Present by extension, the Republican party's incursion into voting rights and basically the American people's faith in free and fair elections continues apace. He took to his failing social media platform, I believe it was early this morning, and wrote a very long rant about mail-in voting. He is declaring war on mail-in voting. By the way, be afraid. But this is the thing I want to flag. I'll spare you reading the entire thing because it's insane, obviously, but within the insanity there is also the kernel of a truth, the kernel of an idea—not that Donald has because he knows nothing, but that somebody put in his head. And now it's not just that he's going after gerrymandering and voting rights and things like that. He's trying to convince people that—well, let me read the relevant passage.
He’s talking about how Democrats cheat, because projection. He’s signing an executive order to help bring honesty to the 2026 midterm elections because, as you know, Donald is a man known for his prolific honesty.
“Remember, the states are merely an agent for the federal government in counting and tabulating votes. They must do what the federal government as represented by the president of the United States tells them for the good of our country to do with their horrible radical policies like open borders, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Democrats are virtually unelectable without using this completely disproven mail-in scam, et cetera, et cetera.”
I’m going to quote Josh Marshall, who’s somebody I highly recommend you read every day. His newsletter is Talking Points Memo—I think it’s essential reading. In response to this section of this insane tweet about how the states are in service to the federal government during elections and that the federal government can tell states what to do, Josh Marshall says, and I quote and it’s eloquent:
“This is total bullshit.”
Let’s dive in.
Total bullshit indeed. Hello and welcome to this evening's episode of Mary Trump Live. It is wonderful to have you here with me. And just to make it very clear: states are essentially in control of elections. And I don’t just mean state elections—for example, representatives and senators. I mean any election that happens within that state, including national elections like the presidential election. So clearly this is the fascist Republican party just planting a seed to get people used to the idea that apparently there’s no such thing as states’ rights anymore, at least when it comes to voting. Seems kind of antithetical to the Republican position of the last at least five decades.
But let’s move on to something that’s really been in the news and on my mind today. Donald hosted a meeting with Ukrainian President Zelensky and other European leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, in order to discuss the situation in Ukraine. Which is to say, what’s going on after Donald’s meeting with Vladimir Putin and after Russia illegally invaded our ally. That meeting with Putin on Friday was entirely unsuccessful for everybody in America and everybody in Ukraine—but boy, was it successful for Vladimir Putin.
It seems that the one with Zelensky—this should not surprise us at all—wasn’t much better. Donald threw him almost immediately under the bus when asked about previous comments that Zelensky could end the war if he so chooses. Donald doubled down right away, right in front of his guest.
“So President Zelensky, you say in a post on X today, Russia must end this war, which it itself started. President Trump, you say President Zelensky of Ukraine can end the war with Russia almost immediately if he wants to, which isn’t…”
“I think that’s true. I think, Phil, we’re going to have a meeting. I think everything works out well today. We’ll have a triad and I think there will be a reasonable chance of ending the war when we do that.”
Ooh, a triad. He’s so sophisticated. Alright, well, it’s actually objectively true: Russia could end the war immediately if it so chose. Ukraine could end even more immediately if it so chose. Alright, how? I mean, that’s not just a unilateral thing, right? There have to be conditions met, concessions made, presumably.
Here’s the thing though. Russia—if, I don’t know, somebody with a lot of power here, say the president of the United States—could end the war if the United States pressured Russia along with EU countries to withdraw completely and return all of the territory it has stolen from Ukraine. Although of course they cannot return the lives they stole—that’s not going to happen. So how is it, given the fact that Donald essentially conceded everything to Putin on Friday and basically said, “You can have whatever you want,” that now it’s up to Ukraine? The only reasonable circumstances under which Ukraine should end this war is if Russia withdrew, gave everything back, and agreed to allow Ukraine to become part of NATO.
Donald doesn’t want that. Russia certainly doesn’t want that. So now what Donald means when he says Ukraine could end the war immediately, what he means is: if Ukraine would only be reasonable and give Russia everything it wants, this goes away, and I get to be Putin’s favorite puppy—or puppet, depending on which you prefer.
Donald gave some vague statements about the end of the war, but he didn’t commit to anything. Because he can’t commit to anything, because he knows who his boss is. And trust me, his leash got pulled really hard on Friday. So how can you commit to any action that is in the best interest of your alleged ally Ukraine when you are completely beholden to Putin? He doesn’t respect you at all, and because you were so catastrophically stupid, inept, and unknowledgeable, you have squandered any power you had to end this war in the first place. Here is what Donald had to say.
“Look, the war is going to end when it ends. I can’t tell you, but the war is going to end. And this gentleman wants it to end. And Vladimir Putin wants it to end. I think the whole world is tired of it and we’re going to… it ended. I’ve done six wars, I’ve ended six wars, and I thought this maybe would be the easiest one and it’s not the easiest one. It’s a tough one.”
