Hello it’s the weekend. This is The Weekender ☕️
Each day of the second Trump administration brings some new piece of content that it’s hard to believe is real. On Thursday, that was a video of armed, masked Border Patrol officers lurking outside California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s press conference on redistricting. On Friday, it was the official White House account posting a video of 20 federal agents arresting the D.C. man who threw a Subway sandwich at an officer during protests over the military takeover of the city. The video’s blaring soundtrack, white timestamps on the screen, and choppy editing are straight out of Cops.
The clip is part of the massive ad blitz from the Trump team, which has enlisted the White House, Department of Homeland Security, Customs and Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement social media accounts to portray their admin as a macho immigration- and crime-fighting machine. A lot of their messaging is conveyed through memes, like Studio Ghibli-style AI images of crying immigrants being deported or AI alligators posing as ICE agents outside of their new migrant detention center in the Everglades. Another genre focuses on gear, like clips of big ICE pickup trucks hauling ass through the Capitol set to a DaBaby song. Other videos, like the latest one of Sean Charles Dunn getting arrested at his D.C. apartment, are overserious to the point of folly.
As my colleague David Kurtz put it in Morning Memo, it’s easy to dismiss all of this as absurd posturing, but “the underlying urge toward violence continues to animate Trump and the MAGA movement in dangerous and unpredictable ways.”
These posts are an in-your-face reminder that this administration’s goons are militarizing our neighborhoods. They have the power to tap Jeanine Pirro to charge you with a felony for hurling a footlong, which is what happened to Dunn. They will deport your family and friends, and then laugh about it.
In a piece on the administration’s memes for WIRED, Tess Owen wrote that they’re used to reinforce “an ‘us vs. them’ mindset. Along with normalizing mass deportation, they also tap into Christian nationalist narratives and reach young men via callous jokes that have been recycled through the far-right online ecosystem.”
Asked for comment for Tess’ piece, a White House spokeswoman said, “We won’t apologize for posting banger memes.” A DHS spokeswoman called it “a silly little story.”
— Allegra Kirkland
Here’s what else TPM has on tap this weekend:
- MAGA personality Benny Johnson’s White House press briefing room question — about whether “Big Balls” should receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom — served as a microcosm of our absurd political moment.
- Ousted-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) comes out of retirement to fundraise against California’s attempt to redraw its congressional maps in order to offset the impact of Texas Republicans’ egregious midcycle gerrymander, a move they’re making at Trump’s behest.
- A look at the ways in which the Trump administration is setting itself up to politicize federal data, and the lengths it will go to shape information to fit the president’s made-up narratives.
Let’s dig in.
This Is How We Live Now
One moment last week encapsulated just how different things are in this second presidency of Donald Trump. It was all about “Big Balls.”
The telling exchange took place in a White House press briefing on Tuesday where MAGA personality Benny Johnson was occupying the “new media” seat and got to ask the first question. Johnson is one of the right wing influencers who have said they were unwittingly tricked into working with an alleged Russian influence operation during last year’s election. He’s also someone with whom this correspondent has a rather colorful history, so we knew there was a good chance it would get weird when he showed up to question the press secretary.
Johnson began with something that was more of a comment than a question. He took the opportunity to dispute the notion that Washington D.C. is “a safe place to live and work” before thanking Trump for his decision to bring federal forces in to police the city. Of course, crime has actually been declining in D.C. and the presence of troops and other federal agents in the city sets off all kinds of alarms about authoritarian overreach. Yet even after that setup, Johnson’s moment in the briefing room got weirder when he turned to Edward “Big Balls” Coristine, the young staffer who supposedly inspired Trump’s decision to call in the troops.
