Tuesday, October 6, 2026. Chumps Desperation Tour continues, in Nebraska he jokes or 'jokes' about L.A. and San Diego being hit by nukes from Iran, he tries to talk up Iran and does so by ignoring War Crimes and the abandonment of US service members, and much more.
28 days. That's how far we are from the midterms. 28 days. And Chump's popularity remains in the toilet. Cecilia Nowell (GUARDIAN) reports:
A new Reuters/Ipsos poll shows Trump’s approval rating at a record-low 32%. That polling included the president losing support among independent voters and Latinos, who had backed him in 2024. The dip could prove dire for the Republican party a month ahead of the midterm elections that will determine control of Congress.
Before boarding a flight to Nebraska on Monday, Trump shrugged off questions about his approval ratings.
“I’m doing great,” Trump told a reporter, who’d asked about recent polls showing the president losing support among Latino voters, before blaming CNN and the media.
But according to a NBC News/Telemundo poll release Sunday, 59% of Latino voters prefer a Democratic-controlled Congress, double the number that supported the party two years ago. According to that poll, just 24% of Hispanic Americans approve of Trump’s performance.
Malcolm Ferguson (THE NEW REPUBLIC) notes:
President Trump has the lowest approval rating in Kansas of any president since Herbert Hoover -- who was widely blamed for causing the Great Depression. This is yet another ominous sign for Republicans ahead of what has become a midterm battleground for the Senate.
This comes in the midst of a neck-and-neck campaign between Democrat Reverend Adam Hamilton and incumbent Republican Senator Roger Marshall, with most polls showing them locked at 45 percent. This is the closest Kansas has been to flipping blue in nearly 100 years, making Trump’s historic unpopularity there a clear cause for alarm.
“President Trump is historically unpopular for a Republican president in the great state of Kansas.... I absolutely buy the idea that this [Senate] race is close because just take a look at these,” CNN’s Harry Enten said on Monday morning. “In his first time … Donald Trump had +5 points. Look at how much less popular Donald Trump is than he was in term number one at this point. He’s way down in the basement, 15 points underwater—that’s a 20-point shift away ... 16 less points popular than any other Republican president at this point in the term.”
Republicans are worried that Trump’s unpopularity will spill into the race between Hamilton and Rogers.
Chump is on his Desperation Tour where he visits states he carried by large margins back in the fall of 2024. But two years later, he struggles to fill much smaller venues in these visits. For example, he was back in Mobile, Alabama where, in better years for him, he once filled a 30,seat auditorium. But this go round? Shawn McCreesh (NEW YORK TIMES) explains, "These days, Mr. Trump is in political trouble, even with members of his famously loyal base. The indoor arena that he spoke at on Friday was a fraction of the size of the football stadium he once spoke in — security concerns are such that he rarely speaks in outdoor venues anymore — and still the place was not full. Some upper sections were almost completely empty." Low turn out is what he's seeing over and over. Katie Rogers (NEW YORK TIMES) notes the sameness to the stops on The Desperation Tour, "If President Trump's earlier political rallies felt like standing-room-only rock concerts, the latest ones are starting to feel like the first stops of a farewell tour. The events are a ritual. He will attack Democrats. His words will probably stop making actual, logical sense for a moment, or for many moments. (It’s 'the weave,' you see.) He will accuse Democrats of rigging the 2020 election (they didn't). He will attack the news media. Then he will dance to a Village People song." AP notes, "Across the country, voters are frustrated with Trump’s handling of the economy, including persistently high costs for fuel and groceries. It’s a major issue for rural voters who have backed the president and his party in recent elections. But so far on the campaign trail, Trump has dismissed those economic concerns." His Desperation Tour has run side-by-side with his campaign advertisements -- advertisements whose cost he's farmed out to US taxpayers.
ABC's THIS WEEK's addressed this issue at the start of Sunday's show:
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Good morning and welcome to "THIS WEEK."
I have experienced political waves from the inside. Thirty-two years ago this week, I was working in the White House when a red wave was building. The economy was growing, but voters were not feeling it. After the collapse of his health care plan, President Clinton's approval ratings were stuck in the low 40s. So, he was advised to stay off the campaign trail, where he might hurt more than help.
That did not quite happen. And the red wave crested on Election Day in a big way. The GOP won 54 House seats, eight Senate seats, gaining control of Congress for the first time in 40 years.
Flash forward to today. With voters unhappy about the economy and his approval ratings stuck in the 30s, the president is also being warned against making the midterms a referendum on himself. And like Clinton, Trump is resisting that advice, barnstorming in deep red states and taking his campaigning to another level, personally commissioning ads, paid for by taxpayers, that put the president front and center. One even titled "God made Trump."
Four weeks from the final midterm votes, that's where we begin this week. Here's Jay O'Brien.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JAY O'BRIEN, ABC NEWS CAPITOL HILL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): You're watching an ad you paid for. Part of a series airing across the country praising President Trump that this week set off a political firestorm less than a month out from the midterms. One championing the war in Iran.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: To the great, proud people of Iran.
