Today’s edition of quick hits.

* In France: “French President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday voiced the public’s ‘anger’ and ‘shame’ over rioting and looting during nationwide protests against rising living costs and poor conditions in schools. At least 1,800 people have been arrested.”

* On a related note: “French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu says he has instructed prefects to impose ‘very limited’ and ‘localized’ curfews in cities to prevent more rioting and looting, after this weekend’s violence targeted city halls, other public buildings and hundreds of businesses across the country.”

* In Ukraine: “Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged supporters Saturday to speak out in defense of new U.S. sanctions against Russia, hours after President Donald Trump signed an executive order pausing a sweeping package of restrictions targeting the Russian economy.”

* On a related note: “Zelenskyy also said Saturday that Moscow had carried out a massive strike on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, targeting more than 15 sites across the country. ‘The sheer scale and unrelenting pace of Russia’s strikes, specifically against our energy sector, are unfortunately having severe consequences,’ he said.”

* The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo “has reached an eighth province in the country’s north, authorities said on Sunday as the spread of the world’s fastest-growing outbreak of the disease on record continues to outpace response efforts.”

* Weather forecasting matters: “The Trump administration’s cuts to weather satellites will set the country back nearly a decade, experts say. The loss of data used to observe, forecast and research extreme weather could prevent the country from making major advances in weather prediction in the coming years. This finding comes from a new report released Friday from the Government Accountability Office, and a letter sent to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on Monday from Democratic lawmakers.”

* A committee of judicial investigators found there’s a “reasonable basis” to believe U.S. District Judge Ada Brown suffers from a mental condition: “A committee of judicial investigators said that a federal judge in Dallas abandoned her role and recommended she be temporarily stripped of her docket, according to internal court documents shared with Bloomberg Law. US District Judge Ada Brown of the Northern District of Texas is facing a judicial misconduct proceeding over several allegations, including the mishandling of her docket and treating other judges and court staff ‘in a demonstrably egregious and hostile manner,’ those documents state.”

* Dan Scavino discloses a windfall: “President Donald Trump’s longtime White House social media guru scored a seven-figure payday last year from the president’s social media company, according to a new federal financial disclosure.”

See you tomorrow.

The post Monday’s Mini-Report, 10.19.26 appeared first on MS NOW.

In a planning document released last month, the National Park Service conceded that the “triumphal arch” that President Donald Trump is desperate to build would cause “adverse effects” to nearby historic properties and monuments if construction advances as planned.

But, the administration added, the wildly unnecessary and legally dubious project is moving forward anyway.

A week later, the campaign to build one of the president’s many vanity projects took a rather farcical turn when Trump said, in apparent seriousness, that he planned to convert the 250-foot project into a “top grade military complex” to house drones. In case that wasn’t quite laughable enough, the Republican — who claimed to be acting in response to a “strong request” from unnamed Armed Forces personnel — added that the arch would also feature snipers on the roof, along with “large quantities of sniper ammunition in storage.”

Democratic Rep. Don Beyer of Virginia, whose congressional district includes the area in question, called the president’s latest argument “stupid” and “idiotic,” adding, “Trump clearly expects to lose a lawsuit and therefore wants to set up a pretext to argue that the arch is tied to national security.”

And therein lay the point. When Trump was worried about the litigation surrounding the White House ballroom vanity project, he shifted his rhetorical focus to pretend the project had a national security component. It wasn’t the case, but someone apparently explained to him that federal courts have traditionally given presidents wide latitude to pursue national security priorities, giving him the apparent idea of trying to pull the same trick twice.

At least, that was the plan. The Washington Post reported:

The Trump administration on Friday released final plans for President Donald Trump’s 250-foot-tall triumphal arch that do not include drones, snipers or other features of the “military complex” that Trump said he would add to the project.

The National Capital Planning Commission, a federal panel that reviews major construction projects, posted new renderings and accompanying documents provided by the Interior Department, which is overseeing the controversial project. None of the new documents mentions a military purpose for the arch, with officials instead offering information on planned tourist visits and other ceremonial functions.

So, is that it? If the final plan excludes the absurd “military complex” elements, is it safe to say that even the Trump administration has moved on from this nonsense?

Alas, no. The White House told the Post that Trump’s plans hadn’t changed, and information related to a national security component for the arch may yet be released at a later date.

Whether that’s true is unclear, although in the meantime, a group of U.S. military veterans is moving forward with legal efforts to prevent work on the project from getting started in earnest. Watch this space.

This post updates our related earlier coverage.

The post Trump’s own team hedges on ‘military complex’ component of ‘triumphal arch’ appeared first on MS NOW.

In January 2017, with only a couple of days remaining in Barack Obama’s presidency, the Democrat held a White House press conference in which he explained his vision of occasional political intervention.

“There’s a difference,” the outgoing president explained, “between that normal functioning of politics and certain issues or certain moments where I think our core values may be at stake.”

In other words, Obama was sending a signal to the public: If people were looking to him to condemn everything Donald Trump did on a near-daily basis, they were likely to be disappointed. Once in a great while, however, the former president might feel the need to step up and defend fundamental American principles.

Obama has largely kept that pledge, steering clear of the day-to-day political arena, but over the weekend, he made the latest in a series of exceptions. MS NOW reported:

Former President Barack Obama issued a rare statement Sunday rebuking the Trump administration for targeting the president’s political enemies, namely for launching a federal investigation into Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota.

“It is a basic principle of American democracy that the government can’t selectively target individuals simply because of their political beliefs or what they say,” Obama said in a lengthy statement shared on social media. “But that’s exactly what the Trump Administration is doing to Congresswoman Ilhan Omar of Minnesota.”

Obama’s online statement went on to characterize the Republican administration’s crusade against Omar as “appalling.” He added, “The full weight of the federal government is being brought down on a law-abiding elected official because she has dared to criticize the president. And it’s not the first time this has happened. Under President Trump, the Justice Department has repeatedly gone after those he considers his political enemies — from the Attorney General of New York, to the former head of the FBI, to members of the Federal Reserve.

“In those cases, the prosecutions either stalled or were dismissed for having no basis in law, and the same is likely to happen in this case. But not before Congresswoman Omar’s life has been turned upside down, her legal bills have piled up, and she’s been forced to spend time fighting unsubstantiated charges instead of serving the people of Minnesota.

“The fact that any president, or any administration, is willing to engage in such transparent efforts to intimidate someone should outrage all Americans, regardless of how they feel about Congresswoman Omar’s political views. Because if this becomes the new normal, there’s no reason to believe it will stop with her — or that future presidents, in either party, won’t do the same.”

Or put another way, Team Trump’s radical offensive against the congresswoman represents a clear example in which “our core values may be at stake.”

There’s overwhelming evidence to bolster the former president’s case.

Federal investigators, acting at Trump’s behest and ignoring the 60-day “blackout period” before the election, seized the laptop, cellphone and passport of a sitting member of Congress as part of an apparent campaign to strip Omar of her citizenship and ultimately deport her in response to evidence that does not appear to exist.

Throughout history, there have been countless clashes between presidents and members of Congress, but there is no modern precedent for an incumbent chief executive trying to misuse the levers of federal power in the hopes of kicking a sitting elected lawmaker out of the country.

