5 minute updates on the latest Trump actions by Prof Christina Pagel

As promised, here’s the update in written version

Hello. It has been three weeks since my last update, so there is a lot to get through, and I am going to concentrate on two themes. First, science and health. Then immigration.

Science and health

So let me start with vaccines.

On the 18th Sept, in the Oval Office with his health secretary RFK Jr beside him, Trump said the administration would demand that vaccine makers split some childhood vaccines into five separate doses, each a fifth of the amount, given six months apart. He said this would bring, in his words, a “massive reduction” in autism. He gave no evidence, and he did not say which vaccines he meant. The idea that vaccines cause autism has been rigorously and repeatedly studied, and there is absolutely no evidence for it. Vaccine experts say splitting doses like this would simply leave children unprotected for longer and reduce the number of children who receive all the shots they need.

At the same time, the updated Covid vaccines for children are not getting to many children. The Food and Drug Administration approved them in August. But the CDC has not opened them up for ordering through the Vaccines for Children programme, which covers about half of all American children. In at least 11 states and one US territory, which buy vaccines for every child through that programme, that means children cannot currently get the updated shot that way. Officials have not said when, or whether, that will change. A former senior CDC official described it as testing the waters, and said there is nothing to stop them doing the same with other vaccines.

On the 17th Sept the health secretary, RFK Jr, spoke at the convention of Children’s Health Defense, the campaign group against vaccines that he founded, and told them they had, in his words, a strong and steadfast friend at the White House. The next day he named a new chair of the federal committee that coordinates autism research. The new chair, John Gaitanis, has long promoted a drug called leucovorin as a treatment for autism, for which there is no clear evidence. He cofounded a telehealth company offering that treatment to families of autistic children. And he has repeatedly been paid as an expert witness in cases claiming injury from vaccines, including the MMR. So the person now coordinating federal autism research has a commercial interest in an unproven treatment and a history of giving evidence against vaccines.

The second thing is about who decides which science gets done.

The National Institutes of Health is the largest public funder of medical research in the world. On the 20th Sept it was reported that Trump has told his budget director, Russ Vought, to draft an executive order creating a new board to decide which NIH grants are funded. The board would include Vought and the NIH director, and its decisions would have to be unanimous. This is a draft, reported by two people familiar with the plan, and nothing has been signed. If it goes ahead, the White House budget office gets a veto over what medical research is done in the United States.

And the third thing is what gets counted. At the start of September the CDC stopped using the system that states use to report cases and deaths as they happen during an outbreak. It switched to a different system, run by the National Center for Health Statistics, which is built to track mortality trends over years and works on a much slower clock. That system has only just updated to one death, with no details on where. Meanwhile Pennsylvania has confirmed four deaths, two of them babies. A former chief medical officer at the CDC called the change puzzling, because that system was never meant to confirm individual cases during an active outbreak. Members of Congress have now asked for an immediate briefing.

The same thing is happening in education. The National Center for Education Statistics is the main source of national data on how American pupils are doing. It was one of the agencies hit by DOGE last year, and its staff went from about 100 to four. It now has 12. According to tracking by the American Statistical Association, most of the data it used to collect has now been stopped or cut back.

Health and Science Sources

Trump says he will demand some childhood vaccines be split into five doses, citing autism, with no evidence (Reuters): https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/trump-says-he-will-demand-some-childhood-vaccines-be-split-into-five-shots-2026-09-18/

Vaccine experts say splitting doses will not work; the August executive order (CNN): https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/18/health/trump-split-up-immunization

Covid vaccines held back for all children in at least 11 states and one territory (Guardian): https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/sep/23/covid-vaccines-delay-children

CDC has not opened updated Covid vaccines to the Vaccines for Children programme (CNN): https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/17/health/covid-vaccines-delayed-children

Kennedy tells Children’s Health Defense convention they have a friend at the White House (NYT): https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/17/health/kennedy-vaccines-childrens-health-defense.html

