WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order to create a nationwide list of verified eligible voters and to restrict mail-in voting, a move that swiftly drew legal threats from state Democratic officials ahead of this year’s midterm elections.

The order, which voting law experts say violates the Constitution by attempting to seize states’ power to run elections, is the latest in a torrent of efforts from Trump to interfere with the way Americans vote based on his false allegations of fraud. The president has repeatedly lied about the outcome of the 2020 presidential campaign and the integrity of state-run elections, asserting again Tuesday that he won “three times” and citing accusations of voter fraud that numerous auditsinvestigations and courts have debunked.

The order signed Tuesday calls on the Department of Homeland Security, working in conjunction with the Social Security Administration, to make the list of eligible voters in each state. It also seeks to bar the U.S. Postal Service from sending absentee ballots to those not on each state’s approved list.

Trump is also calling for ballots to have secure envelopes with unique barcodes for tracking, according to the executive order, which was first reported by the Daily Caller. Federal funding could be withheld from states and localities that don’t comply.

“The cheating on mail-in voting is legendary. It’s horrible what’s going on,” Trump said, repeating his false allegations about mail ballots as he signed the order. “I think this will help a lot with elections.”

Democratic states quickly threaten lawsuits, non-compliance

Within minutes of Trump signing the order, top elections officials in Oregon and Arizona, two states that rely heavily on mail ballots, pledged to sue, arguing that the president was illegally encroaching on the right of states to run elections.

Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes said the state’s vote-by-mail system was designed by Republicans and is now used by 80% of voters. Arizona doesn’t need the federal government to tell it who can vote, and federal data isn’t always reliable, he said.

“It is just wrongheaded for a president of the United States to pretend like he can pick his own voters,” Fontes told The Associated Press. “That’s just not how America works.”

Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows told the AP that the order was “laughably unconstitutional” and said her state would not comply. More than a quarter of Maine voters cast mail-in ballots in the 2024 election.

Nevada Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar said Trump’s order would cripple local election officials charged with implementing it and silence voters counting on casting a mail ballot.

“It doesn’t benefit anybody in this country except himself,” Aguilar said.

Legal experts noted other potential flaws with the order. David Becker, a former Justice Department lawyer who leads the Center for Election Innovation and Research, said the Postal Service is run by a board of governors, and the president has no power to tell it what mail it can and cannot deliver.

A spokesperson for USPS said Tuesday the agency will review the order. Trump has sought to bring the independent agency under more presidential control, proposing to fold it under the Commerce Department — whose secretary, Howard Lutnick, was on hand for Tuesday’s signing.

Trump has long tried to interfere with state-run elections

Trump’s March 2025 election executive order sought sweeping changes to how elections are run, including adding a documentary proof-of-citizenship requirement to the federal voter registration form and requiring mailed ballots to be received at election offices by Election Day. Much of it has been blocked through legal challenges brought by voting rights groups and Democratic state attorneys general who allege it’s an unconstitutional power grab that would disenfranchise large groups of voters.

He also told a conservative podcaster in February that he wants to “take over” elections from Democratic-run areas.

U.S. elections are unique because they are not centralized. Rather than being run by the federal government, they’re conducted by election officials and volunteers in thousands of jurisdictions across the country, from tiny townships to sprawling urban counties with more voters than some states have people. The Constitution’s Elections Clause gives Congress the power to “make or alter” election regulations, at least for federal office, but it doesn’t mention presidential authority over election administration.

“This is Donald Trump turning the Department of Homeland Security into the department of controlling the homeland,” said Maya Wiley, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

The Trump administration has launched a widespread campaign it says is meant to target allegations of voter fraud that for years have been the subject of false claims from Trump and his allies. The Justice Department for months has been demanding detailed voter registration lists from states in what it has described as an effort to ensure the security of elections, and has sued when state officials have refused to hand them over.

The FBI in January seized ballots from the election office of a Georgia county that has been central to right-wing conspiracy theories over Trump’s 2020 election loss. And Attorney General Pam Bondi recently named a “special attorney” with the power to investigate and prosecute cases across the country “relating to the integrity of federal elections,” according to a copy of the order.

