President Donald Trump reached out to Ohio Representative Max Miller, who is facing allegations that he assaulted his ex-wife and child, to warn him that his candidacy is in jeopardy. In a phone call, Trump told Miller that “things aren’t looking good” for the November midterms, Axios reported Monday night. While Trump may be delivering—or simply hoping to give the impression of—tough love behind closed doors, the president defended Miller while speaking to reporters in the Oval Office earlier Monday.“It’s a very sad thing. I know Max. He’s a good person. I mean, I’ve always thought he was a very good person, and I’m gonna let the families figure that out,” Trump told the press.The president alluded to knowing the family very well. Before running for office, Miller was a Trump White House aide. Miller married Emily Moreno, his now ex-wife, at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey, in 2022, and received the president’s official endorsement for Congress that same year. Moreno has accused Miller of assaulting her, throwing a pot of boiling water on her, holding a gun to her head, and breaking their two-year-old daughter’s collarbone. Last week, Moreno filed for a new restraining order against her ex-husband, alleging that he’d physically grabbed one of her attorneys and used a profane slur. In a statement Sunday, Ohio Senator Bernie Moreno, Emily’s father, said that Miller should “not serve in the House of Representatives.” “As he has admitted privately, Max Miller needs serious psychological help. He is a danger to my daughter, and I hold my breath every minute he has custody of my granddaughter,” Moreno wrote on X. Miller responded saying that Moreno’s statement was “all political.”Miller was dealt another blow Monday night when his ex-girlfriend, former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham, filed a temporary restraining order against him.Read more about Miller:The Trump administration’s attempt to prevent new American citizens from receiving help on voter registration was blocked in federal court Monday. U.S. District Judge Adam B. Abelson paused a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services policy from last August preventing nonpartisan groups from helping new citizens register to vote. Under the policy, only state and local election officials were allowed to offer help with voter registration at citizenship ceremonies, prompting the League of Women Voters and National Council of Jewish Women (NJCW) to sue the government over it. “NCJW has amply shown a likelihood of success on the merits of its claim that the Ban was motivated by discriminatory intent,” Abelson wrote in his ruling. “The various statements by government officials leading up to the Ban that NCJW cites further support this conclusion, including USCIS Director Joseph Edlow’s statement that immigrants threaten to reshape the nation electorally by becoming citizens.”Abelson also cited Edlow’s comments to right-wing website Breitbart last year, in which he claimed that Democrats’ “long-term plan, I think we have to assume, was to grant some sort of mass amnesty, make them all citizens, and then spread them out to try to change demographics elsewhere throughout the country.” The ruling restores the agency’s previous policy, where nonpartisan organizations are allowed to help with voter registration when state and local election officials aren’t able to attend naturalization ceremonies. It’s a policy that was in place for decades until 2025, including during Trump’s first term, and thousands of new voters have benefited. In 2024, the League of Women Voters helped to register over 122,000 new voters at naturalization ceremonies. Abelson’s ruling is not final, but only pauses USCIS’s policy while it gets a full review in federal court. The government’s own words won’t help its case, considering that many administration officials, including Vice President JD Vance, have echoed statements alluding to the white nationalist “great replacement” theory that liberals and the left seek to replace a white electorate with nonwhite immigrants. For now, though, new citizens should have an easier time registering to vote. Editor’s Pick:President Trump is not happy over how Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, handled the prosecution of alleged vandalism at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.CNN reports that Trump is considering firing Pirro, a former Fox News host, over the Department of Justice’s legal admission that the pool’s peeling stemmed from “flawed” renovation work and not vandals like ex–Olympic canoeist David Hearn, who was federally indicted before charges against him were dropped.One unnamed source told CNN that Trump is “furious” with Pirro and thinks that it’s “highly likely she’s removed from her job,” while another told the network that the president was “blindsided” by the DOJ filing from Pirro’s office.“The president did not know beforehand that she was going to do that,” the source told CNN.Trump confirmed his dissatisfaction with Pirro Monday, telling reporters in the Oval Office that he thinks “she choked, because the judge was really vicious. Instead of going after the people that did it, the judge went after her and went after her department, and I guess she choked. I don’t know what the hell happened.”When a reporter asked Trump if he was reconsidering Pirro’s role, he snapped.