSION, IF YOU CHOOSE TO ACCEPT IT

As a DEFIANCE.org Member, you’re already refusing to let democracy die on our watch. But if you want to do even more this week, here’s what you can do…

1️⃣ Boost the Anti-Weaponization Fund

We need to replenish our funds for our next mission, and we have new heroes who could use a note of support.

👉 Go to AWFund.org

2️⃣ Follow Justice Connection on Substack

The rule of law is under attack. Their network of former Justice Department officials explains what’s happening and why it matters.

👉 Follow them here

3️⃣ Sign up to be a poll worker

There simply aren’t enough poll workers. This is one of the simplest, most direct ways to protect this election.

👉 Sign up at PowerThePolls.org

👇 Badge below

🖥️ IF YOU MISSED IT

You can watch the full Weekly Mission Briefing at the top!

Make sure to watch until the end. We also went live to Chicago, where the Trump-Epstein Bookmobile — carrying 3.5 million printed Epstein files — is on the latest stop of its nationwide tour. Epstein survivor Sharlene Rochard, advocate Camilla, and our very own producer Mercedes gave us a bird’s-eye view of the powerful exhibit.

Check out trumpepsteinreadingroom.com to see where it’s headed next.

As always — stay loud, stay brave, and stay together.

Best,

The DEFIANCE.org Team

Get more from Miles Taylor in the Substack app

Available for iOS and Android

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THIS WEEK ON THE ANT HILL

• THURS, SEPT 24 — SHOW US YOUR ANT-ITUDE! — We wanna see your swag, your original artwork, your unique ways of shouting out your defiance to the world in creative ways. Send your pics to our editor here.

• THE DEFIANCE BOOK CLUB — Our next selection is: 1984 by George Orwell. We’ll be discussing two chapters per week in our Members-only chatroom beginning TOMORROW, September 24 @ 2:30 pm ET. It’s never too late to join the party! Visit your library or favorite bookstore to pick up a copy.

GROW THE DEFIANCE

DEFIANCE Members are absolutely crushing it, spreading the word about our club for the courageous to their friends. There is strength in numbers, and that’s exactly what defiance requires. Here’s how you can help build our numbers—and get a shoutout on the Daily with Miles and Xander:

1. Go to https://www.defiance.news/leaderboard

2. Use the buttons provided to share your personal referral link on X, Facebook, or email. Or, copy the link (circled in the example below) to share it via text or other social platforms.

Everyone in Washington is planning for the subpoenas. But if Democrats retake the House or Senate, they can bring sweeping lawsuits against the president, and I’m urging them to do it.

If the opposition wins in November, the conventional wisdom holds that they’ll gavel in on January 3, stand up oversight committees, and start investigating the most corrupt administration in American history. Fine. They should. But I’ve run oversight probes from Capitol Hill, and too often all they produce is hearings and reports. Don’t get me wrong, that matters. Sworn testimony and paper trails will help build the public record, expose criminality, and provide the foundation for a future Justice Department to hold people accountable. But a Congressional report has never forced a president to give back an airplane… or tear down an unapproved ballroom.

There’s a more potent weapon sitting in the House’s arsenal, and it takes nothing more than a simple majority to use it.

The U.S. House of Representatives (or the U.S. Senate) can vote to authorize litigation in its own name on behalf of an entire chamber of Congress. Then it can send its lawyers into federal court to sue the president of the United States and his administration directly. No special counsel is needed. There’s no waiting on Todd Blanche’s Justice Department to develop a conscience. All that’s required is a majority vote and a filing. Democrats must be prepared to do this, and they should have their filings ready for the afternoon of January 3.

Why do this? The honest reason is that Donald Trump is committing crimes that ordinary Americans can’t sue him over. Just look at the billion-dollar ballroom, which the Supreme Court’s chief justice declared is “likely unlawful,” yet the high court turned its back on a lawsuit against the structure because they believed private citizens had no standing to sue over the monstrosity. But you know who does? The Congress that never authorized the structure… never provided the money for it… and certainly never gave the “okay” to raid hundreds of millions of dollars from other programs to make it happen.

Of course Trump’s MAGA allies in Congress haven’t bothered to sue him over it; they’re okay with him breaking the law. But Democrats may soon have a powerful force with which to turn the tide. And the courts will be forced to listen if a co-equal branch of government is saying that its rights under the Constitution were violated.

I know the objection, because I’ve heard it from smart lawyers for a decade (including at a dinner last night in New York City). Congressional lawsuits often get thrown out because the courts get nervous about refereeing fights between the branches. That’s true, but it’s also the reason to be strategic rather than timid. The House shouldn’t sue over everything. It should sue where its institutional injury is the sharpest, and the second Trump administration has helpfully supplied a perfect trilogy, if you will: money has flowed into the presidency without Congress’s consent… money has flowed out of the Treasury without Congress’s appropriation… and money Congress appropriated has been illegally shut off in the pipeline.

The easiest places to start are Trump’s Qatari-gifted jumbo jet, his White House ballroom, and his unilateral destruction of an agency Congress created, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

I’ll start with the jet. The U.S. Constitution is pretty straightforward on this, namely the Foreign Emoluments Clause, which says that no federal officeholder may accept “any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever” from a foreign state “without the Consent of the Congress.” The Framers didn’t ban foreign gifts outright, but they created a procedure, and the procedure runs through Congress. But when Qatar handed Trump a $400 million luxury aircraft, nobody asked anyone on Capitol Hill what they thought about it — about a foreign government trying to win over the president with the priciest gift ever offered to an occupant of the Oval Office.

Instead, the administration’s own lawyers gave a thumbs-up to the arrangement by saying it was a gift to the “Air Force”… and then said that the Air Force asset could be re-gifted to the Trump presidential library after he leaves office. Ha! That’s like me having my own personal accountant give me permission to carry out embezzlement. That doesn’t make it less illegal. To say nothing of the fact that hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars may have been used (without Congress’s approval) to upgrade the new Air Force One to Trump’s liking.

Then there’s the ballroom, which I want to go back to for a minute. Remember how Donald Trump promised that private donors would pick up the tab for his gilded replacement for the East Wing? That was already a corruption story (given the pattern of contributors receiving contracts and dinners in return). Then records revealed that taxpayers will fund roughly half of it anyway. That’s when it became an outright constitutional violation because the Appropriations Clause says no money leaves the Treasury except through an appropriation made by law. And guess what? Congress never appropriated a dime for demolishing the East Wing and building up a marble dancing hall in its place.

Worse still, the cash is being pulled from Secret Service and White House Military Office accounts, including funds meant to train agents to defend senior government officials against assassination attempts. I spent years on the House Appropriations Committee helping oversee the Secret Service’s budget, and I can tell you nobody in that room ever appropriated a single dollar for a chandelier or a dance floor. This is the strongest legal terrain the House has, because it’s already won on cases like this. I know, because I was there.