The New York Times’ Michelle Goldberg added in her latest column, “This is more than just another persecution of one of Trump’s political enemies. Rather, his government is tacitly declaring the citizenship of all foreign-born people provisional, their Americanness something that can be revoked. It’s a frontal attack on the idea of constitutional equality. As Hannah Arendt wrote — a quote that the writer John Ganz reminded me of — ‘One is almost tempted to measure the degree of totalitarian infection by the extent to which the concerned governments use their sovereign right of denationalization.’”

Hours after Goldberg’s column ran, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin appeared on conservative media outlet Real America’s Voice and said the Republican administration is considering a possible “RICO case” against Omar, referring to the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, which has traditionally been used against organized crime figures.

For what it’s worth, The Washington Post reported last week that in 2019, Team Trump also ordered an investigation into Omar’s immigration records, though the “investigation was eventually abandoned” for lack of evidence.

Seven years later, the sequel to this abuse is ongoing — and significantly worse.

The post Why Obama felt compelled to condemn Team Trump’s crusade against Ilhan Omar appeared first on MS NOW.

About a month ago, JD Vance appeared on a conservative podcast and assured the hosts and their listeners that the Trump administration is “serious” about reducing the budget deficit.

Like so much of what the vice president tells the public, his rhetoric was discredited by reality. The New York Times reported:

The United States budget deficit approached $2 trillion in the 2026 fiscal year, its highest level since the pandemic, as spending on the military, safety net programs and interest on the debt dwarfed the Trump administration’s cost cuts, Treasury Department figures showed on Friday.

The widening gap between what the government spends and what it collects in taxes and other revenue comes at a critical moment. Investors are nervous about America’s surging debt load, along with stubborn inflation, and have driven up borrowing costs.

Roughly three weeks after the end of the 2025-2026 fiscal year, the Treasury Department reported that the government spent $1.99 trillion more than it took in. That massive deficit reflected an increase of roughly $217 billion from a year earlier.

There’s no great mystery as to why this happened — among other things, Republicans approved massive tax breaks last year and began financing the war with Iran in late February — and there’s no reason to believe the nation’s fiscal health will improve anytime soon.

As the public considers the implications of this, here are a handful of things to keep in mind:

The economic circumstances suggest deficits this enormous shouldn’t happen. When the nation is facing a crisis, such as responding to a pandemic or an economic crash, it makes sense for the government to take on more debt. But there was no actual crisis during the last fiscal year, making the roughly $2 trillion annual deficit that much more difficult to defend.

The problem is getting worse faster than anyone expected. When the nation’s overall debt reached $40 trillion a couple of months ago, The Washington Post reported that we’re racking up debt faster than earlier independent analyses thanks almost entirely to the cost of GOP tax breaks, the war with Iran and the White House’s failed tariffs agenda. The article added, “The faster accumulation of debt comes at a perilous moment. An array of concerns, including inflation, the war in Iran and rising debt levels around the world, are driving investors to dump government bonds.”

Trump promised voters a very different outcome. As a candidate in 2016, the Republican told voters he had unique expertise in budgetary issues that would enable him to eliminate the deficit and start paying down the debt. Trump delivered the opposite results, adding nearly $7.8 trillion to the national debt in just one term, and most of that total was racked up before the Covid-19 crisis. As a candidate in 2024, he repeated his earlier promises, before again delivering the opposite results: Trump has added nearly $4 trillion in debt since returning to the White House early last year.

Eight years ago, Trump appeared on Sean Hannity’s radio show and reflected on the nation’s fiscal health. “We have $21 trillion in debt … a number that is unthinkable,” the president said in July 2018. “But that will go down very quickly.” Eight years later, the debt has nearly doubled.

Trump and congressional Republicans are to blame. For those concerned about the deficit and the debt, there’s no point in seeing this as a “both sides” issue. Republican policies made this happen.

Trump and congressional Republicans don’t seem to care. For decades, Republican officials have expressed hysterical concerns about “fiscal responsibility” every time there’s been a Democratic president. Indeed, younger readers might find this difficult to believe, but in the not-too-distant past, Republicans treated the budget deficit as one of the single-most important crises facing the country. The gap between what the government spends and what it takes in, GOP officials said, threatened to bankrupt the nation, crash the economy and ruin the lives of our children and grandchildren.

But as last year’s deficit nearly reached the $2 trillion mark, and the debt passes the $40 trillion mark, those same Republicans are silent on the issue.

Trump and congressional Republicans aren’t even pretending to have a plan to address this. It’s not as if the GOP has a bad plan to get the nation’s fiscal house in order; it’s that the party isn’t even trying to address the issue at all.

Earlier Republican warnings suddenly look ridiculous. Throughout Barack Obama’s presidency, GOP officials said that if the national debt eclipsed the size of the overall economy, it would spell immediate doom. For the first time since World War II, the national debt has now eclipsed the size of the overall economy as Republicans pretend that the economy has reached its “golden age.”

Remember 1998? Around this time 28 years ago, Bill Clinton proudly declared that the deficit was officially gone, and record surpluses soon followed. At the time, the United States was on track to do the unthinkable: to pay off its national debt. Republican governance soon followed, which set us on a path to $40 trillion in debt.

The historical pattern is worth remembering. Despite the conventional wisdom about which party has credibility on fiscal issues, budget deficits have grown by massive amounts under every Republican administration (Reagan, Bush 1, Bush 2 and Trump), while shrinking under every Democratic administration (Clinton, Obama and Biden).

The next Democratic president needs to be prepared. Time will tell who prevails in the 2028 presidential election, but if it’s a Democrat, they need to understand that they’re inheriting a severe budgetary mess, which will be met by a new round of GOP hysterics about the mess that Republicans themselves created.

This post updates our related earlier coverage.

The post Massive budget deficit adds to growing list of Trump’s broken promises appeared first on MS NOW.

It was about a month ago when MS NOW reported on a Russian disinformation campaign targeting the U.S. midterm elections, featuring doctored selfie videos of Hollywood celebrities. The project — one of the first documented Kremlin-backed operations of this year’s election cycle — was specifically designed to undermine support for Democrats and to boost Republicans.

With only about two weeks remaining before Election Day, the efforts are apparently intensifying. Bloomberg News reported:

Russian disinformation operators are deploying an army of bots to inflate view counts of fictitious posts about celebrities and Democratic candidates ahead of the US midterm elections.

AI-fabricated video clips of well-known actors and musicians — including Robert De Niro, Julia Roberts and Cher — attacking Democrats began appearing on X in early September, some urging people to join a campaign dubbed #AllDemocratsAreCriminals. Scores of other clips have made false allegations of corruption and improprieties by Democratic candidates.

A related report in The New York Times noted that “an online influence operation backed by the Russian government has been stepping up its attempts to sow division in the United States.” The report added that the project has targeted Democrats “with negative content,” becoming “the latest effort by Russia to harm the party and support President Trump.”

It’s an important detail, not just because Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime appears desperate to help Republicans, but also because of the familiarity of the circumstances.

In 2016, Russia targeted U.S. elections. There used to be a bipartisan consensus on this obvious, uncontested fact.

In 2018, Russia targeted U.S. elections. Though Trump, for reasons that have never been explained, rejected his own country’s intelligence on the matter, the United States’ top national security officials made it categorically clear that Russia took deliberate steps to interfere in the midterm cycle.

