The four debates in Maine’s U.S. Senate race, between incumbent Republican Susan Collins and Democrat Troy Jackson, are over. Early voting is underway. And while Jackson survived the quartet of clashes, the race remains as close as ever.

Debate expectations for Jackson were between middling and low. His down-home style was compared to the senator’s highly polished vibe. He had far less experience in high-profile debates. But ultimately Collins and Jackson both effectively delivered their core messages.

As in previous campaigns, Collins tried to claim the mantle of bipartisanship and argue that only she can deliver for Maine. She shared laundry lists of bills she worked on and specific projects helping towns. (Her campaign also focuses on this in ads; I even received a detailed text to my phone claiming credit for “$59 million for the City of Bangor.”)

“Sen. Collins is like an arsonist who helped set the fire and then she wants credit for bringing a cup of water to put it out,” Jackson said in the first debate.

Jackson took both parts of Collins’ case head on. He again noted Collins’ record of backing Trump 96% of the time, contrary to her assertions of bipartisanship. He contended that Collins’ deliverables are woefully insufficient compared to the cuts she has backed. “Sen. Collins is like an arsonist who helped set the fire and then she wants credit for bringing a cup of water to put it out,” he said in the first debate.

Three debates later, Collins herself helped the case against her bipartisan bonafides. A moderator asked her to identify a time when a vote against Republicans changed the outcome. Collins muffed. She cited opposition she organized to Pete Hegseth’s nomination as defense secretary, which failed after one senator, North Carolina’s Thom Tillis, changed his mind at the last minute. “So that didn’t change the outcome,” one of the moderators replied.

Jackson’s arsonist comparison was not the only memorable image he conjured. After Collins bragged that she stopped Canadian tariffs on road salt, the Democrat replied, “We can’t eat road salt.” Memes proliferated featuring images of a truck carrying road salt labeled as “Meals on Wheels” and Collins pictured as Marie Antoinette saying, “Let them eat road salt.” A Mainer at the Fryeburg Fair confronted Collins with Jackson’s remark.

Beyond its virality online, Jackson’s remark bore real-world heft. Food prices are up and heating oil prices soared 81% since last year. Often using examples about himself and others, Jackson focused on understanding working people, the necessity of a better healthcare system and fighting oligarchic power. He has also challenged Collins’ contention that he would not be able to help Maine like her.

Democrats have often accused the Maine press of catering to Collins, publicizing stories about her securing money for Maine while not covering her contradictions. This year is different.

None of the aforementioned exchanges got the most national attention, though. The one that grabbed out-of-state headlines arose after a protester with a fake press pass interrupted the last forum to rail against the environmental impact of data centers and corporations’ financial power. Collins quickly and without evidence claimed, “So this is obviously one of Troy’s supporters.”

“Oh, shut up. I don’t even know that kid,” Jackson replied.

“Oh, right,” Collins answered.

In a very close race like this election, any moment can matter. But it is striking that, afterward, many Mainers did not find Jackson’s remark problematic. Journalist Kevin Miller of Maine Public Radio wrote that Jackson’s comment was “more flippant than mean-spirited. The two rivals even seemed to exchange snarky smiles before the debate quickly resumed without future disruption.” On a post-debate panel, reporter Rob Caldwell said that, given the negativity of the campaign, the candidates were “going to get ticked off. If they didn’t they wouldn’t be human. … There are a lot of worse things that they could have said.” Callers to a radio show the following day were divided over whether Jackson was rude or had rightly responded with a Maine “shaddup.”

Jackson’s remark was not what the Bangor Daily News highlighted in its front page after the final debate. Instead, the paper focused on Collins saying, “I think our democracy will be just fine,” while Jackson judged American democracy as “at risk” and observed that “Donald Trump is trying every trick in the book to keep power.”

Democrats have often accused the Maine press of catering to Collins, publicizing stories about her securing money for Maine while not covering her contradictions. This year is different. Jackson’s criticisms of Collins’ conflicting votes are getting coverage, and the press is highlighting pay-for-play corruption allegations and examining the dark-money billionaires disproportionately benefiting Collins.

The two campaigns have not been the same and probably will stay that way. Jackson is holding high-profile events with Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. Collins’ most high-profile visitor is former Sen. Joe Manchin. Trump has not come and Collins would not want him. While Jackson uses his events to recruit canvassers and grow his field operation, Collins is helped by canvassers paid by Elon Musk.

Maine voters seem sick of the barrage of ads. Jackson’s grassroots operation and earned media look stronger.

Jackson closed with a “who’s on your side” message — the billionaires or the Maine people. Some ads feature past Collins voters who support Jackson now. Some of these voters cite Collins’ vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. Collins is defending her Kavanaugh vote by saying that, despite his track record, she could not know he would overturn Roe v. Wade.

National Republicans’ closing message features sharply negative advertising claiming Jackson bullies women, calling him “a creep” and even attacking his relationship with Lana Pelletier, his longtime partner and the mother of his children. (The Collins campaign asked for the ad to be taken down but critics noted that Collins brought up Jackson’s family in a September interview in Politico and Pelletier has spoken out against the personal attack.)

Maine voters seem sick of the barrage of ads. Jackson’s grassroots operation and earned media look stronger, and Republicans are facing the same headwinds in Maine as elsewhere. But it is never easy to defeat an incumbent and Collins’ brand is strong.

Mainers will have to decide if they want to re-elect Collins, who thinks our republic is not threatened by Trump but brings targeted resources to Maine, or if they pick Jackson, a self-described “working-class guy with a funny accent” who pledges to change policies, lift up all Mainers and protect our constitutional order.

The post Troy Jackson survived his debates with Susan Collins. Here’s what to watch for in the final days. appeared first on MS NOW.

As Texas Republicans grow more nervous about their chances of keeping a U.S. Senate seat in November, they are now facing another political burden: members of the Bush family.

Former President George W. Bush’s daughter Barbara and his brother Neil have broken with their family’s political party in the high-stakes race to support Democratic nominee James Talarico, adding to Republican anxiety about the contest.

The Federal Election Commission’s most recent report on PAC donations lists Barbara Bush as donating $2,500 last month to Lone Star Rising, a political action committee in support of Talarico, who is facing Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in the midterm elections. Her monetary support emphasizes larger fractures within the Republican Party, which had hoped for an overwhelming victory in the state. (Barbara Bush, who lives in Brooklyn, is registered to vote in New York.)

On Tuesday, in another Bush defection, the former president’s brother said on Facebook that he had cast his vote for Talarico in early voting.

“I have never posted a political message on Facebook not wanting to offend friends whose views may be very different than mine. I’m breaking that tradition because I voted early today, and I voted for James Talarico for the United States Senate,” Neil Bush wrote in a lengthy post. “My vote was motivated by two things: deep concern about Ken Paxton’s record and genuine admiration for the character and principles I see in James Talarico.”

Paxton was endorsed by President Donald Trump during the Texas GOP primary over incumbent Sen. John Corbyn. But he is facing a candidate who has intertwined his Christian faith with his campaign and whose focus on kitchen-table issues has resonated with voters facing econmic headwinds. The Democrat has a slight lead in polling, 48.8% to 46%.

Neil Bush, who calls himself a longtime Republican, said he has been “deeply troubled” by Paxton’s history as Texas attorney general. He cited Paxton’s decision to challenge the results of the 2020 presidential election, for which he was investigated by the state, and his impeachment by his own party over misconduct allegations in 2023. Paxton was also indicted in 2015 on charges of securities fraud. His legal team reached a deal for him to take ethics classes, pay almost $270,000 in restitution and complete community service.

In his statement, Neil Bush also took aim at Trump for doing “enormous damage to the Republican Party.”

He said he was “enormously impressed” by Talarico.

“He speaks with respect, seeks common ground, and seems genuinely interested in bringing people together rather than driving them apart,” he said. “His faith appears to be a deeply rooted source of humility, compassion, and conviction rather than a political weapon.”