In 2014, when I was a Republican aide in the House, Speaker John Boehner won a floor vote to sue the Obama administration for making healthcare payments without an appropriation, and by 2016 a federal court ruled the House had standing and that the payments were unconstitutional. To be clear, I didn’t exactly love that lawsuit at the time, but I love the precedent that it set. And the donor-funded half of the ballroom isn’t innocent either, because federal law also exists to stop presidents from financing government operations with private money. Indeed, a president who can fund his priorities with donor cash doesn’t need Congress, and a president who thinks he doesn’t need Congress can’t be checked by one.

Finally, there’s a strong lawsuit to be brought around USAID, which is the deepest wound of the three. Congress enshrined that agency in statute in 1998, funded it every year since, and wrote explicit restrictions on reorganizing it into the appropriations bills. Trump bulldozed the place anyway and used a so-called “pocket rescission” to incinerate billions in foreign aid Congress had already approved (a maneuver a federal judge has already ruled fails under the Impoundment Control Act).

The Supreme Court settled the underlying principles decades ago. Presidents cannot refuse to spend appropriated funds, even if they think it will save taxpayers money, and they cannot cancel enacted spending on their own, which is why the line-item veto was struck down during the Clinton years. Unfortunately, the unions and aid groups who sued over USAID’s destruction were dismissed because a court found their injuries didn’t fit the constitutional claim — that they didn’t have standing to sue. Of course they didn’t. The constitutional claim is that Congress’s lawmaking and spending powers were literally stolen by the president, and only Congress can walk into court and say: “That theft happened to me.”

If Congress sues Donald Trump, it’s no quick fix. These cases will undoubtedly grind through counter-filings and appeals, and Trump’s lawyers will fight at every step. But the legal ground has quietly shifted over fifteen years and an array of interesting cases that strengthen the argument that the House — especially on matters related to federal spending and the power of the purse — can challenge the usurpation of those powers in court.

The question now is whether an incoming Democratic majority will treat Congress only as a stage for fiery hearings… or also as a platform where they have the standing to sue the wrinkled pants off the president. Trump has spent two years betting no one can make him give anything back. But I say: let’s find out in court.

Your friend, in defiance,

Miles Taylor

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DEFIANCE DAILY

In case you missed it, last night’s episode of DEFIANCE Daily is below. Catch our next episode tonight at 5 pm ET!

TRACK THE TRUMP-EPSTEIN READING ROOM & BOOKMOBILE

The Donald J. Trump and Jeffrey Epstein Memorial Reading Room, showcasing 3,437 volumes of released Epstein files, opened in Des Moines, Iowa, yesterday to shine a light on Trump’s corruption and demand justice for survivors. Sarah Trone Garriott, a member of the Iowa Senate and candidate for Iowa’s Third Congressional District, met with Epstein survivors, their families, and anti-trafficking advocates.

Meanwhile, the traveling Bookmobile rolls into Chicago TODAY. Plan a visit and share with others. Check out the tour schedule HERE!

THE ANT HILL IS OUR MEMBERS-ONLY CORNER OF THE COLONY, WHERE “DEFY ANTS” GET MORE THAN JUST THE NEWSLETTER.

TODAY’S FEATURES: THE DEFIANCE WATCHLIST AND MY DEFIANCE MISSION

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Timothy Kelly, who was appointed by Trump in his first term, is the same judge who ruled against his White House in 2018, ordering it to restore Jim Acosta’s press credential.

Before the first hearing has even happened, Trump is already talking …

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I’m writing to you from an Uber in New York City, thinking about what a visitor just told me.

The man was dressed smartly. The style you’d associate with forty-something businessmen or a diplomat a from Nordic country. We chatted in line at a Starbucks at LaGuardia, where I just landed for meetings this week during the UN General Assembly. He said he was in town for the same reason, and he asked about my DEFIANCE hat, which got us talking politics.

At the end of the coffee bar, while we waited for our orders, he shook his head and said in a light accent, “I don’t even recognize this place anymore.”

He wasn’t talking about the airport obviously. He was talking about how America has become something different in such a short time. Before flying over, he confessed, he deleted his browsing history, the way a lot of foreign travelers now do before touching down in the United States. It wasn’t his idea, he said. His wife told him he should do it. He scoffed at what had made him do it, speculating that his social media history had probably been vacuumed up by the CIA before he boarded. (I didn’t bother correcting him that it would’ve been DHS, not that it matters to a foreign national.)

We grabbed our drinks. I asked if he wanted to sit down and share his thoughts, perhaps for an interview. He smiled politely and declined. Then he made his way ahead of me to baggage claim.

It was a brief interaction but not a surprising one. I’ve heard that tone of voice before. Last year around this time, I surveyed a number of foreign contacts who shared similar sentiments, including a German filmmaker who said his “heart raced at the border,” a Norwegian journalist who spent hours scrubbing five years of anti-Trump posts before visiting the States, and a British colleague who powers down his phone when he’s here before meetings — the way Soviet citizens once buried the telephone under a pillow before dinner guests arrived.

Those sentiments were an early warning sign, perhaps. Now they sound more like a travel guide because it’s become such common knowledge to U.S. visitors that things aren’t the same here. In fact, to many of the people arriving for the biggest global gathering of the year in New York City, the United States has transformed dramatically in a very short period of time.

Can you blame them for feeling this way? They watch on the news as journalists are arrested… as foreigners with zero criminal record are swept off the streets, held in secret detention, and deported… as members of the political opposition are spied on by the government… and so on.

Today marks one year since the president signed an executive order designating “antifa” a domestic terrorist organization, a broad and unprecedented directive that has given license to federal agents to investigate people and groups they deem “anti-American,” “anti-Christian,” and “anti-capitalist.” The New York Times just published a devastating account of what’s happened in the wake of that order, including federal agents infiltrating neighborhood watch committees, church meetings, and an environmental group in Minnesota, surveilling hundreds of ordinary people. In a separate case, an elementary school aide in Texas got thirty years in prison, and the lone allegation against him was hiding a box of anarchist publications.

What’s happening with the free press is, I assume, top of mind for visitors like my friend in the Starbucks line.

On Friday, the White House banned CNN, Politico, and MSNOW from the grounds over their coverage, and yesterday those outlets filed suit to defend the principle that the government doesn’t get to decide what journalists publish. Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reports Trump has repeatedly discussed evicting the entire press corps from the White House, raising it again just last month. And on Monday night, the administration filled the vacuum by launching a 24-hour channel called TRUMP TV, billed by a White House aide as a livestream of the administration’s “greatest hits, unfiltered.” Critics immediately compared it to the state-run media of North Korea and China, and frankly, what else would you call it? He bans the free press then creates a government-run channel for the news of his administration. The North Koreans don’t need to take any notes while they’re in town for UNGA because we’re copying theirs!

So no, my new friend at LaGuardia wasn’t being paranoid. He was being observant. And he has plenty of company. Polling this year found that only 11 percent of Europeans still consider the United States an ally. I’m still marveling at that figure. Nearly nine in ten citizens of the free world’s oldest partnership have written us off, and it’s no wonder why. The diplomats arriving for UNGA are treating America the way they’d treat a visit to a hostile country — cleaning their devices, using their words carefully, and keeping everything off the record. It’s hard to view a place like that as “friendly.”

This time last year, I wrote that our foreign friends were holding up a mirror and wondering whether we’d look into it. Twelve months later, I think many of them have quietly put the mirror away. They keep their heads down, clear customs, and then catch their flights home, hoping that agents of Trump’s government aren’t tracking them.

The “looking in the mirror” phase is long gone. It’s up to us to be thinking every day about how we’re going to defy this madness. That’s one of the reasons I’m in town. I have some ideas. And I’ll be sharing them with you soon.

Your friend, in defiance,

Miles Taylor

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DEFIANCE DAILY

In case you missed it, last night’s episode of DEFIANCE Daily is below. Catch our next episode tonight at 5 pm ET!

TRACK THE BOOKMOBILE

The Trump-Epstein Reading Room & Bookmobile rolled into Iowa this week (and the Bookmobile is headed to Chicago tomorrow). Plan a visit and share with others. Check out the tour schedule HERE!

THE ANT HILL IS OUR MEMBERS-ONLY CORNER OF THE COLONY, WHERE “DEFY ANTS” GET MORE THAN JUST THE NEWSLETTER.

TODAY’S FEATURES: THE DEFIANCE WATCHLIST AND TRIVIA TUESDAY

IF YOU’RE ALREADY A DEFIANCE MEMBER, THEN MARCH RIGHT IN. IF NOT, SIGN UP HERE, SO YOU DON’T MISS A THING.

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Today, we’ve never been happier to be proven wrong.

Trump’s attempt to shut out the press is already backfiring, and it happened in a way that would almost be too on the nose if we wrote it ourselves.

Then, remember all that talk last week about needing AI guardrails?

Well, we now know an AI screwup came frighteningly close to putting U.S. forces in direct conflict with China.

Rep. Suhas Subramanyam joins us to talk about what happened and whether Washington is moving fast enough to prevent the next mistake.

Plus, Republicans have built a massive midterm war chest, but some of that money is ending up in places they probably didn’t expect to be spending it.

Independent Senate candidate Brian Bengs joins us from South Dakota, where AI money has also found its way into the race.

And for Who’s Joining the DEFIANCE, Don Jr.’s Russian oligarch-funded wedding festivities have caught the attention of a Republican senator.

Get more from Miles Taylor in the Substack app

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THIS WEEK ON THE ANT HILL

• TUES, SEPT 22 — TRIVIA TUESDAY — Test your knowledge of defiance throughout history, and we’ll give a shoutout to everyone who gets all five right AND a $15 discount on any swag in our swag store!

• WEDS, SEPT 23 — MY DEFIANCE MISSION — On Mission Wednesdays, we highlight the defiance actions Members are taking in their own communities. Tell us your story here. Every action counts!

• THURS, SEPT 24 — SHOW US YOUR ANT-ITUDE! — We wanna see your DEFIANCE swag, your original artwork, your unique ways of shouting out your defiance to the world in creative ways. Send your pics to our editor here.

• THE DEFIANCE BOOK CLUB — Our next selection is: 1984 by George Orwell. We’ll be discussing two chapters per week in our Members-only chatroom beginning on Thursday, September 24 @ 2:30 pm ET. It’s never too late to join the party! Visit your library or favorite bookstore to pick up a copy.

GROW THE DEFIANCE

DEFIANCE Members are absolutely crushing it, spreading the word about our club for the courageous to their friends. There is strength in numbers, and that’s exactly what defiance requires. Here’s how you can help build our numbers—and get a shoutout on the Daily with Miles and Xander:

1. Go to https://www.defiance.news/leaderboard

2. Use the buttons provided to share your personal referral link on X, Facebook, or email. Or, copy the link (circled in the example below) to share it via text or other social platforms.

Over the weekend, Donald Trump barred three news orgs from the White House for the “crime” of covering him accurately. What happens in the coming weeks will determine whether he stops at just three.

On Friday the president announced on Truth Social that CNN, MSNOW, and Politico were banned over their “constant ‘reporting’ FAKE NEWS,” and he promised other outlets would follow. By Saturday morning, Secret Service officers were confiscating hard passes from working reporters at the gates. By Sunday night, the White House had yanked CNN from the travel pool for the UN General Assembly.

This morning, all three outlets are suing, and they stand a good chance of winning. A Trump-appointed judge already ruled in a similar case involving the Associated Press that if the government opens its doors to some journalists, it cannot shut those doors to others because of their viewpoints. (However, an appeals court has been sitting on that case for months, which is why the press can’t wait on the judiciary to fix this.)

I watched this movie from the inside during the first Trump administration, and I can assure you that a courtroom victory won’t cut it. When the White House pulled Jim Acosta’s hard pass in 2018, I was at the White House and watched the depravity unfold. Chief of Staff John Kelly was deflated that he could no longer stop Trump from such petty moves, from banning reporters he didn’t like; meanwhile, mega MAGA aides in the West Wing gloated and went out to dinner to celebrate Acosta’s ban from the premises. CNN sued, the courts sided with Acosta, and even Fox News backed its rival’s case. Acosta’s badge had to be handed back.

But Donald Trump evidently took no lessons from that episode. Seven years later, he’s engaged in the most full-frontal assault on the free press of any president in modern history (arresting journalists, raiding their homes, suing news orgs, threatening to take outlets off the air, siccing the FBI on them, ejecting reporters from government buildings, and so much more). On Friday, Trump basically said he doesn’t care if he wins or loses on his White House reporter ban, in his words, “whether it survives or doesn’t.” Why? Because he’ll find other ways to retaliate.

The man whose whole career has been built on leverage thinks he has all of it and that the news outlets have none. That must change. The question for the rest of the press corps is whether they want to sit on their hands like cowards, or fight back. Do they want to issue “strongly worded” statements, or do they want to actually reverse the executive attacks on the First Amendment?

Here are five things that other news outlets covering the White House could do to take a stand in solidarity with their banned colleagues, from “mild to wild.”

1. Ask Trump about this at every public event, press availability, and interview. They should push Trump’s buttons. Hard. He should be asked about this at every briefing where he wants to boast about something else and every sit-down interview where he hopes to peddle his lies about the “greatest” economy and the war we’re “winning” in Iran. In fact, it should go beyond the president. At every single event where an administration official appears, they should be asked by the free press about the censorship of the free press. If they really want to get serious, they each make their first question about the ban… and it stays the first question until the badges are restored.

2. Refuse to fill the empty chairs of the banned outlets and make it visible. In 2009, when the Obama Treasury Department tried to exclude Fox News from a round of pool interviews, the other network bureau chiefs refused to participate unless Fox was included. The administration folded the same day. That kind of solidarity needs to be put on steroids. For instance, CNN was supposed to fill the television pool slot today (the smaller group of press outlets that take turns covering the president on travel, rotating and sharing coverage); no outlet should take CNN’s spot. Leave Trump without a camera to talk to. No reporters should fill the seats of CNN, MSNOW, and Politico in the White House press briefing room. Everyone should open their questions with the names of the journalists who are barred from asking their own.

