Good evening and welcome back to your nightly edition of the Democratic Wins Media newsletter. Tonight’s three stories are about people telling this administration no. A federal magistrate told Jeanine Pirro’s office no, for the second time. A Republican senator told the president no on handing North Korea a gift it didn’t have to ask for. And the CEO of the Walt Disney Company told Trump’s FCC chairman no on live television. None of them are Democrats. All of them are doing the thing far too many elected Republicans still won’t.
Here’s what we’re covering:
A magistrate judge frees a defendant over Pirro’s objections — the same judge who’s been calling out her office for months.
Trump cuts military exercises with South Korea while gushing about Kim Jong Un’s “respect” for him.
Disney’s CEO refuses to be told how to run ABC as the FCC circles eight broadcast licenses.
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Magistrate Judge Matthew Sharbaugh released Melissa Farris, 41, on Monday over the objections of U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s prosecutors. Farris is accused of spray-painting the World War II Memorial; she was ordered back to Kentucky under court supervision, barred from Washington except for court appearances, and ordered to stay away from the memorial. A preliminary hearing is set for September 3. Prosecutors asked Sharbaugh to pause the release order. He declined, according to Politico’s Josh Gerstein.
This is not the first time this judge has overruled this office. The Associated Press reported last fall that Sharbaugh dismissed two felony assault cases at prosecutors’ own request and warned from the bench that cases were being charged before they had been properly investigated. “That’s not the way it’s supposed to work,” he said, adding that the volume alone had become a concern for the court.
Pirro is under pressure from the other direction too. After she dropped charges against a former Olympic canoeist accused of damaging the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool renovation — a project Trump personally championed — the president said she had “folded like an umbrella” and demanded on Truth Social that she revisit the decision. The Washington Post reported sources saying her job was in question over it.
Why it matters: A prosecutor’s office is supposed to be constrained by evidence, not by whether the president is happy. Pirro is being squeezed between a court that keeps finding her cases underbaked and a president who treats charging decisions as loyalty tests — and the court is winning, which is the whole point of having one. Every one of these rulings is a data point that the surge policing of the capital has been built on volume rather than proof.
By the numbers: 2 — felony assault cases this same judge dismissed last fall after warning that charges were outrunning investigations.
Over the weekend, Trump announced on Truth Social that the United States will “substantially reduce” joint military exercises with South Korea — citing his “very good relationship with Kim Jong Un” and complaining that the drills send a signal that is hostile to a country he described as unthreatening and respectful.
Asked Monday in the Oval Office whether he was prioritizing an adversary over a 70-year ally, Trump said he was making things safer, then explained why: Kim has always treated him with great respect. He understands Kim, he said, and Kim understands him. He noted that Kim didn’t like Biden and didn’t like Obama, but gets along with him. On Saturday he had posted a photo of the two of them, acknowledging the unfriendly expressions but insisting they get along great.
The reason for the cut appears to be a grudge. Trump complained Monday that he had asked Seoul for help with his war against Iran — strikes he launched without informing allies in advance — and been turned down. He recounted telling them the U.S. has 39,000 soldiers there guarding them from Kim Jong Un, and asked why the U.S. is involved in helping them at all.
Here is what his own intelligence community says about the country he just rewarded. The 2026 unclassified threat assessment finds North Korea continues enhancing its missile program, has successfully tested intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching the United States, remains committed to expanding its nuclear arsenal, poses a critical cyber threat, and continues deepening its partnership with Russia. That partnership is not theoretical: North Korea sent roughly 11,000 troops plus munitions and equipment to Russia in 2024 for the war on Ukraine.
Republican Sen. Thom Tillis said the quiet part out loud. South Korea, he wrote, has been a solid military ally for over 70 years with formidable capabilities — and cutting joint exercises does nothing but free up thousands of North Korean troops to support Putin’s campaign of kidnapping, torture, rape and murder against Ukrainian civilians.