In 2020, Russia targeted U.S. elections. In fact, intelligence officials told Congress about evidence that showed Russia was interfering in the 2020 campaign for the express purpose of trying to secure a second term for Trump.

In 2022, Russia targeted U.S. elections. In fact, The Wall Street Journal reported a few years ago, “The Russian government and its proxies attempted to denigrate the Democratic Party and undermine voter confidence ahead of the 2022 midterm elections.”

In 2024, Russia again targeted U.S. elections, specifically in the hopes of electing Republicans who would oppose American military aid to Ukraine.

And in 2026, it’s happening once again.

In each instance, Moscow wasn’t simply trying to sow chaos. As this unsubtle pattern unfolded, Russian operations specifically tried to help one party (Republicans) and hurt the other (Democrats).

Two year ago, Jake Sullivan, the White House national security adviser, appeared on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” and said that there’s “plenty of reason to be concerned” about Russia trying to interfere in another American election.

Sullivan added, “[T]his is not about politics. This is about national security. It is about a foreign country — a foreign adversary — seeking to manipulate the politics and democracy of the United States of America.”

Two years later, the current White House national security adviser, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, has invested far less time and effort into denouncing the Kremlin’s operations, and congressional Republicans tend to have effectively nothing to say about Russian intervention.

For its latest report, the Times spoke to a senior researcher at Graphika, a threat analysis company, who said the Russian tactics “give us a glimpse of what their objectives are,” adding, “They’re not targeting Republican candidates in the same way.”

This post updates our related earlier coverage.

The post As Election Day nears, Russia steps up efforts to boost Republicans appeared first on MS NOW.

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

* With just two weeks remaining in the election cycle and early voting underway in much of the country, the latest Washington Post/ABC News/Ipsos survey offered Donald Trump another round of bad news: The president’s approval rating has reached a record low of 33% in this poll. But for Republicans, that’s not necessarily the worst part.

The same results included a generic congressional ballot and found Democrats with an eight-point advantage over the GOP, 52% to 44%. As recently as July, the same outlet showed Democrats with a three-point edge.

This dovetailed with the latest NBC News/SurveyMonkey poll, which showed Democrats with a 10-point lead over Republicans on the generic ballot, 55% to 45%.

* Artificial intelligence-generated campaign advertising has become an intensifying problem in this year’s election cycle, but it’s not altogether a bipartisan problem: A New York Times analysis found that more than 80% of the ads created by AI “were produced by Republican campaigns or Republican-aligned political action committees.”

* In Ohio’s closely watched statewide races, the latest Bowling Green State University poll found former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown leading incumbent Republican Sen. Jon Husted, 48% to 42%. A month ago, the same pollster showed Brown ahead by three points.

As for the state’s gubernatorial race, the same survey data found Amy Acton, the Democratic nominee, leading Vivek Ramaswamy by the same six-point margin, 50% to 44%.

* In Nevada, retiring Republican Rep. Mark Amodei continues to tear into his own party’s would-be successor. The outgoing congressman reiterated over the weekend that he would “absolutely not” vote for David Flippo in Nevada’s 2nd Congressional District, adding that, as far as Amodei is concerned, his seat is “at risk” for flipping from red to blue.

* In Massachusetts, Shawn Oliver, the Republicans’ lieutenant governor nominee, suspended his candidacy over the weekend. One day earlier, he was arrested for allegedly driving under the influence and striking five parked cars. According to local police, Oliver also allegedly flipped his own car during the incident.

* House Speaker Mike Johnson said during an interview over the weekend that independent news organizations are secretly conspiring with independent polling firms to release deceptive survey data as part of a plot to “discourage” GOP voters. The Louisiana Republican did not appear to be kidding.

* The president held a campaign rally in Georgia late last week, where he insisted that Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff was “never elected” despite his 2020 victory. Trump added that the results were fraudulent, an absurd claim for which he offered no evidence.

* Though the U.S. Senate race in Mississippi continues to look like a real reach for Democrats, Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock is doing his best to rally support for local prosecutor Scott Colom in his race against incumbent Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith.

* And in Maryland, where Republican Rep. Andy Harris threatened to have a student journalist arrested last week for recording him at a public Q&A, the far-right congressman was offered an opportunity late last week to apologize for his bizarre antics. Harris refused.

The post Monday’s Campaign Round-Up, 10.19.26: Generic ballot polls offer Democrats more good news appeared first on MS NOW.

The question isn’t whether Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is failing, since the evidence of his incompetence is overwhelming. Rather, the question is whether the Pentagon chief’s failures have affected his standing.

The answer is readily available. A CNN poll released less than a month ago found Hegseth with a 34% approval rating, suggesting that the former Fox News host was as unpopular as Donald Trump — the president who chose him for the Cabinet. The same survey found Hegseth’s support among Republicans is lower than other prominent administration officials.

These results came on the heels of a related poll from Quinnipiac University, which found only 32% of Americans approved of how the defense secretary was handling his job, while 57% disapproved. To put that in context, a month before the war with Iran got underway, Hegseth’s net approval was 9 points underwater, but by mid-September, he was 25 points underwater.

With this in mind, and as Hegseth becomes something of a national joke, some Democrats appear to be taking advantage of the secretary’s faltering public support. The New York Times reported:

In the final weeks of a midterm congressional battle in which voters’ opposition to the war with Iran has become a major issue, Democrats are increasingly making Mr. Hegseth a main character in their campaign messaging.

It is an effort to turn one of President Trump’s most recognizable cabinet officials — and one who has been an unapologetic and visible cheerleader for a war that polls show is deeply unpopular — into a liability for Republicans’ fighting to keep their seats.

This is not to say every Democrat is incorporating Hegseth into their midterm messaging, but it’s happening enough to get noticed. Indeed, just last week, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries declared at a campaign rally, “One of the first things we’re going to do in the majority, we’re going to run Pete Hegseth out of town.”

The Times’ report added that Hegseth has been of particular interest to Democratic candidates who served in the military, running in districts with deep ties to the armed forces. From the article:

Leela Gray, a retired Army brigadier general challenging Representative Anna Paulina Luna in Florida, has called Mr. Hegseth an “unqualified frat boy.” Cait Conley, an Army combat veteran challenging Representative Mike Lawler in a competitive New York district, has called him a “disgrace.” And JoAnna Mendoza, a retired Marine running against Representative Juan Ciscomani in Arizona, has criticized his treatment of women in the military.

In South Carolina, Nancy Lacore, a retired three-star Navy admiral whom Mr. Hegseth removed as chief of the Navy Reserve last year without publicly explaining why, has made his leadership of the Pentagon an issue in her congressional campaign.

We’ll learn soon enough whether these campaign tactics are effective, but I’m struck by the historical oddity of the circumstances. Indeed, looking back at Hegseth’s recent predecessors — Lloyd Austin, Mark Esper, James Mattis, Ash Carter et al. — these secretaries, during their tenures, were not widely known to the American mainstream. There wouldn’t have been any point to including them in attack ads.

But in 2026, Hegseth’s public profile is much higher — and not in a good way.

The post As Hegseth’s public standing sinks, Democrats make him part of their midterm message appeared first on MS NOW.

