The Dictatorship
Trump’s Thursday speech should be recognized for what it truly was
ByNina Jankowicz
2026 has been a difficult year for President Donald Trump. He is losing a deeply unpopular war. Gas prices are still painful. Federal law enforcement officers have killed multiple people in cold blood. His approval numbers have reached historic lows ahead of this fall’s midterm elections.
In his address to the nation Thursday, Trump returned to a favorite topic: conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election. The president made sweeping claims about a broad Chinese campaign to access voter records, agitate against his candidacy and interfere in the election. But the claims are not borne out by the evidence, including the intelligence documents he declassified as “proof.” The speech was a desperate attempt to undermine confidence in our democratic system and lay the groundwork for an unprecedented and illegal attempt to control elections from the White House itself.
The U.S. intelligence community, researchers and journalists have recognized China as a threat for years.
Americans who might be confused about the president’s claims should know a few things. First, the U.S. intelligence community, researchers and journalists have recognized China as a threat for years. China is one of our country’s most advanced cyber adversaries and is constantly probing IT systems of the U.S. government, the private sector and influential individuals for vulnerabilities. Beijing also deploys influence operations to attempt to change American policy in its favor.
However, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s 2020 Election Threat report assessed with high confidence (the highest level of confidence assigned) “that China did not deploy interference efforts” — attempts to change voter rolls or tallies — “and considered but did not deploy influence efforts intended to change the outcome of the US presidential election.” The same report included a moderate-confidence “minority view” from the national intelligence officer for China that Beijing “took at least some steps to undermine former President Trump’s reelection chances, primarily through social media and official public statements and media.”
Throughout his speech, Trump couched his claims of widespread Chinese influence and interference activities as “attempts” that China was “working on,” or influence that China “sought,” because even he knows his allegations are not borne out by the evidence.
The documents he declassified don’t show some conspiracy by the intelligence community to hide information from the president. They show intelligence professionals doing their jobs: assessing sources, debating the reliability of reports and making judgment calls about when it is necessary to publicly sound an alarm. Disagreement is not a sign of a cover-up, as the president alleged, but a hallmark of intelligence professionals doing their jobs. Disclosing every detected foreign influence campaign, no matter how minor, would risk seriously undermining the American people’s confidence in our elections — exactly as the president did this week.
Second, regarding Chinese accession of voter information, Americans should know that basic voter rolls are public information, and detailed voter files — along with lots of other personal details — can be purchased online for a fee. It’s not shocking that our adversaries are weaponizing the United States’ lack of individual privacy protections and a lucrative market for data brokers to compile detailed pictures of American voters.
Trump and his acolytes believe any election he and his allies win is free and fair, while those they lose are fraudulent and corrupt.
This information might be used to inform Chinese policy or target Americans with propaganda, but it doesn’t mean that Beijing ever had access to voting machines or internal vote tabulation systems, or successfully interfered in the outcome of U.S. elections. Even the documents Trump released confirm that it did not.
Third, the intelligence community is constantly probing the security of U.S. voting systems and cataloging attempted breaches by our adversaries. All digital systems contain vulnerabilities that can be exploited by bad actors, and the documents Trump declassified show efforts to keep abreast of those vulnerabilities and to work with state and local election administrators and cybersecurity experts on addressing them. Ironically, though Trump claimed that the United States “deserve[s] the most secure, honest and fair election system anywhere in the world,” he fired most of the people keeping it that way and disbanded the teams they worked on. Our defenses are down, and our adversaries — including China — are celebrating.
Finally, voters should remember who was president in 2020: Trump. If he had serious concerns about Chinese election interference and influence during his first term, he made no moves to raise them. That would be a dereliction of his duty to keep our nation secure. But the past six years have taught us that neither this president nor his allies are seriously concerned with the security of elections — they are concerned only with the outcome. Trump and his acolytes believe any election he and his allies win is free and fair, while those they lose are fraudulent and corrupt.
While Trump’s speech was embarrassing, it nevertheless must be taken seriously as preparation for a new election interference campaign. The White House and Republican operatives continue to float ideas like invoking emergency powers to seize control of election administration from the states, which is unconstitutional, or sending law enforcement to the polls, which is illegal. All the while, they denigrate our intelligence professionals and undermine trust in the democratic process.
