Hello, it's the weekend. This is The Weekender ☕

Wednesday's debate revealed the extent to which Republican candidates are flailing to find an electorally palatable position on abortion heading into the election.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) gave a non-answer when asked if he'd support the same six-week ban he signed in Florida on the national level, saying only that he'd be a "pro-life President." Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R) fell back on the old chestnut that we don't have 60 votes in the Senate for a national abortion ban anyway, so who cares what she'd support.

Even former Vice President Mike Pence, the anti-abortion crusader, is advocating for a 15-week federal ban. Mr. "life begins at conception" endorsing a 15-week ban? What's going on here?

This is the scattershot response to the electoral shellacking Republicans have been on the receiving end of ever since Dobbs. The anti-abortion movement got what it's always wanted, just to find that what it's always wanted is incredibly unpopular, in red states and blue ones alike. Now Republicans are desperately dancing to try to find a way to keep those activists satisfied, while not simultaneously handing Democrats ad copy on the extremism of their position.

They're not getting much external help. The best advice from the likes of RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel to Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America president Marjorie Dannenfelser boils down to: lean into abortion even more.

In a recent Washington Post op-ed, Dannenfelser and blast from the past Kellyanne Conway urged Republicans to "be a peacock and not an ostrich about the recent gains for life" — e.g. talk about the abortion bans more. They also advise Republicans to support measures like the expanded child tax credit, which the majority of them oppose, particularly in the more generous form Democrats champion.

As long as Republicans, particularly on the state level, pass the most extreme bans they can, the never-ending stream of horror stories about women being refused care until they're in critical condition, of children being forced into motherhood, of grieving women given no choice but to carry non-viable pregnancies to term will continue to bubble into the conversation. And so will the energies of the angry majority, particularly women voters incensed at the cruel and paternalistic regime that deprives them of the ability to make their own choices.

Republicans, at the beck and call of the anti-abortion movement, made their bed. No positive spin will make the gruesome reality go away, now or in November 2024.

More on other news below. Let's dig in. 

— Kate Riga

Goodbye, Prigozhin

Is there anyone else quite like Yevgeny Prigozhin? Mass-murderer, election interferer, hot dog salesman, mercenary entrepreneur, jokester, Putin loyalist and pretender to the Kremlin — all those and more fit the man who likely died in a spectacular jet crash north of Moscow on Wednesday.

Prigozhin most likely died alongside the top leadership of Wagner Group, the mercenary outfit he led since its founding in 2014. Most notable among the likely dead was Dmitry Utkin, a former Russian military intelligence office who gave the group its name after his callsign: Wagner, after the famed German composer. Perhaps not surprisingly from that, Utkin was an avowed neo-nazi, with SS insignias tattooed to his chest. It was Utkin who reportedly oversaw the military planning for Wagner group, and who commanded the column which stopped outside of Moscow during the June mutiny.

Prigozhin's June mutiny came to an end after Putin publicly accused Prigozhin of betrayal, and after murky negotiations with Belarusian leader Aleksandr Lukashenko. And in true mafioso fashion, Putin remarked briefly on Prigozhin's demise on Thursday, saying that he made "serious mistakes" but "got results." Lukashenko was somewhat blunter: "It wasn't my job to guarantee Prigozhin's security."

— Josh Kovensky

Cutting Off The Cheese

TPM favorite Ken Chesebro launched a somewhat surprising bid this week: hold his trial as soon as possible.

As initially formulated, Chesebro would have had his trial occur alongside his other 18 co-defendants. Early for him, early for everyone else.

Of course, that's not at all what Trump wants. It was, however, fine for DA Fani Willis, who said as much in an eager court filing letting the world know that she was on board with an October trial. Trump signaled the opposite, saying that he would move to split his case from Chesebro's to keep it from happening early, and would do the same if any other co-defendant asked for an early trial.