John Gaitanis named chair of the federal autism committee; leucovorin and vaccine injury cases (Reuters): https://www.reuters.com/world/kennedy-names-new-chair-us-autism-advisory-panel-sources-say-2026-09-18/

Trump directs Vought to draft order creating a board to decide NIH grants (Reuters, reporting Politico): https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/trump-seeks-bring-health-research-funding-under-his-control-politico-reports-2026-09-20/

CDC changes how it counts measles deaths; four Pennsylvania deaths, federal count zero (CIDRAP): https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/measles/cdc-s-new-tracking-method-measles-deaths-puzzles-experts

Congress requests an immediate briefing on the measles count (Guardian): https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/sep/22/cdc-pennsylvania-measles-death-outbreak

National Center for Education Statistics data stopped or cut back; staff down to 12 (Guardian): https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/sep/25/student-math-reading-test-scores

Immigration

So now immigration, and I want to start with two cases from the 20th of September.

In Austin, Texas, an ICE officer shot Wilber Rafael Garcés Pérez, a 28 year old Venezuelan man who was delivering food for DoorDash. Exactly what happened is disputed. He had been ordered deported after missing an immigration hearing, and officers moved to arrest him. His lawyer says he asked to pull over and be detained, and was refused, and that an ICE vehicle then hit his car. Homeland Security says he drove off. What we do know is that video released by the Austin police chief shows his car already stopped, with an agent at the window, before a pursuit started again and he was shot in the torso..

His lawyer says he has no criminal record and came into the US lawfully. The officer who fired had been issued a body camera and was not wearing it, and reports say he was a recruit hired last year. Garcés Pérez was shot in the torso, and about four hours later he was moved from hospital to an ICE detention centre with the bullet still in his back. His wife and his lawyer were not told where he was. His lawyer says he has since been back in hospital for treatment of paralysis on his left side. Homeland Security says he was stable and in custody pending removal, and disputes his account of poor medical care. The local district attorney has asked that he be kept in the country, because he is a witness in their criminal investigation into the shooting.

The same morning in Evanston, just outside Chicago, federal agents in plain clothes tried to arrest a man they thought was a fugitive. He was a US citizen on his way to a pharmacy. Witnesses heard him shouting that he was a US citizen. Police found him on the ground with injuries to his head, neck and teeth, and he was taken to hospital by ambulance. Homeland Security says he resembled their target, would not identify himself, and that the officers relied on their training.

Those two cases are public because they happened on the street, in front of people with phones.

What’s happening in detention facilities where no one can see?

ICE runs an online locator so that lawyers and families can find out where someone is being held. On the 15th Sept, without any announcement, it took everyone with a final deportation order off the locator. That is thousands of people - In July alone, nearly 16,000 people in ICE detention had final orders. Lawyers say their clients have simply vanished from the system. The change only became public because current and former ICE officials told the Associated Press. immigration lawyers point out that if you cannot find someone, you cannot file a last minute challenge before they are put on a plane.

There are other areas where information is disappearing. After a freedom of information request from the Guardian, ICE said it has no data on miscarriages among pregnant women in its detention after October last year, because of a change in its medical accounting system.

When the Texas congresswoman Veronica Escobar went to inspect the largest ICE detention centre in the country, she says she was not allowed to speak to any of the people held there, and her request for surveillance footage has not been answered.

Conditions inside are said to be awful

In one of the rare official looks inside, a report from Homeland Security’s own inspector general on the Florida detention centre known as Alligator Alcatraz, reported that people were held in highly restrictive cages against ICE’s own rules, overcrowding, phones that did not work so people could not reach lawyers or family, and poor food hygiene.

Then there are children. Children who arrive in the US on their own are meant to be cared for by the health department, in licensed shelters, and placed with vetted relatives where possible. According to an analysis of immigration court data shared with the Guardian, over 80 percent of these children who got new court cases in July & August were sent to shelters in Texas. Shelters in Texas are not licensed by the state, and there are far fewer immigration lawyers. The administration has not explained the change. Advocates fear it is being set up to move children quickly through to deportation. The Guardian also reported that Stephen Miller, Trump’s deputy chief of staff, is personally leading a push across several departments to speed up the removal of migrant children, using tactics critics say are cruel and in some cases break federal law.