As 2026 got underway, national polling didn’t just show that Donald Trump’s approval rating had sunk to embarrassing lows, it also showed a more specific problem: Roughly two-thirds of Americans were convinced the president simply had the wrong priorities.

Last month, we saw fresh evidence that this impression had actually intensified. A CNN poll found that 76% of Americans — a record high — agreed that Trump hadn’t paid enough attention to the country’s most important problems. This dovetailed with a Quinnipiac poll that found that 68% of Americans believed he was not focused enough on “addressing the problems most Americans are facing.”

With roughly two weeks remaining before the midterm elections, and with early voting underway across much of the United States, it’s tempting to think the Republican Party’s leader and most powerful voice would be eager to disprove these impressions. Instead, Trump is doing the opposite.

The Associated Press reported:

President Donald Trump on Sunday announced plans to close a historic public golf course in the nation’s capital for 15 months and redevelop it despite a court challenge to his long-sought renovation.

Trump posted on social media about his intent to shutter the East Potomac Golf Course, not far from the White House, starting Nov. 15 to make it “one of the Best and Most Spectacular Golf Courses anywhere in the World.”

If the underlying story sounds at all familiar, it’s probably because the ongoing legal fight has generated a lot of headlines. Indeed, as recently as last week, U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes ordered the administration to stop its tree-cutting efforts at the golf course until Oct. 26. As MS NOW reported, that order came one day after a nearly four-hour hearing in which Reyes slammed the Trump administration for defying her previous order to give the court notice before taking down more than 10 trees.

On Sunday, the president nevertheless published a pair of items to his social media platform, explaining in some detail how excited he was to overhaul the golf course. Trump followed up with a third post early Monday morning, writing, “The United States Department of Interior wants to take a terrible and very unsafe golf course, and make it into a great, safe, and prestigious golf course. They have an absolute right to do so. It’s as simple as that! … Work is scheduled to begin IMMEDIATELY!”

In the same missive, the president described the judge in the case as “a crazed lunatic” who, in his estimation, might be “insane.”

The list of problems is not short. For one thing, the White House appears to be in the midst of a rather brazen move to circumvent a federal court case. For another, Trump’s preferred plan is itself misguided. As The Washington Post reported:

The rendering Trump released alongside the announcement depicts a dramatically remade Hains Point, with a single 18-hole championship course stretching nearly from shoreline to shoreline. It bears little resemblance to the existing course — or to the more modest historic-restoration plan that government attorneys have cited in court.

The design also appears to eliminate Ohio Drive, the roadway that loops around Hains Point, a century-old grove of cherry trees and a historic miniature golf course. If implemented as depicted, the plan would reshape space used daily not only by golfers, but also by thousands of cyclists, runners, walkers, anglers, birdwatchers and other visitors.

What the president wants, in other words, effectively eliminates all of the things many local residents actually like about the East Potomac Golf Course, transforming it instead into yet another vanity project tied to Trump’s ego.

But let’s also not lose sight of the broader circumstances. Amid rising inflation, a stagnant job market and an ongoing war in the Middle East that Trump started but doesn’t know how to end, the president wants Americans to know that he’s investing time and energy into a priority that apparently matters to him: overhauling a public golf course.

“Trump started an illegal war, prices are through the roof, Americans are hurting, and yet he lays awake thinking about how to screw our D.C. neighbors and take over their public parks,” Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland wrote via Bluesky over the weekend. “Out of touch doesn’t even begin to describe it.”

The post As midterms approach, Trump focuses on closing D.C. golf course for 15-month renovation appeared first on MS NOW.

Though the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia Act suffered from some important flaws, its central purpose was sound: The proposal was created to impose sanctions and other economic penalties against Vladimir Putin’s regime in Russia and its trading partners. It cleared Capitol Hill with relative ease, and two days later, Donald Trump signed it into law, despite the Republican president’s record of weakness toward Moscow.

Late Friday — a time politicians frequently use to release information they hope will go unnoticed — the American president halted implementation of the law he had signed almost exactly one month earlier. The Associated Press reported:

President Donald Trump on Friday signed an executive order that puts on hold a sweeping new sanctions package targeting the Russian economy, telling Congress the pause was in the national interest.

Trump personally signed the legislation just last month and his move came just two days before a deadline set in the law itself for its implementation.

In a written statement, the Republican said he had decided to block implementation of the law because, according to the White House, it’s in “the national interests of the United States.”

Trump made no effort to explain why, exactly, it was in the United States’ interest to waive sanctions on Russia.

The condemnations from Democrats were immediate. “Trump just gave Putin the best birthday gift he’ll get this year,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said. “By giving the Russian economy life support, Trump’s deal with the devil keeps getting dirtier. There’s nothing America First about Trump caving to Putin and exempting Russia from U.S. sanctions.”

The New York Democrat added, “Americans need relief from skyrocketing prices. Instead, Trump is aiding and abetting a dictator who has helped Iran target U.S. troops in the Middle East.”

The backlash, however, wasn’t limited to the president’s critics. On the contrary, several prominent congressional Republicans, as well as former Vice President Mike Pence, slammed the move and publicly urged Trump to reconsider.

Predictably, he ignored the calls. In fact, on Sunday afternoon, the American president published a defense of his policy to his social media platform, insisting that he was “in the process of negotiating Peace,” and that he believed implementing U.S. law and penalizing Russia would likely drive Putin’s government “away from the bargaining table.”

The same statement slammed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and former U.S. President Joe Biden, but it included no comparable criticism of Putin, whom the missive didn’t refer to at all.

At face value, Trump’s written rationale is difficult to take seriously. Indeed, to an almost cartoonish degree, he’s been showering Putin with unearned gifts for quite a while — offering sanctions relief for Russian diesel fuel, echoing Kremlin talking points, pumping billions of dollars into the Russian economy, peddling false accusations against Ukraine, ignoring existing U.S. laws that ban Russian oil imports, looking the other way on Russia aiding Iran during the ongoing U.S. war, delivering diplomatic victories for Moscow, etc. — and getting nothing in return except more deadly attacks.

The benefits Trump is delivering to his Russian counterpart, in other words, have not advanced the peace process in any way.

But if Trump’s stated reason doesn’t make sense, what’s the actual reason for his humiliating weakness toward Putin? The Atlantic’s Jonathan Chait recently ran through some of the possible explanations, ranging from Putin running a successful flattery campaign to the Republicans’ general sympathies for authoritarian dictatorships to potential corruption.

Let’s also not forget that as recently as 2020, former Republican Sen. Dan Coats, who served as Trump’s director of national intelligence during his first term, conceded in an interview with Bob Woodward that he spent much of his tenure as DNI wondering whether Putin had something on Trump — a concern that intensified over time — that somehow compromised the American president.

“How else to explain the president’s behavior? Coats could see no other explanation,” Woodward wrote.

Looking ahead, a possible Democratic majority in Congress could launch a meaningful investigation into alleged Russian influence campaigns and Putin’s influence in Washington. But in the meantime, The Wall Street Journal reported that Putin is proposing some kind of summit between Russia, China and the United States, which would apparently decide Ukraine’s future.

Ukrainian officials, under Putin’s proposed plan, would not be welcome at the discussion about their own country’s future.