Voting rights groups raise concerns about current verification system

The Department of Homeland Security’s SAVE system for verifying citizenship and immigration status has come under scrutiny for producing flawed results from unreliable data sets, as well as over privacy concerns. One example is that states can conduct bulk searches of the system with Social Security numbers, but few states collect full Social Security numbers as part of voter registration, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.

The Trump administration undertook an overhaul of the system last year, but it still faces legal challenges alleging that reliance on the system can lead to errors in identifying citizenship status and affect eligible voters.

At least one Republican elections official on Tuesday defended the SAVE system while downplaying the potential of widespread voter fraud.

Robert Sinners, a spokesperson for Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, said their recommendations to the Trump administration have strengthened voter verification and stressed that “the small number flagged as potential non-citizens cannot vote by mail or in person until they provide proof of citizenship.”

“The executive order will be decided in court, but in Georgia, we already verify citizenship and will continue to do so regardless of the outcome,” Sinners added.

The president is a vocal critic of mail-in voting, alleging that the practice is rife with fraud as he pushes lawmakers to pass a far-reaching elections bill that would clamp down on it. A 2025 report by the Brookings Institution found that mail voting fraud occurred in only 0.000043% of total mail ballots cast, or about four cases per 10 million.

Trump himself has also used mail ballots, most recently last week in local Florida elections. The White House has said that Trump is opposed to universal mail-in voting, rather than individual voters who may need the alternative voting method for reasons such as travel or military deployment.

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Swenson reported from New York, and Cooper reported from Phoenix. Associated Press writers Alanna Durkin Richer in Washington, Susan Haigh in Hartford, Connecticut, and Julie Carr Smyth in Columbus, Ohio, contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Citing the First Amendment, a federal judge on Tuesday agreed to permanently block the Trump administration from implementing a presidential directive to end federal funding for National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service, two media entities that the White House has said are counterproductive to American priorities.

The operational impact of U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss’ decision was not immediately clear — both because it will likely be appealed and because too much damage to the public-broadcasting system has already been done, both by the president and Congress.

Moss ruled that President Donald Trump’s executive order to cease funding for NPR and PBS is unlawful and unenforceable. The judge said the First Amendment right to free speech “does not tolerate viewpoint discrimination and retaliation of this type.”

“It is difficult to conceive of clearer evidence that a government action is targeted at viewpoints that the President does not like and seeks to squelch,” wrote Moss, who was nominated to the bench by President Barack Obama, a Democrat.

White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said Moss’ decision is “a ridiculous ruling by an activist judge attempting to undermine the law.”

“NPR and PBS have no right to receive taxpayer funds, and Congress already voted to defund them. The Trump Administration looks forward to ultimate victory on the issue,” Jackson said in a statement.

PBS, with programming ranging from “Sesame Street” and “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” to Ken Burns’ documentaries, has been operating for more than half a century. NPR has news programming from “All Things Considered” and cultural shows like the “Tiny Desk” concerts. For decades, the fates of both systems have been part of a philosophical debate over whether government should help fund their operations.

Punishment for ‘past speech’ cited in decision

The judge noted that Trump’s executive order simply directs that all federal agencies “cut off any and all funding” to NPR, which is based in Washington, and PBS, based in Arlington, Virginia.

“The Federal Defendants fail to cite a single case in which a court has ever upheld a statute or executive action that bars a particular person or entity from participating in any federally funded activity based on that person or entity’s past speech,” the judge wrote.

Last year, Trump, a Republican, said at a news conference he would “love to” defund NPR and PBS because he believes they’re biased in favor of Democrats.

“The message is clear: NPR and PBS need not apply for any federal benefit because the President disapproves of their ‘left wing’ coverage of the news,” Moss wrote.

NPR accused the Corporation for Public Broadcasting of violating its First Amendment free speech rights when it moved to cut off its access to grant money appropriated by Congress. NPR also claims Trump wants to punish it for the content of its journalism.

“Public media exists to serve the public interest — that of Americans — not that of any political agenda or elected official,” said Katherine Maher, NPR’s president and CEO. She called the decision a decisive affirmation of the rights of a free and independent press.

PBS chief Paula Kerger said she was thrilled with the decision. The executive order, she said, is “textbook” unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination and retaliation. “At PBS, we will continue to do what we’ve always done: serve our mission to educate and inspire all Americans as the nation’s most trusted media institution.”