He added, “I still believe deeply in many traditional Republican principles. But character matters more than party affiliation. Our democracy depends on leaders who respect our institutions, tell the truth, accept accountability, and seek to unite rather than divide.”

Paxton has been a divisive figure within his party. His impeachment attorney, Dan Cogdell, and his former law enforcement director, David Maxwell, have also said they will vote for Talarico.

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Today’s edition of quick hits.

* Stephen Hubbard is headed home: “Russia has released a retired American teacher who had been imprisoned on charges of fighting as a mercenary in Ukraine, U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff said Wednesday at a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg.”

* In related news: “Special envoy Steve Witkoff heaped praise on Russian President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg on Wednesday, the latest sign that Ukrainian and European efforts to get Washington to ramp up pressure on Russia to end the war are failing. … ‘You talk so much about my president, President Trump, being a humanitarian. You are a humanitarian also, sir, and I salute that, I commend you, and I thank you again,’ Witkoff said.”

* Even some Republicans criticized Witkoff’s gushing praise for the head of a government that imprisoned Hubbard in the first place: “WTF, Steve? Look up the definition of ‘humanitarian,’’’ Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., posted on X. “You should go back to Ukraine and ask the families of the children Putin has kidnapped and murdered whether they agree your friend Putin is a ‘humanitarian.’” Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, responded, “Putin is stone cold killer.”

* In the Middle East: “The US State Department has ordered some diplomats and family members ​to depart from its missions in Saudi Arabia ‌and is planning to move out family members from a number of other US missions in the Gulf, US officials told Reuters.”

* Crisis conditions at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: “Health officials in California and Washington, facing outbreaks of measles this past spring, asked the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in May to validate a test that can diagnose 500 cases in eight hours. They did not hear back for two months.”

* An intensifying climate emergency: “Losing more ground in the fight against climate change, humanity is heading for a hotter world than experts projected last year — and the United States is a big reason for that, a new United Nations report says.”

* Good for Kagan for speaking out: “With Americans deciding the congressional balance of power in November’s midterm elections, Justice Elena Kagan is reminding the nation of how the Supreme Court’s decisions have shaped the ballot. It’s an antidemocratic shape, according to the Obama-appointed justice’s remarks Tuesday at Catholic University’s law school in Washington.”

* I’m with the majority on this one: “A majority of Americans say artificial intelligence is a bad thing for society and about two-thirds oppose the construction of new data centers in the U.S., with opposition even higher to building data centers in people’s own communities, according to an ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll conducted using Ipsos’ KnowledgePanel.”

* Facebook’s parent company: “Meta is finally being forced to pay for its near-decade-old falsehoods about the Cambridge Analytica scandal that saw millions of users’ data harvested for political purposes. On Wednesday, a judge in New Mexico ordered the social media company to pay a $25 billion penalty following a jury’s determination in late September that the company’s executives broke state laws with knowingly false statements they made in the wake of the scandal.”

* Speaking of New Mexico, state Attorney General Raúl Torrez “has filed a civil lawsuit against Jeffrey Epstein’s personal lawyer, Darren Indyke, and accountant, Richard Kahn, accusing them of helping to facilitate and conceal Epstein’s sex trafficking operation.”

See you tomorrow.

The post Wednesday’s Mini-Report, 10.21.26 appeared first on MS NOW.

Top Democrats and allied organizations filed a lawsuit on Wednesday against President Donald Trump and his administration over their attempts to stymie the midterm elections, including by removing voters from state rolls.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., were among the plaintiffs who filed the suit against Trump, the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security in the U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia. The 44-page complaint takes aim at recent demands from DHS — notably in Nevada and California — that states review lists compiled by federal officials of alleged noncitizen voters.

As the complaint notes, state officials have disputed the accuracy of those lists.

The lawsuit points to Trump’s Truth Social threat earlier this week threatening that election officials in LA County “will all go to jail for a long period of time!!!” if they count the votes of alleged noncitizens. It cites another from U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Texas Aaron Reitz, who said in a social media post on Monday that he would “hunt” and “prosecute” anyone who violates federal election law.

“DOJ’s recent actions confirm that Defendants have settled on a course of intimidating state election officials with threats of criminal prosecution for doing nothing more than adhering to state law and distributing ballots to registered voters,” states the complaint, filed 13 days before the midterms.

The filing alleges the administration’s efforts to wrest control of elections from the states, combined with federal officials’ threats toward local and state officials, violate the Voting Rights Act and constitutional principles that prevent the federal government from forcing states to enact, administer or enforce federal laws.

In addition to Schumer and Jeffries, the plaintiffs include the Democrats’ House and Senate campaign arms, the Democratic Governors Association, the Nevada Democratic Party and Erick Jose Jimenez, a registered California voter who the lawsuit says became a naturalized citizen 20 years ago but fears he could be falsely labeled as a noncitizen and “unlawfully targeted” as a result.

The defendants also include Attorney General Todd Blanche, who has said he would “absolutely” consider taking the issue to the Supreme Court; and DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin, who has said his department will penalize states that do not cooperate with the federal government’s demands. The plaintiffs are asking the court to find the defendants in violation of the Constitution and the Voting Rights Act and to block them from continuing those actions.

“None of this is lawful,” the complaint states. “The Executive Branch enjoys no authority to superintend state voter list maintenance, to supplant state determinations of who is qualified to vote, or to dictate who gets a ballot or whose ballot gets segregated — Congress has kept that responsibility with the States, subject only to a narrow civil enforcement power the administration has declined to invoke during its recent efforts.”

The lawsuit represents the latest challenge to the administration’s efforts to compel states to hand over their voter rolls, which federal courts have also unanimously struck down. Democrats and elections experts have said these efforts could undermine trust in the upcoming elections. But federal officials have persisted, including by filing a lawsuit against California election officials last week.

Trump administration officials slammed the allegations included in the latest lawsuit.

White House spokesperson Lauren Bis said “Democrats and the media continue to dismiss concerns about voter fraud,“ adding, “The Trump Administration is taking decisive lawful action to protect our elections including prosecuting election crimes, strengthening election infrastructure security, and protecting vulnerable voters from fraud and coercion.”

DOJ spokesperson Kirsten Pels said “election integrity is a top priority” for the administration, adding, “Every action the Department has taken to protect the integrity of this year’s elections is grounded in the law and being litigated in open court. Ensuring that only eligible citizens vote and that every lawful ballot is counted a requirement of federal law.”

A spokesperson for DHS called the lawsuit “another political stunt by Democrats.”

The case has been assigned to Chief Judge James “Jeb” Boasberg, an Obama appointee who presided over the first lawsuit challenging the deportation and imprisonment of alleged Tren de Aragua gang members. During an emergency hearing in March 2025, Boasberg ordered that no additional flights to El Salvador could take off; Trump subsequently called him a “Radical Left Lunatic.”

Boasberg was also the subject of a judicial misconduct complaint filed by then-Attorney General Pam Bondi’s chief of staff in July 2025, based on his alleged comments during a panel conversation at the annual Judicial Conference. According to the complaint, Boasberg predicted that the administration “would ‘disregard rulings of federal courts’ and trigger ‘a constitutional crisis.’” The chief judge of the 6th Circuit, Jeffrey Sutton, dismissed that complaint earlier this year.

Lisa Rubin and Selena Kuznikov contributed to this report.

CORRECTION (Oct. 21, 2026, 10:31 p.m. ET):
A previous version of this article misrepresented a statement from White House spokesperson Lauren Bis. Bis claimed that “Democrats and the media” dismiss concerns about voter fraud, but she did not herself dismiss voter fraud concerns.

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Military families were told Wednesday it is too dangerous to return to the Navy’s largest base in the Middle East after they were evacuated from Bahrain in March following Iranian airstrikes, according to exclusive audio of a town hall with military families reviewed by MS NOW.

“It is very, very violent” in the region, a Navy leader said in a tense virtual meeting with more than 200 servicemembers, spouses, and civilians who had worked on the base.

