LONDON, Ontario — President Donald Trump seems dead set on escalating his trade war with Canada. And no one is really sure why.

On Monday, Trump threatened another round of 50 percent tariffs on top of the ones he just implemented — this one targeting Canada’s auto industry, which is so deeply integrated with its American counterpart that large duties would do major damage on both sides of the border. By Tuesday morning, he had begun musing about renaming Lake Ontario “Lake America” to spite Canadians. And throughout all of this, he and Vice President JD Vance had renewed their “jokes” about absorbing Canada as the 51st state.

But who is this even for? While the White House’s behavior infuriates Canadians — it is palpable on the ground here in Canada — it’s unusual by Trump standards in that nobody seems to want this conflict but him. 

Even the most fringe, or unpopular, foreign policy ideas he’s pursued typically have think tanks devoted to pushing them, or a loyal ally to please, or a voting bloc to rile up before the midterms. But unlike, say, Trump’s conflicts with Iran, or Cuba, or China, it’s hard to find a highly visible corner of conservatism that’s the driving force behind a nationalist campaign against Canada. 

When I reached out to trade experts, political scientists, and in-the-know Republicans of the pro- and anti- Trump persuasion to try to trace the origins of Trump’s trade war, they had trouble pointing to anything solid. As one veteran GOP lobbyist put it, there doesn’t seem to be any ideological, business, or congressional coalition devoted to egging on the trade fight. 

Even people sympathetic to Trump’s economic nationalism seem confused: Michael Lind, a populist pundit who last year penned a piece titled “Why tariffs are good,” has just written a follow-up titled “The madness of Trump’s Canada trade war.” And while there are some affected industries — autos, steel — they don’t seem to be main characters: United Auto Workers, which backed some prior tariffs, came out strongly against the proposed auto tariffs.

The politics don’t make much sense either. American voters have long disapproved of Trump’s tariffs on Canadian-made goods, and the current escalation threatens to be the largest and most economically damaging yet. Republicans sound anxious about its impact on the midterms; several key Senate races are in states right on the Canadian border, and any tariff-related price spike there could supercharge Democrats’ core midterm message about affordability. 

“This has never been a particularly well-thought strategy. I think that the biggest, most coherent explanation is that this is about power.”

Kim Clausing, UCLA trade economist

“If I were [Senate Majority Leader] John Thune, I’d be very pissed at Trump right now,” says Adam Carlson, a Democratic pollster at Zenith Research.

So why are we at (economic) war?

The best answer is deceptively simple: because Trump, and Trump alone, wants to be. 

There is no good strategic rationale for the way Trump has gone about badgering America’s northern neighbor, even if you share his broadly nationalist view about trade. Rather, Trump has become fixated on dominating or even possessing Canada. And his top deputies are backfilling his fixation, including by offering terms of surrender the Canadians simply couldn’t accept. 

“This has never been a particularly well-thought strategy,” says Kim Clausing, a trade economist at UCLA. “I think that the biggest, most coherent explanation is that this is about power.”

It’s the latest example of the risks of governance by one man’s whims — one that could both damage America’s economy and burn its relationship with its staunchest ally before it resolves.

Trump’s northern power trip

Typically, when you try to explain the policy of any government, you look at two main factors: interests and ideology. In this case, neither is close to sufficient to explain the intensity of Trump’s war on Canada.

It is true that, for decades, the United States has had meaningful trade disputes with Canada over issues like lumber and dairy. But these issues never boiled over into a massive trade war, for the simple reason that they simply aren’t that large as a percentage of GDP. There’s a reason that every administration prior to this one — including Trump’s first — handled these issues through normal negotiating processes rather than loud bullying.

On the ideology front, it is true that Trump’s 2016 victory has revived conservative interest in economic nationalism — leading to the creation of groups like American Compass, a think tank dedicated to putting policy meat on the bones of the right’s nationalist spirit. But these nationalists largely converged on China as their principal economic enemy. While Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro is helping run Canada policy now, there was no sign in his essay in Project 2025 — or from other allies — that anyone was contemplating a full-on trade war with Canada beforehand. And American Compass does not appear to be involved in the current fight, offering no official comment on its press page or founder Oren Cass’s X feed.

“I really do think it is Trump’s idiosyncrasies that caused him to settle on Canada,” says Phil Magness, an economic historian who closely tracks intra-right economic disputes. “Others in the admin are going along with it.”

The timeline backs up Magness’s assessment.

In November 2024, shortly after winning the election, Trump began feuding with then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau — calling him “governor” and beginning his talk of Canada as the 51st state. Less than two months after taking office, Trump targeted Canada with (at that point) historically high 25 percent across-the-board tariffs.

When the Washington Post investigated the rationale behind these tariffs at the time, they found a void. There was no policy paper behind the Canadian tariffs, nor any clear intellectual godfather or industry backer. People inside the administration put all the credit (or blame?) solely at the president’s feet. Within MAGA media, the closest to radical anti-Canada sentiment might have been Tucker Carlson’s trollish musing about “regime change” in 2023.

After Mark Carney replaced Trudeau as prime minister, and won the general election primarily on an anti-Trump platform, tensions cooled to a somewhat surprising degree, at least when it came to trade talks. Prior to this week, the 51st state rhetoric had declined dramatically; negotiations on trade looked like they had a real chance of success. Indeed, just this Tuesday, Trump himself declared they had reached a deal and postponed tariff implementation as a result. The Friday breakdown thus felt like a bit of a shock.

But reading detailed accounts of the negotiation collapse, including a brand-new ticktock from the New York Times, it’s clear that overweening American conditions were a major part of the failure. Most strikingly, and relevant, were US demands that it have control over Canada’s tariff rates with other countries and that it be able to reimpose American tariffs on Canada at will.

The key point here is that the Trump administration was not, and never has been, interested in a reciprocal trade deal between allies based on clear and cogent principles. Instead, they want to vassalize Canada — to bully it into surrendering elements of its sovereignty, or even its sovereign existence altogether. It is clear that this is the direct result of the president’s personal fixation.

Why exactly Trump has become so obsessed with controlling Canada is harder to say. Per the Post, there are theories ranging from bitterness around a legal battle over Trump Tower Toronto to his friendship with Kevin O’Leary, Canadian entrepreneur and host of the reality show Shark Tank. Certainly, his more recent rivalry with Carney hasn’t helped: “Canada lives because of the United States,” Trump declared, menacingly, after the prime minister delivered a critical foreign policy speech in January.

My own personal theory is that it’s of a piece with Trump’s desire to acquire Greenland, another cause that’s largely unique to him. He is looking toward his presidential legacy, and nothing makes a real estate developer think “legacy” more than literally enlarging the size of the United States on the map.

But in practical terms, the reason may be immaterial. Whatever the roots of Trump’s Canada fixation, we know that it is real and a major driver in US foreign policy — one so important, in fact, that he is willing to jeopardize his party’s all-important Senate majority in order to pursue it.

As photojournalist sentenced to 15 years, rights groups warn law would turn civic engagement into security crime

Iran has taken the first step towards criminalising contact with foreign media, in a move human rights groups have said attempts to “sever the entire Iranian society from the rest of the world”.

For journalists, researchers and even ordinary citizens, the proposed law being discussed by Iranian lawmakers this month could make speaking to international audiences and groups a potential criminal act and restrict coverage of events such as January’s mass anti-regime protests.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Yalda Moaiery

© Photograph: Yalda Moaiery

© Photograph: Yalda Moaiery

This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here.

Welcome to The Logoff: President Donald Trump is threatening that if he can’t have the Kennedy Center, no one can. 

What’s going on? Trump has been trying to get his name back on the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts since June, when it was removed in response to a court order. On Monday night, the Justice Department revealed its latest ploy to make that happen. 

In a court filing, the DOJ argued that if its renovation plans for the Kennedy Center aren’t allowed to go forward, “the center will deteriorate further into an unsafe, decrepit structure that will be required to be taken down” and replaced by another structure, “such as a large outdoor amphitheater.”

Tied up in the proposed $250 million renovation are three new tributes to Trump, which the Kennedy Center board (stacked with Trump appointees) voted to add earlier this month: the text “renovated and restored by President Donald J. Trump” and “endowed by The Trump Kennedy Center Fund” on the building’s facade, and the renaming of the Kennedy Center grounds as “President Donald J. Trump Plaza.”

Those changes are currently being challenged in court by Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-OH), who successfully sued to undo Trump’s first renaming of the center. But the Trump administration claims her suit endangers the entire project.

What does Trump’s name have to do with the renovations? According to the DOJ filing, “an order blocking the Board from appropriately recognizing President Trump will cause donors to flee, financial contributions to dry up, and structural rehabilitation to stop.” 

“There will simply not be the expertise or funding necessary to rebuild and renovate this decimated structure,” it adds. 

Is that true? No. Congress already approved $257 million for the renovation last year, which the Kennedy Center board touted in a press release crediting Trump. 

And far from being a draw, the Washington Post reported Tuesday, Trump’s previous renaming of the Kennedy Center caused ticket sales and donations to plummet, creating a $23 million deficit even after deep spending cuts. 

And with that, it’s time to log off…

Universally beloved country music star Dolly Parton died on Tuesday at age 80. Here’s one song to remember her, and a story about what she described as “one of the greatest things that I’ve ever done in my life”: a literacy program that, as of this year, has gifted more than 332 million books to children.

Plus, from my editor: This Radiolab podcast series, Dolly Parton’s America.

Have a great evening, and we’ll see you back here tomorrow!

Less than two months after the Supreme Court ruled against President Donald Trump’s attempt to fire a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors — a move that would have allowed him to seize control over the nation’s central bank if it had succeeded — Trump is once again trying to fire the very same member.

Earlier this month, Trump sent a letter to Lisa Cook, a Joe Biden appointee to the Federal Reserve, demanding that she respond to exceedingly flimsy allegations that she committed mortgage fraud. This is the first step in a process that is likely to end in Trump attempting to remove her from the Federal Reserve’s board a second time — which means that the courts will inevitably have to get involved once again.