Where do people get deported to? For more than a year the administration has been sending people to countries, many in Africa, that are not their own, under deals that are often secret. On the 18th Sept an appeals court ruled this policy unlawful. Days later, ICE was still preparing to send a Peruvian man to the Central African Republic. He had already been granted protection from being returned to Peru because of the risk of torture. His lawyers had to go back to court, and at half past eleven at night the court issued a three sentence order spelling out that its ruling applied immediately. A flight with 70 people on board, bound for Burundi, Rwanda and the Central African Republic, was cancelled. Homeland Security called the ruling as reckless and The administration has now gone to the Supreme Court to fight the appeal court’s ruling.

And finally, what refugees are welcome? On the 22nd Sept the administration told Congress it would admit up to 17,500 refugees over the next year, primarily white Afrikaners from South Africa. This year, of nearly 5,000 refugees admitted, all but three were South African. Two years ago the US took more than 100,000 refugees from dozens of countries. The State Department says Afrikaners face land seizures and discrimination, and that they will, in its words, fully assimilate. The South African government denies they are persecuted..

Immigration Sources

ICE officer who shot a DoorDash driver in Austin was issued a body camera but not wearing it (NBC News): https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/ice-officer-shot-man-austin-wasnt-wearing-body-camera-rcna599263

What is known about the Austin shooting, the vehicle stop, and CNN’s count of people shot by agents (CNN): https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/22/us/venezuelan-man-shot-ice-austin

Garcés Pérez back in hospital for paralysis treatment; DHS disputes his account (Reuters): https://www.reuters.com/world/venezuelan-man-shot-by-ice-agents-is-back-hospital-paralysis-treatment-lawyer-2026-09-22/

Officer was a recruit hired last year (Independent via Yahoo News): https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articles/ice-agent-shot-doordash-driver-113825685.html

US citizen injured in Evanston after agents mistook him for a fugitive; DHS statement (The Hill): https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/6105929-ice-mistaken-identity-evanston/

DHS: ‘We know who we are targeting ahead of time’ (ABC7 Chicago): https://abc7chicago.com/post/evanston-il-ice-incident-man-hurt-wrongly-identified-federal-agents-howard-street-dodge-avenue-police-investigating/19855018/

ICE hides locations of thousands of detainees with final removal orders (AP via Houston Public Media): https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/politics/immigration/2026/09/21/562357/ap-exclusive-ice-hides-locations-of-thousands-of-detainees-with-final-removal-orders/

ICE has no miscarriage data for detained women after October 2025 (Guardian): https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/sep/15/ice-detention-miscarriages-pregnancy

Rep. Veronica Escobar prevented from speaking to detainees at the East Montana camp (Guardian): https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/sep/22/texas-democrat-visit-ice-detention-camp-east-montana

Inspector general report on Alligator Alcatraz: cages, overcrowding, phones (Guardian): https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/sep/14/alligator-alcatraz-immigration-jail-cages-report

Most unaccompanied children with new cases sent to Texas (Guardian): https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/sep/18/trump-undocumented-children-texas

The underlying court data analysis: nearly 80% in July, over 90% in August (bklg.org): https://bklg.org/blog/newly-detained-kids-sent-to-texas/

Stephen Miller leads push to accelerate removal of migrant children (Guardian): https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/sep/19/stephen-miller-trump-migrant-children

DHS tried to deport a Peruvian man to the Central African Republic after the appeals court ruling; DHS response (The Hill): https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/6110337-first-circuit-blocks-third-country-deportation/

Flight of 70 people cancelled; administration goes to the Supreme Court (AP via US News): https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2026-09-24/trump-administration-asks-the-supreme-court-to-allow-quick-third-country-deportations

Administration says it only deports to countries that give assurances (The Hill): https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/6110459-trump-deportation-third-country-supreme-court/

