Saturday Covfefe: Quiet Changes. Real Consequences.

The loudest story this week wasn’t the most important one.

This week’s edition of “perfectly fine, nothing to see here” includes: the government suing the Catholic Church for a sacred mountaintop, Democrats releasing a postmortem while the house is still on fire, and Ebola screenings at Dulles, courtesy of the same administration that dismantled the infrastructure designed to prevent exactly that.

Cafecito. Now please.

1. Holy Ground, Seized for Politics

The Trump administration is suing the Catholic Church to seize land surrounding Mount Cristo Rey near El Paso, Texas, so it can expand the border wall. Yes, really.

If you didn’t grow up on the border, it may sound like just another land dispute. It’s not.

I’ve actually made the pilgrimage up Mount Cristo Rey. Many members of my family have too. If you’re from the region, you understand what that mountain represents: faith, family, culture, and generations of border communities tied together across two countries.

So yes, this is incredibly insulting and upsetting.

The same political movement that spent years screaming that Christianity was "under attack" is now trying to seize Catholic land tied to one of the most sacred pilgrimage sites in the Southwest, all for more border wall construction.

And before people turn this into a simplistic "pro-border" versus "anti-border" debate: border security matters. I worked these issues inside the Trump White House. Serious people can disagree on immigration policy.

But this? This feels like ideological theater masquerading as security policy.

Especially because the mountain is already heavily monitored by helicopters, drones, Border Patrol agents, cameras, and ground sensors. Even local restoration leaders have accused the government of starting construction first and only afterward trying to legally "cover their behinds."

That’s becoming the pattern now: If something stands in the way politically, culturally, or institutionally, they try to crush it.

✝️ Sacred Ground Seized (NPR)

2. The Math Didn’t Work

The Democratic Party finally released its long-delayed 2024 election autopsy this week and…honestly? It reads less like a strategy memo and more like a public group therapy session with footnotes.

The 192-page report says Kamala Harris "wrote off rural America," failed to define herself beyond “not Trump,” and didn’t hit Trump with enough negative firepower. One line stood out: "The math doesn’t work." Because apparently Democrats are rediscovering that you can’t lose huge chunks of working-class, rural, and non-college voters and magically make it up in wealthy suburbs forever.

The report also admits Democrats failed to engage male voters directly, especially young Latino and Black men, and relied too heavily on anti-Trump sentiment instead of building an affirmative case for Harris herself.

But here’s the part that really jumped out at me: The DNC itself repeatedly attached disclaimers throughout the document, basically saying: we can’t verify a lot of this because the sourcing and data weren’t fully provided. HUH?

Meanwhile, Democrats spent the day publicly fighting over a report about an election they already lost instead of focusing on Trump’s current chaos: Iran, rising costs, corruption, mass deportations, and the increasingly authoritarian behavior unfolding in real time.

Voters don’t reward parties that feel disconnected, performative, or trapped in consultant-land. Right now? Too many Americans still don’t believe Democrats do.

Really need to teach Democrats how to fight like Republicans do. I give you my word that I’ll keep working on this!

🧭 Inside the DNC’s 2024 Autopsy: AP News

🧾 FULL LINK TO THE REPORT: HERE

3. The Green Card Trap

On Friday, the Trump administration announced that people in the United States on temporary visas, students, workers, even some tourists, who want to apply for green cards must now leave the country and apply from their home nation. No more adjusting status from inside the U.S., as has been standard practice for decades.

Half a million people a year do this legally. Following the rules. Building lives.

Now they may have to leave to have any shot at staying.

Remember that Trump has already banned nationals from more than 100 countries from returning to the United States. So for many people, "go home and apply through your consulate" isn’t really a process. It’s a door that may never reopen. A real Stephen Miller special.

A former USCIS official put it bluntly: "The purpose of this policy is exclusion."

World Relief, a Christian humanitarian organization, called the move "cruel" and "anti-family," warning it could separate husbands from wives and parents from children who came here legally and followed the rules. I met repeatedly with World Relief during my tenure as Vice President Pence’s homeland security advisor. Back then, they raised serious concerns about how refugee and immigration issues were being distorted inside the administration by hardline political operatives pushing fear over facts. Since then, all of these issues have escalated.