O'BRIEN (voice over): Another decrying socialism and communism. And one featuring President Trump speaking at Mount Rushmore. At the bottom of each, this disclaimer, paid for by the U.S. government.
"The New York Times" reporting President Trump personally directed the Office of Management and Budget to find government funds for the ads. At least $3.5 million of taxpayer money spent so far according to one estimate.
The funds coming from the Department of Homeland Security, which last month awarded a $20 million contract to a Maryland ad agency days before the TV spots rolled out. Federal records show it came via a section of the Customs and Border Protection budget for commemorative events typically used to pay for things like memorials for officers killed in the line of duty, or commendation ceremonies, according to a congressional report. Democrats and even some Republicans charging the ads could violate federal law, which prohibits public funds from being used to campaign.
SEN. THOM TILLIS, (R) NORTH CAROLINA: That's not how we should be spending taxpayer dollars.
SEN. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, (D) CONNECTICUT: They are absolutely illegal.
TRUMP: We are the freest people on earth.
O'BRIEN (voice over): The White House has repeatedly called these ads public service announcements to justify using taxpayer funds.
TRUMP: This is the final battle.
O'BRIEN (voice over): But decide for yourself. One of the ads, titled "the final battle," features a long, continuous shot of Trump. It was used in 2024 as a campaign ad. President Trump defending the spots, arguing he's not on the ballot.
TRUMP: I'm not promoting myself because I'm not running for office. I'm promoting the country.
O'BRIEN (voice over): The president had a different message, though, at the midterm convention.
TRUMP: To pretend that I'm on the ballot.
O'BRIEN (voice over): And again Friday night.
TRUMP: Close your eyes and pretend I'm on the ballot.
O'BRIEN (voice over): Some Republicans we pressed insisted they hadn't seen the ads.
SEN. ERIC SCHMITT, (R) MISSOURI: I have not see it.
O'BRIEN: But they appear to be political ads using taxpayer money. Wouldn't that be illegal to do that?
SCHMITT: I don't know that they're taxpayer dollars. I don't know that.
O'BRIEN: They are.
SCHMITT: I don't know.
O'BRIEN: The White House has said that.
O'BRIEN (voice over): Several GOP lawmakers claiming both the Bush and Obama administrations took out similar ads, but those were for specific issues, like Medicare and the Affordable Care Act. And this week, Senate Majority Leader John Thune voicing their disapproval, too, saying of the president's ads, "I like the message, but it shouldn't be paid for with taxpayer dollars."
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN (on camera): Democrats on Capitol Hill have sent a number of letters demanding answers from the administration, and they've also asked a government watchdog agency to investigate. But bottom line here, George, the White House shows no signs of backing down. So, unless something changes, these ads are likely to continue to run at least until Election Day.
George.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Sure seems that way. Thanks, Jay.
In a new development, Shane Goldmacher, Theodore Schleifer and Maggie Haberman (NEW YORK TIMES) report:
President Trump reversed course on Monday and announced that his super PAC would now pay for the television ads promoting him that have been airing nationwide at taxpayer expense.
In a post on his social media platform, Mr. Trump wrote, “I have decided to do the Patriotic Ads, among others, and pay for them myself, and with money I raised for MAGA, Inc.”
More than $10 million in taxpayer-funded ads have run since September, according to AdImpact, the ad-tracking service. The ads, which are running on cable and network television, were paid for through a $20 million contract that used funds from the Department of Homeland Security.
Democrats -- and some Republicans -- have criticized the ads as a possible violation of federal laws for using taxpayer funds for “publicity or propaganda purposes.” The ads were broadcast in the heat of the campaign for the midterms, as Republicans are trying to hold control of Congress. At least one of the ads featured footage that originally had appeared in a 2024 Trump campaign video.
So the over ten million dollars he's spent on the ads so far, he'll be repaying the government on that? Putting it back? No. Nicholas Kerr (ABC NEWS) notes, "A White House official confirmed to ABC News Monday night that MAGA Inc. will pay for ads moving forward but defended them as something previous administrations have used." Moving forward.
Michael Luciano (MEDIAITE) reports on Chump's Desperation Tour stop last night in Grand Island, Nebraska:
Trump has repeatedly insisted – despite his own intelligence agencies’ findings to the contrary – that Iran was going to imminently obtain a nuclear weapon when he launched the war in February. Thus, Trump says, the higher gas prices resulting from the war are worth it.
“And again, remember, with the war, it’s just artificial,” he told rally-goers. “It’s a little bit high. It’s a small price to pay for keeping the world safe, keeping our country safe. They could take out a city. Let them take out Los Angeles. Let them take out San Diego. This is a very small price to pay, and it’s gonna be over with very soon. It’s essentially almost over with. And they might keep going a little long. You know, they always say, ‘They have a big threshold for pain.’ They need it, let me tell you. But it’s gonna end very soon. And it’ll end one way or the other. And your gas and your gasoline and all the other things.”