Ships around the Strait of Hormuz are still being hit by drones and missiles and retrieving any of the things they left behind there will take months, Navy officials said, according to a recording of a virtual town hall with military families reviewed by MS NOW.

The families and service members were also told that the financial and logistical government support they were receiving from the Department of Defense because of the evacuation will lapse on Nov. 30.

The Navy leaders said they had requested that funding be extended, since so many military families have been living without their belongings and in temporary housing since their rapid departure from Bahrain in March, but a blanket extension covering all families has been denied by senior leaders at the Pentagon.

Navy leaders acknowledged that most of the evacuees have not received their personal belongings from their homes in Bahrain after they were ordered to quickly evacuate when Iranian missiles blew up several buildings on Naval Support Activity Bahrain, the Navy’s largest base in the Middle East. The attacks caused around $400 million worth of damage, according to a recent report to Congress.

Capt. Matthew A. Smidt, chief of staff for U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, or NAVCENT, told families and service members that the current danger around Bahrain is ongoing.

“There is violence every day right now in the region and the Strait of Hormuz. Another three ships got hit by missiles or drones last night. There are people dying every day or being wounded every day in the Strait of Hormuz and the surrounding areas,” Smidt said. “It is very, very violent. It is very, very dynamic still.”

Many family members told MS NOW that since the evacuation, they have moved between continents after being ordered back to the United States by June. Most have been living in short-term furnished rentals or hotels. Now they are being told to find permanent housing by Dec. 1.

Smidt emphasized that the conditions on the ground were too dangerous for the families to return to the base in Bahrain. And that was unlikely to change.

“If and when it kicks off again, I can guarantee you that the Iranians are not going to show the same level of restraint that they did in the spring, just take that for what its worth,” Smidt told the evacuees, many of whom had spent days after the first American airstrikes were launched on Iran, hunkering down in their homes with their children trying to stay safe during constant alerts on their phones of incoming missiles and hearing interceptors explode overhead. 

Navy officials in the town hall said they had lobbied the Department of Defense to issue a blanket “exception to policy” that would have extended the financial and logistical support known as safe haven entitlements for all evacuees. But Pentagon leaders decided that each evacuee would have to request an extension individually and that each request would require approval from the office of Acting Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao.

“We realize that there’s a lot of miscommunication between us and D.C.,” Smidt said. “We were originally pushing for just a blanket ETP, but we’re going to have to do it on an individual basis. So that is something different. That is something different than what we’ve heard in the past.”

It was unclear through the town hall how long it would take for requests to be processed and whether payments would continue while the request was pending. MS NOW reached out to the secretary of the Navy’s office for clarification but did not hear back.

Navy leaders also said every evacuee has to schedule a service in Bahrain to pack up their belongings for them by Nov. 30, but noted that it will take anywhere from four to six months for those belongings to reach their final destination.

In the town hall, Navy leaders said 21% of military evacuee households have scheduled a “packout,” but according to the five evacuees MS NOW spoke to, they are not aware of any of those shipments actually moving yet.

The money the evacuees were receiving has already shrunk. NAVCENT’s top personnel officer told families that an Aug. 27 Pentagon memo had reduced their safe haven payments to 75% of the full rate through Nov. 30.

Evacuees told MS NOW that they have drained their financial savings over the past year, spending tens of thousands of dollars purchasing vehicles to transport their children, furniture and other essential items.

Participants in the town hall were not allowed to speak and instead had to submit questions through the virtual meeting’s chat box or through a form that had been distributed in advance of the call.

A Navy leader read a submitted question that asked about how families were supposed to survive if they were required to sign a long-term lease on permanent housing without their personal belongings and any more financial support.

“This puts families in a very difficult situation because they are expected to find a place to live without having their belongings, sometimes forcing them to spend their savings or getting in more debt just to have somewhere to sleep and live,” the question read.

John Hazlett, director of manpower and personnel for NAVCENT, said Navy leaders had asked the Pentagon to continue payments until families received their household goods. The Pentagon refused. Now, families will have to cover the gap themselves. Payments now stop as soon as a family signs a lease, even if their belongings are months away from arriving, Hazlett said.

“We realize it’s not convenient, it’s not easy. I’m living this same nightmare that a lot of you on this call are as well and so we are also out of pocket on many of these things and waiting on household goods doesn’t make it any easier,” Hazlett said.

In a statement to MS NOW, a Navy official said, “We appreciate the continued resilience from our NSA Bahrain community throughout this transition, and we are fully committed to keeping our families connected, informed, and supported as long as they need us.”

The official went on to say that families are eligible for a variety of allowances as they move from temporary to long-term housing, depending on whether the employee is active duty or a civilian.

The official said case managers are available to families to help them navigate logistics and answer questions since “no two family situations are alike” and will remain engaged with families until all of their needs are met.

In addition, the Navy official said there are Fleet and Family Support Centers that offer both in-person and virtual services such as counseling, financial guidance and relocation support. The official said communication is a priority and that the Navy is holding monthly town halls for families.

“Since this story broke, I’ve heard from multiple families who are scared, confused and angry about [Defense Secretary Pete] Hegseth’s betrayal and broken promises,” said Rep. Pat Ryan, D-N.Y., a former Army intelligence officer who serves on the House Armed Services Committee.

“After being evacuated from Bahrain on a moment’s notice, and at great personal financial burden, they are now being told there isn’t enough funding to help them,” Ryan said.

The Department of Defense budget is nearly $1 trillion, Ryan said. “To look these families in the eye and say the funding is going to run out and they won’t be made whole is shameful,” Ryan said.

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Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito further distanced themselves from their Supreme Court colleagues on Wednesday when they were the only two jurists to note their objections to the court’s refusal to let the Trump administration immediately enforce its preferred policy on gender-affirming care in prison.

The court’s unsigned order contained no explanation from the majority or the dissenting duo. Still, it’s the latest data point showing Thomas and Alito backing the administration even when their fellow GOP appointees — including President Donald Trump’s own three appointees — decline to do so.

Wednesday’s order follows last month’s Supreme Court rejection of Trump’s desired mail-ballot restrictions for the midterm elections. That loss led the president to lash out at the court, including his own appointees, while calling Thomas and Alito “legends.”

Asked during a recently published CBS News interview about a Wall Street Journal study showing that Alito sided with Trump more than any of his colleagues, the justice said he’s “not trying to decide cases to help President Trump.”

Whatever his or Thomas’ intentions, their latest actions spotlight their dynamic of voting for the president’s position when other justices don’t. Their votes come ahead of the rapidly approaching Election Day in less than two weeks, with voters set to determine which party will control Senate confirmation of justices for the near future.

Alito said he’s staying on the court at least through this court term, even if Democrats win back Senate control. Thomas has likewise not signaled that he is stepping down imminently. If he stays on the court through the next term, he will become the longest-serving justice ever. In their late 70s, Thomas and Alito are the two eldest members of the current court, but they aren’t very old by the court’s historical standards.

Yet if Trump has an opportunity to appoint their successors or any other justices before he leaves office in 2029, their latest votes underscore why he will likely model his next selection(s) on them, rather than on the justices he has put on the bench thus far, who have backed him in a series of significant cases but not all of them.

Subscribe to the Deadline: Legal newsletter for expert analysis on the top legal stories of the week, including updates from the Supreme Court and developments in the Trump administration’s legal cases.

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By any fair measure, Donald Trump’s second term has been brutal for the Federal Emergency Management Agency for a variety of reasons. At the heart of the problem is the president’s stated determination not merely to brazenly politicize federal disaster aid, but to destroy the agency altogether, for reasons he has struggled to explain.

In May 2025, then-acting FEMA chief Cameron Hamilton testified before Congress that it would be in the public’s interest if FEMA continued to exist. He was fired the next day, because Hamilton’s line was at odds with Trump’s stated position, which is that FEMA should be destroyed and states left to their own devices.