This isn’t about people crossing illegally. This is about people who did everything right, and are now being told the finish line moved while they were running.

✈️ Legal Immigration, Rewritten (NBC News)

4. Trump’s Most Dangerous Executive Order Yet?

I saw former prosecutor Elie Honig’s breakdown of Trump’s March executive order on elections this week. More people should be paying attention.

Because buried beneath the bureaucratic jargon is something deeply dangerous.

Trump’s order would require DHS to create federal "State Citizenship Lists" pulled from government databases and handed over to states to cross-check voter rolls.

Even Trump administration lawyers admitted in court that the lists would almost certainly be flawed. Which means eligible voters could suddenly find themselves flagged, purged, or blocked from voting by mail because they don’t appear correctly in some massive federal database Frankenstein list.

And that’s before you get to the mail ballot piece. The order also directs the Postal Service to create a new election-only "super envelope" system tied to those citizenship lists. If you’re not on the list? Good luck getting a valid mail ballot.

The Constitution gives states and Congress authority over elections, not the president. But this administration keeps testing how far executive power can stretch before somebody stops it.

That’s the pattern now. Not one giant authoritarian move. A thousand confusing procedural ones most people won’t notice until the damage is already done.

🗳️ The Quiet Election Power Grab (New York Magazine)

5. Public Health on Autopilot

DHS quietly announced this week that travelers arriving from parts of Central and East Africa will now face enhanced Ebola screening at Dulles International Airport. Most people probably scrolled right past the headline. I didn’t.

I was inside the Trump White House during the COVID crisis in 2020, including Oval Office discussions about shutting down flights from China and managing international travel restrictions. And even with experienced career officials, public health experts, and people who understood crisis management in the room… it was still an operational mess behind the scenes.

Today? Many of those people are gone. That’s what worries me.

The current public risk remains low. But preparedness matters before a crisis spirals, not after cable news discovers it.

Reminder: the same administration expanding Ebola screening also weakened many of the systems designed to prevent outbreaks in the first place. USAID epidemic-response programs were frozen or dismantled during the DOGE-driven cuts pushed by Elon Musk’s government overhaul operation. Staffing tied to Ebola and outbreak prevention collapsed, while CDC and NIH global health capabilities were reduced as well. One NIH Ebola research lab was reportedly shut down entirely.

You can only spend years attacking expertise, hollowing out agencies, and treating government itself like the enemy before eventually discovering those systems were the thing standing between stability and catastrophe. Most Americans never think about those systems until something goes wrong. I do. I’ve seen firsthand how fragile they already are, even when competent people are trying their best.

Now? The guardrails inside the public health system are thinner than people realize.

☣️ DHS Expands Ebola Screening at Dulles (ABC 4 News)

🎾 One Thing For Your Soul

Last year, I told you about something that genuinely made me smile: Billie Jean King returned to college at 81 to finish the degree she started in 1964. This week, she graduated. At 82. Sixty-one years later. Absolute icon behavior.

Before the Grand Slam titles and the "Battle of the Sexes," Billie Jean King was a first-generation college student from a working-class family trying to figure out her future. At commencement this week, she reflected on realizing at age 12 that nearly everyone at elite tennis clubs was white and asking herself: "Where is everybody else?"

"We can never understand inclusion unless we’ve been excluded," she told graduates.

Her final advice: "Have fun. Be fearless. And make history." Not bad guidance for the rest of us either.

🎓 Billie Jean King Finally Graduates From College (The Guardian)

As we head into Memorial Day weekend, take a moment to remember the Americans who never made it home. Beyond the barbecues and sales, this weekend exists because of sacrifice, and because families across this country carry that loss with them every single day.

Until next time,

Olivia

P.S. If this week’s Covfefe made you think differently, laugh, rage, or connect a few new dots, share it with someone else. And if you want to support this work directly, becoming a paid subscriber genuinely helps.