This post updates our related earlier coverage.

The post Trump’s latest pro-Putin move prompts bipartisan backlash and awkward questions appeared first on MS NOW.

Today’s edition of quick hits.

* Evidently, the American president is disgusted by Ukrainian strikes on Russian energy infrastructure, but only after having expressed indifference to Russian strikes on Ukrainian energy infrastructure, which sparked retaliatory measures. I wonder why that is: “U.S. President Donald Trump said Thursday that Ukraine’s announcement to end the truce on Russian energy facilities was ‘a disgrace,’ following reports that an oil refinery was hit in Russia’s Ryazan region.”

* The latest on the Silver Rail Elementary School shooting: “Three children and one adult were killed Thursday in a shooting at an elementary school in Bend, Oregon. The suspected shooter, a 16-year-old male, was shot dead by an armed bystander, police said.”

* A provocative and potentially important Reuters report: “The order to limit a satellite system used by Ukraine ​for battlefield communications and drone operations came from inside the White House, according to two US officials and a Western official briefed on the matter.”

* On a related note, Trump was asked who decided to pause Starlink access temporarily for the Ukrainian military. The president replied, “I don’t know if it was anybody, because it wasn’t me, and I don’t think it was [Elon Musk].”

* In related news, it’s tough to know whether to believe anyone on Putin’s team, but this bears close scrutiny: “Russia and the US are discussing a ​range of new joint projects including nuclear-powered data centers in the wake of last week’s agreement on ‌diesel, President Vladimir Putin’s investment envoy said on Friday.”

* The questions aren’t going away: “Congressional Democrats on the House Armed Services and Intelligence committees are demanding President Donald Trump explain why Ukrainian forces’ access to SpaceX Starshield services was restricted earlier this week.”

* A crisis averted: “Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi was worshipping at a Hindu temple in suburban Chicago over the weekend when a 19-year-old man allegedly attempted to carry out a mass shooting, the Illinois Democrat said Thursday. Illinois State Police said they arrested Alexandros Paporakis of Palatine on Sunday, hours after authorities received a tip that he was planning to attack people of Indian descent at the Sri Venkateswara Swami (Balaji) Temple in Aurora.”

* The suspension shouldn’t be the only step: “An Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent has been placed on leave after striking a man with his vehicle in Houston on Saturday, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson confirmed to MS NOW.”

* Do you ever get the impression that FIFA has just given up on its public reputation? “FIFA’s controversial Peace Prize could be scrapped at the end of the year — only 12 months after U.S. President Donald Trump received the inaugural award. At a FIFA Council meeting in Zurich on Thursday, it was decided that the governing body’s football social responsibility committee will now be tasked with assessing the merits of what was supposed to be an annual prize.”

* Remember when former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was tapped to serve as a special envoy to the Shield of the Americas? She’s now out of that role, serving instead as an adviser to a deputy secretary at the State Department. That’s quite a climb down from leading a federal Cabinet agency with hundreds of thousands of employees and a budget of more than $100 billion.

* On the eve of the latest No Kings events: “‘No Kings,’ the coalition known for blanketing the country in protests against President Trump, is setting its sights on a new target as midterm elections approach: voter turnout. On Oct. 17, organizers around the United States will hold ‘No Kings: Vote Early’ events to promote early voting and help people form voting plans like requesting absentee ballots, checking on their voter registrations or finding neighbors to help them drive to the polls.”

Have a safe weekend.

The post Friday’s Mini-Report, 10.16.26 appeared first on MS NOW.

On Tuesday afternoon, after Katie Zacharia’s disastrous first briefing as White House press secretary, a White House official told MS NOW, “She needs to get much better, fast, otherwise she’ll break Scaramucci’s record,” set, of course, by Anthony Scaramucci, who served as Donald Trump’s communications director for 11 days in 2017.

Three days later, she did what few thought possible by breaking that record. As a truly brutal first week neared its end, MS NOW reported:

After a turbulent five days in the role, Katie Zacharia is out as White House press secretary, two White House officials familiar with her departure told MS NOW on Friday.

The details — whether Zacharia voluntarily left her role or was directly fired — are still unclear. On Friday, President Donald Trump told reporters that he asked Zacharia to “reconsider” her role.

After Richard Nixon resigned in 1974, thus elevating Gerald Ford to the presidency, the Michigan Republican needed a new White House team. Ford tapped Jerald terHorst, a veteran journalist, to be the press secretary, and he seemed like a perfectly sensible choice.

The arrangement, however, did not last. A month into Ford’s tenure, the new president issued a controversial pardon to Nixon, and terHorst, unwilling to defend the decision, resigned. His tenure — just 31 days — was the shortest of any White House press secretary ever.

A half-century later, Zacharia’s time in the office lasted roughly one-sixth the length of terHorst’s tenure.

During a brief Q&A with reporters just outside the White House on Friday afternoon, the president made it sound as if he were doing his newly minted press secretary a favor.

“It’s not an easy job, and I think she was really treated very unfairly,” Trump said, adding, “I told her, ‘I think you’re better off being happy, and I’m not sure you can ever be happy in this job.’”

Asked whether Zacharia would continue to serve in his administration, the Republican said, “Yeah. In some form — but maybe a more pleasant form.”

Q: "Will Katie [Zacharia] continue to be in the administration?"Trump: "Yeah. In some form. But maybe a more pleasant form…I just think the press has been very tough on Katie and I said, 'There's no reason for you to have to do this.'…We'll make a determination."

— The Bulwark (@thebulwark.com) 2026-10-16T17:25:17.043Z

The development marks a stunning turn of events, including the exposure of Zacharia’s extensive record of peddling unhinged conspiratorial nonsense via social media, her misleading claims about her legal credentials, her work at a business that she described as “sort of a pyramid scheme” and her concession that she tried and failed to pass the California Bar Exam.

The president is already trying to blame this remarkable fiasco on the news organizations that reported accurate information, but as the dust settles, Trump and his team should at least try to consider a few lessons.

First, meritocracies are good, and hiring random people because the president saw them on television is bad.

Second, some routine vetting of prominent White House officials is a standard and responsible move.

And third, picking an unqualified press secretary three weeks before nationwide elections, having her move across the country and then throwing her into a difficult role without any meaningful preparation is a recipe for inevitable failure.

Put another way, there’s a fair amount of blame to go around for this humiliating debacle, which has managed to make the entire White House appear even more incompetent.

The post As Katie Zacharia’s tenure ends after just 5 days, here are some lessons for Team Trump appeared first on MS NOW.

A couple of months ago, Donald Trump appeared on a conservative radio show and said that “a lot of people” wanted to see the president pardon himself in his first term.

“I had the absolute right to do it,” he said. “Instead, I fought it through the courts and won.”

While that wasn’t an entirely accurate summary of recent history — Trump, who was convicted of several felonies in New York, only “won” when the federal criminal cases against him ended upon his return to the White House, not because they were adjudicated in his favor — the president’s rhetoric about his “absolute right” to pardon himself stood out.

This week, he returned to the issue during an interview with Newsmax’s Rob Finnerty.