Okay, he hasn’t ended six wars. He keeps taking credit for things that have been in the works for a very long time and for which probably the Biden administration did most of the heavy lifting. But when he says, “I don’t know when it’s going to end, everybody’s tired of it though”—are we tired of the war in Ukraine? Is that how we define how we’re feeling about it? We’re just tired of it? “So sick of it. Oh my, it’s so boring.” No. We’re horrified by it.
And apparently there were enough people in this country who actually believed Donald when he said he was going to end that war on day one. Not of his administration—day one of the transition, which is to say the day after the election, November 2024. Somehow magically, illegally, and extra-constitutionally, Donald Trump was going to end that war. And now he doesn’t even know when it’s going to end, and he can’t end it because he ceded everything to Vladimir Putin. And now he has the audacity to put the ball in Vladimir Zelensky’s court.
Also, Putin doesn’t want the war to end. I mean, the war has been great for Vladimir Putin. It has—especially thanks to Donald. It has made him seem like a legitimate player on the world stage. And especially meeting with him on American soil burnished his reputation as somebody who is a brilliant manipulator of the President of the United States of America.
Since the meeting between Donald and Putin, Russia has bombarded Ukraine with attacks, killing 14 more people just hours after Zelensky arrived in the US to speak to Donald. Putin is invested in continuing this war. Why? Well, because he’s getting away with it, first of all. And he knows the longer he continues it, the less likely the United States is to continue supporting Ukraine with money and weapons. The more likely it is that Putin and Russia will gain more—which is to say steal more—Ukrainian territory.
Donald and Zelensky ended the meeting on the note that the three of them hope to meet, with Donald saying there needed to be a unilateral prisoner release in order to end the war. Putin has not agreed to that meeting, and there’s literally no reason to expect he will not continue the attacks on Ukrainian soil.
I think it’s worth mentioning, because let’s be honest here, that if the Biden administration had done more at the very beginning to help Ukraine—if the Biden administration had understood in a more comprehensive way the threat Russia poses not just to Ukraine but to the rest of Europe and indeed the future of the Western Democratic alliance—we wouldn’t be here. If the Biden administration had had the imagination to game out what might happen if Biden lost the election and Donald won, we wouldn’t be here.
So while Donald met with Zelensky, he of course went off course to discuss his plans to continue gutting our democracy and destroying our ability to have free and fair elections. As I said at the beginning of the show today, he decided to wrap up his attack on voting rights, declaring his intent to get rid of mail-in voting as well as voting machines. So the question then: how are we voting? Are they going to send everybody a piece of paper and a pencil and a sassy self-addressed stamped envelope?
For those of you who didn’t watch Zoom as children, during the press conference Donald said—well, he told the truth, which I know doesn’t happen very often, so when it does happen we should probably pay attention.
“Some people get 5, 6, 7 ballots delivered to them. Now we got to stop mail-in voting and the Republicans have to lead the charge. The Democrats want it because they have horrible policy. If you have mail-in voting, you’re not going to have many Democrats get elected. That’s bigger than anything having to do with redistricting, believe me. And the Republicans have to get smart. We’re not going to have a country. I said for a long time at rallies you need borders and you need free and fair elections.”
Free and fair elections. Yeah, free and fair elections says the man who just admitted that he wants to do away with any kind of voting that favors Democrats.
Also, by the way, I don’t think that’s definitive. I don’t think mail-in voting exclusively favors Democrats. I mean, it favors some demographics that typically vote Republican. But that’s really not the point. He’s basically laying it out there: he wants to do away with any form of voting that he believes favors Democrats, and he is urging the Republican party to get on it so that they can more easily steal the 2026 midterms. It’s that simple.
There is literally no other way to interpret what is going on here. To interpret his urging red states to gerrymander districts in advance of the 2026 election in order to create more districts that are favorable to Republicans, thereby adding seats that Republicans don’t now have.
There is no other way to interpret Donald saying that he wants a census now—five years in advance of when the Constitution requires one. And not only does he want the census now, he wants a census only to include American citizens, which is not how any of this is supposed to work.
There is no other way to interpret what Donald is saying about the federal government versus the state government vis-à-vis how elections are run. He is softening the ground for people to begin to accept whatever he has to say—no matter how wrong, how unconstitutional it is—when it comes to voting. He is making sure that he makes it easier for people not to trust the results of free and fair elections if he and Republicans don’t win.
They are blatantly, inarguably, and uncontested trying—well in advance—to steal our elections from us.
So while all of these attacks are continuing and quite frankly increasing and broadening in their scope, Dominion Voting Systems was just handed a victory against right-wing extremists who claimed the 2020 election was rigged. This is of course right after Vladimir Putin, I guess, assuaged Donald’s ego by claiming to believe that the 2020 election was stolen from him.
Dominion is the same voting technology company that received a $787 million settlement from Fox News over its election coverage. The trial for their case against Newsmax was scheduled to begin in October, but instead Newsmax will pay $67 million to settle the lawsuit for airing those false claims.
