by Steve Benen | Aug 18, 2026 | Maddowblog, Media, News, Politics
The conflict between Disney’s ABC and Donald Trump’s Federal Communications Commission has been intensifying for months, leading to questions about whether the network might take the matter to court.
Those questions now have an answer: On Tuesday morning, ABC filed a case in federal court in Washington, D.C., accusing the FCC of trying to interfere with the network’s First Amendment rights. From the court filing:
Again and again, the Administration has attacked ABC’s speech — the stories its journalists report and the viewpoints its network programs air. Over time, those attacks have escalated into express demands that ABC be stripped of its broadcast licenses because of its speech.
“Government censorship,” the suit added, “is deeply un-American.”
The commission did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the litigation.
The path leading to this point is long and circuitous. After Donald Trump targeted ABC late-night host Jimmy Kimmel, for example, Brendan Carr, the president’s FCC chairman, appeared on a far-right podcast last September and discussed his agency’s role in granting broadcast licenses. Referring specifically to a Kimmel monologue that Republicans didn’t like, Carr said, “When we see stuff like this — look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way.”
Roughly seven months later, the public got a better sense of what “the hard way” looks like. In April, the FCC launched a highly unusual early review of ABC’s broadcast station licenses. Although the commission claimed the review was related to the network’s efforts to hire a diverse workforce (which the Republican administration apparently finds offensive), the developments came immediately after the White House condemned a joke Kimmel told about the
by Andra Gillespie | Aug 18, 2026 | Congress, Opinion, Politics
In the spring, the big news concerning Florida’s 20th Congressional District was the announcement from Luther Campbell (more popularly known as Uncle Luke from the rap group 2 Live Crew) that he would be challenging embattled Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick in a Democratic primary. But after the incumbent resigned under indictment (it should be noted that she is running again in the primary), and the Supreme Court’s Louisiana v. Callais ruling gave Florida Republicans permission to redraw district lines to benefit their party, the biggest news is the decision by Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a white woman, to run in the state’s only plurality-Black district. Her candidacy there highlights the tensions between descriptive and substantive representation and the strategic risks that emerge when a large field of candidates run for the same seat.
After the Callais ruling, Florida redistributed Black voters out of the original 20th District and put 22-year incumbent Wasserman Schultz, who represented the nearby 23rd District, into a mostly Republican district. The Constitution only requires members of Congress to live in the state (not the district) they will represent, so Wasserman Schultz chose to run in Florida’s 20th District against multiple Black candidates, including Campbell, former Broward County Mayor Dale Holness and progressive favorite Elijah Manley.
Her candidacy highlights the tensions between descriptive and substantive representation and the strategic risks that emerge when a large field of candidates run for the same seat.
Political scientist David Mayhew noted decades ago that members of Congress are almost single-mindedly focused on winning re-election, so it is not surprising that Wasserman Schultz would choose to run in a district more favorable for her
by Steve Benen | Aug 18, 2026 | Iran, Iran Tensions, Maddowblog, News, Politics, World
Donald Trump has invested an enormous amount of time and energy lately trying to convince people that the United States controls the Strait of Hormuz. In reality, the U.S. most certainly does not control the Strait of Hormuz, but the American president spent much of last week insisting on the delusion for reasons he never explained.
At one point last week, the Republican added a twist to the truly bizarre rhetorical campaign, posting an item to his social media platform that read in part, “The U.S.A. has total control over the Strait of Hormuz. I THINK WE WILL KEEP IT! … Praise be to Allah!”
The idea that the U.S. will somehow “keep” the body of water didn’t make a lot of sense, but as last week neared its end, Trump elaborated on the proposition during an event in New York.
Trump says that after Iran is defeated he’s going to declare the Strait of Hormuz a territory of the United States — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-08-14T19:56:59.178Z
“[A]fter we finish defeating Iran, which is being very badly defeated, pretty soon I’ll be declaring the Hormuz Strait a territory of the United States,” Trump said.
During an unrelated White House event this week, a reporter asked the president to elaborate on this apparent plan. He said making the strait a U.S. territory is “a great idea,” before again falsely claiming that the waterway is currently “open” and controlled by U.S. forces. Trump added, “I like the idea of declaring it a territory.”