Cook has until Wednesday to respond to Trump’s allegations.

It’s tempting to blame this bout of déjà vu on Trump, but the Supreme Court is at least as responsible for his actions as the president itself. If the Court didn’t want Trump to thumb its nose at their decision in Trump v. Cook (2026), they should have written that decision clearly enough that lawyers could actually figure out what the president is and is not allowed to do.

This is a perennial issue with the Court’s current majority, which is unusually bad at explaining themselves. They invent bold new doctrines that give them a near-complete veto power over the executive branch, then only apply this doctrine to Democratic presidents. They once handed down an anti-abortion decision that, if taken seriously, would allow any state to nullify literally any constitutional right. Every single one of their Second Amendment decisions are so incoherent that it is impossible for lower court judges to figure out how to apply them.

The Cook decision, which involved Trump’s first attempt to fire Cook, is similarly incomprehensible. It was handed down the same morning as Trump v. Slaughter (2026), which seems to hold that Trump can fire anyone who leads a federal agency. But Cook does not even cite the Slaughter decision, much less explain why the two cases are different.

Slaughter was grounded in the “unitary executive,” a theory shared by all six of the Court’s Republicans which claims that the president must have full control over federal agencies, including the power to fire their leaders — and thus agencies that have some ability to act independently of the president, such as the Federal Reserve, are unconstitutional. Cook suggests that there’s a Federal Reserve exception to this theory, although the opinion does not offer a clear explanation of why this exception exists.

There are very good policy reasons why Trump should not be able to fire Cook, or any other member of the Federal Reserve’s board. The Fed has the power to inject cocaine into the US economy, temporarily giving it a boost at the price of much greater turmoil and higher inflation down the road. If presidents are allowed to fire the Fed’s leaders, they can remove anyone who refuses to give the economy a bump during an election year — boosting the president or his party’s reelection chances, and triggering consequences that won’t be felt until after the election is over.

But the fact that preserving the Fed’s independence from the president is a good idea does not mean that the Constitution permits it. And, in Slaughter and several related cases, the Court’s Republican majority endorsed an interpretation of the Constitution that is completely incompatible with the idea of an independent Federal Reserve.

That means that, until the Court resolves this tension between Slaughter and Cook, there’s likely to be a great deal of confusion about who really controls the Fed — Trump or its current board — and whether Trump may effectively order the Fed to take actions that benefit him, but that could cause lasting harm to the US economy.

The unitary executive, briefly explained

The issue at the heart of Cook was whether the president is able to fire a member of the Federal Reserve.

Federal law provides that the Federal Reserve’s governors may only be fired “for cause,” and not simply because the president does not like them or disagrees with their policy views. The Republican justices have also long argued that Congress is forbidden from limiting the president’s power to fire federal agency leaders, because this would give the president less than full control over the federal government’s executive branch.

These justices point to a line in the Constitution that states that “the executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.” According to the Court’s Republican majority, this means that the president must have full control over any federal agency that wields power that is “executive” in nature, including the power to fire that agency’s leaders for any reason whatsoever. As Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in an influential 1988 dissenting opinion, this constitutional provision “does not mean some of the executive power, but all of the executive power” is held by the president.

There are numerous problems with this unitary executive theory. The biggest one is that, while the Constitution does say that there is something called the “executive power” that belongs to the president, it does not define what this power is, and the Court’s decisions embracing the idea of a unitary executive often rely on dubious historical claims.

But, regardless of whether the unitary executive rests on a sound reading of the Constitution, it is now the law. And Slaughter suggests that this Court’s definition of the term “executive power” is quite expansive. In that case, the Court indicated that any agency leader who “enforces and administers” a federal statute wields “executive” power, and thus must be fireable at will by the president. 

But then, almost immediately after the Court handed down Slaughter, it ruled in Cook that Trump could not fire one of the Fed’s leaders — or, at least, that he could not do so right away. 

The Cook decision is word salad

Under the Republican justices’ definition of which officials wield executive power, and thus must be fireable at will by the president, Cook clearly should qualify. But five justices, the three Democrats plus Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh, joined a majority opinion by Roberts that, at least, temporarily delayed Trump’s ability to fire Cook. Three other justices took the coward’s way out, arguing in dissent that Trump should win on narrow procedural grounds that would have allowed him to fire Cook, but that also might permit a court to reinstate her at some point in the future.

Only Justice Clarence Thomas seemed to fully embrace the unitary executive theory, in Cook, and with it the idea that firing Cook is well within Trump’s power. 

As Thomas wrote in his dissent, the Federal Reserve enforces or administers numerous federal statutes. It can “change the fees on consumer debit-card transactions,” or “impose monetary penalties, levy assessments, and examine private books and records.” Its power to set interest rates flows from federal statutes requiring it to “promote effectively the goals of maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates.” 

Thus, if Slaughter is correct that an agency leader who “enforces and administers” a federal statute must be fireable at will by the president, Trump should have the power to fire Cook.

Roberts’s majority opinion doesn’t really make a legal argument. But it does make a couple of  historical and policy claims that point in the direction of allowing an independent Federal Reserve to exist. Roberts begins his opinion with a history of nationally chartered banks, noting that the first such bank “predates even our Constitution “And he alludes to a “‘long tradition’ of ‘monetary policy … exercised independent of … executive influence.’” 

But it’s hard to tell why this tradition matters, at least in a world where every other federal agency is subject to the unitary executive. The Republican justices have previously claimed, for example, that the president must have full control over all federal prosecutions. But historical evidence suggests that, at the founding, prosecutions were often led by private attorneys or by judicial appointees — that is, not by the president or his appointees. So why doesn’t this historical evidence exempt the Justice Department from the unitary executive?

And, if the legal reasoning in Cook is thin, the decision’s actual holding is largely toothless. After laying out his half-baked argument for why the Federal Reserve is unlike any other federal agency, Roberts doesn’t actually write that Trump may not fire Cook. He simply says that “Cook was entitled to notice and some opportunity to respond prior to her termination” — although Roberts also writes that, once Cook has a chance to respond to the allegations against her, “only then can the courts assess the validity and sufficiency of such charges.”

So, by sending a letter to Cook informing her of the allegations against her and giving her a little bit of time to respond, Trump has complied with the Supreme Court’s decision. He will likely then attempt to fire her no matter what she says in response, and then there will be another round of litigation where some poor trial judge will have to “assess the validity and sufficiency” of the allegations against Cook without any guidance from the Supreme Court regarding how strong those allegations must be.

That said, it is likely that when Cook does respond to Trump’s allegations, those allegations will prove quite flimsy indeed. Trump alleges that Cook committed mortgage fraud by claiming two separate properties as her principal residence in bank documents. But Reuters examined those bank documents and discovered that she disclosed to the lender that one of those properties would be used as a vacation home. So it appears that no fraud actually occurred.

Will that be enough for Cook to keep her job? The short answer is “probably” — why would the Supreme Court have handed down such an incoherent opinion in Cook if it intended to apply the unitary executive to her anyway? But the Cook opinion itself offers little guidance to the judges who will need to sort through this mess.

In March, President Donald Trump issued a blatantly illegal executive order claiming that he had the power to unilaterally rewrite US election law. The order threatens prosecutions against state officials who allow certain people to vote, and it also requires states to include several federally mandated design elements in the envelopes that they use to mail ballots to voters. 

On Monday, the Supreme Court’s Republican majority allowed that order to go into effect. All three of the Court’s Democrats dissented.

Yet while the Court’s new decision in Trump v. California is troubling, it’s not necessarily a sign that the justices will permit Trump’s illegal order to take full effect. The Court’s actual holding in California is that two lower federal courts moved too quickly when they blocked the executive order. But California does not opine on whether the order is actually legal.

The Supreme Court’s decision reinstates Trump’s order for now, but there are several active cases challenging this order in the lower courts. So it is likely that a judge will issue a new decision blocking the executive order again very soon.

Still, the Court’s decision to reinstate this order, even temporarily, is likely to confuse state election officials who are racing to prepare for an upcoming election. And the provision threatening prosecutions might deter these officials from doing their jobs until that provision is blocked by another court.

The Court is divided on whether Trump’s threat targeting state elections officials is actually a threat

The case concerns two sections of Trump’s March order, one of which threatens state election officials with prosecution if they allow the wrong people to vote, and the other which appears to be an attempt to sabotage voting by mail during the 2026 midterms.

The first one of these, Section 2, itself contains two provisions, one of which orders the Department of Homeland Security to “compile and transmit to the chief election official of each State a list of individuals confirmed to be United States citizens who will be above the age of 18 at the time of an upcoming Federal election and who maintain a residence in the subject State.”

This simple command to compile a list would be unproblematic, except that the second provision of Section 2 orders the attorney general to prioritize prosecutions against “State and local officials or any others involved in the administration of Federal elections who issue Federal ballots to individuals not eligible to vote in a Federal election.” Thus, when both provisions of Section 2 are read together, they threaten prosecutions against any state official who issues a ballot to a voter whose name does not appear on Trump’s list of approved voters.

Such a threat is unconstitutional, as the Constitution gives states, and not the federal government, the power to decide who may vote in congressional and presidential elections. The justices, however, primarily split on whether to give Trump’s order a hyperliteral reading.

In dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor argues the two clauses are clearly connected and she cites a previous Supreme Court decision warning that “[p]eople do not lightly disregard public officers’ thinly veiled threats to institute criminal proceedings against them if they do not come around.” 

But the majority ignores Section 2’s purpose, and instead notes that Trump’s executive order does not explicitly require states to use Trump’s list of approved voters. They also note that the executive order’s call for the Justice Department to prosecute state officials does not include any reference to Trump’s list.