Why it matters: Run the ledger from Beijing’s side. A treaty ally in Asia publicly humiliated and downgraded over a personal slight. Joint readiness exercises reduced. North Korean forces freed up for Russia’s war. Every other American partner in the region watching and quietly calculating how much a U.S. security guarantee is worth if it can be revoked because a president’s feelings were hurt. China spent two decades trying to loosen America’s alliance network in the Pacific and never got this far. Trump did it in a weekend Truth Social post, in exchange for a dictator’s flattery, and the only elected Republican willing to say so in public was a senator who is not running again.
By the numbers: 39,000 — U.S. troops stationed in South Korea, by Trump’s own count, as he questioned why we’re there.
Disney CEO Josh D’Amaro just drew a line. Asked by CNBC at the D23 Expo about FCC Chairman Brendan Carr’s actions against ABC, D’Amaro said the company’s position is clear and principled, that it will stand up for what it believes is journalistic integrity, and that Disney is “not going to be told how to run that side of our business.”
What Carr’s FCC has done: opened early reviews of the broadcast licenses of eight Disney-owned local ABC stations, and launched an investigation into The View. The FCC ordered those reviews in April — one day after Trump publicly urged ABC to fire Jimmy Kimmel. Carr has said the reviews are part of a broader look at Disney’s DEI policies, has said ABC’s limited coverage of a Trump address will factor in, and has argued broadcasters must “rebalance things” politically in exchange for subsidized access to the airwaves.
ABC has called the reviews unconstitutional and told the agency they violate the network’s First Amendment rights, arguing in a 119-page July filing that retaliation against ABC signals to every media company in the country that it should accommodate the administration’s preferences or pay for it — and that regulatory carrots and sticks are being aimed at disfavored speakers across the government, with the consistent objective of making the press too frightened to report freely. The ACLU filed a FOIA request last Tuesday for the FCC’s records on the early-renewal decision, saying the agency’s stated reason doesn’t seem credible and questioning its real motives.
Why it matters: The mechanism here is worth understanding, because it doesn’t require censoring anything. It requires only that a company with billions in regulated business decide that a late-night monologue isn’t worth the risk. That calculation happens in private, and it works. What makes D’Amaro’s answer matter is that he made it in public and on the record — and the reason Democratic Wins Media can cover it without flinching is that we don’t hold a broadcast license, don’t have a merger pending, and answer to readers who pay for it directly.
By the numbers: 8 — Disney-owned ABC stations whose licenses the FCC pulled up for early review, one day after Trump called for Kimmel’s firing.
Peltola is ahead in Alaska — and the primary is tomorrow. Alaska Survey Research’s latest poll, in the field August 2–5 with 1,371 likely voters and a ±3 margin, shows Mary Peltola edging Sen. Dan Sullivan 50.8 to 49.2 in the final ranked-choice round. It’s inside the margin of error, and a late-June NYT/Siena poll had Sullivan up 2 — Cook and Sabato both rate the race a pure toss-up. But a Democrat is running even in a state Trump carried three times, Peltola raised $6.9 million last period with $6.1 million on hand, and Alaskans vote in the nonpartisan primary tomorrow, August 18.
Ossoff drew a crowd in Atlanta and leads every Senate candidate in the country on money. Hundreds packed a Midtown Atlanta rally Sunday chanting “six more years” as Ossoff made his case against Republican Rep. Mike Collins, calling this a campaign for everyone who wants sanity, competence, and quality public service. He’s the only Democratic senator defending a seat in a state Trump won — and per FEC data he’s the top fundraiser of any Senate candidate in either party, entering the year with more than $25 million on hand, 99 percent of his fourth-quarter donations coming from people who gave under $200.
A judge, a Republican senator, and the chief executive of the Walt Disney Company all told this administration no today — which is encouraging, and also a reminder that none of them are on a ballot in November, and the people who are need us between now and then.
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