A year later, after quite a few acting FEMA administrators had come and gone, the president made an unexpected move: He brought Hamilton back for a second stint, and the Senate confirmed him soon after.

I can’t help but notice that Hamilton’s position is far more in line with the White House’s than it was early last year. Politico reported:

The Trump administration’s disaster chief told state officials Tuesday they must increase their financial reserves and emergency capabilities to handle most disasters on their own, without federal help.

Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Cameron Hamilton gave unprecedented detail at a conference in Little Rock, Arkansas, about the administration’s long-planned shift of disaster responsibilities to states.

“Every state must have the appropriate financial reserves” and other abilities “to ensure that recovery efforts can start immediately and not necessarily be held up simply because of the federal [disaster] declaration process,” Hamilton said, according to a recording of his remarks obtained by Politico.

“A future that I hope we would shoot for is one where we wouldn’t require as many disasters because the capability of states is so high and so substantial,” Hamilton added, referring to presidential authorizations of federal disaster aid.

Whether the current FEMA chief is allowed to say so or not, the Trump-backed model that Hamilton endorsed will not and cannot work. State and local governments simply do not have the wherewithal — financial resources, personnel, equipment, etc. — to respond to major disasters. It’s why FEMA was created in the first place: The federal government can marshal effective responses before and after a crisis in ways others cannot.

As Politico’s report added, Eric Holdeman, a longtime emergency management official, wrote on LinkedIn on Monday in response to Hamilton’s memo, “There are many states with [minuscule] emergency management offices and budgets. There are states with slim rainy-day funds and no capacity to make up for a lack of federal disaster recovery funds — without RAISING TAXES!”

Holdeman added, “Reducing the number of federal disaster declarations will be difficult and its implementation will be impossible! All Presidents, not just the one we have today, will ignore such a policy when it becomes politically expedient to do so.”

Nevertheless, in the leaked audio recording of Hamilton’s comments, the FEMA administrator said to expect changes to get underway in earnest “in the next six months.”

If there’s a Democratic Congress next year, it’s a safe bet that the administration will get meaningful pushback long before such plans are implemented. Watch this space.

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New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez has filed a civil lawsuit against Jeffrey Epstein’s personal lawyer, Darren Indyke, and accountant, Richard Kahn, accusing them of helping to facilitate and conceal Epstein’s sex trafficking operation.

Filed in U.S. District Court in New Mexico on Wednesday, the complaint seeks to prevent the men — who are eligible to receive bequests of tens of millions of dollars as co-executors of the late financier’s estate — from obtaining that money.

“It is unconscionable in my mind that people who actively participated in the efforts of that trafficking enterprise that they should in any way benefit from what is left of his estate,” Torrez said at a news conference on Wednesday. “Those resources rightfully belong in the hands of survivors.”

Indyke and Kahn’s attorney, Daniel Weiner, did not immediately respond to MS NOW’s request for comment.

The men’s longtime relationships with Epstein have been scrutinized intensely following the U.S. Department of Justice’s release of the Epstein files. Despite having worked for decades on the convicted sex offender’s financial and legal dealings, both men have repeatedly said they had no knowledge of Epstein’s crimes.

Last month, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times separately reported that federal prosecutors were investigating Indyke and Kahn, though the focus of the probe was unclear. MS NOW has not verified that reporting. Their lawyer said at the time that the men had not been informed that they were under any such investigation.

Both men testified separately before the House Oversight Committee in its ongoing Epstein investigation earlier this year. They told lawmakers then that they had never been questioned by any government entity about Epstein’s crimes.

Torrez announced the lawsuit alongside two women who survived abuse by Epstein and his associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving time in federal prison for her crimes. One of them, Anouska De Georgiou, said it was a means to hold accountable those who enabled Epstein and Maxwell.

“My abuse did not happen in isolation. It could not have continued for as long as it did without people facilitating it, looking the other way or choosing to do nothing to stop it,” she told reporters. “Accountability cannot end with Epstein and Maxwell. It must extend to those who knowingly made their abuse possible, especially those who stand to profit from it.”

Torrez also has a criminal probe underway into Epstein’s sprawling property in Santa Fe County known as the “Zorro Ranch,” where Epstein is believed to have abused women and engaged in other criminal activity.

In August, Torrez sued the Justice Department, accusing it of stonewalling New Mexico officials in their criminal investigation of the ranch.

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As millions of Americans struggle with rising costs, MS NOW’s Luke Russert said President Donald Trump’s “inflation crisis” has come for his MAGA merch. On Tuesday’s “The Weeknight,” Russert and co-hosts Symone Sanders Townsend and Michael Steele reacted to a new report from The Washington Sun that found prices for several Trump-branded items have surged in recent years, far outpacing U.S. inflation.

In 2015, Make America Great Again hats, now a symbol of Trump’s political career, sold for $25 on the then-candidate’s website. In 2026, the same hats cost $55. The Washington Sun also reported that the website has raised the price of Trump’s Victory 45-47 perfume twice since its February 2024 debut at $99. It now costs $249. “That reeks of impropriety,” Russert said of the 151.52% increase.

“I guess they thought they were going to be exempt,” Sanders Townsend said, adding, “This is what happens” when people believe “the consequences from this administration” won’t affect them. “Now the little nasty perfume is twice than it was before.”

Steele said Trump had long “tapped” into a market in which he could put his name on almost any product and expect it to sell. Trump thought, he said, “I’ll put my face on something, and that’s enough. They will buy it.”

“And they have,” Steele continued. “Y’all have made Donald Trump a very, very wealthy man.”

But as the prices climb, the MS NOW host said, even some of Trump’s most devoted supporters are feeling the squeeze.

“When you go to look at a rally, you can see people decked out to the nines in MAGA merch,” Steele said. “But that roost has come home for a lot of these people because now they can’t afford the stuff.”

When contacted by The Washington Sun, the White House directed questions to the Trump Organization, which the outlet said did not respond to requests for comment.

The White House has repeatedly denied the president has profited from his office.

You can watch the full discussion from “The Weeknight” here.

The post ‘The Weeknight’: Trump’s ‘inflation crisis’ has come for his MAGA merch appeared first on MS NOW.

As Donald Trump’s administration bows to Russia in disturbing ways, top MAGA influencers in the “America First” movement are getting in on the Russophilia by increasingly wedding themselves to leaders and nations that are effectively under Vladimir Putin’s thumb.

And a newly announced conference in Serbia is a prime example.

On Monday, the Conservative Political Action Conference revealed plans to hold a convention in Belgrade in November. Other recent CPAC conventions abroad have effectively served as authoritarian pep rallies, and the Serbia gathering seems like it will be no different. CPAC is touting an appearance by Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić, who has earned the moniker “Little Putin” for his deference to the Russian strongman.

Announcing the inaugural CPAC Balkans — Belgrade, Serbia, November 18–21, 2026.

President Aleksandar Vučić will headline our first-ever conference in Southeastern Europe, bringing together conservative leaders from across the region united around sovereignty, faith, family, free… pic.twitter.com/J4OpPU5ryz

— CPAC (@CPAC) October 19, 2026

It’s notable that this convention was announced amid reporting, including from MS NOW’s David Rohde, about former Trump campaign officials’ advocacy on behalf of pro-Putin Serbian nationalists.

Vučić is comparable to Trump in that he is viewed by some as a Putin stooge who has opposed sanctions on Russia and effectively aided the Kremlin’s efforts to destabilize the European Union. And, like Trump, he has been the standard-bearer for an increasingly illiberal political party, one that has sought to manipulate electoral systems in its favor.

Given all of this, it’s no wonder why MAGA world adores Serbia’s current leadership: This is a movement broadly infatuated with authoritarianism. But it’s noteworthy that, much like with Russia, even some conservatives are wary of Serbia’s antidemocratic backsliding.

Ahead of Serbia’s parliamentary elections this weekend, a bipartisan group of seven senators — including Republicans from Iowa, Mississippi and North Carolina — issued a warning about Vučić’s party.