As the midterms approach, it’s critical that the American people stay vigilant and recognize Trump’s speech, and any actions that follow, for what they are: a cynical ploy to weaponize a serious national security threat as a pretext to deprive us of our rights.
Nina Jankowicz
Nina Jankowicz is an internationally-recognized expert on disinformation and democratization, one of TIME magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in AI, and the author of two books: How to Lose the Information War and How to Be A Woman Online. In 2024, she co-founded the American Sunlight Project, a non-profit advocacy group focused on countering disinformation. Jankowicz has advised governments, international organizations, and tech companies, and testified before the US Congress, UK Parliament, and European Parliament.
The Dictatorship
Trump joins Republicans calling to punish Canada for hazardous wildfire smoke in the U.S.
President Donald Trump is threatening to increase tariffs on Canada over wildfire smoke that has blanketed large swaths of the Midwest and Mid-Atlanticjoining several Republicans who have called for the U.S. ally to be punished for the intense air pollution.
“We are holding Canada responsible for the fact that they are not properly maintaining their Forests, and Brush therein, and the United States is being unnecessarily invaded by filthy, polluted, and unhealthy air, the quality of which is dangerous, and totally unacceptable!” Trump wrote on Truth Socialon Friday, adding: “This is Willful Negligence, and becoming a yearly occurrence, costing the United States Billions of Dollars, which cost of this pollution must of necessity be added to the TARIFFS Canada is currently paying.”
Trump did not elaborate on his tariffs threat.
Smoke from hundreds of Canadian wildfires has caused air quality from Detroit to Washington, D.C., to plummet to unhealthy levels in recent days.
There are dozens of active wildfires in the U.S. as well. A Canadian helicopter pilot was was killed last week in a crash while fighting a fire in Colorado.
Trump is not the only Republican who has criticized Canada over the wildfire smoke. Earlier this week, four House Republicans from Michigan wrote a letter to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney with a warning that appeared to allude to Trump’s threat to annex Canada.
“Sovereignty comes with responsibility,” the lawmakers wrote.
“This is the third consecutive year we have had to write to Canadian officials about a crisis that Canada has the tools to prevent and has chosen not to,” they wrote, later adding: “If Canada will not manage its forests to prevent these fires, the United States will look elsewhere, and act on our own, to protect our people.”
Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, has also said he intends to introduce a bill “to sanction Canada and the responsible Canadian government officials for this atrocity.”
In a statementMoreno’s office said: “Canada’s government failed to invest in wildfire prevention methods including forest thinning, fuel reduction, prescribed burns, and stronger enforcement against arson.”
Hotter temperatures and drier conditions as a result of the climate crisis have been major drivers of recent wildfires in North America. The Trump administration has cut funding for climate science, withdrawn the U.S. from global bodies and agreements aimed at tackling climate change and promoted the fossil fuel industry while rolling back renewable energy initiatives.
In response to the GOP complaints, some Canadian officials have noted that their country has helped with firefighting support in the U.S. during recent wildfires.
“If there’s some politicians out there chirping away, well, maybe what you should do rather than complain is send support, send help,” Ontario Premier Doug Ford said on Friday, “because we have done the exact same thing for our American friends.”
Doug Ford on American complaints over wildfire smoke: “If there’s some politicians out there chirping away, well, maybe what you should do rather than complain is send support, send help. Because we have done the exact same thing for our American friends.” pic.twitter.com/9e2TCVbqxC
— Scott Robertson (@sarobertson_)”https://x.com/sarobertson_/status/2078166329811460324?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>July 17, 2026
Clarissa-Jan Lim is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW. She was previously a senior reporter and editor at BuzzFeed News.
Nothing has absorbed Maine politics like the candidacy of Graham Platner. Almost from the moment he announced his run for the U.S. Senate in mid-August 2025, he drew big crowds and lots of attention. His strongest backers stuck with him through controversy after controversy until Jenny Racicot publicly accused him of sexual assault. Platner denied the allegation, but his support collapsed.
Yet even after Platner officially withdrew as the nominee on July 10 and the Maine Democratic Party began the process of replacing himit seemed like Mainers were going to keep talking about him for a while. Many of his committed voters were deeply disappointed about what they learned; others were very angry that the news had been revealed. Some suggested they might write in Platner’s name or not vote at all in the fall.
