Following a wave of primaries on June 2 in the state of California, it took a few days for the media to call the winners of races in the state, as it often does because California will count ballots if they arrive within seven days after Election Day, and large numbers of people voting by mail cast their votes on or shortly before Election Day.

The president and his allies have taken advantage of this vote count period to sow misinformation. He has claimed that ballots counted after Election Day are somehow illegitimate because of the outcome they produced (two Democrats are headed to the Los Angeles mayoral runoff, instead of Spencer Pratt, a Republican). Spencer Pratt had a small lead for a second place spot in the runoff among the very first ballots counted in the race, while later arriving ballots favored Nithya Raman, a Democratic candidate. “You look at what’s happening — it’s getting tighter and tighter and tighter,” Trump  said. “And the people who were supposed to win, bad things are happening. It’s a crooked state.” Now, a U.S. attorney has opened an investigation into the elections without any evidence of wrongdoing.

There’s nothing surprising about the outcome of this election — similar patterns have occurred in races since at least 2020. And there’s nothing surprising about Trump using his megaphone to spew election disinformation. In fact, it’s part of the administration’s overarching plan for the 2026 midterms: to deceive the public about the legitimacy of the elections, thereby creating a pretext to disrupt election processes (for instance, by imposing unlawful new rules on mail voting) and eventually to deny the results. That strategy might not be effective, but these California elections make it clear that Trump is going to try it regardless.

On Fox News Sunday, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche claimed without evidence that “there’s a ton of evidence that the 2020 election was rigged” and that the Department of Justice has “multiple investigations going on in Arizona, in Georgia, in Fulton County, Georgia” focused on determining whether “the right people voted.” Blanche offered no specific evidence to support the claim, acknowledged that the investigation has taken more than five years because supposed election-riggers are “very good at hiding what they’re doing,” and declined to provide any timeline for results.

No court, audit, or law enforcement investigation — including those conducted by officials appointed by and loyal to the Trump administration — has produced credible evidence that the 2020 election was stolen or rigged. What makes Blanche’s statement distinct from prior disinformation is its source: it is the sitting head of the Department of Justice, using the authority of that office to validate claims the legal system has repeatedly rejected.

As Protect Democracy’s Executive Override report documents, the administration has made election denialism official federal policy — using investigative and enforcement powers to manufacture the appearance of fraud and flood the public with disinformation designed to erode confidence in the 2026 midterms. Blanche’s Fox News appearance fits squarely within that strategy. The report warns that conspiracy theories and bogus investigations serve not only to deceive voters now, but to lay the groundwork for the administration’s final gambit: contesting or overturning 2026 election results that the administration doesn’t like. Lending the DOJ’s institutional credibility to election disinformation accelerates both goals simultaneously.

As the war in Iran continues, unresolved, President Trump is facing concerted pushback from Congress for the first time. The House on Wednesday passed a war powers resolution directing an end to U.S. engagement in Iran, with a handful of Republicans supporting the measure. The Senate must now take up the measure within roughly three weeks. Whether or not the measure ultimately passes, the House’s vote is an important reminder of Congress’s proper role in foreign entanglements, and a hopeful sign that members of Congress intend to use the power they have.

The White House also released a proposed rule that would tighten the president’s control over a wide array of federal spending. This new rule would give Trump’s political appointees power to approve or deny funding through grants to a wide array of organizations that are funded by the federal government. The funding decisions would be made according to explicitly political criteria, with the rule targeting funds that would be used for “anti-American” activities or that don’t support the president’s agenda. This assertion of power over federal spending is contrary to Congress’s constitutional power of the purse, and the rule is likely to face challenges in court. It’s Trump’s latest effort to exert large-scale authority over the entire bureaucracy of the federal government, even over the occasional protestations of members of his own party.

The appointment of first Bill Pulte as acting director of national intelligence, and then Jay Clayton as Trump’s permanent nominee, proves that loyalty is crucial for this president.

The DNI has access to a host of highly sensitive national security information, which affords major opportunities to spread disinformation about candidates, their supporters, and the electoral system itself. This could look like a selective leak designed to tarnish a political opponent or false claims about foreign interference in the election process itself.