In any event, even the Republican justices do not hold that the Constitution permits Trump to create a list of approved voters and prosecute state officials who depart from that list. Instead, the Republicans hold that it is too soon to block Section 2. DHS must first compile its list of approved voters, or DOJ must actually prosecute someone, before a challenge to Trump’s new policy can proceed.

The effect of the Republican justices’ decision, in other words, is to leave Trump’s threat in place, but also water it down considerably: The Court does state that Trump’s executive order does not actually require states to use Trump’s approved voter list. So that may be a sign that, if Trump actually did try to prosecute someone for allowing someone not on DHS’s list to vote, the justices would reject that prosecution — but for now, there’s little standing in the way of him doing it. 

The rest of the Court’s decision was obsolete the minute it was handed down

The remainder of the Court’s decision deals with Section 3 of Trump’s executive order, which orders the United States Postal Service (USPS) to design an envelope which states must use when they mail ballots to voters. It also forbids USPS from delivering ballots that do not comply with this new design.

The Republican justices conclude that the lower court decisions blocking Section 3 were also premature because, at the time when those courts handed down their decisions, USPS had not yet formally issued a rule that announces the new mandatory envelope design. But USPS issued that rule on Friday. So the Supreme Court’s decision was out of date days before the justices decided it, but that does nothing to change the immediate effect of the decision.

Among other things, the Trump administration’s new rule requires states to mail ballots in envelopes that include several federally mandated design elements, including a mandatory logo and a unique identifier for each voter. If the new rule takes effect, USPS will refuse to deliver any ballots that do not comply with these new, Trump-approved design requirements.

Democrats are significantly more likely to vote by mail than Republicans. So the Trump administration’s new rule is likely to skew the 2026 election towards his political party if it is allowed to take effect.

If Section 3 is eventually allowed to take effect, that will be a catastrophe for US democracy, and may even make it impossible for many states to hold midterm elections. That’s because the states couldn’t possibly have known what specific design requirements the Trump administration would impose on them until USPS issued its rule. Many states have already purchased envelopes that do not comply with the new federal mandate. And it’s not like new envelopes can simply be printed on the fly.

In some states, millions or even tens of millions of voters will vote by mail, which means that, in order to comply with the Trump administration’s new order, these states will somehow need to obtain truckloads of envelopes in time for this November’s election, comply with the considerable procedural requirements laid out in Trump’s order, and distribute these ballots to voters fast enough for them to actually return them by the deadline.

Several US states, moreover, conduct their elections almost entirely by mail. While these states often set up voting centers where voters can also vote in person, these in-person voting centers are merely a backup. And these states are unlikely to have the infrastructure, voting machines, or network of election workers that are required to run an entirely in-person election if mail-in voting fails.

So Trump wants to impose impossible deadlines on many states. But Monday’s decision does not actually hold that it is legal for him to do so. Indeed, the federal judge who initially blocked Trump’s executive order has already signaled that she is likely to block the USPS’s new rule. We will find out if the Supreme Court will allow Trump to sabotage voting by mail after that new decision makes its way back to the justices.

The Trump administration’s legal argument for the new USPS rule is quite thin

Trump’s lawyers only barely make a legal argument in favor of the new rule. After the USPS issued its new rule, Trump’s Justice Department did file a supplemental brief in the Supreme Court arguing that the new rule is lawful. But that brief is only three pages long, and its legal analysis is exceedingly thin. 

As Indira Talwani, one of the judges who blocked Trump’s executive order, noted in her opinion, there is no federal law that explicitly “delegates authority to control mail-in voting to USPS.” So the Trump administration must rely instead on broadly worded statutes that simply state that the Postal Service may deliver mail and take related steps that are necessary to deliver the mail.

One permits USPS to adopt rules “as may be necessary in the execution of its functions.” The other permits it to “provide for the collection, handling, transportation, delivery, forwarding, returning, and holding of mail, and for the disposition of undeliverable mail.”

And, even if these vague statutes could authorize the Trump administration to impose granular restrictions on voting by mail, the fact remains that it is impossible for many states to comply with these restrictions in 2026. Some states, such as North Carolina, are supposed to start mailing ballots at the end of next week.

It would be one thing if Trump tried to impose new envelope design requirements that will take effect in future elections. But there’s simply no time for states to design compliant envelopes, get those designs approved by USPS order dozens of pallets worth of these envelopes, and distribute them to voters in time for the 2026 midterm elections.

So the stakes in this dispute remain quite high. Trump has literally issued an executive order that, if implemented, might prevent many states from holding the midterm elections in the first place. But it is still unclear if this Supreme Court will allow that to happen.

This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here.

Welcome to The Logoff: Donald Trump’s trade war with Canada is back in full force. 

What’s happening? Remember last week, when Trump said that the US and Canada had a trade deal in place? It turns out they do not. After negotiations fell through on Friday, Trump responded with a 50 percent tariff on some $20 billion in Canadian goods, plus threats of higher tariffs on cars, car parts, and steel to come in 2027. 

Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and other administration officials are also leaning into ever more inflammatory rhetoric, with Vance taunting Canada on Monday as “a state” that “quite literally would get invaded by a foreign country were it not for the umbrella of protection provided by the United States of America.” 

How is Canada responding? With outrage, as my colleague Caitlin Dewey explains, and with tariffs of their own: On Saturday, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said that his country would match US tariffs “dollar for dollar,” starting early next month. 

“We cannot accept what the U.S. has offered,” he wrote, “and we will not give what they have asked.”

In addition to trade terms, the US allegedly made requests to weaken Canada’s French-language protections, which Carney said would have infringed on Canadian “sovereignty.”

Why does this matter? Immediately speaking, tariffs make things more expensive at a time when voters are already incensed over prices and the Iran war is making inflation worse; their impact could be especially felt in border states like Maine and Michigan, which also happen to have high-stakes, closely contested Senate races coming up in 72 days. 

On a longer timeline, the Trump administration is doing damage to the US-Canada relationship that goes far deeper than specific tariffs and will be far harder to reverse. Already, in January, Carney delivered a speech charting a plan to move past relying on the US as a global partner; Trump’s latest trade war will only accelerate that rupture.

And with that, it’s time to log off…

Violent crime rates in the US are falling across the board, according to new 2025 statistics released by the FBI, including the murder rate, which just hit a 70-year low — tied for the lowest ever recorded. That’s good news in any context, but if you want to learn more, my colleague Bryan Walsh took a crack at explaining how it happened. You can read his article here with a gift link. 

Thanks for reading, have a great evening, and we’ll see you back here tomorrow!

The president bought when the stock was in the mid-$150 range. SpaceX finished trading on Monday back at its IPO price of $135.

This story appeared in Today, Explained, a daily newsletter that helps you understand the most compelling news and stories of the day. Subscribe here.

President Donald Trump is putting the “war” in “trade war.” Or so his senior officials really want you to believe. 

“At dawn begins an economic D-Day,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent wrote Sunday night, previewing the latest round of sanctions against Iran. 

“It’s a country that doesn’t have a military,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said, incorrectly, of Canada over the weekend. “To think that they’re going to go to war with Donald Trump and actually win that war…is foolish.”

The war with Iran is literal, of course. The war with Canada, slightly less so. But in both cases, the Trump administration is trying to weaponize America’s economic might to get its way in otherwise stalled negotiations. 

Iran and the US have been locked in on-again, off-again talks for almost the entire six months since the US-Israeli strikes began. And last week, trade negotiations between the US and Canada collapsed amid disputes over tariffs on key Canadian industries, as well as US demands that Canada weaken protections for its culture and the French language. Now, both countries are promising steep retaliatory tariffs on goods ranging from cars and steel to anoraks. 

Trump is betting that economic pain will produce the concessions diplomacy hasn’t. But Americans also suffer the fallout from these kinds of tactics. 

Go a little deeper

I am one such American. Hello! Bonjour! I am planning to visit Montreal over Labor Day weekend…and have begun to fear that my New York plates might provoke some patriotic ne’er-do-well to key my car. 

As someone who grew up on the Canadian border, with Canadian friends and Canadian radio stations and Canadian flags on most every pole, the notion that I might be newly unwelcome — or, quelle horreur, despised — in Canada is a new and unpleasant one.

Not to fear, said my colleague Zack Beauchamp. (Zack lives 90 minutes northwest of me in Ontario, and is Vox’s go-to expert on Canadian concerns.) Most Canadians “are actually quite chill toward individual Americans,” he said, and he therefore rates it “unlikely” that anyone will vandalize my vehicle. 

At the same time, Zack said, most Americans fail to realize how dramatically, and perhaps permanently, Canadians have turned on the US as a country. To many of us, the trade war is a tedious or incomprehensible policy dispute. To Canadians, it’s seen as a real threat to their sovereignty. 

Zack shared this example from his own family, which — existential stakes notwithstanding — kind of cracked me up. His wife, who is Canadian, is participating in a popular boycott movement and has “shifted literally everything she purchases” to avoid American products.

That includes buying terrible Canadian-made dishwasher pods whose wrapping doesn’t dissolve in the machine. Or purchasing him a deodorant from the puzzlingly named brand Green Beaver, which is “somewhat worse at repelling smell,” Zack said. 

“Whenever I ask her about why she does these things, she points to those World War II posters about reducing gas use — carpooling so you aren’t riding with Hitler,” Zack said. “Because that is literally how Canadians think about these things: as a war for their survival.”

The rupture is existential for Americans, too, I think — albeit in a different and less urgent way. It has to do with what American identity represents in the world today. 

That’s more abstract than something like the cost of a car (which, by the way, will likely rise dramatically if Trump implements the tariffs he threatened this morning on Truth Social). But the way the world sees America also matters.

One link for later

➨ Hold the eggs. A new study found that raising cage-free hens generates more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional egg farming. If you don’t want to choose between animal welfare and climate change…may we suggest switching your eggs out for tofu or beans? (Sorry, sorry! But not every tip in this newsletter can be uplifting.)