3. Get all the outlets on the lawsuit together. The fastest way to destroy Trump’s “fake news” framing is a united legal front that includes his friendliest outlets, which is less far-fetched than it sounds. As noted above, Fox filed an amicus brief for CNN in 2018, declaring that press passes “should never be weaponized,” and the current president of the White House Correspondents’ Association is a Fox News correspondent. If the filings in this case carry Fox, the Wall Street Journal, and the wire services alongside all the other usual names, this stops being Trump-versus-critics and is more clearly presidency-versus-press. If they don’t — if any of these outlets decide to keep their heads down — they will regret it. Because they’re next.

4. Boycott the White House briefing room and keep Trump’s goons off the airwaves. The White House press briefing room is basically just a television set that produces content for the administration, and reporters are under no obligation to keep the cameras rolling while their colleagues are barred from coming into the building. They should refuse to show up. At the next briefing, they should let White House officials perform for a handful of far-right bloggers in an otherwise empty room. But they should go further than that. Networks should decline to book Trump officials and administration surrogates in primetime until the badges are restored. Trump’s whole operation depends on flooding the zone with noise, and the outlets themselves control the microphone. They have more leverage than a judge does — that is, if they have the courage to use it.

5. Make the president physically remove them from the building. On Friday’s program (below) I argued the banned outlets should have staged a sit-in and forced the Secret Service to carry them out. They left before their badges expired, but the reporters still inside now hold that card. If Donald Trump wants to purge the press corps the way his Pentagon did, then officers should have to remove credentialed journalists from the People’s House one by one. On camera. The Pentagon fight taught us that walking out quietly just means the seats get backfilled with propagandists. So this time nobody should walk anywhere. I get that this is the more radical approach for journalists, but don’t you see? What is happening is radical. Countries lose their speech rights if they don’t speak loudly enough to defend them.

None of these options requires an actual verdict from a judge. The press already holds the power to make this ban painful for the Trump administration. If they act, they can make sure it backfires.

In the end, we hold the cards. A Pew Research survey conducted before the ban found that 44 percent of Americans think the press has gotten “less free” since Trump’s second term began (only 12 percent say it’s gotten “more free”). Seventy-three percent of respondents, across party lines, say press freedom is extremely or very important to society. If they really believe that, then people should subscribe to the banned outlets, share their reporting, and speak out loudly about this. Regardless of party affiliation.

Donald Trump wants this fight to be about the three outlets he kicked out for exposing his corruption. In reality, it’s about all of us. And we should act like it.

Your friend, in defiance,

Miles Taylor

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DEFIANCE DAILY

In case you missed it, Friday night’s episode of DEFIANCE Daily is below. Catch our next episode tonight at 5 pm ET!

THE ANT HILL IS OUR MEMBERS-ONLY CORNER OF THE COLONY, WHERE “DEFY ANTS” GET MORE THAN JUST THE NEWSLETTER.

TODAY’S FEATURES: THE DEFIANCE WATCHLIST AND TUNNEL TALK

IF YOU’RE ALREADY A DEFIANCE MEMBER, THEN MARCH RIGHT IN. IF NOT, SIGN UP HERE, SO YOU DON’T MISS A THING.

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Sound familiar?

Jim Acosta (@jimacosta) joins us after living through his own White House ban during Trump’s first term. He takes us inside what happened when the administration came for his press pass and what today’s announcement means for the reporters facing the …

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A major American movie studio that paid millions for a hit documentary is now considering paying a “kill fee” just to get rid of it, because the film might upset Donald Trump and Elon Musk.

When the Musk documentary premiered at the Venice Film Festival this month, the audience applauded for five minutes and shouted “thank you” at director Alex Gibney. That’s pretty much the reception every studio dreams of. Yet the studio that bought the film is now debating whether to bury it altogether.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Universal Pictures, which acquired the international rights to Alex Gibney’s four-hour investigation of the world’s richest man back in 2023, has gone quiet on the filmmakers, set no release date, and (per two sources) may simply hand the rights back to the filmmakers rather than release a movie that has become “politically sensitive for parts of the Trump administration.” Nobody at the White House ordered them to do this. But nobody needed to. Musk called the film a “hit piece” and a “psy op,” and his lawyer sent a letter putting everyone involved “on notice” over the documentary, which will resurrect damning allegations about Musk’s time at DOGE within the Trump administration.

Now, executives at Universal — whose parent company, Comcast, has billions in business sitting before Trump’s government — are wringing their hands over whether to kill the movie and silence themselves.

I keep writing about this phenomenon because it’s become a hallmark of America’s democratic corrosion. It’s what historians call “anticipatory obedience” or, more simply, self-censorship. The same reflex has afflicted the world’s most powerful entertainment companies during the second Trump administration. CBS’s parent company paid Trump $16 million over a routine interview edit that he sued them over. Disney paid another $15 million and briefly yanked a late-night host off the air. Law firms who used to sue Trump over unconstitutional actions instead lined up to kiss the ring and offer millions in pro bono services to Donald Trump’s administration, rather than get added to a White House blacklist.

These many capitulations reinforced the bully’s view that threats are effective… and that American institutions will fold before even getting hit.

If the executives weighing this decision want to know how what capitulation looks like over time, they should crack open a history book. During the Red Scare, the studio chieftains who caved to the anti-communist blacklist probably told themselves the whole ordeal was temporary, prudent, and probably just the price of doing business. But nobody goes back today and looks at their box office numbers when considering their legacies. These men are remembered for cowardice. Full stop.

The blacklist era is taught in film schools as Hollywood’s enduring shame, and the industry has basically spent seventy years apologizing for it, handing back honorary awards and restoring stolen screen credits to the writers it betrayed. And if the people at Universal would rather consult someone still alive, they can ask the leaders of those law firms I mentioned above, who bowed to Trump. Each of them now carries that surrender into every meeting and appearance in Washington because the handful of firms that didn’t capitulate won in court and made the rest look like fools. Trust me. It’s the first comment that gets whispered when they enter a DC restaurant, and it’s the paragraph that will lead their obituaries one day.

The deals business titans are cutting with Donald Trump are meant to buy them peace (or so they think). In reality, they’re the purchase of a permanent reputational asterisk. A little star that will sit there attached to their name for all eternity indicating that they were bullied by a would-be dictator and speedily complied. In fact, “capitulation” is the only crisis-management strategy I’ve ever come across that has a 100% failure rate in the historical record. Remarkably, the people considering it always seem to think they’ll be the exception.

Which brings me to a man named Brian Roberts. He is the CEO of Comcast. He may ultimately be the person who decides whether to kiss Trump’s shoes or tell the president and Elon Musk to pound sand.