“Unfortunately, both Serbian and international election observers found serious infringements to the integrity of the previous parliamentary elections in 2022. We are now seeing similarly troubling signs ahead of the October 25 vote,” the senators said in a statement. “Reports of unlawful wiretapping of opposition members and attempts to discredit and undermine election observation missions are deeply concerning, and Serbian authorities must ensure a level playing field for all parties and open access to the polls for all citizens.”

It’s telling of the MAGA movement’s broad disdain for democracy that one of its most prominent activist groups is openly choosing to associate with such a party. And it speaks to a movement that seems more obsessed with expanding its influence in foreign lands than addressing the numerous crises their dear leader has created for Americans at home.

The post Republicans are taking CPAC to Serbia as the party bows to Putin appeared first on MS NOW.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s push to test dangerous anti-vaccine conspiracy theories on African babies appears to be in doubt after U.S.-backed researchers in Guinea-Bissau had their offices raided by government officials.

Kennedy has been a staunch supporter of and has allocated federal funds for a controversial experiment that Dutch scientists have been trying to conduct, denying thousands of babies in Guinea-Bissau doses of the hepatitis B vaccine during their first six weeks after birth. The study has garnered comparisons to the racist Tuskegee experiment, and the controversy around this proposed test has put a spotlight on Kennedy’s history of promoting racist pseudoscience, including a claim that Black people and white people shouldn’t be on the same vaccine schedules.

Last week, officials in Guinea-Bissau challenged claims that the experiment had been approved, and now it appears to have been stopped in its tracks.

The Guardian reported on Tuesday:

Controversial vaccine researchers who have been praised by Robert F Kennedy Jr, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary, had their offices in Guinea-Bissau raided by judicial police, who seized doses of hepatitis B vaccines, officials said on Facebook. The researchers have been at the heart of an ongoing dispute over research on African newborns, supported by $1.6m from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and matched by the Pershing Square Foundation and the Bluebell Foundation for a total of $3.2m. The police search took place on Monday, involving “investigative procedures aimed at clarifying the circumstances related to the said batch of vaccines”, according to the social media post, which was translated from Portuguese. The announcement noted that seizing the immunizations did not point to “irregularities in the quality, safety, or effectiveness of the vaccines”.

The Department of Health and Human Services did not immediately respond to MS NOW’s request for comment.

But the prospects for the study moving forward seem grim, to say the least. In a LinkedIn post, one of the researchers, Frederik Schaltz-Buchholzer, said on Wednesday that “it is now clear” that the study “will not move forward,” adding that “we were not given the necessary governmental approval.”

When it comes to its relations with Africa, the Trump administration has taken a fundamentally racist approach, seeking to exploit and strip of the continent of its resources, from precious minerals to health data.

And while the administration has seen successes on that front, officials in Guinea-Bissau seem unwilling to comply.

The post RFK Jr.’s push for anti-vaccine experiment on African babies was never a good idea appeared first on MS NOW.

Meta is finally being forced to pay for its near-decade-old falsehoods about the Cambridge Analytica scandal that saw millions of users’ data harvested for political purposes.

On Wednesday, a judge in New Mexico ordered the social media company to pay a $25 billion penalty following a jury’s determination in late September that the company’s executives broke state laws with knowingly false statements they made in the wake of the scandal.

“The extraordinary number of willful violations found by the jury, the duration and repetition of the conduct, the breadth of subjects on which violations occurred, the involvement of senior Facebook leadership, the size of New Mexico audiences reached, and the clear intentional and systematic nature of Facebook’s repeated misstatements established in the trial record support the highest level of penalty allowed by the New Mexico Unfair Practices Act,” New Mexico State District Court Judge Francis Mathew wrote in a court filing.

To refresh your memory, the scandal involved Cambridge Analytica — a political firm financed in part by pro-Trump benefactors — harvesting private data from tens of millions of Facebook users, which was eventually conveyed to members of Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and used for political targeting. To be clear, this case was an entirely separate trial from the other landmark trial Meta lost in New Mexico, which found the company liable for placing profits over consumers and knowingly putting children at risk of harms it knew to exist on its platforms.

As Tech Policy Press reported, the false statements deemed willfully deceptive by the jury include comments from CEO Mark Zuckerberg, former Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg and other executives about things like the company’s response to the Cambridge Analytica scandal, users’ data protections, and misinformation and hate speech on its platforms.

For example, the statements include comments from both Zuckerberg and Sandberg about when access to users’ private data was closed off. They also include a comment from Zuckerberg in 2017 saying that Meta — then known as Facebook — had “always taken down any post that promotes or celebrates hate crimes or acts of terrorism.” Another comment deemed willfully deceptive came from Zuckerberg in 2020, when he claimed there were no exceptions for politicians who broke the platforms’ rules about content that “may lead to violence or deprive people of their right to vote.” The jury also found willfully deceptive a 2020 comment from former Meta executive Nick Clegg, who claimed that Meta “doesn’t profit from hate” and that the company applied a “zero tolerance approach” to hateful posts on Facebook and Instagram.

Meta, which has allegedly assisted the Trump administration’s efforts to suppress free speech and target critics of federal officials, disputed the jury’s ruling in September, vowing to appeal it and framing its actions as a free speech matter.

As the Santa Fe New Mexican reported: “‘Meta’s platforms are forums for free expression. We have a First Amendment right to manage those platforms in a way we believe best serves the interests of our community,’ the spokesperson wrote in an email. ‘This means prioritizing free speech, protecting our users’ information and giving them control over their data.’”

The post Meta ordered to pay $25 billion over data privacy deception appeared first on MS NOW.

Most Americans probably understand that politics can be an ugly business. As long as there have been campaigns, there have been candidates and parties trying to appeal to voters’ worst instincts by aiming for the gutter.

But once in a while, a campaign ad comes along that manages to disgust a wide variety of decent people, regardless of party or ideology. MS NOW reported:

In a new, unaired attack ad against Amy Acton, the Democrat running for governor of Ohio, her estranged mother speaks directly to the camera to accuse her of lying about her past.

“Don’t vote for people who lie,” says Donna Arthur — who married a man whom Acton accused of sexually abusing her as a child — in the video.

The campaign team for Vivek Ramaswamy, Acton’s Republican rival, confirmed to The Associated Press that it produced the ad and plans to spend $4 million airing it, apparently indifferent to the condemnations.

“It’s not surprising that Vivek Ramaswamy has stooped to such a despicable low as to attempt to turn the sexual abuse Amy endured at 12 years old from our birth mother’s husband into a political talking point,” Acton’s brother, Philip Stearns, said in a statement.

“After he was arrested and Amy and I were removed from their custody, our birth mother stayed married to Amy’s rapist until he died,” Stearns added. “This desperate, disgusting attack reveals exactly who Vivek Ramaswamy is at his core — a pathetic excuse for a man who is willing to hurt anyone as long as it gets him what he wants.”

Plenty of Republicans also slammed the vile attack, including former GOP presidential contender Nikki Haley, who said via social media that Ramaswamy is “a bad guy.”

One day later, however, JD Vance traveled to Ohio, in large part in the hopes of boosting Ramaswamy, who’s trailed Acton in several recent statewide polls, with time running out in the election cycle. Any chance the vice president might take the high road on the year’s most offensive attack ad?

Evidently not.

On Wednesday morning, Vance, himself an Ohio Republican, initially said the propriety of the ad (or lack thereof) was “not really my concern.” But he didn’t stop there.

Reporter: "Vivek Ramaswamy's campaign put out a controversial ad featuring his opponent's mother…was [that] appropriate?"Vance: "I'm a little bit disgusted when I see Republicans…whining more about that ad than they are about what…Democrats want to do to the United States of America."

— The Bulwark (@thebulwark.com) 2026-10-21T16:25:47.443Z

“I have to admit that I’m a little bit disgusted when I see Republicans across the country who are whining more about that advertisement than they are about what the congressional Democrats and other Democrats want to do to the United States of America,” the vice president said.