Trump suggests he is going to pardon everyone, including himself: "I'm allowed to do a self-pardon … I don't want to see people that work for me go through years of nonsense"

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-10-16T00:20:10.130Z

Asked specifically whether he’s “seriously considering a self-pardon” before he leaves office, the president initially hedged, saying he’s done “nothing wrong,” before adding, “I’m allowed to do a self-pardon. I’m allowed to pardon. … The pardon is very powerful. I know that. They say it’s the most powerful thing a president has, the power of pardon.”

As my MS NOW colleague Jordan Rubin explained in detail just last week, whether presidents can actually pardon themselves is a matter of some controversy. Ahead of Richard Nixon’s resignation in 1974, the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel prepared a memo concluding that presidents can’t pardon themselves, though OLC opinions are not binding on the courts, and the matter has never been tested — at least not yet.

But also of interest was the other point Trump made as part of the same exchange.

On the topic of pardons, the Republican went on to say, “I can tell you this, I don’t want to see my people go through — because these people are lunatics on the, on the left — I don’t want to see people that work for me go through years of nonsense, hire lawyers and everything else, all for nothing.”

This came a few weeks after Trump also told Time magazine that he’s prepared to issue pardons to members of his administration.

Time will tell whether he follows through, and just as notably, just how many members of his team are considered for presidential clemency. But that Trump keeps making comments like these might very have a real impact in the White House and throughout the executive branch: The president is effectively letting a small army of political appointees know that, no matter what they do as part of their duties, he’s inclined to hand them a pardon, whether or not they deserve one.

Systemic government corruption is already a problem in the Trump era. The signal he’s sending to his team is likely to make matters worse.

The post ‘I’m allowed to do a self-pardon’: Trump opens the door to pardons for staff and himself appeared first on MS NOW.

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

* According to the latest third-quarter fundraising reports to the Federal Elections Commission, Democratic Senate hopeful James Talarico raised $64 million between July and September, which is the best quarter any Senate candidate has ever had in American history. His Texas rival, Republican Ken Paxton, raised $10.2 million over the same period.

That said, the scandal-plagued state attorney general is receiving some extraordinary backup from billionaire GOP megadonor Elon Musk, who is almost single-handedly financing Paxton’s candidacy at this point.

As MS NOW reported, Musk donated $158 million to the Senate Leadership Fund, the super PAC aligned with the Senate Republican leadership, and one day after Musk opened his wallet, the Senate Leadership Fund “transferred the exact same amount of money to a pro-Ken Paxton super PAC called Texas PAC.”

Whether Texans have any concerns about a billionaire trying to flood the race with cash for Paxton remains to be seen.

* Speaking of fundraising, Punchbowl News took a closer look at third-quarter Federal Election Commission reports and found that in the six states that are likely to determine the Senate majority — Texas, Alaska, Ohio, Maine, Michigan and Iowa — the Democratic nominees “raised between three and six times more than their Republican opponents.”

* In Colorado’s gubernatorial race, Democratic state Attorney General Phil Weiser this week picked up endorsements from several prominent current and former Republicans. As The Denver Post noted, the list included former Rep. Ken Buck, who went so far as to cut a video for Weiser in which he acknowledges it may be “unusual” for a congressman from the longtime GOP stronghold to back a Democrat. In the video, Buck says a shared belief in “integrity in politics” unites the two.

* On a related note, in New Hampshire’s closely watched U.S. Senate race, Democratic Rep. Chris Pappas also picked up some Republican support this week, including an unexpected endorsement from Don Bolduc, the Trump-endorsed Republican Senate nominee from the 2022 election cycle.

* In Kansas’ closely watched U.S. Senate race, incumbent Republican Sen. Roger Marshall didn’t need another controversy, but he managed to get one anyway. The Associated Press reported that the GOP senator worked on a water rights dispute, failing to mention that his solution would benefit a bordering property that he owns.

* And in Michigan’s U.S. Senate race, Donald Trump, on a nearly daily basis, has decided to deliberately call Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed by the wrong name, “Mohammed El-Sayed.” Asked why, the president said, “I don’t know. I feel like it.”

The post Friday’s Campaign Round-Up, 10.16.26: Elon Musk spends massively for Ken Paxton appeared first on MS NOW.

As part of a tough re-election campaign in Maine, incumbent Republican Sen. Susan Collins has emphasized on countless occasions that she’s willing to defy President Donald Trump and other GOP leaders. But while there’s some truth to that, the senator’s critics have long emphasized the asterisk that comes with that record.

The New York Times took a closer look at her voting record, which shows that Collins has broken with her party more than any other Republican senator. That said, the same record “reveals that her defections … have rarely thwarted the president during his second term.”

In other words, the longtime GOP senator has demonstrated a willingness to break ranks, except when her vote might actually affect the outcome. Or, as the Times’ report put it, “one of the most dominant and long-running lines of attack against her” is that Collins “only defies the president when it doesn’t matter.”

On Thursday night, in her fourth and final debate against Democratic nominee Troy Jackson, the Maine Republican was presented with a clear opportunity to prove her critics wrong. It did not go well.

YIKES#mesen #mepolitics

— danny (@dabbs346.bsky.social) 2026-10-15T23:18:56.838Z

A moderator asked Collins, “Can you name a time when you voted against your party and President Trump where it actually changed the outcome significantly?”

The senator began by saying there were “several examples,” though she specifically pointed to one: Early last year, Collins said, she helped organize an effort to defeat Pete Hegseth’s defense secretary nomination, though her effort ultimately didn’t work and the unqualified former Fox News host was confirmed.

“So that didn’t change the outcome,” the moderator replied.

Remember, Collins has faced one specific criticism throughout her re-election bid, and it was highlighted by The New York Times in a front-page article published this week. The senator and her team had plenty of time to come up with examples (any example!) to prove her critics wrong.

But she couldn’t. Then, presented with the opportunity and platform, Collins flubbed it, effectively proving the underlying point.

Whether Jackson and his party turn the debate exchange into a new campaign ad remains to be seen.

The post Pressed on her work with Trump, Maine’s Collins trips over key part of her record appeared first on MS NOW.

During a town hall event on CNN this week, Democratic Senate hopeful James Talarico voiced a sentiment that was well received by attendees: “We have an affordability crisis because we have a corruption crisis.”

The message has become increasingly common as the midterm election cycle has unfolded. Indeed, Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia, in particular, has built much of his 2026 candidacy on the proposition that corruption isn’t only a major national issue, it’s also the principal cause for the problems plaguing regular Americans in their everyday lives. “You aren’t the problem. Neither are your fellow Americans,” Ossoff routinely tells Georgians. “Corruption is why things don’t work for ordinary people.”

There’s fresh evidence that the argument is resonating with the public.

A Gallup poll released last month found that 89% of American adults believe that government corruption in the United States is widespread — up 10 points from a year ago, and 30 points from a Gallup survey conducted in 2006. Earlier this week, The Associated Press released the results of its latest national poll, which similarly found that most Americans believe that Donald Trump “is profiting off the presidency in unethical or illegal ways and is focused more on his wealth than helping people like them.”

But it was the latest Fox News poll that arguably surprised people most. The editorial board of The Washington Post noted:

President Donald Trump’s ouster of Kimberly Guilfoyle as ambassador to Greece this week reflected a belated recognition by the White House political team that corruption is a galvanizing issue in the midterms.

