The fresh warnings from intelligence officials that Russia is again intruding in the presidential race have given congressional Democrats an opening to revive their uphill push for election security legislation.
Several proposals for bolstering American democracy's protections against interference by foreign adversaries have passed the House but are stymied in the Senate, where GOP Majority Leader Mitch McConnell maintains they're unnecessary and designed by Democrats to get under President Trump's skin.
After news broke Thursday night about the warning delivered to lawmakers by the intelligence community's top election security official — who told them Russia is already at work meddling with the election in hopes of helping Trump win again — Minority Leader Chuck Schumer excoriated the GOP in particularly harsh terms.
"Republicans keep blocking election security bills in the Senate, and now we know why: They'd rather let Putin win than stand up to President Trump," he said on Twitter.
The unambiguously identified targeting of the presidential race by Vladimir Putin's government four years ago resulted in few identifiable hacks of voting systems, but it also included a sweeping online disinformation effort and has generated waves of uncertainty about the reliability of American elections. The new intelligence findings will only amplify that.
But it remains highly uncertain whether those reports will prompt any loosening of the Senate standoff when lawmakers return next week.
The measure taking clearest aim at Russia, dubbed the Deter Act, would impose sanctions on Russian finance, defense and energy businesses after a clear finding by U.S. intelligence that the Kremlin was interfering in the election. The measure has been sponsored by five Democrats but also six Republicans, including three of the party's most vulnerable incumbents this fall: Susan Collins of Maine and both of the senators Trump campaigned for this week: Corey Gardner of Colorado and Martha McSally of Arizona.
Four times in the past six months, the Democrats have made a choreographed show of taking the Senate floor to propose immediate passage of election security bills they view as less contentious than the Deter Act — knowing full well their efforts could (and would) be blocked by the GOP without any roll call votes.
The most recent effort came two weeks ago, when three measures that have passed the House in various forms were blocked. One would require presidential campaigns to call the FBI if they are approached by a foreign power offering assistance. Another would require candidates to report any efforts by a foreigner to make a campaign contribution. The last would authorize more federal money for election security and ban the use of voting machines connected to the internet or made overseas.
A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
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Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.