Before you go…

• Did you know…that researchers believe young children’s brains don’t record permanent memories because they’re busy prioritizing other patterns and skills? It’s a phenomenon called “infantile amnesia,” and we’re still a long way from fully understanding it. 
• Today’s trivia: What’s the traditional, three-letter nickname for students and graduates of Yale? (You can find this and other brain puzzles in Vox’s daily crossword. Look for the answer in tomorrow’s edition.)
• Yesterday’s trivia: Last week we asked you for the insect stage after the larva. That would be the pupa or pupal stage — basically, insect adolescence. 

It’s the Democrats who have mostly had to answer questions about electability this midterm season, but why are there so few questions about the “E” word for the other side?

Gas prices are still skyrocketing. A number of Republican candidates, such as Ohio Rep. Max Miller and former Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who’s running for a Senate seat, are mired in scandal. The Iran war was unpopular from the start, but it is getting even less popular as it drags on. And Trump’s approval rating recently hit 33 percent, the lowest of his presidency yet.

On this week’s episode of America, Actually, host Astead Herndon speaks with one of Trump’s most vocal defenders, conservative influencer CJ Pearson, about whether we’re seeing Trump’s brand slip even among his supporters and the young people who helped him win in 2024, and how that could affect the midterm elections. 

Pearson, a conservative content creator and influencer, first went viral when he posted himself, then 12 years old, criticizing Barack Obama in a YouTube video. Now 24, Pearson is one of MAGA’s most prominent Black voices.

In this episode, Astead and Pearson discussed how Republicans should answer questions about whether voters’ lives are better than they were two years ago; whether Trump still has any cultural cachet left over from his last presidential campaign; and when Pearson started to see young Republicans turning away from the MAGA movement.

Below is an excerpt of Astead’s conversation with Pearson, edited for length and clarity. There’s much more in the full show, so listen to America, Actually wherever you get your podcasts or watch it on Vox’s YouTube channel.

That “E” word’s been thrown around a lot about Democrats, but we want to think about how Republicans are on their own. If you could rate Donald Trump’s second term one through 10, what would you give it?

I think the president’s doing incredibly well for the American people. Promises made, promises kept in many ways. 

I think if you look at this president who ran on securing our southern border, he’s done it. You look at this president who’s talked about bringing down costs, he’s brought down the cost of dairy, eggs. He’s achieved that. 

And I think also this president is only just getting started. He ran on “no tax on tips.” He did that. He ran on “no tax on overtime.” He did that. Oftentimes I tell people the challenge of this administration is keeping up the messaging at the same pace as the accomplishments of this president.

And so I think that there’s a lot more work to do. Thankfully, we have two more years to do it.

Can I get a number?

I think he’s doing well. I will say I grew up in a place where there’s always room for improvement, so I’ll give him an eight.

You’re giving him an eight. I wanted to just start there because Trump’s approval rating has fallen, as I’m sure you have seen. Why do you think the country isn’t maybe on the same page as you?

I think a lot of people are focused on their pocketbooks, right? They’re focused on domestic issues, and I think that we have been very internationally focused over the course of the past few months as we’ve navigated and dealt with the Iran conflict. 

But I think that as we get ready to get through this last wave of primaries, I think you’re going to see a change in his messaging and a reset at the midterm convention in Dallas next month in September. 

And I think you’re going to hear this president talking about how he’s made America more affordable, how he’s kept Americans safe, far safer than they were under President Joe Biden.

And I think that you’ll see those numbers start to change. And a reminder, the only poll that matters is on Election Day. There are many polls that had Kamala Harris beating President Trump, in 2024, and that didn’t happen.

Yeah, I don’t want to be overly poll-reliant, but we’ve heard some of this directly from Republicans even. 

We were at Donald Trump’s UFC event in DC talking to young men, and even there we heard people really come to be critical on three issues specifically: tariffs, the Iran war, and the handling of the Epstein files.

You mentioned the question of affordability. Donald Trump has said, quote, “I love the inflation.” And when asked by reporters about the public strain that has come from the conflicts with Iran, he said, “I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation. I don’t think about anybody.”

How can you say that Republicans are gonna run on affordability if the president’s saying he doesn’t care if Americans’ lives are unaffordable?

Well, I’ve often said that we can’t cede this entire affordability debate to the Democrats. The reason that I think a lot of young people are giving a little bit, even a flirtatious nod to the DSA and their socialist and communist candidates, is because they’re talking about an issue that’s top of mind for them.

In the same way that when President Trump won in 2024, he was talking about issues that were top of mind of the American voter, which was the cost of living. 

And so I think that we need to get back to that messaging. I think that this president has continued to deliver on that front. Costs are coming down.

The economy is resurging. We’re seeing economic and global investment in this country unlike anything we’ve seen before. In Oklahoma, we’re bringing back manufacturing with the aluminum smelting plant.

But the president’s not saying this. The president’s saying, “I love the inflation, and I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation.” Do those words help Republican midterm candidates?

Well, I think the president has a lot of time to say a lot more things because Election Day is pretty far away from now. I think we have two or three months left, and I think the president will make this case. 

But I think what will also make the case is that the candidates that the Democrats are running and nominating all across this country, who are now affiliating themselves with the socialist movement, are not actually fighting for things that will actually ever work.

Socialism has never worked anywhere it’s been tried, and I think that this is going to be an election between common sense versus crazy. Do you wanna run a candidate that hates Thanksgiving?

For the record, that candidate lost in the primary. She will not be on the ballot in November.

She did. She almost was there, though, and that’s the thing. I’m glad common sense won the day in Wisconsin, that the good people there love turkey.

I know that you say that the argument is based on how Democrats are out of touch, but we have talked about some ways in which Donald Trump has not lived up to folks’ expectations, particularly on things like prices and on things like the Iran war.

How does the GOP overcome that electability question? What is their message when folks ask, is their life better than two years ago?

I think we’ve got to lock in. I think we also need to prosecute the case that it’s going to be a lot worse under the Democrats if these crazy communists get into office. And so I think that when you’re looking at costs, we need to make that argument central. We need to make that what we lead with.

And I think that we have to pump the brakes on a lot of the international stuff. And I think that we need to talk about the things that are actually affecting people’s everyday lives at grocery stores, at gas stations, wherever it may be. And I think that is how we can kind of turn the ship around.

When we talk about the Democratic candidates, you’re saying the DSA candidates are far left, and we’ve certainly explored some electability questions for them and some ways that I think they might have stances that are misaligned with the American people. But so does Donald Trump, and he’s endorsed scandal-plagued candidates like Ken Paxton in Texas, like Max Miller in Ohio.

Why is that not just as much a sign of a conservative version of extremism, just as you are arguing that there’s a Democratic or leftist version of that?

Because I think you’re talking about folks who have dealt with issues in their personal lives, not necessarily their voting record.

Okay, maybe I should say Tom Tiffany, who didn’t vote to certify the 2020 election, but I imagine you agree with him.

Well, no, I think that was six years ago. I don’t think about 2020 anymore. I think about 2026 and I think about 2028. So when I look at that … it’s important that we really make the case for crazy communism versus common sense. And I think that the American people are not going to vote for that.

I guess I’m saying, does Donald Trump win the commonsense argument? Like, isn’t crazy versus commonsense an argument that Democrats can make and say Donald Trump is said crazy?

No, because I think Donald Trump definitely wins the common sense argument when we’re running against folks who belong to a party that is now, you know, waging a war against Thanksgiving, who believe that biological men should be playing women’s sports. Again, these are 80/20 issues, and so I actually really like our odds here.

It’s going to be hard, right? It’s always hard for the party that controls the White House to fare all too well in any midterm election. But I think that we’re going to overperform. I think we’re going to hold onto the Senate. The House will be a dogfight, but I like our chances.

This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here.

Welcome to The Logoff: President Donald Trump’s ballroom is still happening. 

What’s the latest? On Friday, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts stayed a lower court injunction threatening to halt construction on Trump’s East Wing ballroom, hours before it would have taken effect. 

The order came from Roberts alone, and it isn’t final. But the new stay will remain in place “pending further order” (likely, the Court’s full decision), allowing construction to continue for now. It’s the latest in a series of escapes for the project, despite adverse rulings in lower courts. 

What have other judges said? Earlier this month, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a previous district court ruling that Trump had exceeded his authority in unilaterally pursuing the ballroom project and would need to seek congressional approval to continue. (Trump, meanwhile, has attempted to justify the project on national security grounds, describing it as a “Military Complex” and its opponents as “TREASONISTS.”)

Both the appeals court decision and the previous district court decision had been paused, however, to allow the appeals process to play out. That pause would have expired on Friday, but for Roberts’s order. 

How far along is the project? Trump has been working fast. According to Trump’s solicitor general, the ballroom was already 65 percent complete last week, standing around 70 feet tall and five stories below ground. Crews have been working on the project nearly around the clock — 20 hours per day, seven days a week. 

What else should I know? When the full Supreme Court does weigh in, it could have implications far beyond just the ballroom. 

As my colleague Ian Millhiser explained earlier this week, the ability of the plaintiffs challenging the ballroom to bring their case in the first place hinges on the “aesthetic injury” theory of standing, which also underpins a great deal of US environmental law. If the Court clears the way for the ballroom, those laws could go with it.

And with that, it’s time to log off…

Hi readers, happy Friday! If you’re looking for something to do this weekend, you could take my colleague Adam Clark Estes’s suggestion and rescue some of your favorite photos from your phone’s camera roll by printing them out. He explains why it’s worth doing — and how to do it — here (it’s a gift link).

Have a great weekend, and we’ll see you back here on Monday!

This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here.

Welcome to The Logoff: The Trump administration’s meddling with the US military is getting more direct — and potentially more dangerous. 

What’s going on? Fresh on the heels of coverage last week about the plight of the USS Abraham Lincoln (now on its way home), a flurry of recent stories underscores just how much the Trump administration is micromanaging the Pentagon. 