Despite Donald’s peddling lies about our election systems, the courts have agreed time and time again: our way of voting is secure, our elections are free and fair, and those who say otherwise are engaging in defamation against those whom they claim are somehow cheating. And all of this, of course, while it is so obvious the only cheating being done is by those on the right. While Donald tries to destroy voting rights—with not inconsiderable help from the egregious Supreme Court Justice John Roberts—the redistricting war is continuing.
Texas Democrats have finally returned to Texas, and Governor Greg Abbott, fascist of Texas, and his fellow Republicans are planning to move as quickly as possible to try to redraw the Texas maps. Here is what CBS news had to say.
“The Texas State House of Representatives could vote as early as this week on the state's controversial redistricting plan. The second special session called by Governor Greg Abbott officially began today after Democrats ended their boycott and returned to the Lone Star state. Now the Democrats agreed to come back after the first session ended without a vote, and after California unveiled its own plan to redraw that state’s congressional maps.”
“Now Democrats are saying that this is an achievement for them despite the fact that they are going back to Texas and they will eventually have to vote on these Republican maps for the state of Texas. But their goal initially was to, one: bring national attention to this matter, get people’s eyes on what was going on in Texas. And two: they said they wanted to get other blue states to join the fight and retaliate against what Texas was doing and neutralize any advantage that Texas could potentially gain come 2026. And they achieved that with California effectively rolling out their redistricting efforts.”
Democrats—now is your time, especially in blue states, large blue states with Democratic governors. California Democrats understand what’s at stake here. I believe the same is true in Illinois and New York. While Republicans fight to add Republican seats to the House of Representatives, California Democrats seem willing to do the same.
The Republicans are not going to stop, so let us please stop pretending otherwise. There is no limit to what these people won’t do to stay in power. There is no law they won’t break. There is no constitutional amendment they won’t contravene. It is time for us to stop pretending otherwise.
California Democrats unveiled a new map on Friday, and now state lawmakers in both houses will hold hearings on the map and vote to put it to the voters at a special election in November. If voters agree, the new map would take effect, but only if Texas or another Republican-led state moves forward with its own mid-decade redistricting, and would remain through the 2030 elections.
Okay, fair is fair. If the Republicans back off, then the Democrats should too. Because this is the way to look at this: a lot of people are queasy about Democrats engaging in anti-democratic activities to counter the Republicans’ onslaught. I understand that. Here’s the thing though: if Republicans continue their power grab and Democrats in blue states say, “You know what, we still have to play by the rules anyway,” we are going to lose our democracy. It is that simple.
So when they go low, we go low. When they get in the mud, we get in the mud with them. The difference is we understand that we are doing this not just to stop them but to strengthen our democracy going forward. It’s that simple. Hopefully other blue states will wake up to this reality.
And I know there’s been a lot of talk that there are Democratic states that believe in democracy, so of course in order to prevent the kind of thing that’s happening in Texas, they set up independent commissions to prevent the kind of egregious gerrymandering that Texas is engaging in and that other red states are going to engage in. Time to disband those commissions. Please.
While Republicans try to distract with the redistricting, there is yet another battle on the horizon—because this is all they seem to be good at—because they just cannot stop the Epstein scandal from taking hold.
The New York Times reported today that Republicans are now facing a lot of pushback in their home districts. Many unhappy constituents are making their feelings known as the September deadline for Congress to return to session nears. There are reports that Republicans are seeing the writing on the wall: the Epstein issue will only get worse for them when they return from the summer recess.
Democrats, with the help of some Republicans, have laid a series of procedural traps that will make it all but impossible for Republicans in the House of Representatives to avoid confronting the Epstein issue again when they get back into session in September. Republicans like Thomas Massie, along with a large number of Democrats, have indicated that they plan to put pressure back on Congress when everybody returns—again, as it should be.
Why should we be interested in the horrific crimes committed by a man who is now dead and his co-conspirator, fellow sex trafficker of girls and young women, and probably rapist herself (allegedly) Ghislaine Maxwell, who is in prison for basically the rest of her life? Why do we care about this?
Well, I care about it because according to Donald’s own FBI, his name appears in those files several times, and they have hidden that from us. So if there’s not a problem there, release the files. But other people care about this for other reasons—and that is why this issue is not going away.
Those other people constitute Donald’s base. Why do they care? Why do they care about a dead sex trafficker of girls and young women? They don’t seem to care much about the well-being of young women. They don’t seem to care much about the horrific things done to girls and young women by people like Jeffrey Epstein.
But they were promised something. And they were promised it by Donald Trump. He promised them, as part of his campaign in 2024, to release the Epstein files. Why? Because he wanted accountability for Epstein and Maxwell’s victims? No. He couldn’t care less about them either. He told them, he lied to them, and said that the people implicated in Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes were at the upper echelons of the Democratic Party. Guess what? Now he doesn’t want to release the files.
So that’s why this isn’t going away. And that’s why we’re not letting it.
It’s Monday. I know—I have to remind myself. Yesterday was Sunday and I thought it was Friday. It’s a very confusing time we’re living in. All the more reason, of course, then—well, to breathe.