Then came an awful event that starkly shifted Mainers’ attention, and moved the focus of the Maine Senate race from Platner to Sen. Susan Collins.
The killing of 26-year-old Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Biddeford, Maine, on Monday was a real shock in the state. Maine often has the lowest rate of violent crime nationally and homicides are rare, with only 21 in 2025.
Maine, like Minnesota, is a highly participatory state, and both places responded similarly to ICE incursions this past winter.
Of course, it wasn’t just Guerrero’s death that was the story, but also who shot him — an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer — and the circumstances of his killing. For one, unlike other shootings by ICE officers, the Department of Homeland Security did not even claim that Guerrero posed any sort of imminent threat or that the shooter feared for their life. Rather, DHS said that Guerrero’s “vehicle attempted to flee the scene and, fearing for public safety, an officer discharged his weapon.”
Moreover, Guerrero was legally in the country, according to local immigrant rights groups. And Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, said Guerrero wasn’t even the person ICE was seeking.
Witnesses were shaken by what they saw. One bystander, Daniel Boucher, “choked up” recounting his experience, reported The Associated Press. “His face was bloody. His head was bloody,” Boucher said of the victim. “I clearly heard the victim say, ‘I tried to stop.’” In Akerleyanother neighbor who heard the shots and looked out the window to see some of what happened, told a local news station, “You know, it shatters the illusion that Maine is safe … I don’t know what he did, but he didn’t deserve to be executed in the street.”
Mainers quickly mobilized, with demonstrations in BiddefordPortlandBangor and Scarborough. “This is a land for people who want to be here,” said one rallygoer. “It doesn’t matter who you are, where you came from, what color your skin is. That’s what America is about.”
Both Senate candidates and members of the public criticized Collins. Protesters in Biddeford crowded the doorway at the senator’s local officeshouting, “Vote her out!” Senate candidate Shenna Bellows argued that she had already acted when, as secretary of state, she blocked ICE from getting undercover license plates and proclaimed, “There should be no secret police in our state.” Another contender, Troy Jackson, referred to “ICE’s rogue actions” and blasted Collins for voting “to send $70 billion dollars to ICE with no reforms.” A third potential Democratic nominee, Nirav Shahcontended, “There is a straight line from Sen. Collins to the lawlessness we saw yesterday.”
While, as I’ve noted, some Platner supporters were deeply unhappy that he wasn’t going to be the Democratic nominee, his absence in the aftermath of the shooting didn’t seem to matter in the least.
And why should it have? Maine, like Minnesota, is a highly participatory state, and both places responded similarly to ICE incursions this past winter.
Collins tried to claim credit for ending the winter surge. But Democrats and immigrant rights leaders were skeptical and pointed to her support for increased ICE funding without any reforms.
In both places, ICE showed up with face masks and randomly detained people, including those in the country legally. Agents smashed in the car windows of a University of Maine-trained civil engineer, Juan Sebastián Carvajal-Muñozand took him away with the car still running. He had a valid permit to work, an engineering job and no criminal record. A man training to be a corrections officer in southern Maine suffered the same fate, and as did others, including asylum seekers.
Then, as now, Mainers came togethersometimes via social media and sometimes through various groups, to try to counteract ICE.
As in Minnesota, ICE was heavy-handed and showed disrespect for civil rights. Two Maine women observing ICE were told they would be put on a domestic terrorist watch list and sued. “Only 11 of the nearly 200 people detained in Maine during a massive January immigration enforcement surge were recorded as having a criminal record,” the Bangor Daily News reportedmaking ICE look even more abusive.
At the time, Collins tried to claim credit for ending the winter surge. But Democrats and immigrant rights leaders were skeptical and pointed to her support for increased ICE funding without any reforms.
Now, Collins is again responding in her classic both-sides way. On the one hand, the incumbent urged DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin “to cease all non-urgent vehicle stops” and tepidly acknowledged that the lack of a recording device on the shooter was “extremely unfortunate.” On the other hand, Collins blamed Democrats for a delay in body cameras and contended that eliminating ICE “would make our country less safe.”
Platner’s fall upended the state’s biggest race for a time. But there are plenty of ICE critics, both political leaders and not, who are taking charge of the response to Collins and the agency.
And, though the Democratic Senate nominee is unknown again, Mainers are rising up, speaking out and moving on.
Amy Fried is professor emerita of political science at the University of Maine. She also has a Substack, Political Sightlines.