While the latest news reporting places the current deliberations over the Musk documentary inside Universal Pictures itself, that’s not where the buck will stop. Universal answers to Comcast, which has already faced pressure from the Trump administration for its coverage at NBC News. Indeed, the FCC is run by a man who reportedly “privately reveres” Elon Musk, the agency is already investigating Comcast, and (as the Hollywood Reporter notes) angering him “could potentially bring more legal and regulatory headaches for the Brian Roberts-led conglomerate.” Roberts may never personally own the final decision, but he doesn’t have to. The regulatory gun is pointed at his company, and that will do all the talking.

So I’d like to speak directly to the people in that deliberation room:

Shelving this film will accomplish nothing. Universal only controls the release of this film outside North America. Another company, Bleecker Street, is already planning to open the film in New York and Los Angeles on October 9 and nationwide on October 16, and HBO, to its genuine credit, has stood by the project and even funded additional filming. The documentary will exist, and Americans will see it, no matter what Universal does. Killing the international release won’t suppress the film. Rather, it would be an embarrassing tribute payment, a public gesture of submission from one of the most powerful media companies on Earth to a trillionaire with thin skin and a president with a never-ending grudge.

To put it in clearer terms, you would be paying a kill fee for the privilege of kneeling to Donald Trump.

In particular, I want Comcast CEO Brian Roberts to know this: you’re not alone. Take it from someone who’s been on the receiving end of this administration’s revenge machine. The fear is real, Mr. Roberts, I get it. These people want to make your life miserable. But the math is on your side. While the bullies can hurt you a little in the short term, the verdict of your actions — in this very moment — will define you in the long term. Alex Gibney made a film asking what absolute power does to a man and to a country. Whether Universal releases it — whether you release it, Mr. Roberts — will answer the question symbolically and powerfully.

Don’t you see?

If you want to go further and show other corporate leaders how to stand straight — how not to be weak-kneed — then announce the release of the film yourself. Don’t dither or decide to release the movie in global theaters when you think people have stopped caring. Go put the release date on a poster and shake hands with the director. Take pictures. Own it. In doing so, you can be the CEO that showed the world that Hollywood still has a spine. Or, if it sounds more appealing, you can join the ledger of institutions that laid prostrated at Donald Trump’s feet and let him press his Florsheim Oxford shoes on your cheek. It doesn’t sound terribly comfortable.

Perhaps you’ve already hinted at your decision. I’m reading in the news this morning that Comcast-owned Universal Pictures might be open to holding onto the film because y’all are worried about backlash from the other side of the equation. From all of us. Backlash from ordinary Americans who are getting pissed off by corporate capitulation, while we’re the ones out there going to the NO KINGS rallies and showing what a First Amendment commitment actually looks like.

If that’s the case, I guess I won’t be surprised. In my experience, institutions rarely find courage on their own. Mostly, they find audiences who demand it, and perhaps that’s where all of this is headed. Yet you still have a few days to show that you weren’t willing to get bullied this way, then that way. A few days to show you made a decision because it was the right one.

So kiss the shoes, Mr. Roberts, or make history. That’s your choice. Either way, the whole world is watching.

Your friend, in defiance,

Miles Taylor

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DEFIANCE DAILY

In case you missed it, last night’s episode of DEFIANCE Daily is below. Catch our next episode tonight at 5 pm ET!

THE ANT HILL IS OUR MEMBERS-ONLY CORNER OF THE COLONY, WHERE “DEFY ANTS” GET MORE THAN JUST THE NEWSLETTER.

TODAY’S FEATURES: THE DEFIANCE WATCHLIST AND THE DEFIANCE BOOK CLUB

IF YOU’RE ALREADY A DEFIANCE MEMBER, THEN MARCH RIGHT IN. IF NOT, SIGN UP HERE, SO YOU DON’T MISS A THING.

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Some say members need the time to campaign back home. Others might point to Mike Johnson’s ever-melting spine when it comes to dealing with the pressure building in Congress.

I mean, he did pick one hell of a time to skip town…

Fears around autonomous AI are pushing C…

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Donald Trump spent two years mocking Canada as America’s future 51st state. This week, Europe offered to make Canada its first.

The European Commission’s proposal to make our northern neighbor the EU’s inaugural “associate member” (a status invented just for them) drew riotous applause in Strasbourg… and a tantrum down in North Carolina where Trump was traveling. Within hours of EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s announcement, Trump was calling the idea “laughable,” branding Canada “a terrible trade partner,” and threatening to slap “very heavy tariffs” on Europe, or to stop trading with the continent entirely, if he decides the whole thing is a “hostile act.”

Undeterred this morning, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney stood before the European Parliament and twisted the knife with a butler’s politeness. Canada was not proposing “a third bloc in order to become a great power rival, only with better manners,” the prime minister said with a smile. His country simply seeks resilience “so no one can control our open markets, impair our sovereignty, threaten territorial integrity or undermine our freedoms, our democracies, our rule of law.” He never uttered the name of the global bully who threatens Canada’s markets, sovereignty, and territory. He didn’t have to. Everyone in the chamber knew who he was talking about, and they gave him a standing ovation.

This is what defiance looks like when a nation does it. Trump has belittled one of our closest allies on the planet since retaking office, with his team relishing in childish memes about Canada as America’s “51st State.” But the mockery turned into cruel reality. Trump hit Canada with 50 percent tariffs; moved to ban their dairy, alcohol, lumber, cars, and so on; and further taunted them about annexation like a mob boss gazing at a storefront that isn’t his.

Canada’s response was not to beg, like the pathetic American law firms that bowed to Donald Trump in his first months back in office. Instead, they’ve walked across the street to build a better future with people who keep their word. Mark Carney didn’t throw a tantrum or melt down on Truth Social. He held his head high and shook hands with other Western leaders and cut a new deal and smiled. Judging from Trump’s reaction, that act is succeeding at the game Trump thinks he’s good at (but at which he’s a total failure): getting leverage.

You have to marvel at the mind-melting incompetence required to produce this outcome. Canada is the friendliest neighbor any great power has ever had. I can personally attest to that. Their officials have sat next to me in some of the tensest, toughest, scariest national security conversations I’ve ever been a part of… put a hand on our backs… and said, “We’re with you.” We share the longest peaceful border on Earth, a continental economy, integrated defenses, and a century of spilled blood in common causes. Seventy percent of Canadian exports come to us. Seventy percent!

Alienating Canada should be diplomatically impossible, like getting into a bar fight with a golden retriever. Who would punch a golden retriever? Yet this president has bullied our closest friend so relentlessly that they didn’t just move down the block. They moved to Europe. I’m certain that historians will study this the way they study lost empires, and they’ll probably struggle to explain how one man managed — with his microwaved mind and Egg McMuffin over-confidence — to do it in under two years, out of pure spite, and basically for nothing.

John Kelly used to say that our former boss, Donald Trump, was a “very, very evil man.” But he’s also an imbecile. Without exaggeration, I think he’s the stupidest man to have held office — any office, of any kind — in our nation’s capital. I’ve worked with a lot of dullards. This one takes the cake.