Neither Pulte nor Clayton, is at all qualified to serve as the director of national intelligence. Pulte comes from a background in real estate and finance. The credentials he does have, though, are related to his willingness (from his current perch at the Federal Housing Finance Agency) to dig up justifications that would allow the Department of Justice to launch investigations into the president’s perceived enemies. Clayton’s career is more conventionally distinguished — he was a longtime partner at Sullivan & Cromwell and served as chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission during Trump’s first term. He was confirmed last year as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. But he, too, has been willing to embrace (or at least not resist) Trump’s agenda of weaponized law enforcement. He reportedly advised SDNY prosecutor Danielle Sassoon (then the acting head of SDNY) to follow DOJ’s order to drop the criminal case against then-NYC mayor Eric Adams. He didn’t intervene when DOJ fired respected SDNY prosecutor Maurene Comey, the daughter of former FBI director James Comey.

The installation of a loyalist in this position means that information coming out of the Office of the DNI is could be suspect, and that’s especially the case around reports of election interference. In fact, both Pulte and Clayton have signalled concerns about election interference in just the past few days.

The investigation into the Southern Poverty Law Center, when combined with the news that former FBI Director James Comey was being indicted for a second time and that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is still trying calling for investigation Senator Mark Kelly, is a reminder of the sweeping efforts this administration has made to silence dissenting voices. These three investigations are all targeting different pillars of dissent, from civil society to politicians of the opposing party, but each of them meets the three-part standard we laid out in our tracker on retaliatory actions:

1. Evidence suggesting political interference with an investigation
2. Political opponents being treated differently than those similarly situated
3. Courts or other legal validators questioning the actions of the DOJ

These actions, then, are designed not to enforce the law, but to punish those who speak out against the administration. They are efforts to quash dissent and the ability to participate freely in the public square before an election, and they aren’t the only examples.

News also broke this week that the DOJ wants to know more about who on Reddit and X is criticizing ICE, and we also know that the president is working to push a government-wide NDA on all federal employees. The administration is working on all fronts to silence dissenting voices both inside the government and in the broader public square.

The April 25 shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner and the subsequent exchange of fire between a gunman and the Secret Service outside the White House have sharpened concerns about political violence in the run-up to the 2026 midterms. Rather than treating the attack as a shared civic danger, the White House moved within days to assign blame to Democrats and the media, claiming their rhetoric had “helped to legitimize this violence.” That framing omits a documented pattern running in the other direction: an NBC News review found that Trump’s public attacks on perceived political enemies generated threats against at least 22 officials on both sides of the aisle.

Research consistently finds that election periods are correlated with heightened risk of political violence, and data shows that threats and harassment against local officials surge during election years — most frequently targeting election officials and poll workers, with an additional uptick in threats against judges over election-related issues. Swatting incidents, online death threats, and increased protection measures for officials connected to politically charged cases have all intensified since the Correspondents’ Dinner shooting, raising concerns inside federal law enforcement about the trajectory of the threat environment as the midterms approach.

It’s important to remember, too, that there are things we can do to lower the temperature:

• We can condemn political violence, regardless of whether it’s directed at figures we support or vehemently disagree with.
• We can intentionally avoid spreading false narratives, fueling conflict, or providing platforms to extremists.
• We can use legal tools to hold those accountable who spread dangerous misinformation, put others at risk, or threaten those engaged in the political process.

We can all collectively choose to obtain our information from trusted, official sources, avoiding the contentious and inaccurate information that often circulates online.

It’s important to remember, too, that there are things we can do to lower the temperature:

• We can condemn political violence, regardless of whether it’s directed at figures we support or vehemently disagree with.
• We can intentionally avoid spreading false narratives, fueling conflict, or providing platforms to extremists.
• We can use legal tools to hold those accountable who spread dangerous misinformation, put others at risk, or threaten those engaged in the political process.

We can all collectively choose to obtain our information from trusted, official sources, avoiding the contentious and inaccurate information that often circulates online.

Deployments of ICE agents to cities across the country began in earnest in the summer of 2025, and a year later, they are set to ramp up again. White House border czar Tom Homan has said that one of those surges will target New York City, explaining that the surge would happen because Governor Kathy Hochul is no longer allowing state and local law enforcement to double as immigration officials across the state.

While Homan acknowledged that he “had to” surge ICE into the city, he also made it clear that he doesn’t want to repeat what happened in Minnesota. “You will not see a Minnesota. I will not let Minnesota happen,” he said.

This comes as tensions have continued to escalate around the Delaney Hall, an immigration detention center in New Jersey. The facility has been the site of protests over the conditions inside, and those protests have sometimes led to armored officers using tear gas and batons to beat back the protesters. More than 80 people have been arrested.