Trump on making the Strait of Hormuz a US territory: “I like the idea. We have total control over the strait.”— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-08-17T18:14:08.233Z
There’s
by Steve Benen | Aug 17, 2026 | Maddowblog, News, Politics, World
Throughout Donald Trump’s first term, the president went to bizarre lengths to cozy up to North Korea, a longtime enemy of the United States, while alienating South Korea, a longtime U.S. ally. In 2019, the Republican took steps to cancel U.S. military exercises near the peninsula while echoing Pyongyang’s rhetoric, criticizing the exercises as “very provocative” and “inappropriate.”
After losing his 2020 re-election bid and preparing for a White House comeback, Trump’s belligerence toward Seoul by some measures managed to get worse. The Republican referred to South Korea as “an enemy” of the U.S. on matters of trade — despite the fact that his own administration struck a trade deal with South Korea — adding that he believed “it’s time we stop” helping our Korean allies.
The antagonistic attitude hasn’t improved. On Sunday afternoon, for reasons unknown, the American president published an odd message to his social media platform, which read in part:
Based on my very good relationship with Kim Jong Un, of North Korea, I am not happy with the fact that the United States has, long ago, agreed to participate in Joint Military Exercises with South Korea. These exercises are not only costly, with much of these costs paid for by the United States of America (as usual!), 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. Therefore, and based on the fact that it is too late to cancel, I have instructed Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, to substantially reduce the Joint Military Exercises!
Trump went on to complain about South
by Steve Benen | Aug 17, 2026 | Maddowblog, News, Politics
Exactly one year ago this week, Donald Trump threatened to impose “harsh measures” on the state of Colorado unless it agreed to release election denier Tina Peters from prison several years before her sentence runs its course. The degree to which the president was serious is still coming into focus.
The New York Times reported late last week, for example, that as Trump publicly condemned the Rocky Mountain State for incarcerating a convicted felon, the White House organized an urgent “brainstorm call” with five federal agencies, with the goal of exploring ways to curtail federal support to Colorado. The meeting, evidently, was a success — at least as far as the administration was concerned. From the article:
The [day after the “brainstorm call”] the Department of Transportation and the Department of Energy, whose representatives were invited to the brainstorm, announced they were canceling hundreds of millions of dollars in federal grants for Colorado projects.
State officials say the email, which was revealed in a federal court hearing on Tuesday, is the clearest evidence yet that the Trump administration marshaled government resources to retaliate against Colorado over its use of mail-in ballots and its conviction of Ms. Peters, a county clerk who was found guilty in a plot to tamper with voting machines after the 2020 election..
To be sure, some of this might sound familiar. The first veto of Trump’s second term, for example, came when he rejected legislation intended to bring clean water to the southeastern part of Colorado. The president shed light on his motivation soon after, telling Politico that, as far as he was concerned, Democratic Colorado Gov. Jared Polis was
by Steve Benen | Aug 15, 2026 | Justice Department, Maddowblog, News, Politics
As his first full week as a Senate-confirmed attorney general neared its end, Todd Blanche took some time Thursday to deliver a 19-minute prepared speech to the Justice Department’s workforce. The remarks were striking, but not in the way his many critics might have expected.
As a Politico report noted, the Republican lawyer’s speech stood out “more for what he didn’t say than what he did.”
There were no strident attacks on the Biden administration’s stewardship of the department, no denunciations of “activist” federal judges and no calls to end the weaponization of law enforcement — all topics that have featured prominently in some of Blanche’s public remarks as a senior department official over the past year and a half.
Instead, Blanche emphasized to DOJ employees that he was one of them, committed to continuing work the Justice Department has done for generations, often with little change from administration to administration.
A casual observer who watched the remarks probably would have thought he sounded like a normal attorney general in a normal administration.
“What I have seen over the past 30 years, working intimately with this department, is that this department succeeds when people of different backgrounds, different politics, different life experiences put the mission of the department first,” Blanche said. He added, “We will not engage in or stand for any sort of performative attacks that undermine the institutions that we are sworn to uphold.”
The disconnect between the attorney general’s rhetoric and his record was extraordinary. It was as if he were describing the jurisprudential vision of an entirely different person.
Blanche claimed, for example, that he believes in a Justice Department filled with personnel