Last week, President Donald Trump directed the Defense Department to overhaul the aircraft carrier mechanism for launching jets — by reverting from electromagnetic catapults to old-fashioned steam catapults.

And on Thursday, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Army is axing its new drone assault battalion, which was established in January. The decision to do so comes from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s new acting chief of staff of the Army, who took over the role after Hegseth forced out its previous occupant this spring.

What’s the context? Neither of these moves seem poised to help the military succeed at its core objectives. As naval expert Bryan Clark pointed out Wednesday in the Washington Post, the catapult switch won’t only limit the next generation of aircraft carriers, but cost an exorbitant amount of money — contrary to Trump’s insistence that steam is “much less expensive” — and delay the rollout of new ships (badly needed, as the Lincoln debacle proves). Trump may also name one after himself.

If possible, the demise of the drone unit makes even less sense. Innovative drone designs and tactics are revolutionizing warfare in Ukraine and elsewhere; being ahead of the curve on these changes has allowed Ukraine to hold its own against a numerically superior opponent.

And it’s very clear that the US hasn’t mastered these tactics yet: As the Journal reported last week, Ukrainian drone operators flattened the US in war games held earlier this year.

Why does this matter? To be clear, Trump is the commander in chief. None of this is beyond his authority as president. But the steam catapults in particular are a strange obsession that would normally be well below his pay grade, and none of it gives the impression of a steady hand at the rudder.

And with that, it’s time to log off…

Here’s some good news from my colleague Constance Grady: The kids might be all right. Or at least, they might be reading more thanks to a new generation of “middle-grade books,” and that’s a step in the right direction. You can read her story about what those are and what’s changing here with a gift link.

Thanks for reading, have a great evening, and we’ll see you back here tomorrow!

This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here.

Welcome to The Logoff: President Donald Trump’s planned Canada tariffs are off — for now. 

What happened? Trump had previously threatened 50-percent tariffs on about $20 billion worth of Canadian goods, but delayed them late on Tuesday, hours before they were set to take effect. 

In a social media post, he wrote that the tariffs were on hold for “a three day period, based on the fact that Canada and the U.S.A., subject to the finalization of documents, have a DEAL!”

Is there actually a deal? We’ll find out in the next three days. Trump’s claims should always be taken with a grain of salt, and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said only that “substantial progress” had been made toward a deal, with “important work still to be done.”

On Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reported that the US could reduce previous tariffs on Canadian goods —which applied to cars, steel, and aluminum — as part of a potential trade deal. Trump has also suggested that a deal could resurrect the Keystone XL oil pipeline. 

Can Trump still impose new tariffs? He can. Earlier this year, the Supreme Court struck down Trump’s use of a specific law, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, to impose tariffs. In doing so, the Court ended many of his most sweeping tariffs and took away his favorite way to impose them. 

He has plenty of other tools to keep at it, though, albeit on a more limited basis. Trump was threatening to use a never-tested section of the 1930 Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act to impose his most recent Canada tariffs. (Other existing Canadian tariffs fall under yet another law.)

What’s the big picture? This trade fight could preview an even bigger one to come, as the US, Mexico, and Canada attempt to renegotiate the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement that Trump struck in his first term. Trump declined to renew the deal last month, kicking off new negotiations.

And with that, it’s time to log off…

We got some incredibly good news about cancer treatment on Wednesday from the pharma companies Moderna and Merck, which announced a successful trial of an mRNA vaccine for melanoma, a particularly dangerous type of skin cancer. 

The idea of using vaccines — and specifically mRNA, which helped produce Covid vaccines in record time — to treat cancer isn’t new, but the Moderna and Merck trial is a big step on the path to getting a cancer vaccine approved by the FDA.

As always, thanks for reading, and we’ll see you back here tomorrow!

Can President Donald Trump pen a new chapter in his love story with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un? 

In Trump’s first term, the two leaders, in Trump’s words, “fell in love” after exchanging letters and held three historic meetings, but failed to make much progress toward the goal of denuclearizing the heavily armed hermit state. 

Now, Trump appears to be trying to recapture the magic, reportedly urging aides to set up a meeting with Kim as soon as this fall. This news comes soon after Trump’s Truth Social post on Sunday announcing he had ordered the US military to “substantially reduce” joint military exercises with ally South Korea in part because it would send “a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile, to a Country that, as long as Donald J. Trump has been President, has been unthreatening and respectful” — North Korea. 

Trump has claimed, without elaborating, that Kim has responded to this overture, but there’s been no public response from Pyongyang yet. 

Trump’s outreach didn’t come entirely out of nowhere. Trump has made clear since the beginning of his term that he would like to meet with Kim again, and there was speculation that a meeting might happen when Trump traveled to South Korea for a summit last fall. North Korea’s UN Mission in New York has also rebuffed several attempts by US officials to deliver a personal letter from Trump seeking to restart dialogue. 

In the midst of an unpopular conflict with Iran that seems unlikely to end in anything resembling a victory, it makes sense that Trump might be reaching back to what he sees as one of the foreign policy high points of his first term. “Kim Jong ​Un has always treated me with great respect,” Trump told reporters on Monday. “I understand him. He understands me.”

Beyond reconnecting with an old friend, it’s not entirely clear what Trump actually wants out of North Korea. But if his goal is a new diplomatic breakthrough, that will be even harder than it was the first time: The country is a much different place than it was the last time the two leaders sat down and even if they were to meet again, Kim seems even less likely to make real concessions. 

Like it or not, North Korea is a nuclear power now

Analysts believe North Korea possesses around 50 nuclear weapons with enough fissile material to build 40 more. It has missiles that are theoretically capable of reaching the US mainland. There was a time when the North Koreans were willing to at least discuss giving up their program in exchange for sanctions relief and major concessions on US military support to South Korea, but that time is probably over, partly thanks to Trump’s own actions. 

“There is no chance that North Korea is going to denuclearize. Zero chance,” said Joseph Yun, a veteran US-North Korea negotiator who recently served as acting US ambassador to South Korea. “They have seen what happened to Iran. They have seen what happened to Ukraine. The way they see it, their nuclear weapons are what protects them.” Last year, the country’s official news agency dismissed denuclearization as an “unrealizable pipe dream.”

On top of that, North Korea is in a much stronger negotiating position than it was the last time these two leaders met for a photo op.

“It’s a very different North Korea now. It’s stronger geopolitically, and Kim is stronger domestically.”

Jung Pak, served as US special representative for North Korea in the Biden administration

In 2018, North Korea was heavily isolated and struggling under an international sanctions regime that was at least officially — if not always in practice — supported by China and Russia as well as the United States. For a young leader still looking to establish his internal legitimacy and international standing, a meeting with the sitting US president was a major coup. 

But things improved dramatically for North Korea after the pandemic. After it began lifting its Covid-era lockdown — one of the toughest in the world — North Korea has become what the Wall Street Journal has called “the world’s most unlikely growth story.”

The country’s economy has grown for three straight years, and while it’s still an impoverished country where nearly half the population is malnourished, Pyongyang is by all accounts booming, with thousands of new homes built along with a surge in Western-style restaurants and ride-hailing apps. 

“North Korea emerged from the pandemic stronger, despite the odds,” said Jung Pak, who served as US special representative for North Korea in the Biden administration. “It’s a very different North Korea now. It’s stronger geopolitically, and Kim is stronger domestically.”

North Korea has been one of the main beneficiaries of the war in Ukraine, sending thousands of soldiers and munitions to help the Russian war effort. While thousands of those troops have died, the North Korean regime has gained billions of dollars in revenue and military aid from Russia in response, as well as invaluable battlefield experience for its commanders and weapons systems.     

Russian President Vladimir Putin has come through for the North Koreans in other ways. In 2024, Russia vetoed the mandate of the UN body that monitored the enforcement of international sanctions on North Korea, effectively shredding the international sanctions regime. In 2025, trade between North Korea and China, its main economic partner, rose 25 percent.  

The regime has found other innovative ways of raising revenue, reportedly netting billions through cybercrime targeted at foreign banks and cryptocurrency exchanges. 

Kim is also less desperate for legitimacy these days. In September 2025, he stood alongside Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin at a massive military parade in Beijing, a powerful demonstration of unity among three US adversaries. These days, Kim likely feels he’s the one being wooed. Xi’s high profile trip to Pyongyang in June was interpreted by many as a sign that China, warily eyeing the increasingly close relationship between Russia and North Korea, was looking to shore up its ties with its longtime ally. 

Domestically, when the world’s first millennial dictator took power after his father died in 2011, many wondered how long he would last. Today, he’s feeling secure enough to be thinking about long-term handoff plans, publicly positioning his 13-year-old daughter as his future successor. 

Kim is clearly not desperate to meet with Trump, and these days, the United States has fewer means to pressure him. Without Chinese and Russian support, the US can only dial up international sanctions so much. As for military pressure, the US has been moving military assets out of the Korean peninsula to the Middle East and recently redeployed its last aircraft carrier out of Asia. 

As Trump’s actions this week demonstrate, he’s not all that interested in working with US allies in the region to pressure the North Koreans. But if he were considering pairing his warm overtures to Kim with a stick, a “fire and fury” threat wouldn’t pack the same punch today.  

Is there any reason for new US-North Korea talks?

Still, there are reasons Kim might want to sit down with Trump again. North Korea would still like US sanctions lifted. Kim’s influential sister has stated that the regime is looking for the US to formally accept its status as a nuclear power, as Russia has now done.  

Former US State Department North Korea negotiator Joel Wit suspects that given Trump’s desperation for talks, Pyongyang might try to press its advantage even further. 

“If I was a North Korean, I would ask the United States for what I would call a ‘peace agenda,’” he said. “That would mean more than just reducing the size of US-[South Korean] exercises. It could include cutting back on US troops in South Korea or even Guam.”

Trump, who has repeatedly, including in his recent Truth Social post, made clear that he sees the US military presence in South Korea as a waste and the South Koreans as coddled, wealthy freeloaders, might be amenable to concessions like this. 