Refugee ceiling of 17,500, primarily Afrikaners (Reuters): https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/trump-administration-admit-primarily-afrikaners-under-new-refugee-proposal-2026-09-22/

State Department’s stated reasons for the Afrikaner programme (CBS News): https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-administration-white-south-africans-refugees-afrikaners/

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I’m back after a busy and good summer! And here we go with the first week of September…

Trump has been posting AI images of himself as a red-eyed, robot-flanked supervillain, and it’s genuinely one of the stranger things I’ve logged in the last 18 months. But it’s not the only thing worth your attention from the last week. Here are three stories you might have missed.

Elections: a hunt for voter fraud that doesn’t exist, ICE at polling places, North Carolina’s new spoiled-ballot rules, and the mail ballot fight now at the Supreme Court.

The leadership cult: a White House arcade, Trump ranking himself the greatest president ever, the supervillain AI images, and the ballroom and arch he’s building despite the courts.

The state against its enemies: six unions investigated, a journalist’s phone records seized, and 18,000 universities threatened through the tax code.

Subtitles available and every action is sourced and linked at trumpactiontracker.info.

Also, as requested in my summer survey, here is the written version of the video content!

**************************************************

Elections

So elections. The first thing is a hunt for non-existent fraud.

Hundreds of agents at the Department of Homeland Security have been pulled off their normal work, which includes investigating human trafficking and terrorism, and put onto an effort the government is calling, internally, the Unlawful Voter Initiative. The idea is to comb through the voter rolls of all fifty states looking for non-citizens who have registered or voted. The New York Times saw the training documents and videos. There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud, there never has been, and the Trump administration has been trying to “find” evidence for 18 months without success.

The next thing is potential voter intimidation at the polls. At a press conference in New York, the homeland security secretary Markwayne Mullin was asked about ICE at polling places. He said, and I am quote “ICE isn’t there to patrol the polling places, we’re there to enforce specific threats”. He said agents would only be at a polling place if there was a threat to it or if they were serving a warrant on someone they had been tracking. But federal law prohibits armed agents from being at any place where an election is held, and back in July a dozen senators warned Mullin in writing that deploying agents to voting sites would be illegal. So this is not a new policy being announced. If ICE agents were at polling places many citizens of colour – who are historically more likely to vote Democrat - might think twice about turning up.

Then there are the rules on who can vote and how. Hours before North Carolina started posting mail-in ballots, its board of elections changed the rules for how mail ballots get counted. Many more ballots will be marked as “spoiled” and fewer people are eligible to hand in someone’s ballot. To give an example, a husband and wife who put both ballots in one envelope, which used to be a fixable mistake, would now have both votes thrown out. Or Someone who seals the outer envelope but forgets the inner one will now have their vote considered spoiled and not counted.

And then there is the administration’s ongoing legal battle over mail voting itself. Back in the spring, Trump signed an executive order telling the US Postal Service to impose new requirements on mail ballots, including only mailing ballots to people checked on a new centralised ‘citizen database’. States and voting rights groups sued. A federal judge in Boston has now blocked the postal rule twice, first with a temporary order and then, on the fourth of September, with a preliminary injunction that blocks it indefinitely. The judge wrote that bringing this in less than seventy days before an election threatens to disenfranchise millions of people who vote by mail, and, in her words, the record includes no evidence relating to fraudulent mail voting to support the rushed implementation of the rule. The administration has gone to the Supreme Court twice in a week to try to lift her blocks, once against the temporary order and then again against the injunction that replaced it. As I record this, the Supreme Court has asked the challengers to file their arguments by Wednesday.

The Trump leadership cult

Most populist autocracies, or states becoming autocracies, glorify their leader and produce huge amounts of propaganda to demonise enemies, justify their policies and present the leader as beyond criticism. It’s happening right now in the US and getting ever more blatant.