In other words, Vance isn’t disgusted by the ad, which features a woman who sided with her alleged rapist husband over her own daughter, whom she calls a “liar”; Vance is disgusted by Republicans who have a problem with that ad.

Soon after, the vice president headlined a rally and went even further, insisting that the commercial “calls it out like it is.” Vance went on to accuse Acton of somehow controlling independent news organizations, adding that Ramaswamy has never complained about any of the criticisms he’s faced — which might be credible if anyone had ever targeted the GOP nominee with an ad this abhorrent.

We’ll see soon enough whether the commercial ends up backfiring on Ramaswamy, who almost certainly wouldn’t have pursued such an attack if he thought he was likely to win the gubernatorial race. But in the meantime, Vance just faced a test of his personal character, and he flunked.

The post JD Vance is ‘disgusted,’ not by Ramaswamy’s vile ad but by its bipartisan critics appeared first on MS NOW.

After living with a multiple sclerosis diagnosis for five years, Emmy Award-winning actress Christina Applegate, who co-hosts the “MeSsy” podcast with actress Jamie Lynn Sigler, has now been told she doesn’t have it. On“MeSsy,” Applegate and Sigler, who was also diagnosed with MS, allow themselves to be “vulnerable about the curveballs that life can throw,” and what bigger curveball is there than the news that the symptoms you’ve been experiencing no longer have an explanation?

Applegate said her physician congratulated her for not having MS. But, as she said on the podcast, “I’m back at square one where I don’t know what’s going on with me.” Now, she said, doctors have to figure out “what has been going on since 2021, why did this happen?”

I was formally diagnosed with relapse-remitting multiple sclerosis in 2014 after a grueling path to a diagnosis. I can only imagine how demoralizing it is for Applegate to be back to “square one.”

MS is an autoimmune disorder where the body attacks its own central nervous system and can lead to significant disabilities. I was formally diagnosed with relapse-remitting MS in 2014 after a grueling path to a diagnosis. I can only imagine how demoralizing it is for Applegate to be back to “square one.” An estimated 20% of people diagnosed with MS do not, in fact, have it. Even more alarming is that many improperly diagnosed MS patients may have received incorrect treatment for decades.

I was initially diagnosed with something not as severe as MS. I was prescribed hormone replacement therapy medication to address a then-unknown ailment, which landed me in an emergency room with heart palpitations. My primary symptoms— a debilitated left foot, a raining sensation inside my head and coldness/numbness of my joints — persisted for 9 months as I cycled in and out of doctor visits.

A second MRI confirmed that the hormone replacement therapy was not working. A lumbar puncture procedure — that is, a spinal tap — showed elevated protein levels in my spinal fluid, identifying MS as the culprit.

The actress Christina Applegate, who received a multiple sclerosis diagnosis in 2021, said on Tuesday that she had been unexpectedly plunged back into uncertainty after a doctor told her she didn’t have the neurodegenerative disorder, after all. nyti.ms/4yx4lxY

— The New York Times (@nytimes.com) 2026-10-20T20:30:07.384000Z

After months of uncertainty, I was not thrilled with the results, but at least I had a name for what I was dealing with. The news of Applegate’s misdiagnosis, however, has raised a different set of concerns for me. Now I can’t help but worry that all my co-pays, all my fights with insurance companies to continue my prescription schedule, the excessive bloodwork, the bi-annual MRIs and my research, agony and self-advocacy have been misdirected for a dozen years.

Because if our healthcare system can misdiagnose someone who’s a household name with an illness that affects nearly 3 million people worldwide (including 1 million people in the United States), then those of us with lesser means and visibility can be forgiven for fearing that — despite our past certainty — we might actually be in the throes of an unknown ailment.

Applegate has celebrity and a big platform, and had it not been for her steadfast advocacy, she might still be under the wrong impression that she has MS. But what about the other 20% of misdiagnosed MS patients who may never know they’re misdiagnosed because they do not have the financial or social capital to deepen the investigation into what is actually ailing them? Though Dr. Robert Bermel, the director of the Mellen Center for MS at Cleveland Clinic, told CBS News that the most commonly used treatments wouldn’t hurt a person misdiagnosed with MS, that doesn’t mean such a person won’t worry that they haven’t been made worse off.

Sigler and Applegate were joined on “MeSsy” by Dr. Marwa Kaisey, associate professor with the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center department of neurology, who explained that MS misdiagnoses are so common because there is no single MS test.

Her doctor should have known that telling her that she doesn’t have MS wouldn’t be comforting, that she wouldn’t want to be congratulated, especially since it’s now unclear what she does have.

A patient might be suffering from another autoimmune disorder, such as fibromyalgia, or even migraines, Bermel told CBS. Dr. Josef Gutman, the director of NYU Langone’s Long Island Comprehensive MS Care Center, told the network that the relevant “symptoms are not necessarily specific in a lot of ways. It’s sort of the story, combined with MRI imaging, combined with other markers like spinal fluid, that help us make the MS diagnosis.” Bermel said new MS diagnostic criteria were just published last year, and that those new criteria should help prevent future misdiagnoses.

In Applegate’s case, her doctor should have known that telling her that she doesn’t have MS wouldn’t be comforting, that she wouldn’t want to be congratulated, especially since it’s now unclear what she does have.

Twelve years into my diagnosis, there are occasional relapses when the disease gets more aggressive, and the general fatigue that comes with living with an autoimmune illness, but I have mastered how to manage what I believe is ailing me, and living with MS hasn’t stopped me from achieving many of my dreams as a working artist, or from doing something in 2021 that seemed impossible in 2014: completing a 15-mile hike.

I hope Applegate’s reset does not send her down a futile path for answers. I have come too far to even consider the psychological and emotional toll of going back to square one.

The post Why Christina Applegate’s MS misdiagnosis is so unsettling appeared first on MS NOW.

A group of veterans has made very serious claims about contaminated water at Camp Lejeune, a U.S. Marine Corps training facility in North Carolina. The fact that Donald Trump brought this up at his latest campaign rally in the state was unexpected, but more important still is what the president promised to do.

Trump on Camp Lejeune water contamination claims: "If we win the House and Senate, I am directing the Department of Justice to settle all remaining legitimate claims as soon as possible … if we don't win, there's no money."

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-10-21T00:56:42.020Z

“[I]f we win the House and the Senate,” he said, referring to Republicans, “I am directing the Department of Justice to settle all remaining legitimate claims as soon as possible and get it off the books and get it finished.”

Trump added moments later, however, “If we don’t win, there’s no money. If we do win, you’re getting it.”

For now, let’s not dwell on the fact that, in the recent past, it would’ve been considered a real controversy for an incumbent to talk about “directing” his Justice Department to do much of anything.

Instead, what we’re left with is another extraordinary example of Trump’s radical approach to transactional politics: He’ll deliver worthwhile results, the president keeps saying, but only if voters make him happy by delivering the election results he wants to see.

Consider the recent pattern:

Sept. 16: Trump told a North Carolina audience he wouldn’t approve federal disaster relief funds for the state unless they elected former Republican National Committee Chair Michael Whatley to the Senate. (He seemed to be kidding about this, though it wasn’t funny, and with him, it’s sometimes tough to tell.)

Oct. 3: Trump told an Ohio audience that his administration would “very strongly” consider the state for the Space Force Academy, but only if Republicans win in the midterms.

Oct. 3: At the same campaign rally, the president said he might look unfavorably at the state’s future emergency aid requests if they don’t elect a Republican governor.

Oct. 17: Trump told a Kentucky audience that his administration would invest in a local economic revitalization project, but only if his preferred GOP Senate candidate won.

Oct. 19: Trump told a Kansas audience he was prepared to approve a yearlong waiver for selling fuel blended with 15% ethanol (the E15 policy), but if Kansans elect a Democratic senator, “I’m not doing it.”