During the first Trump administration, allied officials would pull us aside after meetings and ask, in their various polite ways, whether America was still America. Back then we could reassure them that we were trying hard to dissuade the president from doing stupid things. That’s not the case anymore. His team was built to be just as moron-ish as he is. And what I’ve noticed is that our allies have stopped asking the question.

Carney told Canadians months ago that they had absorbed the “shock of betrayal” and would learn from it. They’re not waiting around; they’re acting. This week that included a proposed EU membership structure, a floated European security council, joint defense production, critical minerals partnerships, Canadian energy for Europe, shared AI protocols, and student pipelines.

The words they’re using show how badly Trump has blown our leadership of the free world. “A Canada-EU alliance would create a beacon for other democracies,” Carney declared. Being the beacon used to be our job. It was the entire premise of American power. Now we’re watching our own demotion — albeit, delivered politely — to a standing ovation. So much winning, as Trump’s frat-bro aides would say.

So there are two halves to this story. The defiant half is glorious. Canada is demonstrating, for every democracy watching, that the response to Trump’s bullying should be neither submission nor hysteria… but the calm construction of alternatives. We should all take notes. But the other half is the detonation of our legacy and the corrosion of our economy, which means the cleanup ahead of us is historic. Rebuilding trust with allies who have now institutionalized their doubts will take a generation of showing up. And then some. Like people, nations don’t forget the years they had to insure themselves against their best friend.

Ever been betrayed before? I have.

But I also have some hope. Our allies aren’t leaving because they hate America. They’re leaving because they miss us, and they can’t stand the bully who’s holding us hostage. As much as it was a declaration of independence, Carney’s speech also left the door open to better days. The democracies of the world are holding a seat for us, waiting for proof that Trumpism was a fever and not a fatal disease. That proof starts at the ballot box here in the United States in November.

Canada is showing the world how to defy Donald Trump. The least we can do is show them that we’re worth defying him for.

Your friend, in defiance,

Miles Taylor

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DEFIANCE DAILY

In case you missed it, last night’s episode of DEFIANCE Daily is below. Catch the major announcement we made with and . Catch our next episode tonight at 5 pm ET!

THE ANT HILL IS OUR MEMBERS-ONLY CORNER OF THE COLONY, WHERE “DEFY ANTS” GET MORE THAN JUST THE NEWSLETTER.

TODAY’S FEATURES: THE DEFIANCE WATCHLIST AND SHOW US YOUR ANT-ITUDE

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Last week, we told you about Russian oligarch Umar Kremlev spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on Donald Trump Jr.’s wedding celebrations — money that was routed through a Dubai account.

We ran into House Oversight Chairman James Comer in D.C. and asked him about it. He told us he was concerned.

Congressman Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on Comer’s committee, has now opened an inquiry into Don Jr.’s relationship with Kremlev. Garcia sent letters to Don Jr. and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles seeking his communications with Kremlev, any communications between Don Jr. and the White House about Kremlev, financial records involving purchases by foreign nationals, and a complete list of the wedding gifts Don Jr. received from foreign nationals.

Chairman Comer says he’s concerned. Now he has a way to follow through.

Then, onto our Weekly Mission Briefing.

BOTTOM LINE UP FRONT: GEORGIA IS THE TEST CASE FOR EVERY FIGHT AHEAD

The beating heart of DEFIANCE.org is our Weekly Mission Briefing. Every Wednesday at 5p ET, we take real action to counter Donald Trump’s abuses of power.

This week, our mission targets Georgia — the state that could show the rest of the country how to fight back and win.

So here’s what we did about it this week…

FIRST, we turned to Stacey Abrams (@staceyabrams), co-founder of Fair Fight Action, who joined us to talk about how Georgia became one of the most competitive states in the country — and why, as she puts it, “demography is not destiny.” We covered the record Democratic turnout in Georgia’s May primary, and what that energy could mean heading into November.

SECOND, we dug into a new flashpoint: FBI Director Kash Patel telling Congress the Bureau’s election-crimes coordinators would be “manning the polls for election interference matters” this November, without clarifying what that actually means. We asked Stacey what organizers and election officials should be preparing for if federal agents do show up around polling places.

THIRD, we spotlighted the organization our members are funding this week: Fair Fight Action (@rightsandinsights), led by CEO Lauren Groh-Wargo. Fair Fight is training election-protection teams and getting accurate voting information directly to voters across Georgia and the South — work made more urgent by the fact that the federal government still holds more than 600 boxes of Fulton County’s 2020 election records, after a judge dismissed a lawsuit last month seeking limits on how that information can be used.

YOU MADE THIS POSSIBLE.

YOUR MISSION, IF YOU CHOOSE TO ACCEPT IT

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THIS WEEK ON THE ANT HILL

• THURS, SEPT 17 — SHOW US YOUR ANT-ITUDE! — We wanna see your swag, your original artwork, your unique ways of shouting out your defiance to the world in creative ways. Send your pics to our editor here.

• THE DEFIANCE BOOK CLUB — Our next selection is: 1984 by George Orwell. We’ll be discussing two chapters per week in our Members-only chatroom beginning on Thursday, September 24 @ 2:30 pm ET. It’s never too late to join the party! Visit your library or favorite bookstore to pick up a copy.

GROW THE DEFIANCE

DEFIANCE Members are absolutely crushing it, spreading the word about our club for the courageous to their friends. There is strength in numbers, and that’s exactly what defiance requires. Here’s how you can help build our numbers—and get a shoutout on the Daily with Miles and Xander:

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District attorneys around America are warning Trump’s FBI chief what will happen if he breaks the law and sends agents to the polls in November: “We’re going to lock their asses up.”

Yesterday, under oath, Kash Patel refused to promise that his agents will stay away from polling places in the midterms, despite strict federal laws barring the practice. In fact, Patel seemed to hint that the Bureau was pre-positioned to do it across America, a move that election experts widely view as an attempt to intimidate voters of the political opposition — i.e. to scare them away from the voting booth.

The director was asked point blank by Senator Richard Blumenthal whether he could commit that no FBI agents would be sent to the polls on Election Day. He wouldn’t. Instead, he told the Senate Judiciary Committee: “I don’t know that we can’t legally do it.” Then he boasted that the Bureau has an election crimes coordinator in all 56 field offices, promising, “you bet we’re going to have them there and manning the post.”

Meanwhile, a Republican candidate for governor in Michigan says “my friend Kash” already told him the FBI will have a presence in his state leading up to Election Day.

But local prosecutors around the United States have already warned that such plans would be illegal. And they’re prepared to take action against federal law enforcement officers who engage in voter intimidation or voter suppression.

Their warnings may come to fruition. Patel is teeing up the possibility, if not the likelihood, that the FBI will deploy personnel toward the polls across its field offices. And I suspect the regime’s lawyers think they’ve found a clever workaround, namely, leaving their guns at the office. The main federal statute here, 18 U.S.C. § 592, is a Civil War-era law that makes it a felony to station “troops or armed men” anywhere an election is being held.