ByBrian Lowry
Before “The Odyssey” embarked on its theatrical journey, writer-director Christopher Nolan suffered slings and arrows from conservative social media warriors. In their quest to gin up culture war controversy over casting choices in a movie they hadn’t seen, they have succeeded only in helping promote a film that hardly needed extra publicity, while making themselves look stupid.
Because those launching ill-informed broadsides against the film included Elon Musk and Donald Trump Jr. — railing on social media against the casting of Lupita Nyong’o as Helen of Troy because she’s Black, and Elliot Page as a Greek warrior because he’s trans — the attacks became difficult for the media to ignore. Plus, anti-“woke” crusading against a familiar target like “liberal Hollywood” remains one of those gifts (or grifts) that keeps on giving.
Despite the advance obsession over Nyong’o and Page’s characters, the two actors each occupy no more than a few minutes of screen time.
Yet Nolan’s film merely makes those conservative provocateurs sound foolish. At a run time of almost three hours, “The Odyssey” continues the “Oppenheimer” director’s personal war on moviegoers’ bladders. But despite the advance obsession over Nyong’o’s and Page’s characters, the two actors each occupy no more than a few minutes of screen time in a film that stars Matt Damon, Tom Holland and Anne Hathaway. The beauty of being Nolan, at this point, is that his reputation and track record enable him to attract identifiable talent — a la Zendaya, rapper Travis Scott and horror queen Mia Goth — for even smallish roles, a clever means of broadening the film’s appeal.
Musk and others sought to transform that into something nefarious, bizarrely arguing that the diverse casting represented some kind of cynical ploy for awards attention, as well as anti-white bigotry. Never mind that “The Odyssey” is, after all, a mythological tale, so it’s not like the producers cast Nyong’o to play J. Edgar Hoover.
Nolan himself has diplomatically dismissed the right-wing naysaying when asked about it, even as he basks in a torrent of critical praise for the film. Imbued with a visual grandeur that demands to be seen on the biggest screen possible, “The Odyssey” arguably isn’t one of the British filmmaker’s best — movies like “Inception” and “The Prestige” set a very high bar — but it certainly possesses the majesty to qualify as a worthy follow-up to the Oscar-winning “Oppenheimer.”
Without giving too much away, if one can even spoil a 3,000-year-old tale, Nolan’s take on “The Odyssey” also not-so-subtly incorporates modern and timeless themes, including questions about humanity and the toll of eroding a society’s standards of honor and decency. As Jon Stewart told the director earlier this weekthat makes it a fitting companion to “Oppenheimer,” while delivering a perhaps unintended rejoinder to Musk and his army of social media trolls.
In an interview with The TelegraphNolan politely said such criticism “comes with the territory,” calling it “irrelevant” because those griping months ago, when the anti-“Odyssey” campaign began, hadn’t seen the film. He also cited his experience with the “Batman” trilogy, a fan base with very strong opinions about what will best serve the franchise.
Nolan and Universal, happily and deservedly, appear destined to win this latest battle without stooping to engage their loudest critics.
The people grousing when director Zack Snyder cast Ben Affleck as the Dark Knight, however, mostly operated in good faith, which can’t be said for those attempting to use insufficient fidelity to Homer’s original story to tap into an inexhaustible reservoir of outrage.
The saving grace for them is that those parroting their “go woke, go broke” talking points generally don’t devour box-office reporting by the Hollywood trade papers or necessarily grasp that movies are a global product, which is the metric by which the film looks destined to shine. Although the summer box office has proved unpredictable — with horror movies like “Obsession” raking in record totals and “Moana” and “Supergirl” failing to exhibit much girl power — projections are that “The Odyssey,” tailor-made to premium large-screen formats, will earn roughly $200 million worldwide its opening weekend. That voyage began with nearly $18 million in Thursday previewsthe highest domestic total this year.
Whatever the final tally, it should go a long way toward erasing the prospect of a “go broke” scenario for Universal Pictures, the studio releasing the film. Nolan and Universal, happily and deservedly, appear destined to win this latest battle without stooping to engage their loudest critics. But with such relentless foes, consider that one modest victory in what has become a seemingly endless culture war.
Brian Lowry
Brian Lowry is a media columnist and critic, most recently at BLN, and before that Variety and the Los Angeles Times.
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