Donald Trump began this week with a bang. He posted a long screed on Truth Social attacking voting by mail and voting machines and vowed to issue an executive order banning both these frequent targets of MAGA conspiracy theories about Democratic election theft. Legal experts immediately observed that Trump has zero power to do these things, given clear constitutional provisions letting states control election administration and permitting Congress alone to regulate federal elections. The president gave a bizarre twist to this threat by citing an endorsement by Vladimir Putin of his contention that voting by mail is bad (perhaps because the Russian president thinks voting itself is bad, or at least unnecessary).

Less than a day later, however, Trump seems to have gotten the memo

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