A Fox News poll released Wednesday indicates that corruption has become voters’ top concern, edging out inflation and gas prices. Six in 10 respondents said they’re “extremely concerned” about corruption. … The Fox News finding isn’t an outlier. An Economist-YouGov poll last month showed that most registered voters think Trump is corrupt. A Reuters poll in August revealed that almost 7 in 10 Americans — including about half of Republicans — believe Trump’s private business interests influence his presidential decisions.

These public attitudes are based on a lot more than just cynical assumptions. On a nearly daily basis, Americans are confronted with a fresh round of allegations surrounding the president and his team. “The cesspit of corruption that is Donald Trump’s presidency is finally getting the attention it deserves,” economist Paul Krugman recently observed. “It’s about time. … The level of corruption that Trump has engaged in and enabled in others is completely unprecedented — self-dealing that, as Trump would say, is like nothing anybody has ever seen before.”

This week, MS NOW host Catherine Rampell wrote a column for The Bulwark in which she added, “Donald Trump is robbing Americans blind.” The headline on her piece read, “Just. So. Much. Corruption.”

Voters’ attitudes on this should send a signal to policymakers about their post-election priorities. We’ll learn in a few weeks whether Democrats can win a majority in either (or both) of Congress’ chambers; but if they do, some will no doubt make the case that the party should focus almost entirely on kitchen-table issues.

And while such a strategy would make sense, the midterms are making clear that there’s a direct link between corruption and affordability — and there’s a real public appetite for accountability and reform.

The post Democrats have made corruption a key midterm issue. Polls show voters agree. appeared first on MS NOW.

In the months leading up to Texas’ Republican U.S. Senate primary, the party was divided into a couple of camps. On one side was incumbent Sen. John Cornyn, who enjoyed the enthusiastic backing of most GOP leaders and their aligned super PAC, and who was generally seen as a safe choice who would fare well in a general election.

On the other side was the senator’s intraparty challenger, state Attorney General Ken Paxton, who enjoyed support from the party’s MAGA base, despite being the most scandal-plagued candidate of his generation, and who was generally seen as an enormous risk.

There were reports that Donald Trump was tempted to play it safe, before he ultimately endorsed Paxton, who cruised to an easy primary victory. The results haven’t exactly gone the way the president likely hoped.

Over the past several weeks, a variety of high-quality polls have been conducted in the Lone Star State, and not one of them has shown Paxton leading Democratic state Rep. James Talarico. This has generated a fair amount of panic in GOP circles, where the idea of losing a Senate seat in Texas had been largely unthinkable as the year got underway.

With this in mind, Trump is now taking a predictable step: He’s trying to avoid blame for a possible electoral disaster. Indeed, the president published a lengthy tirade to his social media platform on Thursday afternoon in which he tried to pre-blame Republicans he doesn’t like for a defeat that hasn’t happened yet. From the online rant:

Sadly, and very stupidly, John Cornyn, and his Liddle’ Buddy, Super RINO, Karl Rove, are doing everything possible to make it hard for Ken Paxton, the Greatest Attorney General in the History of Texas, and one of the Best in the United States, to win the upcoming Midterm Election. … They are hurting Texas and, more importantly, hurting the United States of America!

If Ken Paxton loses, it will be because of WEAK and INEFFECTIVE Political Hacks like John Cornyn and Karl Rove, who have ineffectively opposed me for my entire political career.

As a factual matter, it’s true that Cornyn has done effectively nothing to help Paxton since their primary, but the suggestion that the senator is actively undermining his party’s nominee is difficult to take seriously (leaving aside the obvious contradiction of blaming a Paxton loss on “ineffective” opponents). The state attorney general’s troubles are his own fault, not Cornyn’s.

But these details are less striking than the implication that if Trump genuinely believed Paxton was well positioned to win, the president wouldn’t be looking to shift the blame for this race away from himself.

This is not to say that Talarico definitely will win — we should find out in 19 days — and with far-right megadonors throwing an enormous amount of money at Texas, it’s still possible that Elon Musk and company will successfully buy the seat for Paxton.

But Trump’s angry missive does not speak well of Paxton’s chances.

The post Fearing Ken Paxton’s defeat in Texas, Trump tries pre-blaming John Cornyn appeared first on MS NOW.

For White House press secretary Katie Zacharia, the past week has clearly been something of a whirlwind. It was, after all, just seven days ago when Donald Trump announced that the former conservative commentator would serve as his new chief spokesperson. Quite a bit has happened since.

Monday, Oct. 12: As Zacharia begins her tenure in the West Wing, multiple news organizations report on her extensive record of peddling unhinged conspiratorial nonsense via social media.

Tuesday, Oct. 13: Zacharia holds her first press briefing (with an emphasis on “brief”) and leaves little doubt that she is wholly unprepared for the job. One White House official tells MS NOW, “She needs to get much better, fast, otherwise she’ll break Scaramucci’s record,” referring to Anthony Scaramucci, who served as Trump’s communications director for 11 days in 2017.

Tuesday, Oct. 13: After her embarrassing train wreck, Zacharia, who has repeatedly identified herself as an attorney, is asked in which state she had passed the bar exam. The press secretary responds that she had “moved to China,” which didn’t make a lot of sense.

Wednesday, Oct. 14: The Campaign for Accountability files a bar complaint in California against the press secretary (Zacharia’s home is in the Golden State), alleging that she misrepresented her legal credentials.

Wednesday, Oct. 14: When Wired magazine asks Zacharia about her work with Beachbody, a fitness company that ran a multilevel marketing operation, she describes the business as “sort of a pyramid scheme.”

Wednesday, Oct. 14: A partner at the law firm Zacharia worked at in China tells The New York Times that it often hired foreigners for language assistance and to help Chinese staff understand foreign business culture. Though Zacharia claimed in the past to have worked on “international transaction law” at the firm, the partner tells the Times her role at the firm would have likely been similar to a paid internship.

Thursday, Oct. 15: Zacharia sits down with a radical conspiracy theorist for an interview on a conservative media outlet called Real America’s Voice. She concedes that she tried and failed to pass the California bar exam. This would be less of a problem were it not for Trump repeatedly mocking those who have failed bar exams as evidence of being unintelligent.

In the same interview, she blames her embarrassing briefing from earlier in the week on the fact that the briefing was in the morning, the day after a holiday.

Thursday, Oct. 15: Zacharia wraps up the day with an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity, in which she continues to struggle.

oh my god this interview was a disaster for Zacharia. I've never seen Hannity do someone who works for Trump like this

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-10-16T01:25:27.499Z

Friday, Oct. 16: Zacharia returns to Fox News, where she’s asked if there’s anything she’d like to clean up from her troubled interview the night before.

I think it’s fair to say her first week could have gone better.

As speculation swirls about Zacharia’s future, there are a couple of questions hanging overhead for the White House team she recently joined.

First, did anyone on the president’s team make any effort to vet her before she was hired? Or was this a situation in which Trump simply saw someone make comments he liked during some cable news interviews?

Second, who thought it would be a good idea for the president to choose a new press secretary, three weeks before nationwide elections, have her move across the country, and throw her into a difficult role without any meaningful preparation?

Clearly, Zacharia is failing as the new press secretary, but there’s a fair amount of blame to go around for this fiasco.

