ICE Showed Up At The Gate. One Worker Said No.

The officer didn’t have a warrant signed by a judge. Plus: a Bush appointee halted Trump’s ballroom, and the jobs he bragged about never existed.

Happy Sunday! I hope you’re having a great weekend. With all of Trump’s chaos, I’m glad to have some great news for you today. Thanks for being here.

Before we jump in, hit the ❤️ like button and restack this before you scroll. Likes and restacks help us fight the MAGA propaganda machine by bringing this news to the top of people’s feeds who wouldn’t hear a word of these stories otherwise.

And if you haven’t yet, join us as a paid subscriber today. It supports our dogged reporting and relentless organizing machine, keeps the pressure on Congress, and powers one of the biggest social media campaigns against Trump in the world.

Paid subscribers also get my campaign analysis three mornings a week—where you can learn how the map will flip—built off my 23 years of running races. Join our movement today, I’d love to have you:

They Brought The Wrong Kind Of Warrant

On July 25, an ICE agent walked up to a Southwest gate in Dallas and told the gate agent he needed to get on board the Orlando flight to arrest a passenger.

The gate agent asked him for a warrant signed by a judge. But he didn’t have one. All he had was an administrative warrant, which is the kind ICE fills out themselves. It doesn’t involve a judge, and it doesn’t get anyone on an airplane.

The agent made that clear and denied him access. Next, he asked for the list of passengers. The answer was no to that too. The ICE agent left empty-handed.

There have been at least six other standoffs like this at Southwest gates in recent weeks, where airline workers have been turning federal agents away.

Trump’s Ballroom Halted

Last October, construction crews tore down the East Wing of the White House in just three days. There was no vote in Congress—Trump just went ahead and did it.

George W. Bush appointee Judge Richard Leon stopped all above-ground construction in April. He said no law gives a president that authority.

The Trump regime appealed. And during oral arguments, Judge Patricia Millett asked DOJ lawyer Yaakov Roth whether their position was that no court could stop the government even if it acted with outright lawlessness. Roth replied, “I think that’s right.”

Judges Millett and Garcia rejected that notion on Friday, saying that if they let the government act lawlessly it would flout the constitutional order. The only judge who dissented was put on the bench by Trump.

For now, the block holds.

The Russian Sanctions Bill Finally Passed

On Friday, the Senate finally passed sanctions on Russia on an 86 to 11 vote. The bill allows tariffs of up to 100 percent on the largest buyers of Russian oil and gas, and up to 500 percent on Russian imports.

Before it went through, it sat there for fifteen months. Lindsey Graham had introduced it in April of 2025, but he passed in July without ever getting a vote on it. The White House refused to support it the entire time. So Russia kept funding its war with few new repercussions from the United States.

Republicans finally moved, but they shouldn’t get any credit for doing so. What they passed lets Trump exempt any country, business, or official he says is in the national interest. Sounds like another route for his rampant corruption.

Trump already had the authority to sanction Russia, but refused—because he always has been, and always will be, one of Putin’s biggest accomplices. Right along with the GOP House, which left town for five weeks without even taking a vote on the sanctions.

They Erased The Numbers On Friday

A temporary layoff means you still have a job on paper—you’re just waiting for somebody to reach out and tell you to come back. Another 153,000 Americans landed in that spot last month.

Then the government admitted it had counted wrong on previous reports that Trump had bragged about. Jobs it announced back in May and June turned out not to exist—more than a hundred thousand of them were erased in a single report.

July was worse than anyone expected. The country lost jobs in a month economists thought would add them—with restaurants, hotels, and retail stores cutting the deepest. The average raise came in at just two cents an hour.

He’ll point at the unemployment rate dipping, but here’s the truth: that number goes down when people give up and stop hunting for work. And fewer Americans are actively in the labor force now than at any time in over five years.

Dem Sen. Elizabeth Warren didn’t mince words in a press release issued from the Senate Banking Committee, saying: “Trump’s failing economic agenda is weakening the labor market.”

Eighty-six days until voters hold him accountable. That’s where we come in.

On top of our investigations and reporting, we run one of the largest social media campaigns ever in politics. We push progressive messaging, trend hashtags that spread the truth, and get our reports in front of millions every single day. All while our pressure campaigns on Congress have delivered millions of letters on key issues to the House and Senate since 2016—805,000 since November 2024 alone.

But we can’t do any of it without the help of our readers. We never want to be held back by advertisers or shady corporations, so we are solely funded by our paid subscribers. Help us flip Congress by becoming one today:

Onward!

Scott

---

How are you and your family holding up as we head into these final 86 days? And what’s your biggest takeaway from the latest jobs report? Let me know in the comments—I read every one!