Last August, CPB announced it would take steps toward closing itself down after being defunded by Congress.

A victory, though incremental, for press freedom

Plaintiffs’ attorney Theodore Boutrous said Tuesday’s ruling is “a victory for the First Amendment and for freedom of the press.”

“As the Court expressly recognized, the First Amendment draws a line, which the government may not cross, at efforts to use government power — including the power of the purse — ‘to punish or suppress disfavored expression’ by others,” Boutrous said in a statement. “The Executive Order crossed that line.”

The judge agreed with government attorneys that some of the news outlets’ legal claims are moot, partly because the CPB no longer exists.

“But that does not end the matter because the Executive Order sweeps beyond the CPB,” Moss added. “It also directs that all federal agencies refrain from funding NPR and PBS — regardless of the nature of the program or the merits of their applications or requests for funding.”

NPR and three public radio stations sued administration officials last May. While Trump was named as a defendant, the case did not include Congress — and the legislative body has played a large role in the public-broadcasting saga in the past year.

Trump’s executive order immediately cut millions of dollars in funding from the Education Department to PBS for its children’s programming, forcing the system to lay off one-third of the PBS Kids staff. The Trump order didn’t impact Congress’ vote to eliminate the overall federal appropriations for PBS and NPR, which forced the closure of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the entity that funneled that money to the TV and radio networks.

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AP Media Writer David Bauder and AP writer Darlene Superville contributed to this report.

More than a month into the war in Iran, there’s still great uncertainty about why the United States launched this military offensive in the first place. There’s reason to believe, however, that the conflict has something to do with Iran’s nuclear program.

At an unrelated White House event on Tuesday, for example, Donald Trump said“I had one goal: They will have no nuclear weapon, and that goal has been attained.”

It was a curious comment, in part because by the president’s own assessmentIran didn’t have a nuclear weapon before he decided to launch the war, and in part because Secretary of State Marco Rubio this week presented the administration’s four major objectives in the conflict, none of which had anything to do with Iran’s nuclear program.

As for whether Trump’s newly manufactured “goal” has actually been “attained,” The New York Times reported“Unless something changes over the next two weeks — the target Mr. Trump set to begin withdrawing from the conflict — he will have left the Iranians with 970 pounds of highly enriched uranium, enough for 10 to a dozen bombs. The country will retain control over an even larger inventory of medium-enriched uranium that, with further enrichment, could be turned into bomb fuel, if the Iranians can rebuild that capacity after a month of steady bombing.”

The American president has acknowledged that these details are true, though he apparently no longer cares. Ahead of an Oval Office address to the nation about the war in Iran, the Republican spoke to Reuters about his perspective:

Of the enriched uranium, Trump said: ‘That’s so far ⁠underground, I ​don’t care about that.’

‘We’ll always be watching it by satellite,’ he added. He said Iran was ‘incapable’ of developing a weapon ​now.

The president’s comments definitely have a practical element: It’s been an open question for weeks as to whether Trump intends to try to seize Iran’s uranium stockpile, which would require ground troops and be profoundly dangerous for U.S. military service members.

If Trump told Reuters the truth and is prepared to let Iran keep the uranium it already has because he no longer “cares about that,” it would drastically reduce the likelihood of a ground invasion — one that would almost certainly cost lives.

But there’s another element to this worth keeping in mind as the process moves forward: Ever since the Obama administration struck the original nuclear agreement with Iran in 2015, Trump has insisted that it was wrong to allow the country to hold onto nuclear materials that might someday be used in a nuclear weapon.

A decade later, he’s suddenly indifferent to Iran’s uranium stockpile — which has only grown larger since Trump abandoned the Obama-era policy.

Trump’s goalposts, in other words, are on the move.

Indeed, if the American president’s comments reflect his true perspective (and with this guy, one never really knows), we’re due for a serious public conversation about the motives and objectives for the war. Because as things stand, before the war, Iran had a regime run by radical religious clerics and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard; the country had a significant uranium stockpile; and the Strait of Hormuz was open.

And now, Trump’s apparent vision for a successful offensive will include Iran with a regime run by radical religious clerics and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard; the country still holding a significant uranium stockpile; and the Strait of Hormuz will be open.

Mission accomplished, I guess?

Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”