In early September the White House put a set of arcade games on its own official website, at arcade dot gov. There are five of them, built to look like old games like Snake and Tetris. In one, called Rio Run, you play the administration’s border czar chasing migrants, drawn with different skin tones, along the Rio Grande. In another, Build the Wall, you stack sections of border wall to, and I am quoting the game, protect the border from the coming horde. Another has you fill your kids’ Trump savings accounts by catching cash and gold. This is on a government website, paid for by taxpayers.

In late August Trump posted a chart on Truth Social ranking the presidents, and he put himself alone in a category above everyone else, labelled the greatest. Lincoln and Washington are one tier below him, as merely great. Then, over this last weekend, he went on a spree of posting AI images of himself – and some of them are hugely disturbing. In one, he is sitting on a huge black metal throne surrounded by giant robots in a fiery industrial scene, with the words “give them nightmares” across the bottom. In another, Trump stands among an army of black robots with red glowing eyes under a cracked moon, captioned “they will dream of us forever”. I don’t want to over-interpret pictures. But a president posting images of himself as an all-powerful figure telling his enemies to have nightmares is not nothing.

And there’s the DC building spree. Trump is building a huge ballroom at the White House, twice the size of the main building, after tearing down the East Wing to make room. A preservation group sued, saying he cannot build it without Congressional approval. Lower courts agreed and blocked it. At the end of August the Supreme Court let construction carry on while the case continues. The supreme court did not say that the ballroom is legal – in fact the Chief Justice dissented along with the three liberal judges, and wrote that it likely *not* lawful. Its five to four order turned on a technical point. So the ballroom goes up while the question of whether it is even legal remains unanswered. The same week, the Trump administration said it would break ground on its two hundred and fifty foot triumphal arch near the Lincoln Memorial, even though the planning body that has to approve it has only given preliminary approval and cannot give final approval until October. Opponents have gone to court asking for an emergency order to stop them. The Trump administration is rushing to outpace the la with its building.

Finally, there’s erasing the independent record. On the 4 Sept, the Interior Department wrote to the Smithsonian’s board and said federal agencies cannot in good conscience keep supporting it under its current leadership, and threatened to stop lending it artifacts, helping with procurement, and giving it grants. The administration says the Smithsonian is pushing a divisive ideological agenda and ideological activism, and Trump has complained before about its focus on how bad slavery was. So Trump is building monuments and posting aggrandising, dark, AI slop while at the same time threatening to defund the institution whose job is to keep the independent record of the country’s history.

Using the state against enemies

Finally, there is the use of the state against its perceived enemies.

The House Education and Workforce Committee has opened investigations into six major unions, including the teachers, the autoworkers and the steelworkers, and demanded their financial records going back to 2023. The trigger was reports from two conservative groups alleging the unions spent members’ dues on Democratic causes. The unions say that they already file detailed financial disclosures with the Labor Department and this investigation is politically timed in the runup to the midterms.

Then. Don Lemon, the former CNN news anchor, was arrested and charged early this year over his reporting on a protest at a church in Minnesota. His lawyers have now said in a court filing that prosecutors will not say whether they secretly obtained his phone records using a type of warrant meant for customs issues, NOT journalism. The government has used the same kind of summons to pull six months of another journalist’s phone records from her carrier. The government’s defence is that because customs enforcement is part of homeland security, it can use those warrant types for anything. Experts say this practice runs against the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable searches and is a direct thread to press-freedom.

And finally, attacks on universities continue, this time through the tax code. The Treasury and the IRS have proposed a rule that would strip tax-exempt status from any school or university that considers race in admissions, scholarships, athletics or, in the wording of the rule, every other school-administered programme. It could affect as many as eighteen thousand institutions. The Treasury secretary says it is about ensuring racial discrimination has no place in education, and that schools rebranding race-based preferences as diversity does not change what they are. The main professors’ union calls it weaponising the IRS and blatant political coercion.

So – that’s where we are as we move into an autumn dominated by the midterms. See you in a week or two.

Sources

Election Sources

DHS Unlawful Voter Initiative, hundreds of agents hunting non-citizen voters (NYT via Common Dreams / GV Wire) — https://www.commondreams.org/news/noncitizen-voters

Over 1,000 referrals and the training-video caution on naturalised citizens (GV Wire) — https://gvwire.com/2026/09/02/trump-administration-begins-blitz-to-find-elusive-voter-fraud-before-midterms/

Mullin on ICE at polling places, and DHS says no plans (NBC News) — https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/dhs-no-plans-ice-polls-midterm-elections-rcna595594

Federal ban on armed agents at polls, July senators’ warning (Democracy Docket) — https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/dhs-chief-says-ice-could-make-arrests-at-polling-places-ignoring-federal-ban/

North Carolina spoils unsealed-envelope ballots, 3-2 party-line vote (NC Newsline) — https://ncnewsline.com/2026/09/04/more-absentee-ballots-in-nc-in-danger-of-being-tossed-under-new-directives/

Talwani’s preliminary injunction blocking the USPS rule, 4 Sept (NBC News) — https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2026-election/judge-blocks-trump-effort-restrict-voting-mail-ballots-start-going-rcna596097

Timeline of the two Supreme Court applications and the Wednesday deadline (SCOTUSblog / CNN) — https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/06/politics/trump-administration-again-asks-supreme-court-to-allow-mail-ballot-rule-to-take-effect

Leadership Cult Sources

White House launches arcade.gov, the five games and the launch message (ABC News) — https://abcnews.com/Politics/white-house-launches-arcade-computer-game-lets-players/story?id=136214362

Rio Run, Build the Wall, rights-group reaction, White House justification (Euronews / TIME) — https://time.com/article/2026/09/04/white-house-arcade-trump-agenda-immigration/

Trump’s self-ranking above Lincoln and Washington (Newsweek) — https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-greatest-president-ever-12378891

Expert surveys ranked Trump last; origin of the Schlesinger ranking (RT / Newsweek) — https://www.rt.com/news/644776-trump-president-ranking/

‘GIVE THEM NIGHTMARES’ throne image (Trump’s Truth archive) — https://trumpstruth.org/statuses/41562

‘THEY WILL DREAM OF US FOREVER’ robots and cracked moon (Trump’s Truth archive) — https://trumpstruth.org/statuses/41559

Supreme Court stays the ballroom injunction 5-4 on standing; Roberts dissent (Biazzo Law analysis of the order) — https://www.biazzolaw.com/post/supreme-court-stays-white-house-ballroom-injunction-what-the-august-31-2026-emergency-docket-order

Supreme Court order text and Roberts dissent (Cornell LII) — https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/26A203

Arch groundbreaking on preliminary approval only; opponents seek emergency order (CNN) — https://edition.cnn.com/2026/09/03/politics/trump-arch-construction-start

Interior Department threatens Smithsonian support, ‘ideological activism’ (NBC News) — https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-administration/trump-administration-threatens-smithsonian-support-rcna595873

Using State against Enemies Sources

House committee investigates six unions over dues spending; unions already disclose finances (OnLabor / Guardian) — https://onlabor.org/september-3-2026/

Union financial-records demands and the committee’s stated rationale (Fox News) — https://www.foxnews.com/politics/house-gop-launches-probe-5-major-labor-unions-dem-spending-despite-maga-membership-base

Prosecutors won’t say if they took Don Lemon’s phone records; Fourth Amendment concern (Guardian via TV News Check) — https://tvnewscheck.com/journalism/article/us-prosecutors-refuse-to-say-if-they-secretly-obtained-don-lemons-phone-records/

The customs 1509 summons, six months of a second journalist’s records, government’s defence (Brit Brief / Guardian) — https://britbrief.co.uk/crime/cybercrime/prosecutors-silent-on-don-lemon-phone-records-lawyers-say.html

Treasury and IRS propose stripping tax-exempt status over race; up to 18,000 schools (CNBC) — https://www.cnbc.com/2026/09/03/treasury-irs-proposal-tax-exempt-schools-charitable-donations.html

Treasury’s stated justification and the AAUP response (UPI) — https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2026/09/03/trump-administration-private-schools-race-tax-exempt/4431788453431/

Hi,

A quick video explaining that I’m taking a summer break from these. While I’m currently planning on coming back in September, I might not.