Almost daily: At effectively every 2026 campaign rally, Trump vows to send $5,000 checks to every American adult — but only if the election results make him happy. (On Tuesday night in North Carolina, the president explicitly said, “If we lose, you get nothing. You’re going to get nothing. If we lose, you get nothing.”)

The Camp Lejeune comments were outrageous, but they were clearly part of an unsubtle pattern.

In case this isn’t obvious, there’s nothing about a Democratic-led Congress that would prevent Trump from delivering any of these benefits to any of these states. The president made the policy commitments conditional anyway, not because he had to, but because he chose to.

In any normal American election, candidates tell voters about the kinds of priorities they’ll advance if elected. That’s not controversial in the slightest. What Trump is saying is qualitatively different — and vastly worse. The incumbent Republican is effectively telling voters, in state after state, that he could deliver for them, but if he’s not satisfied with the election results, he simply won’t bother.

So they better make sure he’s satisfied with the election results.

Trump has goodies he wants to hand out, and the public will benefit from his benevolence — unless voters dare to hurt his feelings. This isn’t how elections are supposed to work in a healthy democracy. Evidently, the president doesn’t care.

This post updates our related earlier coverage.

The post Trump’s fixation on transactional politics becomes an election-season scandal appeared first on MS NOW.

This is the Oct. 21, 2026 edition of “The Tea, Spilled by Morning Joe” newsletter. Subscribe here to get it delivered straight to your inbox Monday through Friday.

“Whether it’s in Ohio in the governor’s race or in our foreign policy, we’re seeing moral depravity play out in real time.”

— Mika Brzezinski, Oct. 21, 2026

Ukraine is bracing for a brutal winter. As frigid temperatures approach, Russia has only escalated its attacks as Vladimir Putin seems emboldened by the American president’s recent turn toward Moscow.

Russia’s arms factories have already made enough missiles and drones to take down Ukraine’s electrical grid, as well as the heating systems that millions of people rely on to stay warm. Left dark and cold, many homes across the country will become deadly.

But as I argue in my latest piece for The Atlantic, three upcoming events that could decide Ukraine’s fate will all take place thousands of miles from Kyiv.

The first is America’s Election Day, now less than two weeks away. Ukrainian leaders fear that if Democrats win one or both chambers of Congress, Donald Trump may abandon them further in those final weeks of full Republican control of Washington.

The second is a proposed summit in mid-November in southern China, where Putin hopes to meet with Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping to plan for ending the war — with no seat at the table for Ukraine.

The third is December’s Group of 20 summit, to be held at, where else, the president’s Miami-area golf club. Trump wants Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy to meet there and agree to a deal, even if it’s a bad one for Ukraine.

What’s behind Trump’s latest anger at Ukraine? As I write:

Trump has demanded an energy cease-fire — he even announced one earlier this month that had no basis in reality — yet has focused his ire entirely on Ukraine’s attacks on Russian oil refineries. He blames those strikes for the rise in energy prices while ignoring the real culprit, Iran’s ability to defy the United States and close the Strait of Hormuz. He’s convinced himself, three people close to him have told me, that Ukraine’s attacks on the refineries are, in part, meant to undermine Republicans’ chances next month — and, by extension, Trump.

The president has ignored Moscow’s attacks on Ukraine’s electrical grid, and Monday, hours after a drone strike on a public park killed six people, including two children, he downplayed its strikes on Ukraine’s cities, declaring that Russia had not “been doing much.” An image of one of the dead children, a 1-year-old killed as she sat in her stroller, was broadcast around the globe.

The calendar is now Ukraine’s foe — and so, Ukrainians fear, is Trump.

Read the full piece here.

MORNING JOE FAMILY MEETING

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If you are interested in asking Joe a question directly over video, please let us know. These questions can be about politics, news of the day, or anything else that’s on your mind!

Participants will need to complete a short pre-interview and be available from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. ET on Tuesday, Oct. 27, to take part.

If you’re interested, please fill out this form by Friday, Oct. 23. Participants will be notified via email if selected.

CHARTS OF THE DAY

Source: Reuters/Ipsos poll of 1,679 U.S. adults conducted Oct. 16-19, 2026. Margin of error: +/- 2.4 percentage points

WHAT THEY SAID

John Heilemann on the Ramaswamy campaign’s latest ad

“In 35 years, I’ve never seen an ad that crosses more ethical and moral lines of decency than this one. Amy Acton had about a 5-point lead over Vivek Ramaswamy because Ohio voters don’t like him and don’t think he’s a person of principle. An ad this desperate and disgusting is usually a sign a campaign sees the writing on the wall — that they need to do something dramatic to alter the trajectory of the race.”

Jessica Taylor on the midterms

“If Democrats take back the Senate, it would be a historic night — and it’s not out of the realm of possibility. ‘Morose’ is one of the words that comes to mind from some of my conversations with Republicans.”

David Drucker on what comes after the midterms

“Even if Democrats win control of the Senate to go along with the House, the president is still going to have a veto pen. Democrats are going to have to find those areas where they have leverage and power — and then be willing to negotiate with the president.”

STEVE RATTNER’S CHARTS: THE MONEY MACHINE

With two weeks to go, the Democrats’ momentum shows up not only in the polls but also in their candidates’ fundraising, despite a massive Republican advantage in political action committee cash. Democratic candidates are raising money at a pace that has left their Republican opponents far behind — in some Senate races, by a factor of 5 or 10.

The real Republican advantage comes from super PAC money, with one man playing a disproportionate role: Elon Musk. The Senate Leadership Fund, the main super PAC for Senate Republicans, raised $273 million in the third quarter, an unprecedented sum. Of that, $158 million came from Musk, in two checks written in September.

Democratic candidates themselves, on the other hand, have posted far stronger fundraising numbers than their Republican competitors. Democratic House candidates have raised $1.25 billion this cycle to $966 million for Republicans and hold $414 million in cash to the Republicans’ $320 million.

MS NOW

The post The calendar is now Ukraine’s foe — and so, Ukrainians fear, is Trump appeared first on MS NOW.

MS NOW’s Mika Brzezinski called out Republican Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy for his “sick and depraved” ad targeting his Democratic opponent, Amy Acton. The “Morning Joe” co-host said the controversial video, featuring Acton’s estranged mother, “lumps Republicans in a whole pot of ugly,” and she questioned whether the ad could have “ripple effects” for the party far beyond Ohio.

In the 60-second ad, Donna Arthur, whose husband, Cledith Arthur, was indicted on charges of raping Acton when she was a child, called her daughter a “liar” and said she had “a serious problem.” Acton has not spoken to her mother in almost five decades, after she defended Acton’s stepfather. Cledith Arthur fled the state and was never tried or convicted. Donna and Cledith Arthur remained married until his death in 2004.

When it began to circulate online Monday, the ad’s origin was unclear, but the Ramaswamy campaign confirmed on Tuesday night that it was responsible. Axios reported that the Republican was investing $4 million to air it statewide.

“They’re doubling down on this sick, depraved effort to dirty up their opponent by using Amy Acton’s mother against her,” Brzezinski said on Wednesday morning.

She called the video “as sick as it gets” and “as low as I’ve ever seen it.” She added, “And that’s saying a lot in the age of Trump.”

“There seems to be no lie too ugly for them, no trauma they won’t weaponize, no line they won’t cross for power,” Brzezinski continued. “This is the same Ramaswamy campaign that blamed Acton for a nursing home death that the records contradict. This is also the same party that swore immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating people’s pets.”

“Elections do have consequences, decency being one of them, and Ohio voters have a choice to make on this,” she said.

The MS NOW host predicted that the ad would backfire on the Ramaswamy campaign but wondered “if this will go beyond the Ohio governor’s race.” Brzezinski argued that it might remind voters of the Republican Party’s repeated efforts to block the release of the Epstein files.

“This lumps Republicans in a whole pot of ugly, whether it be from Epstein on down to taking an abused child’s mother and using that mother against the adult child in her campaign,” she said.

You can watch Brzezinski’s full comments in the clip at the top of the page.