But what could the US get out of talking to North Korea if denuclearization is off the table? Some analysts have suggested a limited deal might be possible, which could see North Korea dismantle its reactors or some of its centrifuges, slowing down the growth of its nuclear program if not eliminating it. 

Pak also noted that given North Korea’s refusal to engage in nearly any diplomacy with the US since 2019, just holding talks and building some confidence between the two sides would be progress. “The meeting itself would be the win,” Pak said. 

On the other hand, holding talks that do not explicitly aim at eliminating North Korea’s nuclear program would be seen as effectively accepting that North Korea is a nuclear power now. At this point, there’s a strong realist case to be made for accepting North Korea’s nuclear status and proceeding from there, but it’s hard to square with the administration’s stance on Iran’s nuclear program. 

It’s also likely that the kind of incremental concessions North Korea might, in the best of circumstances, be willing to offer, would not satisfy a US president with a penchant for grand bargains. 

In his first term, just the fact that Trump and Kim sat down made history. Now that that’s been accomplished, they may find that, like many a romance a few years in, they’ve run out of things to talk about. 

This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here.

Welcome to The Logoff: The Trump administration is trying to open up more public lands to logging, 

What’s happening? On Tuesday, the administration filed a proposal to repeal the “roadless rule,” a 2001 regulation protecting nearly 45 million acres of national forests not just from having roads built through them, but from logging. 

The majority of the forests that would be affected fall in 10 Western states: Alaska, Arizona, California, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming, while two — Colorado and Idaho — have their own state-level roadless protections.

The next step in the rulemaking process is a 30-day public comment period, after which the repeal can be finalized — though it’s likely to face legal challenges that could delay implementation. 

Why is the Trump administration doing this? According to the Agriculture Department, the change is intended to reduce the “regulatory burden” and return decisions about forest management to a more local level; the US Forest Service and some Republican governors in affected states have pointed to fire management concerns and the need to clear out accumulated fuel in forests. 

As Wall Street Journal reporter Robbie Gramer pointed out, however, only a tiny fraction of wildfires start in roadless areas of national forests (unsurprisingly, given the relative lack of people). 

Why are public lands advocates alarmed? Opponents of the repeal say ending the rule could irreversibly damage some of America’s most pristine forests and cause a long list of environmental harms. They have good reason to be wary: In 2025, Trump signed an executive order directing the “immediate expansion” of timber production in the US, including a 25 percent increase in logging in federal forests.

And with that, it’s time to log off…

The Smithsonian National Zoo is welcoming three new red panda cubs, who were born earlier this summer. According to the zoo, right now, the cubs are “really just balls of fur that eat and sleep.” But they’re also pretty dang cute, and the zoo shared some photos here. Enjoy, and we’ll see you back here tomorrow! 

The question of whether President Donald Trump may, without seeking permission from Congress, demolish much of the White House and replace it with his own projects is now before the Supreme Court. 

Last fall, construction crews acting under Trump’s orders abruptly tore down the East Wing of the White House, the first step in Trump’s plan to replace the historic building with an enormous ballroom. A conservationist organization, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, soon sued to stop the construction on the ballroom in a case that is still ongoing. Lower courts have thus far agreed with this plaintiff that the ballroom is illegal. 

Last week, Trump formally asked the justices to greenlight his ballroom while the challenge works its way through lower courts. The case is known as National Park Service v. National Trust for Historic Preservation. 

Trump’s claim that he may tear down large sections of the White House and replace them with the ballroom is not supported by law. A federal statute provides that “a building or structure shall not be erected on any reservation, park, or public grounds of the Federal Government in the District of Columbia without express authority of Congress.” Although Trump’s lawyers claimed that two separate statutes allow him to get around this provision, the federal appeals court that heard National Park Service thoroughly dismantled that claim in a 101-page opinion. 

That said, the Court could potentially hand Trump a victory by prohibiting anyone from bringing a lawsuit against his ballroom to begin with. Should this argument succeed, it could have major ramifications for a wide range of laws that seek to conserve environmental resources or preserve sacred or historical sites. 

Under current law, a plaintiff who alleges that a defendant’s actions will illegally damage such a site may file a federal lawsuit so long as they can demonstrate that they plan to visit the site in the near future and will find the site less attractive if it is altered. This is exactly what happened in National Park Service: A member of a conservationist group — the National Trust for Historic Preservation — who often went by the White House said the new construction would diminish the beauty of the site.

More broadly, the Court has long held that plaintiffs who wish to observe something beautiful may often sue to enforce environmental statutes that seek to preserve that beauty. As the Court said in Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife (1992), a seminal case that is often cited because it laid out limits on who is allowed to bring federal lawsuits, “the desire to use or observe an animal species, even for purely esthetic purposes, is undeniably a cognizable interest” that can be asserted in federal court.

Trump’s brief, however, rejects this longstanding rule. Without it, numerous environmental, conservationist, and historical preservation laws could effectively cease to function, because no one would be able to file a lawsuit enforcing them.

The stakes in National Park Service, in other words, are far greater than whether Trump can replace the East Wing with an eyesore. And they are even greater than the question of whether Trump can remake one of America’s most cherished landmarks without congressional authorization. If Trump prevails in National Park Service, he could fundamentally wound America’s environmental protection regime in the process.

Trump’s ballroom is illegal

Recall that federal law bars new construction on federal lands within the District of Columbia “without express authority of Congress.” So, unless there is some existing statute that allows Trump’s ballroom to move forward, the ballroom is illegal.

But Trump cited no such law in his brief. Instead, he relied on two statutes that might be read to authorize parts of what Trump needs permission to do.

The first is a provision that permits Congress to appropriate money that the president may use to pay for “the care, maintenance, repair, alteration, refurnishing, improvement, air-conditioning, heating, and lighting (including electric power and fixtures) of the Executive Residence at the White House.” But, as the appeals court that ruled against Trump explained, there are numerous reasons why this statute cannot be read to permit the ballroom. 

The most straightforward reason is that Congress only gave the president a $2.475 million budget to spend under this statute. But Trump’s lawyers claimed this project will be funded by “approximately $400 million in private donations.” So, even if Trump’s ballroom counts as an “alteration” or “improvement” of the existing “Executive Residence at the White House” — and all three of these points are contested — Trump cannot use his White House maintenance budget to fund a $400 million project.

To get around this problem, Trump’s lawyers argued that the National Park Service is allowed to accept private donations, so it can use donated money to build the ballroom.

But, while it is true that the Park Service may accept donated funds, that doesn’t mean that it can use these funds to tear down an historic federal building and replace it with something completely different. The relevant federal law permits the Park Service to “promote and regulate the use of the National Park System by means and measures that conform to the fundamental purpose of the System units, which purpose is to conserve the scenery, natural and historic objects, and wild life in the System units and to provide for the enjoyment of the scenery, natural and historic objects, and wild life in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.”

This law could not be clearer that it calls on the Park Service to “conserve” historic objects such as the East Wing and to leave them “unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.” So, if anything, this law prohibits Trump from using Park Service funds to build his ballroom. Tearing down an historical structure and replacing it with a different, much larger, and architecturally distinct structure is the opposite of conservation.

Still, there’s one big reason why Trump’s argument might win over the justices anyway. According to Trump’s brief in the case, the ballroom will sit on top of an enormous bunker that extends five stories underground and that includes “bomb shelters,” “secret military structures and equipment,” and “state of the art hospital and medical facilities.” The lower courts have already permitted construction on this bunker to continue; its legality isn’t before the justices. 

Trump’s lawyers’ attempt to characterize the ballroom as part of what their brief calls an “integrated military complex” is savvy, as the courts often defer to the other branches on questions of national security. And Trump’s Justice Department also makes an argument that plausibly could persuade this Supreme Court to rule in Trump’s favor despite the fact that the ballroom has no legal support. 

The most significant legal issue in National Park Service is whether anyone is allowed to sue in order to challenge the ballroom

As a general rule, no one is allowed to file a federal lawsuit unless they have been injured in some way by the defendant that they are suing; this requirement is known as “standing.” But the Court has long held that plaintiffs may challenge illegal practices that might alter the aesthetic beauty of a site that is protected by law. As the Court said in Friends of the Earth v. Laidlaw Environmental Services (2000), “environmental plaintiffs adequately allege injury in fact when they aver that they use the affected area and are persons ‘for whom the aesthetic and recreational values of the area will be lessened’ by the challenged activity.’”

Friends of the Earth does not permit literally anyone to challenge any alteration to protected lands or buildings. Such a plaintiff only has standing if they can show that they will visit the site at issue in their lawsuit and that the planned alterations to that site will actually reduce their aesthetic enjoyment of it — but that’s enough.

The plaintiff in National Park Service is a conservationist organization whose members include a professor emerita of architectural history who said that she travels “to the White House neighborhood frequently”; that she “regularly view[s] the White House”; and that she believes that Trump’s proposed ballroom would render the White House less attractive because it would “diminish the primacy of the White House,” because “no longer would the eye be drawn to the jewel of the building at the center,” aka the residential section of the White House complex.

Thus, because organizations are typically allowed to sue on behalf of their members, this conservationist group has standing. They have at least one member who clears the low bar the Court set in Friends of the Earth.

Trump’s brief, however, dismissed this “seeing-is-standing theory,” claiming that the professor’s mere discomfort, produced by “‘observation of conduct” that she disagreed with is “not an injury sufficient to confer standing.” Trump, in other words, is effectively asking the Court to overrule Friends of the Earth, along with many other cases establishing that plaintiffs may often sue over aesthetic injuries.

If that gambit succeeds, the consequences for conservationist laws of all kinds would likely be catastrophic. As the appeals court explained, Trump’s “cramped standing theory would deem no one injured by a decision to raze the Statue of Liberty, to obscure the names on the Vietnam War Memorial, or to install a political billboard atop Mount Rushmore.” It could also prevent private lawsuits against a company that dumps foul-smelling chemicals in a national park.

