MAGA Vows Voter Intimidation in Midterms - The Thursday AM Quickie 2/5/26
Hi, I'm back. Big thanks to Whitney for covering for me last week. And sincere condolences to the Washington Post journalists who are getting unceremoniously disposed of by the greedy oligarch Jeff Bezos. - Corey
ON THE SHOW TODAY
2/5: Emma will be hosting solo; the guest will be Dan Friedman, senior reporter in Mother Jones' Washington, DC bureau.
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Thanks again paid subscribers!
Today you'll read about what Minnesotans are saying about Donald Trump's order to shrink the federal force occupying their state by less than one-third, how the powers that be in the United Kingdom are taking the Jeffrey Epstein scandal more seriously than their American counterparts, and why Zohran Mamdani is endorsing a liberal over a left-leaning candidate for New York governor.
Tell your friends to sign up for this M-F newsletter at AMQuickie.com!
THE BIG NEWS
'Red Alert': GOP Wants ICE Goons at Midterm Election Sites
On Monday, Donald Trump said he wants to "nationalize" elections in the United States and "take over the voting." What does that mean, exactly? Only Donald Trump knows. As the New York Times reports, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt attempted to spin Trump's remarks as "referring to federal election legislation in Congress." As if to prove her wrong, Trump on Tuesday said he in fact meant that the federal government should run state elections, on account of "that horrible" – and entirely fictitious – "corruption on elections."
What might MAGA meddling look like in this year's midterm elections? Trump adviser Steve Bannon has some ideas. "We're going to have ICE surround the polls come November. We're not going to sit here and allow you to steal the country again," Bannon on his podcast this week, per Politico. "You've got to put — not just, I think, ICE — you've got to call up the 82nd and 101st Airborne [Divisions] on the Insurrection Act. You’ve got to get around every poll and make sure only people with IDs, people … actually registered to vote and people that are United States citizens vote in this election."
All of that would be very illegal. "This is a red alert moment," Massachussetts Democratic Sen. Ed Markey warns. "We have to start working to protect polling places from Trump’s paramilitary ICE goons before it's too late."
Meanwhile in Fulton County, Georgia, FBI agents raided an election facility last week in what appears to be a political mission to satisfy Trump's delusional conspiracy theories about the 2020 election. Local officials have asked a federal court to order the ballots and other documents seized returned. "This case is not only about Fulton County," says county chairman Robb Pitts. "This is about elections across Georgia and across the nation."
And at the Supreme Court yesterday, justices unanimously rejected emergency appeals from Trump and California Republicans to throw out that state's new Congressional map, approved by voters in response to Trump's attempts to gerrymander the midterms in the GOP's favor.