“I don’t know what—you’re fake news. Don’t ever talk again. You’re fake news, one of the worst in the business. Fortunately, nobody watches you,” Trump said. Trump says Jeanine Pirro "choked" and then snaps at a reporter who asks if her job is safe: "Don't ever talk again" pic.twitter.com/dL7aLBO6h1— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 3, 2026 Trump has made construction, beautification, and renovation projects around Washington, D.C., his highest priority in his second term, but his $14 million efforts to “fix” the Reflecting Pool keep failing. The “American flag blue” paint he added because he didn’t like the look of green algae was quickly obscured by, well, algal blooms. His contractors added hydrogen peroxide to kill the algae, failing to realize that it’s a paint thinner, and the blue lining started to peel away.Unwilling to admit that he caused the peeling, Trump went on a witch hunt against alleged vandals, which is where the spurious charges from Pirro’s office against Hearn came from. Now that the case has fallen through, Trump may soon take out his anger by firing Pirro. Meanwhile, the pool looks much worse than before.Editor’s Pick:Missourians are about to vote on their own power to change the state constitution.Missouri, along with 26 other states and Washington, D.C., has a process by which voters can gather signatures and initiate amendments to the state constitution by putting a ballot measure to a vote. As it stands, if a citizen-led amendment wins a simple statewide majority—six of Missouri’s eight congressional districts—the initiative will pass.But Tuesday’s primary election might take that away.Amendment 4, placed on the ballot by Missouri Republicans, would require any citizen-led amendment to pass in all eight districts, rather than the traditional six. This means that any single district could tank an amendment, regardless of popular support in the rest of the state. No other state makes it that hard.“I view it as a politician’s power grab,” Franklin County resident Derek Schriewer told The Missouri Independent. “They are trying to take away a typical function that we have had for over 100 years for citizens to be able to hold politicians accountable.”Doug Kerr, chairman of the Knox County Republican Central Committee and a staunch supporter of Amendment 4, argued that GOP interests were not getting enough representation—despite the Republican supermajority in the state legislature.“Our voices are not being heard,” Kerr told The Missouri Independent. “We’re not just a democracy. We are a democratic republic, and the rights of the minority should at least be heard. And right now, they’re not.”Amendment 4 has powerful allies, and not just among Republican state representatives. It has also been endorsed by Missouri’s most salient agricultural lobby, the Missouri Farm Bureau, as well as the Missouri Right to Life PAC. Campaign spending, both for and against the measure, is through the roof, and Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins is predicting the highest primary turnout among Missouri voters since 2004.In recent years, Missouri voters have relied on citizen-led amendments to expand Medicaid access, legalize recreational marijuana, approve sports betting, and enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution.The irony of Amendment 4 is that it only cuts one way. Lawmakers aren’t limiting their own power to change the state constitution—they will still have the power to put constitutional amendments on the ballot. But if voters want to do the same thing, they’re out of luck.Editor’s Pick:President Donald Trump claimed Monday he was in talks to open the Strait of Hormuz “literally by tomorrow”—while Iran has denied speaking to the United States. Speaking at a press conference to sign an executive order, Trump rambled about ongoing talks with Iran to reopen the strait. “It’s not very complex. We’re talking about the strait, the opening of the strait, having it open, literally by tomorrow. Completely open,” Trump said. The president claimed that would be the first phase before proceeding to denuclearization talks.Trump, who has been claiming the US controls the Strait of Hormuz, now says he's talking with Iran about "opening the Strait literally by tomorrow" 🤔 pic.twitter.com/8hKjbT9BBA— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 3, 2026 Don’t hold your breath. Trump has teased an imminent deal with Iran more than three dozen times since the war began six months ago, and this doesn’t appear to be any different. Trump told reporters Sunday that he’d called off another “massive attack,” because U.S. allies in the Middle East believed that Tehran was ready to make “a deal on Hormuz.” The president indicated that the talks would begin Monday. But Esmaeil Baghaei, spokesperson for Iran’s foreign ministry, told reporters Monday that Iran was not currently in talks with the U.S. He said Iran was in the final stages of discussions with Oman to open the strait. In response, Trump called Iran’s leadership “unbelievably duplicitous,” claiming in a social media post before the press conference they’d begged him to restart talks. Still, Trump inexplicably promised there would be progress. “We’re gonna find out today or tomorrow. I mean, they’re gonna go quickly, one way or another,” he said during the press conference. Read more about the war: