President Donald Trump urged Republican lawmakers facing tough reelection campaigns to run on his White House record on Wednesday, even as his popularity has sagged and the Department of Homeland Security reported that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested 50,925 people in August 2026, a third consecutive monthly record.
The numbers tell the story before the speeches do. While Trump told his party’s most vulnerable lawmakers that they had a triumphant story to sell, the machinery of the state kept grinding: mass deportations, court fights over voting rules, and federal judges blocking another attempt to strip birthright citizenship. Ordinary people keep getting squeezed from every side while the people at the top trade slogans over dinner.
Who Gets Crushed
DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin credited Trump for an aggressive mass deportation program and said, “ICE is working around the clock every day to arrest and deport illegal aliens from American communities. If you are in the country illegally, LEAVE NOW. If not, we will find you, arrest you, and deport you.” That’s the language of state repression stripped bare. No soft edges. No pretense. Just the threat, delivered from the apparatus itself.
A recent AP-NORC poll found that 39% of U.S. adults approve of Trump’s performance on immigration, down from 49% at the beginning of his second term, and about half said Trump has gone too far on deporting immigrants living in the U.S. illegally. The public may be souring, but the machinery doesn’t slow down on its own.
Trump also said he would campaign in all of the roughly three dozen contests that are likely to determine control of Congress. During a dinner in the Rose Garden, one of the spaces he has controversially renovated since returning to office last year, he told vulnerable Republicans, “All you have to do is talk about it, and you’re going to win and you’re going to win big.” The pitch was simple. Sell the record. Keep the seats. Preserve the hierarchy.
What They Call Governance
House Democrats plan to “hold the crooks accountable” beginning on Day One if they win majority control in the midterm elections. House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries has previewed an ambitious agenda with oversight of President Trump’s administration and legislation to address the high costs of living. But the same live updates noted that Democrats have to keep their politically diverse and sometimes rebellious caucus in line, and that was tested this week when two go-their-own-way Democrats bucked the party on a routine procedural vote.
Ashley Etienne, a former top aide to Nancy Pelosi during her historic tenure as House speaker, said of Jeffries, “His greatest challenge will be governing.” That’s the polite version of the problem. The parties promise accountability, then spend their time managing their own ranks, policing discipline, and trying to keep the machine running.
The live updates also reported that the U.S. trade deficit widened to $88.6 billion in July, up 24% from June and the highest since March 2025, when Trump was just beginning to ramp up import taxes to protect American industry from foreign competition. An investment boom in artificial intelligence is drawing in imports of computers and computer and telecommunications equipment. Overall, U.S. imports rose 2.8% in July and exports dropped 2.1%. Still, the January-July deficit — the gap between what the U.S. buys from and what it sells to other countries — is down nearly 30% from a year earlier.
Courts, Borders, and Control
A federal judge in Maryland on Wednesday blocked Trump’s latest attempt to limit birthright citizenship, granting a preliminary injunction against an executive order that the administration said would target birth tourism. U.S. District Judge Deborah L. Boardman wrote, “The Supreme Court has spoken: Children in the certified class are ‘citizens at birth.’” The live updates also said the 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868.
A federal judge in Boston will hear arguments Thursday on whether to extend a prohibition against the U.S. Postal Service requiring states to use a new mail balloting system for the midterms as part of an executive order by Trump. U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani is considering whether to order a preliminary injunction. Last week, she imposed a 14-day temporary restraining order to keep it from being used. Even the voting system gets dragged into the fight, with the state and its courts deciding how much control voters get over the mechanics of their own ballots.
A federal panel will also review Trump’s plan for a fence around Lafayette Park in front of the White House and a proposed underground security screening center for White House visitors. The National Capital Planning Commission, which this spring approved Trump’s White House ballroom proposal after he razed the Executive Mansion’s East Wing without authorization, will discuss the plans, though votes aren’t expected. The commission and the separate U.S. Commission of Fine Arts thus far have not been an obstacle for Trump’s plans for the capital. The message is plain enough. Power builds, tears down, and asks permission later.
Billionaire investor Leon Black refused to appear for a sworn deposition before Congress on Thursday and instead sued the House Oversight Committee, asking a federal court to block subpoenas issued as part of its investigation into Jeffrey Epstein. The House Oversight Committee served Black with two subpoenas following a closed-door interview in June after lawmakers said he refused to answer questions about nondisclosure agreements. Black’s lawsuit argues the subpoenas exceed the committee’s authority by seeking private information. His attorney, Susan Estrich, said, “The Committee is on a fishing expedition that oversteps its authority and completely ignores its responsibility.”
That fight, too, is a reminder of who gets to hide behind lawyers and who gets dragged into the open. The rich sue. The committees subpoena. The rest of the public gets the spectacle.
Trump also corrected Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick after Lutnick said in a Wednesday CNBC interview that no Americans had died in the Iran war. Trump posted, “Sec. Lutnick had Venezuela on his mind when he said nobody was killed. 18 people were killed in Iran!” Lutnick had called the Iran war “an economic chokeout.” The state’s language shifts fast. The bodies don’t.
Trump said his remarks came a week before the party gathers in Dallas for an unusual midterm convention. He urged Republicans to run on his record and insisted they had a winning message. The campaign season, the court fights, the deportation machine, the ballot disputes — it all rolls on, with the people at the bottom expected to absorb the damage while the people at the top call it strategy.