It was a bold and convoluted move, typical of the Chesebro legal style that birthed the fake electors scheme. And, similarly, it's not clear that it paid off for Ken: the judge agreed to set an October trial date, but only for him, and nobody else. His trial is scheduled to start in exactly two months, on Oct. 23.

— Josh Kovensky

"I want to ask them: What the heck? Do you want us to be in civil war? Because that's what's going to happen. We're not going to keep putting up with this. I like that you suggested that we need to get angry. We do need to rise up and take our country back."

That's former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin commenting on Donald Trump's Georgia arrest on Newsmax.

The Thursday night commentary on the so-called "two tiered justice system" is straight out of the MAGA playbook and is not surprising to anyone who has been following the coverage of Trump's four indictments. But even as they've become increasingly common since Trump's rise in American politics, the threats about a civil war and encouragements around "rising up and taking the country back" always catch me off guard.

All of that for a guy currently facing 91 charges, 44 of them federal. Take the country back to what exactly?

— Emine Yücel

Hello, it's the weekend. This is The Weekender ☕

That's one way to describe the current state of the rapper formerly known as Kanye West's 2024 presidential campaign: a twisted fantasy.

Why does it matter? In an era where the margins of victory for presidential elections are infinitesimally small (Trump won by less than 80,000 votes across three states in 2016) a celebrity candidate capable of gathering a small number of votes in exactly the right spots could throw an election. Ye's 2020 campaign yielded around 60,000 votes and, unfortunately for him, an FEC investigation into whether his presidential committee failed to properly disclose payments it made to Mercury Public Affairs for ballot access services.

To run again in 2024, Ye's advisors believe that they need to resolve the investigations from 2020. But they themselves are a motley crew of avowed racists, the cancelled, and far-right provocateurs and, as my reporting showed, ended up in a byzantine series of conflicts, alleged threats, and allegations of more grifting which threaten to keep the Ye 2024 campaign nothing more than a dark, twisted fantasy.

At its peak, two people claiming to represent Ye's presidential campaign sent the musician a letter demanding $225,000 for further investigations, "otherwise" there would be more public scrutiny of wrongdoing at the presidential committee. Bruce Marks, a former Trump campaign attorney and current lawyer for the Russian government, came on to represent Ye and fight off the takeover attempt.

It's rabbit hole upon rabbit hole, but Marks himself is an intriguing figure. Apart from representing the Trump campaign in 2016 and consulting for it in 2020 (messages show he worked with Ken Chesebro and others on the fake electors plot), Marks may be the only person in American history to have experienced what Trump wanted to achieve in 2020: in 1994, Marks won a Pennsylvania state senate election after a federal judge invalidated his initial defeat due to a finding of massive voter fraud.

Whether Marks represents some Trumpian force aimed at sorting out the campaign in time for Ye to play a spoiler role in 2024 remains unclear. It wouldn't be the first time that the rapper is involved in MAGAworld escapades; my colleague Hunter Walker did an amazing story this week revealing the role of a Ye aide in intimidating Georgia poll worker Ruby Freeman in 2020.

More on other news below. Let's dig in. 

— Josh Kovensky

Kanye West's Publicist, An "MMA fighter," And A Lutheran Pastor Walk Into A Bar

TPM has extensive new reporting this week on the events leading up to efforts by three individuals — Rev. Stephen Lee, Harrison Floyd, and Trevian Kutti, whom District Attorney Fani Willis, in the indictment, accuses of "harassment and intimidation" — to pressure election worker Ruby Freeman. In a new piece published just after the indictment dropped this week, we document in new detail how the key players in the alleged scheme were linked to Trump's campaign team and allies, including the "Black Voices For Trump" organization, the "My Pillow" pitchman and prominent election denier Mike Lindell, and the vast network of attorneys who were working with the former president to challenge the election result.