While the military has already ruled out sending troops to voting locations on behalf of Trump, it appears the FBI might be looking to do it instead, possibly under the belief that if its agents aren’t armed, the statute doesn’t apply.

Yet district attorneys have pointed out that the “unarmed” loophole is a mirage. Federal law separately makes it a crime to intimidate voters or interfere with an election, armed or not. 18 U.S.C. § 595 bars federal employees from using official authority to affect an election. 52 U.S.C. § 20511 criminalizes intimidating voters or anyone helping them vote. No firearm is required to stumble over this tripwire. In this case, wearing the FBI windbreaker to instill fear is the weapon.

It doesn’t take much imagination to see what they’re trying to do. You can visualize Election Day coverage of polling places in Detroit, Philadelphia, Phoenix, and Atlanta with clusters of people in FBI jackets standing outside and holding clipboards, staring down voters as they line up to cast a ballot. Agents of the regime. Agents of the president. Do you really think they’re trying to spot fraud? Or perhaps to make Democratic voters think twice about showing up?

I spent years inside the federal government, including at the Department of Homeland Security, and to me there’s nothing subtle about it. This is a naked attempt at voter suppression. MAGA groups already tried to do this in recent midterm elections, including staking out ballot drop boxes while armed in Arizona in 2022, until a federal judge forced them to back off. But now the MAGA movement has control of federal law enforcement agencies themselves and the ability to send them out with the thinnest veneer of legitimacy.

I’m guessing Donald Trump is more tempted than ever to do it. He’s getting desperate. In recent weeks, his election schemes have been thwarted, again and again. Trump’s team was told NO when they tried to seize state voter rolls. They were told NO when they tried to track and snatch Americans’ ballots from the mail. They keep losing in the courts, yet they keep trying because Trump sees the writing on the wall. He’s terrified of losing control of Congress.

I got a glimpse of that writing this week. While shooting our forthcoming documentary on corruption, we met a man standing outside the White House chatting up British tourists. He was a professional guy in his early sixties, a successful businessman from Texas, and as he told us, a three-time Trump voter. We asked him whether Trump had “drained the swamp.” He didn’t answer right away. Above us, cranes swung back and forth over the White House skyline, working feverishly to finish Trump’s ballroom before another lawsuit could be filed against it.

The man eyed the construction and sighed.

“I just can’t do it anymore. I just can’t. The corruption. It’s gross.”

We filmed him for a bit and carried on the conversation. Then he asked us to point the cameras away and not use his name. He didn’t want to upset people back home. Friends and business interests.

The conversation was illustrative. Is the president’s base rising up defiantly to disavow him? Not exactly. But all across the country, you are seeing people like him. Surveys show they’re quietly quitting the MAGA movement in droves, with the president’s poll numbers sinking in red states. Trump knows it, which is why he realizes the only way for him to win is to cheat.

That’s why DEFIANCE.org got ahead of this months ago.

Back in May, we teamed up with the FAFO Project (the Fight Against Federal Overreach, a nonprofit group that we incubated) and district attorneys around the country to prepare local prosecutors to charge law-breaking federal agents who engage in voter suppression. When Philadelphia DA Larry Krasner joined us for a conversation, my co-founder Xander Schultz asked him what happens if someone tries to intimidate his voters. His answer was straightforward.

“If people want to steal your vote, I want to lock them up. It’s really not that complicated.” Krasner pledged that if Trump sends federal officers to stop people from voting, “they are going to get charged with election interference, which is a crime in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.”

Can local prosecutors go after federal officials who commit crimes in their states?

“Yes, we can,” he responded.

The FAFO Project is now well underway in training local prosecutors to defend the constitutional rights of voters in their districts and to monitor the polls for federal agents who might pop up at voting places in violation of the law.

Whether or not the FBI sends its people out on Election Day, it’s a certainty that the polls will be swarmed — with lawyers, poll watchers, and ordinary American citizens who are preparing to demand that their government play by the rules. In the conversation with Larry Krasner, we pressed him one more time.

But what if they don’t? What if Trump’s people still get dispatched to intimidate voters?

For the avoidance of doubt, he repeated himself: “Then we’re going to lock their asses up.”

Your friend, in defiance,

Miles Taylor

P.S. This is exactly the fight DEFIANCE.org was built for. We’re a nonprofit club for the courageous, and our members make missions like this possible. Become a member and join us.

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DEFIANCE DAILY

In case you missed it, last night’s episode of DEFIANCE Daily is below. Catch our next episode tonight at 5 pm ET!

THE ANT HILL IS OUR MEMBERS-ONLY CORNER OF THE COLONY, WHERE “DEFY ANTS” GET MORE THAN JUST THE NEWSLETTER.

TODAY’S FEATURES: THE DEFIANCE WATCHLIST AND MY DEFIANCE MISSION

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Trump’s response? He says the only guardrail we need is him.

So today, we’re going all in on AI and trying to figure out which fears deserve our attention and which ones are getting ahead of the facts.

AI scientist and author Gary Marcus (@marcusonai) joins us to cut through the doomsday talk and explain what he thinks we should be worried about right now, including what happens when increasingly capable AI agents start behaving in ways their creators didn’t intend.

Then we turn to the generation that will inherit whatever comes next.

Amanda Litman (@amandalitman) of Run for Something joins us to talk about how younger voters and candidates are approaching AI when they’re the ones who will have to live with its consequences long after the current debate is over.

Plus, for Who’s Joining the DEFIANCE, an Illinois fencing company was owed $10,000 for a completed job. When the customer threatened to call ICE, they found another way to settle the bill.

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THIS WEEK ON THE ANT HILL

• WEDS, SEPT 16 — MY DEFIANCE MISSION — On Mission Wednesdays, we highlight the defiance actions Members are taking in their own communities. Tell us your story here. Every action counts!

• THURS, SEPT 17 — SHOW US YOUR ANT-ITUDE! — We wanna see your DEFIANCE swag, your original artwork, your unique ways of shouting out your defiance to the world in creative ways. Send your pics to our editor here.

• THE DEFIANCE BOOK CLUB — Our next selection is: 1984 by George Orwell. We’ll be discussing two chapters per week in our Members-only chatroom beginning on Thursday, September 24 @ 2:30 pm ET. It’s never too late to join the party! Visit your library or favorite bookstore to pick up a copy.

GROW THE DEFIANCE

DEFIANCE Members are absolutely crushing it, spreading the word about our club for the courageous to their friends. There is strength in numbers, and that’s exactly what defiance requires. Here’s how you can help build our numbers—and get a shoutout on the Daily with Miles and Xander:

1. Go to https://www.defiance.news/leaderboard

2. Use the buttons provided to share your personal referral link on X, Facebook, or email. Or, copy the link (circled in the example below) to share it via text or other social platforms.