The whole point of many environmental and historical preservation laws is to ensure that something that Congress believes is beautiful will remain beautiful. If no plaintiff can assert an aesthetic injury, that means that laws intended to preserve pristine, sacred, or historical sites will go unenforced — and may become completely unenforceable.

So, the stakes in National Park Service are quite high. While Trump’s statutory arguments are meritless, this case is potentially an existential threat to numerous environmental laws. The question is whether the justices will be persuaded by some combination of Trump’s attacks on Friends of the Earth and his allusions to national security to upend many decades of established law.

This story appeared in Today, Explained, a daily newsletter that helps you understand the most compelling news and stories of the day. Subscribe here.

Hi readers, it’s me again! Caitlin will be back on Wednesday. Now, for today’s news: President Donald Trump, South Korea, and the state of the US’s military alliances.

Remember Trump’s first-term “love letters” with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un? Trump was so fond of them that he took them with him when he left the presidency in 2021 (the National Archives did not approve). Now, it seems like the two leaders are taking up where they left off.

Over the weekend, Trump announced in a social media post that he would “substantially reduce” scheduled joint military exercises between the US and South Korea, which get underway today. The reason? His “very good relationship with Kim Jong Un, of North Korea.” 

But there may have been another reason. Trump also wrote that “While somewhat unrelated (?), I recently asked the President of South Korea if they would like to join us in the Denuclearization of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and they said, “No thanks!””

The US-South Korea exercises “are not only costly, with much of these costs paid for by the United States of America (as usual!),” Trump wrote, “but send a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile, to a Country that, as long as Donald J. Trump has been President, has been unthreatening and respectful.”

That last part — “unthreatening and respectful” — is not exactly true; in 2017, Kim called Trump “a mentally deranged US dotard” whom North Korea would “tame…with fire.” But in the present day, Trump’s announcement is a boon to the North Korean leader, who has denounced the military exercises. 

It’s also just the latest incident in the historically close US-South Korea relationship (the two countries have held military exercises annually for more than 70 years). Earlier this year, Trump lashed out with new tariffs, accusing South Korea of “not living up to its Deal,” referring to a 2025 agreement on trade and security between the two countries that South Korea’s legislature had not yet approved.

Go a little deeper

The US has more permanent troops in South Korea than it does almost anywhere else in the world, behind only its deployments in Japan and Germany. Under Trump, though, those once-durable commitments have started to look a lot shakier.

Europe — and Germany in particular — has borne the brunt of Trump’s second-term harassment: In May, Trump announced his intent to remove 5,000 US troops from Germany and threatened to go “a lot further”; the Pentagon has said that withdrawal will take place within 12 months. The US currently has more than 38,000 troops stationed in Germany.

Trump has made similar threats about US troops stationed in Italy and Spain, and even suggested removing all US troops from Europe.

Most of these threats have been triggered by Trump’s unhappiness with European defense spending, which he’s eternally trying to boost. 

But in his second term, the threats have grown much more tightly tied to Trump’s personal ambitions and grievances. Trump’s Germany announcement followed a clash with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz over the US war with Iran, which Trump has tried — unsuccessfully — to drag US allies into. Spain, in particular, has also drawn Trump’s ire for vocally opposing the war. 

Last month, he also tied the US troop presence in Europe to his insistence that the US be allowed to take over Greenland, which belongs to Denmark, a US ally and founding NATO member.

One link for later

➨ A low-tech way to save coral reefs. My colleague Benji Jones visited the island nation of Palau, in the western Pacific Ocean, to learn about a new approach to reef restoration. Scientists there are testing species of coral specifically for heat resistance to find better options for replanting reefs — all using some plastic picnic coolers and a bit of hot water. 

Before you go…

• Did you know…that the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in the Chilean Andes has the largest digital camera ever made? It captured its “first light” last year in staggering high-definition. 
• Today’s trivia: What was the title of Iran’s ruler until 1979? (You can find this and other brain puzzles in Vox’s daily crossword. Look for the answer in tomorrow’s edition.)
• Friday’s trivia: On Friday, we asked you which US president responded to inflation by ordering wage and price freezes. That was President Richard Nixon.

This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here.

Welcome to The Logoff: Remember President Donald Trump’s first-term border wall? It’s still being built — through a pristine Texas national park.

What’s happening? The Trump administration is preparing to build hundreds of miles of roads through Big Bend National Park in southwest Texas as part of its latest border security project, despite a bipartisan outcry over damage to the beloved park. 

Starting last week, bulldozers and heavy machinery began to clear land for the construction of about 200 miles of patrol road, new border barriers, and electronic surveillance measures to cover the park’s 118 miles of shared border with Mexico. The construction is proceeding after the administration overrode environmental laws intended to protect places like Big Bend earlier this year.

What does a border wall look like in 2026? In this case, “wall” is a bit of a misnomer. Despite Trump’s fixation with an actual, physical wall circa 2016, the Trump administration’s current project isn’t always 30 feet high and topped with concertina wire.

Instead, the Big Bend project is part of what the administration has described as a “smart wall,” which will combine stretches of traditional wall elsewhere along the US-Mexico border with patrol roads and vehicle barriers like those planned for the park, all blanketed with surveillance. 

It’s a small retreat from the administration’s original plan for a border wall through Big Bend, which sparked outrage earlier this year. Still, the administration intends to build about 700 additional miles of “primary” wall, spanning all four border states. The whole project is slated to cost around $47 billion. 

Why Big Bend? It’s hard to say. As the New York Times reported earlier this year, the park has long been considered low-priority given its remote location and inhospitable weather. Only about 1 percent of those apprehended for crossing the US-Mexico border have been detained in Big Bend.

And with that, it’s time to log off…

Hi readers, happy Friday! Before we log off today, here’s a story from my colleague Allie Volpe about how to bring some playfulness back into your life and why we’d all stand to benefit from it. You can read it here with a gift link. 

Have a good weekend, and we’ll see you back here on Monday!

This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here.

Welcome to The Logoff: The cracks are starting to show in President Donald Trump’s Iran campaign.

What’s happening? Conditions on a US warship deployed in the Middle East have grown so dire, multiple sailors have reportedly tried to go overboard (at least one did so but was rescued safely, according to CNN). 

The attempts to jump overboard comes as family members of sailors are raising concerns with Democratic lawmakers about deteriorating mental health on the ship amid sanitation issues and shortages of food and basic supplies. 

The USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier has been deployed for more than 250 days, starting last November, including a stretch of more than 200 days at sea — a modern record. Its deployment was supposed to end months ago, in May, but has continued as Trump’s Iran war stretches on. 

How is the administration responding? Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Thursday that reports about conditions on the Lincoln are “completely misrepresented.” Help is on the way for the Lincoln, though, with another US aircraft carrier en route to the area to replace it (according to the Wall Street Journal, the replacement was already planned, and not in response to deteriorating conditions on the Lincoln).

Why does this matter? Conditions on the Lincoln are not the only recent stumbling block for the US war with Iran. Earlier this month, we learned more about the US’s increasingly serious shortages of key offensive and defensive missiles, including THAAD and Patriot interceptors used to protect US troops and allies. On top of that, the Washington Post reported Thursday that the US has run through around a quarter of its Reaper drones, which cost tens of millions of dollars apiece. 

It’s the latest example of how the math of the war is starting to slant against the US: Reaper drones and Patriot missiles are incredibly expensive, while Iran has figured out how to mass-produce attack drones on the cheap. And with no end in sight, shortages and situations like the Lincoln will only become a larger problem.

And with that, it’s time to log off…

Here’s some good news from my colleague Adam Clark Estes: As wrecked as your attention span may feel, it’s not permanently degraded. He talked with attention experts to figure out how to repair his, and how we can all do the same. You can read his full story here with a gift link — and then, for all of our brains’ sake, let’s log off. We’ll see you back here tomorrow. 

This story appeared in Today, Explained, a daily newsletter that helps you understand the most compelling news and stories of the day. Subscribe here.

Karoline Leavitt, the 28-year-old firebrand who became the nation’s youngest-ever press secretary in 2024, is stepping down to “spend more time with her beautiful young children.”

President Donald Trump announced the news on Wednesday night in a Truth Social post, adding that Leavitt would remain an adviser and “an influential voice within the Republican Party.”

It feels fitting that Leavitt — whose public persona required her to perform both her job and her role as a wife and mom — is stepping down to parent. In MAGA’s conception of womanhood, there can be no higher calling. Not even serving the president. 

For more than two years, however, Leavitt made a show of trying to do both. She returned to work on Trump’s reelection campaign only days after the birth of her first child and regularly shared photos of herself working while holding her son. 

Leavitt also welcomed a daughter over the spring, amid what Fox News dubbed a White House “baby boom.” Officials and conservative media quickly turned the new mothers into advertisements for the pro-natalist movement: Proof that women could, and should, have both careers and children. 

Leavitt is still being held up that way, even — perhaps especially — as she departs. “She’s been a role model to millions and millions of young women,” deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller told Fox News on Wednesday. “A mother, a family woman, a press secretary, a patriot.”

MAGA’s rules for women

The MAGA movement tends to glorify traditional female roles — wife, mother, homemaker — while simultaneously (and confusingly) elevating ambitious, career-driven women like Leavitt. 

At first glance, her prominence — and that of other women in Trump’s administration — would seem to rebut the charge that the movement is misogynist. In fact, that’s a line of defense that Trump himself has advanced. 

But look a little closer, and you’ll see the structural contradiction at the heart of MAGA femininity: Female power is only legitimate when it’s exercised on behalf of Trump, and by women who conform to traditional expectations around gender, marriage, motherhood, and physical appearance.

To Trump, a female White House correspondent was a “piggy,” for instance. But a female press secretary who defended the slur was “knocking them dead.” 