The story of how the election plot ended up on Freeman's doorstep is a complex and winding tale involving one of the most persistent "Big Lie" conspiracy theories, the eccentric rapper-turned-Hitler enthusiast Ye, frantic 911 calls, and a chaplain who viewed himself as a first responder for "demonic births." It all culminated in Kutti's January 2021 visit to Freeman's home. During that meeting, Kutti warned Freeman that she might be in unspecified danger if she did not admit to thoroughly debunked voter fraud allegations.

There has already been extensive reporting about the visits to Freeman's home. The new information that we reveal here for the first time includes previously unreported comments from one of the co-defendants, social media posts that point towards Trump's White House, and allegations of Kutti's past "weird and unsettling" behavior.

Read the full story here.

— Hunter Walker

Being A Real Pill

A panel of judges on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals handed down its ruling Thursday in a case where anti-abortion doctors are trying to make it as difficult as possible for women to access mifepristone, the abortion drug the FDA approved over 20 years ago. The anti-abortion group's bid to overturn that initial authorization proved a bridge too far for even this court: the judges concluded that the six-year statute of limitations to challenge agency actions had, well, passed.

But they upheld other parts of the lower court decision crafted by district Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee who's quickly made a name for himself in his willingness to greenlight just about anything right-wing litigants want. The fact that he gets 100 percent of the cases filed in his division and works within the Fifth Circuit's jurisdiction further sweeten the pot.

The Fifth Circuit panel rubber stamped Kacsmaryk's ruling that all of the various restrictions the FDA has loosened since 2016 — expanding the gestational window mifepristone can be used within, lifting the in-person dispensing requirement — must be reimposed. The judges freely question the scientific conclusions of the experts at the FDA, the newest chapter in the right's war against the administrative state. None of the restrictions will take effect until the Supreme Court either hands down its own opinion or declines to take up the case, thanks to an earlier stay.

To be clear, the FDA is not the untarnished hero of this story. Major medical organizations have been saying for years that mifepristone has been shackled by the agency's wholly unnecessary restrictions, and those restrictions have poured fuel on the anti-abortion movement's fire that mifepristone — and everything about abortion — is unsafe for women. The ready accessibility of misoprostol, often used in concert with mifepristone to perform abortions, is a major data point; misoprostol's on-label use for ulcers has spared it the constant scrutiny and disinformation campaigns to which mifepristone has been subjected since it came on the scene.

What happens to mifepristone is vitally important in the post-Dobbs landscape. Allowing the drug to be mailed has opened up access to abortion even for those locked in anti-abortion states, with various tricks including getting the prescriptions mailed to addresses in blue states and then forwarded to those in red ones. It's a huge step up from the old regime, where women mostly had to have pills mailed internationally — a riskier proposition, and a much more time-intensive one.

This case will almost certainly end up at the Supreme Court and become one of the most significant rulings since Dobbs. 

— Kate Riga

My Pillow Guy's 'Plan' To Stops 'The Evil'

Mike Lindell has a lot going on.

Along with a business empire, the "My Pillow" entrepreneur has been one of the primary promoters of false conspiracy theories surrounding the 2020 election. And, nearly three years after those votes were cast, Lindell has not given up on the idea that the man he calls "our great, real president Donald Trump" was robbed. Lindell has formed a constellation of activist groups and other enterprises dedicated to the cause of Trump dead-ender election denialism and, for months, he has been working on a project, the unveiling of which he vowed would be one of the "most important" moments in our nation's history.

This week, Lindell finally revealed his grand plan, which involved a device he dubbed the "W.M.D." and an army of his fellow conspiracy theorists supposedly staking out vote counting facilities around the country. 

Read more of the madness here. 

— Hunter Walker

"If we're gonna be a culture that now starts to say there must be something wrong if the government has charged 91 counts … that's a people of sheep. And when the people behave like sheep that breeds a government of wolves. That's the reality. So, no, I'm skeptical."

That's how 2024 GOP candidate Vivek Ramaswamy answered a Fox News anchor when he asked, "there are 91 criminal charges in all [against Trump] over four criminal cases. They can't all be politicized, can they?"
 

Guess we're all sheep :(

— Emine Yücel