The post ‘As low as I’ve ever seen it’: Mika Brzezinski slams Ramaswamy’s Acton ad appeared first on MS NOW.

New York Democratic congressional candidate Brad Lander said he has been released after being detained Wednesday by the Israel Defense Forces while participating in an olive harvest in the occupied West Bank.

“I’ve been released from IDF custody with a ‘warning,’ apparently because of my public profile (I told them I wasn’t even a congressmember yet, just a nominee),” Lander wrote in a post on X Wednesday, after he said on the platform that he was among several rabbis and volunteers who were detained by the IDF. He said some in his group were still being detained.

The former New York City comptroller, who is Jewish and a political ally of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, had said he was traveling to the region with the “Protect the Harvest” coalition. The international organization mobilizes volunteers to the occupied West Bank to support Palestinians during their annual olive harvest — a bedrock of Palestinian life and culture.

“But several dozen rabbis & participants harvesting olives with me are still in detention,” Lander wrote. “For harvesting olives. They should all be released immediately.”

Lander, his campaign and the Israel Defense Forces did not immediately return MS NOW’s request for comment Wednesday.

The Israeli organization Rabbis for Human Rights, which described itself as “the only rabbinic organization in Israel explicitly dedicated to human rights in Israel and the Occupied Territories,” said Wednesday that Lander was detained for “for standing with Palestinians during the olive harvest.”

In a statement to Reuters, the group said Lander was part of a group of volunteers accompanying Palestinian harvesters in a village just outside Bethlehem when Israeli forces arrived and detained the group. The IDF and Israeli Police told the volunteers they were in a closed military zone, which Rabbis for Human Rights said they had no means of knowing.

The Israel Defense Forces said that it, along with authorities from the Judea and Samaria regions, detained a “number of” Palestinian harvesters and “dozens of people” accompanying them because they failed to submit an “an advance request to the relevant authorities before the start of the harvest season.”

“Coordinating the harvest is required in order to ensure the maintenance of security in the area and public order,” the IDF said in the statement.

In his post announcing his release, Lander said: “To be clear: Palestinians face far worse consequences every day. These detentions by the IDF are one more attempt to undermine Palestinians’ right to harvest their olive groves, travel on their roads, and live in their homes. Yet one more element of escalating, and very clearly state-sponsored ethnic cleansing.”

The incident comes as violence from Israeli settlers toward Palestinians in the occupied West Bank is on the rise ahead of Israel’s Oct. 27 elections.

Washington Post photojournalist Heidi Levine was injured last week while documenting an attack by a group of masked Israeli settlers on Palestinians who had gathered to harvest olives near the village of Abu Falah. The next day, settlers attacked European diplomats. The Israel police said last week they had arrested 10 people suspected of participating in the violent attacks.

Lander edged out incumbent Rep. Dan Goldman in the Democratic primary for New York’s deep blue 10th congressional district, which spans lower Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn. The two men sparred over their views on Israel during that race, with Lander focusing on his opposition to U.S. military aid for Israel.

Mamdani — who drew the ire of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after he called on the federal government to pursue his arrest — buoyed Lander’s campaign with an early endorsement.

Netanyahu is running for re-election next week in the country’s first election since the brutal Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack in Gaza and the Israel-Hamas war. He has compared Mamdani to the leaders of the Iran-backed terrorist organization Hezbollah on campaign billboards across Israel.

On Sunday, President Donald Trump endorsed Netanyahu for reelection. Trump praised the Israeli Prime Minister as a “great warrior prime minister” and bastion of peace.

The post New York Democratic candidate released by Israeli forces after being detained in West Bank appeared first on MS NOW.

With Americans deciding the congressional balance of power in November’s midterm elections, Justice Elena Kagan is reminding the nation of how the Supreme Court’s decisions have shaped the ballot.

It’s an antidemocratic shape, according to the Obama-appointed justice’s remarks Tuesday at Catholic University’s law school in Washington.

Kagan said the court “has kind of blinded itself to the very deleterious effect of their rulings on how the political system works and has created a democracy that does not work as well as it should.”

Her off-bench comments reprised impassioned criticisms she has made in dissenting opinions from the GOP-appointed majority’s rulings on gerrymandering in 2019 and earlier this year on the Voting Rights Act and campaign finance.

In 2019’s Rucho v. Common Cause, the majority said partisan gerrymandering claims present “political questions” that courts can’t answer. Writing the dissent for what was then a four-justice minority, she said the case marked “the first time ever” that the court “refuses to remedy a constitutional violation because it thinks the task beyond judicial capabilities.”

Writing for the current three-justice minority this year, Kagan called the six-justice majority’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais the “latest chapter in the majority’s now-completed demolition of the Voting Rights Act.” Leading the same trio on campaign finance, in dissent from a ruling that struck down more limits and overturned another precedent in the process, she said the majority “jettisons a rule needed to protect our democracy’s integrity.”

On Tuesday, she said the American people “look around this political system and think that all this money chasing all these political candidates is a nightmare.” She added, “And they’re right.”

The justices are in between their October and November hearing sessions, but they will continue to field any emergency applications that come to them regarding the midterms or anything else. Currently, there is a pending application from New Hampshire Republicans to prevent the use of student IDs in voting.

The justices have weighed in on an array of election disputes already this year — and they haven’t always backed the GOP. But whatever the outcome in the midterms, Kagan’s comments provide a useful backdrop for understanding the political landscape the court has helped set.

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Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.

* With less than two weeks remaining in the election cycle, and with early voting underway in much of the country, a new national poll from The New York Times and Siena University offers nothing but good news for Democrats.

For example, the survey found Democrats with an 11-poing advantage over Republicans on the generic congressional ballot, 52% to 41%. The same poll showed Democrats ahead on every major issue, as well as big leads on questions such as which party “understands the problems facing people like me,” best represents “the working class,” can “fix the problems facing people like me” and “keeps its promises.”

The latest national CNN poll pointed in largely the same direction and showed Democrats ahead on the generic congressional ballot by 10 points, 49% to 39%.

* As if Republican Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas weren’t already struggling enough, an MS NOW analysis of the incumbent’s campaign-finance filings found that the senator still has no one on his campaign payroll, reinforcing ongoing concerns that Marshall is using his taxpayer-funded Senate staff for campaign purposes.

* In Michigan’s closely watched U.S. Senate race, the latest Marist poll found Democrat Abdul El-Sayed with a narrow lead over former Republican Rep. Mike Rogers, 50% to 48%.

* Donald Trump held a campaign rally in North Carolina on Tuesday on behalf of Senate hopeful Michael Whatley, though the president seemed to concede that he expects former Gov. Roy Cooper to win the race. “He’s going to become your senator and it’s crazy,” Trump said, referring to the Democratic nominee.

* Though several billionaires have already taken steps to give Republicans a boost in the midterm elections, one notable billionaire is suddenly stepping up on behalf of Democrats: Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced a new $80 million investment in support of Democratic efforts to reclaim a congressional majority.

* In case campaign ads created by artificial intelligence weren’t bad enough, Democrats are fighting GOP-led efforts to use AI-generated robocalls ahead of this year’s elections.

* Florida Republicans are so concerned about a new Democratic ad highlighting the Hope Florida scandal that GOP officials are threatening to criminally prosecute television stations that air the commercial.

Meanwhile, in Florida’s gubernatorial race, the Democratic Governors Association is making a new $1 million investment in support of Rep. David Jolly’s candidacy. And on Tuesday, Bill Clinton campaigned with Jolly in the former president’s first appearance of the cycle.

* And in New Hampshire’s closely watched U.S. Senate race, former Sen. John Sununu has a new attack ad that takes aim at House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, despite the fact that the California Democrat hasn’t been a congressional leader in nearly four years, and despite the fact that she’s retiring this year. This won’t help the Republican candidate shake off criticisms that he’s more focused on the past than the future.

The post Wednesday’s Campaign Round-Up, 10.21.26: Democrats’ lead grows on the generic ballot appeared first on MS NOW.