Coristine, who used the nickname “Big Balls” online, first gained national attention earlier this year when he was outed as one of the young staffers working with Elon Musk’s DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) initiative. He has since gone on to work for the Social Security Administration. In the wee hours of August 3, according to a police report, Coristine and a female companion were the victims of an attempted carjacking by “approximately 10 juveniles.” The report said Coristine pushed the woman out of the way before he was assaulted by the group. Trump posted a picture of a bloodied “Big Balls” on his social media as he first threatened to “federalize” DC. The president has also said he personally called Coristine. But Johnson went a step further.
“Given the heroic actions of a member of this administration just a few blocks from this building, will the president consider giving the presidential medal of freedom to ‘Big Balls,’” Johnson asked.
Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt responded that “perhaps it’s something he would consider.” Afterwards, the whole situation continued to be super normal as Johnson sparred with critics and expressed joy he’d gotten the phrase “Big Balls” into TV broadcasts.
Overall, the episode touched on so much of what is bizarre about the current climate. It was an example of the degradation of institutions like the briefing room, which has become a haven for extremist podcasters and influencers. It also showed how the DOGE minions are still around even after Musk’s departure. And it underscored the ridiculousness behind the very real decision to send military forces into the nation’s capital.
It is all so very stupid — and so very serious at the same time.
— Hunter Walker
McCarthy Enters the Chat to Fight Newsom’s Redistricting Bid
Your favorite ousted House Speaker is back.
Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has been reportedly working behind the scenes to rally his allies against California Democrats’ efforts to redraw their congressional map. While the blue state has guardrails in place to prevent the kind of hyper-partisan gerrymandering that Texas Republicans are currently engaged in, California Gov. Gavin Newsom recently announced a plan to ask voters about redrawing some congressional maps. Both Newsom and other blue state officials are looking for ways to get around their states’ independent redistricting commissions to draw new maps in order to offset the impact of what is happening in Texas.
California Democrats are proposing a new state congressional map with adjusted boundaries which would create a partisan tilt and likely flip some U.S. House seats for Democrats.
McCarthy recently told his former home-state congressional delegation that he’s aiming to raise $100 million for the opposition campaign, according to Politico.
The efforts in California come in response to the gerrymandering efforts led in Texas by the state’s Republican governor Greg Abbott and President Trump. Texas Republicans have been trying to approve new maps that would give five more seats to Republicans. Trump directed Texas Republicans to engage in the once-unheard of practice of midcycle redistricting to try to ensure that Republicans can maintain control of the U.S. House in the midterms.
— Emine Yücel
Fed Data is Only Accurate When It’s Flattering to Trump, Trump Admin Says
Maybe Sharpiegate was too absurd to be a sufficient warning sign, but the Trump administration has, over the last two weeks, revealed the lengths it will go to shape information to fit the president’s made-up narratives.
A lot has happened since Trump fired Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner Erika McEntarfer because he didn’t like the story the BLS monthly job report revisions told — one of a slowing economy in response to Trump’s economic policies.
Since then, Trump’s advisers have rushed to suggest ways data should be collected and published instead. It all serves as a warning sign that the administration is gearing up to politicize data that is supposed to be truthful and independent.
In fact, when talking to a group of government statisticians this week, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick suggested independence and accuracy were separate ideas when it comes to federal economic data.
“Independence is nonsense,” he said. “Accuracy is the only word that matters.”
With that in mind, Trump’s economic advisor Stephen Miran pitched delaying the publishing of the monthly jobs report in an interview with Axios. And Trump’s BLS commissioner nominee E.J. Antoni has posed the idea of doing away with the monthly report altogether, replacing it with a less frequent, far less timely survey instead.
Outside of his outlandish suggestion, Antoni has his own issues.
“He just got his PhD a few years ago,” Aaron Sojourner, a senior researcher at an employment research institute told me this week about Antoni’s nomination. “He’s published one paper that has one citation from a colleague but has never been cited by anyone else. His dissertation has nothing to do with labor or statistics.” He’s also a co-author of Project 2025 and has openly criticized the very agency he’s now poised to lead.
The whole thing feels like an early-stage blueprint for manipulating federal data to benefit Trump politically.
— Layla A. Jones
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