The post Katie Zacharia’s attempts at damage control aren’t going especially well appeared first on MS NOW.

Today’s edition of quick hits.

* A case worth watching: “The Trump administration sued California election officials Thursday, asking a judge to bar the state from counting mail-in ballots for next month’s midterm elections from people the federal government has identified as ‘likely’ noncitizens until their status can be confirmed.”

* First, Donald Trump announced an “energy ceasefire” between Russia and Ukraine. Then, Russia ignored the deal, and now, Ukraine is retaliating in kind: “Ukraine attacked a Russian oil refinery Thursday, abandoning a brief truce involving energy-related targets that it said Moscow did not heed, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he felt betrayed by U.S. President Donald Trump.”

* On Wednesday night, in reference to the war with Iran that the American president launched, he told reporters, “As soon as I want it to end, it’ll end.” But if that’s the case, shouldn’t Trump explain why he doesn’t want it to end?

* Remember when Trump picked this guy to serve as the U.S. attorney general, and JD Vance invested time and effort, shepherding the Florida Republican around Capitol Hill?: “Former Rep. Matt Gaetz is facing allegations of sex trafficking by two women who filed a civil lawsuit against him and two other men in federal court Thursday.”

* I’ll be keeping an eye on this one: “Federal authorities are investigating letters containing ‘suspicious substances’ that were mailed to multiple congressional and election offices nationwide, law enforcement officials said Thursday.”

* This report is emblematic of the Republican senator’s entire career: “Two North Carolina lawyers recently tapped by President Donald Trump for lifetime posts on the federal bench managed to get sign-off from GOP Sen. Thom Tillis — despite their involvement in the high-profile prosecution of former FBI Director James Comey.”

* So many no-bid contracts: “It was early June, and the White House had an ‘urgent and compelling’ job: Four chandeliers needed to be installed in the West Wing. Why the rush? ‘In this particular case, the environment of the 250th anniversary, the birthday, and other events [redacted],’ reads a previously unreported contracting document dated June 5. … President Donald Trump’s 80th birthday fell the following Sunday — June 14 — the same night as the UFC fight on the White House lawn.”

* It’s proving to be quite a month for Kimberly Guilfoyle: “Eric Deters, the Republican donor who accused Kimberly Guilfoyle of asking him to wire her $100,000 to pay her American Express bill in exchange for her help with the Trump administration ahead of her Senate confirmation hearing, has filed a defamation lawsuit against Guilfoyle and her legal team.”

See you tomorrow.

The post Thursday’s Mini-Report, 10.15.26 appeared first on MS NOW.

Before Kash Patel was confirmed as director of the FBI, he assured senators that he had no interest in waging a campaign against agents who worked on cases he disapproved of in the past.

“I have no interest, no desire, and will not, if confirmed, go backwards,” he testified. “There will be no politicization at the FBI. There will be no retributive actions taken by any FBI, should I be confirmed as the FBI director.”

After Patel took the reins at the bureau, it quickly became clear that the former podcast personality didn’t exactly mean what he said. On the contrary, one of the defining features of Patel’s tenure has been the needlessly aggressive purge of FBI personnel, especially those who worked on investigations opposed by the Trump White House.

One especially striking example emerged in February, when the FBI fired a group of agents and support staff who worked on the investigation into Donald Trump’s mishandling of classified documents. At the time, the FBI Agents Association said in a statement that the terminations were “unlawful” and violated “the due process rights of those who risk their lives to protect our country.”

Evidently, those who were purged came to the same conclusion.

On Thursday, nine former FBI employees filed a lawsuit against Patel and Attorney General Todd Blanche, challenging the legality of their dismissals. A statement from their attorneys read in part:

In return for their service, they were fired because they did their jobs, as they always did to follow the facts and law without bias or favor. To this administration, this is an offense. To the rest of us, it is heroic.

This lawsuit will prove their unlawful dismissal and hold the administration accountable for this blatant attack on the rule of law.

The litigation itself also asserted that the firing of the agents and support staff “did not follow any internal investigation or disciplinary process within the FBI.”

While administration officials have not yet commented on the litigation, it’s worth noting for context how familiar the circumstances are. A dozen FBI agents who were fired in 2025 for taking a knee during racial justice protests five years earlier have also sued Patel and the bureau, as has a veteran FBI employee who was training to become a special agent before being fired last year for displaying an LGBTQ+ flag at his workspace despite the fact that the same flag had previously flown outside a field office.

Months later, as MS NOW reported, three former FBI agents also sued the Trump administration on behalf of all of the bureau’s recently fired agents, alleging that agency leaders retaliated against them for political reasons.

“The ex-agents who brought the suit — Jamie Garman, Blaire Toleman and Michelle Ball — all worked on former special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into President Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election,” the report added.

Last summer, Patel and his team also ousted three experienced bureau leaders, including former acting FBI Director Brian Driscoll, a widely respected figure among rank-and-file agents, who was removed after he helped prevent a mass firing of thousands of FBI officials who worked on Jan. 6 cases. They also filed suit, challenging their firings.

Each of these cases is ongoing. Watch this space.

The post FBI agents fired for working on Trump’s classified documents case file new lawsuit appeared first on MS NOW.

As the midterm elections approach, Donald Trump isn’t just boasting about his policy of military strikes on civilian boats in international waters — the president is also treating the deadly strikes as some kind of punchline to a tragic joke.

But when he’s not kidding about the policy, he’s bragging about its efficacy. “The United States has carried out dozens of strikes on cartel drug boats, destroying 97% of the drugs coming into the ocean and sea,” Trump boasted in an address to the United Nations last month. “You’ve seen it; they disappear very quickly, and we’re down 90%. They’re down 97%.”

More than a year after the policy was first implemented, this remains at the heart of the White House’s defense: The administration has crushed maritime drug trafficking.

Except, it hasn’t. The Wall Street Journal reported:

Deep in the Amazon, smugglers have shifted shipments east, hiding drugs on boats moving through the rain forest’s vast river network. And on Colombia’s long coast, crews evade U.S. military airstrikes by hugging the shoreline in the exact same speedboats the Americans are targeting.

Record supplies of cocaine still arrive in the U.S., Europe and as far away as Australia every day, cheaper and purer than they’ve been in decades, said law-enforcement officials across four continents.

There’s an important argument to be had about the underlying ends-justify-the-means approach to the use of military force, but this latest reporting is consistent with months’ worth of evidence suggesting the administration’s defense is plainly wrong: The administration is killing a lot of people and destroying a lot of boats, but illicit drugs are reaching the U.S. anyway.

“We cannot bomb our way out of a drug crisis,” Democratic Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the ranking member on the Senate Armed Services Committee, explained in a recent statement. “We tried that for decades and it failed. What we need now is law enforcement in the lead, honest accounting from the Pentagon, and a Congress willing to do its job.”

By all appearances, the White House doesn’t care much about these relevant details. On the contrary, The New York Times reported in May that deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller chairs bimonthly meetings, apparently called “wins” meetings, at which administration officials are expected to report on various successes.

The Pentagon’s death toll from boat strikes is reportedly “regularly highlighted” as “one of the biggest” such accomplishments.

This post updates our related earlier coverage.

The post More than a year later, Team Trump’s boat strikes continue to fail on multiple fronts appeared first on MS NOW.