After last night’s Supreme Court ruling, I want to share some reflections, merely as an American citizen and a voter.

I do not want any president, of any political party, to have the ability to track my vote. I do not want any president, of any political party, to be able to remove my ballot from the mail for any reason whatsoever. And I do not want any president, of any political party, to put a thumb on the scales of an election through backdoor bureaucratic maneuvering that could be kept secret until after the vote, or potentially forever.

These seem like the modest desires of any freedom-loving person. And thankfully, the high court blocked Trump’s Orwellian scheme to do exactly that — to be able to track-and-snatch ballots through the mail.

Yet at least three justices of the United States Supreme Court signaled they might someday be open to endowing the presidency with such power. Justices Thomas and Alito would’ve let it proceed, and although Justice Kavanaugh voted to block it, he wrote that a future version might well be lawful. As such, this is a morning for relief rather than celebration. It reminds me that we have to stay geared up for this fight, because we’re potentially a few judicial votes away from a death knell for our democracy.

Indeed, I’m less heartened by the Supreme Court’s action than I am by my fellow Americans.

I am in Washington, D.C. this week shooting our micro-documentary called CORRUPTIONLAND. We plan to release it before the midterms. What became clearer to me last night is that this city is filled with worried elites who see the people standing at the city limits holding pitchforks. On Capitol Hill as the sun was setting, I put the same interview question to a bunch of members of Congress as they were scurrying across the street to go vote. I asked them about a recent Gallup survey showing that 89 percent of Americans believe corruption is widespread in the U.S. government, a record high (and the first time our country has topped the entire developed world in perceived corruption).

I expected the question to catch them off guard. Instead, their faces told me that staff had shared that figure with them already. Depending on their party, the looks I got ranged from sheepish to alarmed.

The fear among Washington’s elite class is palpable. They know the people are angry, and they hear the same numbers I do. Americans are turning against the elected demagogues who think they can whistle God Bless America while chipping away at our democratic rights and getting richer off of their government service. The voters see plainly that Donald Trump is the figurehead of this corruption — a man who’s tried to take away their ballots while pocketing billions in office — and how Republicans have stood by and watched. Cheered, even.

How can any of those politicians be surprised by the angry masses gathering at the edge of town?

Of course, there’s always a risk that a pitchfork mob descends into something far worse. And there will be a time for that conversation. But right now, I see fellow Americans by the millions delivering a warning to their leaders. This cannot go on any longer. They’re speaking out lawfully, peacefully, and very defiantly.

We’ve got a very long way to go. Certainly we’ve not yet earned the eternal accolades of the revolutionary generation… or the greatest generation… or the others who stood at the precipice of democratic withering, cupped the remnants of our free society in their hands, and planted them in more fertile soil. But we undoubtedly face a mortal threat to our way of life. Our actions in these midterm elections and the years to come will answer whether we had the foresight and the resolve to do what previous Americans did. That is, to gather the seeds while they can still be saved, plant them deep, and tend them until freedom takes root for another generation.

The moment we are in is daunting. Sometimes it’s depressing. But mostly I’ve been feeling pride because it’s an honor to be alive at a time when the republic needs saving… and to be among the people determined to save it.

Your friend, in defiance,

Miles Taylor

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DEFIANCE DAILY

In case you missed it, last night’s episode of DEFIANCE Daily is below. Catch our next episode tonight at 5 pm ET!

THE ANT HILL IS OUR MEMBERS-ONLY CORNER OF THE COLONY, WHERE “DEFY ANTS” GET MORE THAN JUST THE NEWSLETTER.

TODAY’S FEATURES: THE DEFIANCE WATCHLIST AND TRIVIA TUESDAY

IF YOU’RE ALREADY A DEFIANCE MEMBER, THEN MARCH RIGHT IN. IF NOT, SIGN UP HERE, SO YOU DON’T MISS A THING.

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Tonight the Supreme Court told Donald Trump what we’ve been telling you since March: the president does not get to decide whose vote gets counted.

The Court rejected the administration’s emergency demand to unleash its new Postal Service scheme before the midterms, leaving in place a federal injunction and declaring that Trump’s lawyers are unlikely to win on the merits. Only Justices Alito and Thomas dissented. Every other member of the Court said “no.”

Under Trump’s executive order, the president would have effectively had the power to decide which voters’ ballots got delivered across the United States — a draconian move that could have severely compromised the integrity of the election. In theory, it would’ve allowed the president to prevent the delivery of any ballot of a voter deemed by the Trump administration to be “ineligible.” Yet the president wanted voters to trust that he was only hunting for “noncitizen” voters. What’s more, a postal whistleblower told Congress that whether or not the system was constitutional, it was so rushed that a single scanning error could get entire batches of ballots rejected, disenfranchising thousands of American voters at once.

When Trump signed this order in the spring, we called it an unconstitutional federal takeover of American elections, dressed up as fraud prevention. We didn’t just say it. DEFIANCE.org provided funding for two of the organizations suing the Trump administration over the order — the Campaign Legal Center and Democracy Defenders Fund — as well as Whistleblower Aid, the group representing the USPS whistleblower who came forward. We brought experts together to pick it apart and expose unknown elements that could endanger our democracy. This is why we exist. We crowd-source support to fight corruption. And tonight we celebrate with our pro-democracy partners who made this happen.

Judge after judge agreed on the egregiousness of Trump’s scheme (including just last night, when a Trump-appointed judge in Washington ruled that Congress empowered the Postal Service to move the mail, not to police democracy). Meanwhile the administration has produced zero evidence of mail voting fraud in court, and even Republican election officials in vote-by-mail Utah begged the justices not to unleash the chaos. Oh, and Trump himself voted by mail in Florida this year. The man wants two sets of rules… one for him and one for you.

But there’s a big caveat we are going to keep our eyes on. Justice Kavanaugh wrote separately to say the rule might survive legally someday; it simply can’t be crammed into an election already underway. So this is a shield for November, and the fight over 2028 is already forming. I can guarantee you the Trump administration will try to put this in place once more… and once more, we will fight it.

I was over by the Supreme Court tonight when the decision came down. We’re filming a micro-documentary for the midterms about corruption in Washington, D.C. And as I watched the sun set on the high court, I worried about the possibility that they might let Trump get away with part of this ballot-snatching plot. Moments later, they threw down the gauntlet.

So tonight, just know this. Mail-in ballots are safe from Trump’s illegal order, and many are already being sent out across Alabama, North Carolina, and Wisconsin, with more states to follow. You can request yours. Vote early. Vote by mail with confidence, but vote in person wherever you can, and as early as you can.

Our mission is now clearer than ever: make these elections too big to rig.

Your friend, in defiance,

Miles Taylor

P.S. DEFIANCE.org is a nonprofit. This “club for the courageous” — and all the actions we take each week to fight Trump’s corruption — are funded by ordinary folks like you. Become a member if you want to fight like hell to save our democracy. As long as Trump keeps flooding the zone with corruption, we’ll keep flooding it back with sunlight.