A female employee at a Trump golf course was asked to sign an NDA after reporting harassment. But the female attorney who allegedly pressured her to sign it was, according to Trump, “a rocket ship.”

A female politician rose to prominence championing the president’s deportation agenda. But to get there, she had to find her “Mar-a-Lago face” — and she was ousted after showing signs of personal ambition. (In fairness, she was also very bad at her job.) 

It’s a very tricky little tightrope to walk. And lately, that strain has begun to show. While Trump began his second term with an unusually high number of female Cabinet members for a Republican president, women now hold only four of 23 Cabinet or Cabinet-level positions. 

Trump’s support is also down among young women. In Congress, a bloc of prominent conservative female lawmakers recently broke from their party to censure Republicans accused of misconduct. Now, the MAGA movement is losing one of its fiercest female proxies in Leavitt. 

Even at the height of her powers, however, Leavitt never really got her due. The luxurious office traditionally reserved for the White House press secretary instead went to another White House staffer. A dude.

One link for later

➨ Meet the latest and greatest exercise cult. It’s called HYROX — yes, in all caps — and it’s an eight-round agility and strength competition. Participants spend thousands of dollars on training, registration, and travel for these events, which tend to “subsume your entire existence.” That’s a very hard no for me, personally…but a lot of very fit and competitive people are apparently into it. 

Before you go…

• Did you know…that the US attempted to assassinate longtime Cuban dictator Fidel Castro by poisoning his ice cream? And that’s somehow not even the weirdest or most far-fetched Castro assassination scheme. 
• Today’s trivia: Who was the first woman to perform hip hop at the White House? (You can find this and other brain puzzles in Vox’s daily crossword. Look for the answer in tomorrow’s edition.)
• Yesterday’s trivia: Yesterday we asked you for the German philosopher who wrote Critique of Practical Reason. That would be Immanuel Kant, whose work also arguably inspired one of the core conflicts in the Avengers films.

Tom Tiffany, the new Republican nominee for governor in Wisconsin, is not just a passive supporter of President Donald Trump’s lies about the 2020 presidential election. He is an active promoter of them.

In December 2020, when he was a member of Congress, he signed on to a Texas lawsuit seeking to invalidate Joe Biden’s victory. On January 6, 2021, he voted against certifying the results in Pennsylvania and Texas just hours after rioters threatened to kill his colleagues. He has stated he would have overturned Wisconsin’s results too, and just this year endorsed an FBI investigation into the state’s elections. And though the national climate in 2026 favors Democrats, Wisconsin is a closely divided state: Tiffany could beat the odds and win the general.

There is, in short, a very real chance that someone who doesn’t believe American elections are legitimate may soon be supervising them in one of the 2028 presidential cycle’s most important swing states.

It’s not just Wisconsin. In each of the other most critical 2028 states — Michigan, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Nevada — Republicans have chosen an election denier as their nominee for governor, secretary of state, or both. If any of these candidates win, they will have at least some degree of authority over the administration of elections in a state that could determine the outcome of the next presidential election. 

So could the outcome of the 2026 midterms ultimately lead to a stolen election in 2028, as some are already warning? Election experts say it’s very unlikely.

State election laws contain numerous overlapping checks on interference from top officials. The judiciary has a pretty strong track record in stopping election malfeasance. A reform to the Electoral Count Act, passed quietly during the Biden presidency, significantly improved federal protections against election interference. And in 2028, the man uniquely responsible for previous pushes to invalidate the 2020 election won’t be on the ballot.

“[There are many] reasons why one should not be concerned,” said Rebecca Green, the co-director of the Election Law Program at the College of William and Mary. “Even in circumstances where there is a single partisan in control of a state’s election process, there are numerous checks on that power.”

That said, the risk isn’t zero. There is a remote chance, if the election is extremely close, that a well-placed election denier could swing the outcome. And even if they don’t outright steal an election, someone like Tiffany could still use their office to damage the electoral system in some pretty important ways.

“We have to be walking between complacency and alarmism,” said Rick Hasen, an expert on election law at UCLA. “Both of those are bad.”

Why the 2028 election is more secure than you think

Election law varies from state to state. Most of the time, the state’s secretary of state (SOS) is in charge of elections, but sometimes it’s the state board of elections. Sometimes the SOS is directly elected, and sometimes they’re appointed by the governor. 

But in broad strokes, there are three ways for governors or an allied SOS to attack an election. They can try to suppress opposition voters before the voting starts, by (for example) purging them from the rolls or putting insufficient polling stations in their neighborhoods. They can try to interfere during the vote count, by trying to disqualify outparty ballots or even falsifying the vote count. Or they can try to interfere afterward, by refusing to certify election results.

“Courts have shown themselves to be pretty good against election denialism. That’s true of both Democratic and Republican appointed and elected judges.”

Rick Hasen, UCLA election expert

Each of those is exceptionally, perhaps even prohibitively, difficult to pull off — even for a committed election denier.

Voter suppression is hard because the tactics are legally limited. Current federal law bans voter roll purges within 90 days of the election, which allowed Democrats to simply re-register voters disqualified in previous Republican purges (though the Supreme Court may overturn this provision in an upcoming case). Impediments like polling station placement are, per Hasen, hard to target; they are most likely to affect low-income and low-propensity voters, who have trended Republican in recent elections.

Interfering with the counting of votes is made difficult by what Green terms “adversarial election administration”: basically, the fact that partisans from both parties are involved in multiple different stages of the counting process. Every state has strict rules governing the counting process, and observers from both parties can see if they’re being breached in the other party’s favor. If there is an irregularity, courts are empowered to step in and correct it.

And it is simply illegal for governors or secretaries of state to refuse to certify legitimate elections. State laws in all relevant battleground states allow courts to issue a writ of mandamus requiring officials to certify duly counted results, which they have done repeatedly since 2020 when Republican-controlled county election boards withheld certification.

“Courts have shown themselves to be pretty good against election denialism,” Hasen said. “That’s true of both Democratic and Republican appointed and elected judges.”

The 2022 reform to the Electoral Count Act added several additional safeguards for presidential elections specifically, including a requirement that Congress defer to court determinations on electoral legitimacy if a governor attempts to defy them. 

And all of that assumes that a Republican who denied the result of the 2020 election would necessarily attempt to steal future elections. That may not be the case. 

“Just because you have partisan control of an election, and just because that person has cast doubt on previous elections, doesn’t mean that person is not going to be committed to running a fair election,” Green said.

Such a sentiment may sound naive, but it also may reflect the reality of post-Trump politics. The president was the driving force behind the attempt to overturn the 2020 election; his insistence that he did not lose, and his iron grip on the hearts and minds of the GOP base, pushed the party onto grounds that its other leaders clearly feared to tread. 

While Republicans certainly attempted to stack the electoral deck in their favor prior to Trump, these brazen attempts to overturn or steal legitimate elections are a product of his time in office. Whether he has permanently changed the Republican Party into an entity that will regularly reject elections they lose is very much an open question.

Why electing election deniers could still matter

All of this should give us some comfort about the upcoming state-level races: It is simply very hard for a governor or SOS to steal a presidential election even if they want to. While American democracy is weak in many different ways, the security of its election architecture specifically is actually one of its strong points.

But even the most impregnable-seeming fortresses can be breached. And there are reasons to worry that, in an extreme case, an election denier in key positions could well damage the integrity of the 2028 presidential election.

In a 2022 paper, the law professor Lisa Marshall Manheim argued that conventional legal analysis has proven inadequate for addressing the threat of election subversion. While legal experts are correct to say that the law makes stealing an election hard, the most dangerous threat to US elections — Trump’s 2020 campaign — was essentially extra-legal in character.

While American democracy is weak in many different ways, the security of its election architecture specifically is actually one of its strong points.

While “superficially” operating through the legal system, Trump was actually asking officials from Congress on down to engage in obviously unlawful behavior. When Trump asked Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” just enough votes to overturn the state’s results, or for Mike Pence to find the “courage” to nullify the results on January 6, he wasn’t asking these two men to act according to their legal duties. He was asking them to step beyond law, to embrace a reading of their office’s powers so obviously absurd that it amounts to declaring the text of the law to be no limit at all.

This is the nightmare scenario: one in which officials in key positions simply decide that they no longer have to follow a good-faith reading of the law. If enough officials in the right places decide to cast off legal shackles, no carefully crafted statute can stop them. We will, as Hasen put it, exit the domain of law into “something else”: the politics of raw power.

Anyone who endorsed Trump’s lies about the 2020 election — let alone actively attempted to act on them — has already shown a degree of contempt for election law. That means that one can’t rule out a similar display of contempt in the future, only this time with the power to turn that into impactful defiance of law.

It’s vastly too early to say the conditions under which such a radical breach might occur, in 2028 or in the future. A lot depends on the makeup of the Republican Party; whether leaders after Trump embrace or downplay his hostility to the electoral system itself. But we now know that the risk is there. And the more election deniers we have in key positions, the greater the odds are that the risk becomes real — even if the baseline probability remains low in absolute terms.

This connects to another, more insidious risk: that electing election deniers could exacerbate the ongoing crisis of electoral confidence since 2020.

Even if Tiffany or someone like him doesn’t try to outright prevent or nullify Democratic victories in their state, they could still declare that they lack confidence in the result’s integrity. That they tried to run a fair election, but that Democrats or the courts prevented them from doing so — and thus, despite their lack of legal powers to stop it, that they believe the election to have been compromised or even stolen.

This may not lead to a series of January 6s across the country. But even if it didn’t, it would deepen the lack of trust Republican voters have in the electoral system. If Republicans post-Trump continue to believe that Democrats are engaged in widespread cheating, that could contribute to an environment where the kind of extra-legal shenanigans Manheim warned of could look more tempting.

So while it is quite unlikely that the 2026 elections will lead to a crisis in 2028, it could play a role in dashing the possibility that American democracy moves on from the dangerous Trump-era fighting over elections. And as long as that fighting persists, another 2020-style crisis will remain a live possibility.