I am really interested to find out a bit more about you! Who watches these and why? What do you like or dislike about them? Can I improve? Should I continue?

I’ve designed a short anonymous survey to help make the decision - please do take it!

Bear in mind that these videos take several hours each by the time I’ve curated the actions, wrestled them into a script and then recorded them.

It then takes my fabulous volunteer a few more hours to edit them into something nice. I’m not really in a position to become way more professional (partly time constraints, partly video talent) but I am definitely open to (reasonable) suggestions!

Thanks for watching and taking the survey!

****

PS I’m hoping to use some of the time saved by not recording these on being able to write a bit more on substack.

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What you might have missed this week: with four months to go until the midterms, Trump fired every member of the commission that helps run US elections, and the DOJ threatened election officials in all 50 states with criminal prosecution over a problem that experts say doesn’t really exist (non-citizen voting).

And three people died in 7 days during encounters with ICE agents during traffic stops. In two of the cases, witnesses directly contradicted ICE’s account. In neither case was the victim the intended target of the operation. ICE briefly paused vehicle stops only for Trump to publicly overrule his own agency the next day.

Subtitles available and all actions logged at TrumpActionTracker.info

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Behind last week's headlines are some stories you might have missed... including a ridiculous amount of corruption, a hollowing of the state and the ongoing saga of Trump's attempt to restrict birthright citizenship, which is guaranteed by the US Constitution.Subtitles available and all actions on https://www.trumpactiontracker.info/

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This week I cover how Trump is trying to subvert the midterms, from holding unrelated bills hostage over his voting bill, to a constant false claims of election fraud. And the I talk about the environment and health policy following being undermined by politicisation, and three types of corruption.Subtitles available and all actions available on TrumpActionTracker.info

Thanks for reading Making sense... of evidence, data, and the stories they tell! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

I decided to focus on just two main stories this week that I think have been under-reported:

* How Republicans are trying to secure the midterms despite deep unpopularity - gerrymandering, mail ballot restrictions, manufactured fraud claims, and an FBI raid on a voter registration group.

* A series of corruption stories: a conflict of interest over a herbal supplement, a White House crypto payout, a 96% breach of pardon guidelines, and two stories about loyalty to Trump that go beyond self-enrichment.

Subtitle available and all actions logged at TrumpActionTracker.info

Thanks for reading Making sense... of evidence, data, and the stories they tell! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

This week’s video covers four areas:

* attacks on civil rights and institutions, where the pattern of firing professionals and installing loyalists continues;

* immigration and detention, where conditions and oversight are both getting worse;

* science and the environment;

* press freedom, which is under attack from outside and from within.

I end on something a little different — what Trump chose to post on the 82nd anniversary of D-Day.

Subtitles are available and all actions are on TrumpActionTracker.

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It's been two weeks since my last video as I’ve been travelling a lot, and so this one covers a lot of ground. Even then, so much has happened behind the headlines that I had to do lots of editing!

In this video I cover:

* Science: attacks on vaccines, drinking water, and research funding.

* Immigration: the human cost of mass deportation, who gets in and who doesn't, and conditions inside detention.

* Suppressing dissent: Republican primaries, the justice system, and threats to Democratic cities.

* Foreign aggression: Cuba, and the boat strikes that keep killing people.Subtitles available and all sources logged at TrumpActionTracker.info

Thanks for reading Making sense... of evidence, data, and the stories they tell! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

Beyond the big news moments, here are some things you should be aware of:

* Republican gerrymandering

* So many attacks on opponents

* Aggression in Latin America

* Corruption (again!)

* Undermining science & health

Subtitles available and all actions available on TrumpActionTracker.info.

Thanks for reading Making sense... of evidence, data, and the stories they tell! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.