As Trump said, “Let them take out Los Angeles or San Diego,” the crowd applauded and cheered. It is unclear if the president was imagining a scenario in which the two cities had been obliterated or was suggesting they should be.
Spreading hate where ever he goes, that's Chump.
Laura Chung (NEW YORK TIMES) reports:
California leaders condemned President Trump on Monday night after he appeared to suggest that Iran could “take out” Los Angeles and San Diego if it develops a nuclear weapon.
Speaking at a Republican political rally in Nebraska, the president sought to justify the Iran war as necessary for “keeping the world safe.” He then suggested there could be strikes on the United States, including the Democratic-led Californian cities.
“They could take out a city,” he said. “Let them take — Let them take out Los Angeles. Let them take out San Diego.”
It was not immediately clear what Mr. Trump meant, but his comments were met with anger from officials in California, including Gov. Gavin Newsom, who called the president “deranged and dangerous.”
“After sending the National Guard and Marines to occupy California, Donald Trump is now saying our foreign enemies should ‘take out’ Los Angeles and San Diego,” Mr. Newsom posted on social media.
Mayor Todd Gloria of San Diego wrote on social media that his city was not “collateral damage” and not “expendable.”
“Keep our city out of your reckless war talk,” he added.
In Los Angeles, Mayor Karen Bass said that the president’s comments were “dangerous” and could “potentially compromise” the city’s safety.
“The role of a president is to protect the country, not to actively threaten it and encourage attacks on American lives,” she said in a social media statement.
Chump's so proud of his war of choice. But he tends to avoid moments like the one covered on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED (NPR) yesterday:
SACHA PFEIFFER, HOST:
Of the hundreds of U.S. or Israeli airstrikes that launched the war with Iran on the last day of February, at least two of them directly hit a school in session. That school was in a city in southern Iran called Minab. At least 156 people were killed. One hundred and twenty of them were children. Twenty-six were teachers. That's according to extensive news reporting from the investigative news outlet Drop Site News. Its reporters spoke with many people who were there, including teachers...
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED TEACHER: (Non-English language spoken).
PFEIFFER: ...Parents...
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PARENT: (Non-English language spoken).
PFEIFFER: ...And first responders.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED FIRST RESPONDER: (Non-English language spoken).
PFEIFFER: Drop Site's Jeremy Scahill was one person piecing together these accounts, which we will warn include graphic detail of child casualties.
JEREMY SCAHILL: Witnesses describe just a massive series of whoosh, boom, and explosions that take place. The first one hits, and all of the glass of the windows in the preschool just shatter onto the floor. And the preschool teacher starts telling her children get - you know, get under the desk. And then in quick succession, another strike happens and concrete starts to fall. And then silence. So then they rush outside. And when they step outside, this teacher, with all of her little 5- and 6-year-olds, says that she turns her neck back and sees that the school is in flames and there's a huge cloud of smoke just erupting from what used to be the school building.
And she's telling the kids, don't look back. And she's ushering them out into the street, the road near the school. And at that point, she starts to see first responders. And then what we heard from those first responders - we spoke to the first firemen that arrived there - was a scene of doomsday, they said. Total apocalypse. Body parts everywhere. Shredded children. Kids who were basically pulverized against concrete. Body parts in trees. None of them were - say that they've ever been able to shake the images they saw in that first moment because what they witnessed was the shredding of children.
PFEIFFER: Your reporting is extremely unsparing in the gore of what happened that day. And that's the facts. Can you also talk about why you decided to go into that detail about the aftermath?
SCAHILL: I started to talk to Iranians whose lives were impacted by this bombing. I realized this story needs to be told the way that we would tell the story of what happened in the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing or the school shooting in Florida; that we have an obligation - especially because we're Americans, and this is being done by our leaders, and as journalists, we have to hold our own government accountable above all else - that the American people must understand the human cost of this; that these were families just like American families, and their stories deserve to be told, especially because the bombs were launched on orders from our country, from the United States, at the top levels of the leadership.
PFEIFFER: On the question of responsibility, the United States initially denied striking the area. In fact, President Trump at one point said, without evidence, that Iran had done it. Since then, NPR has confirmed that a preliminary internal investigation by the Pentagon did determine U.S. responsibility. Has the U.S. announced anything since then about what it plans to do about that? Compensation for families? Anything?
SCAHILL: No. In fact, Trump recently at the G7 got very angry when a reporter asked him about it and said, what? This happened, you know, long ago. Why are you asking about this? If I needed to, I could put out a report about it tomorrow. But the fact is, all we have right now are leaks from informed sources, but also their narrative. Why is the president of the United States, who has all access, highly classified intelligence, running around saying that the Iranians have Tomahawk cruise missiles? It's not true. Only five countries in the world have them, and Iran is not one of them.
Why is he saying Iran may have bombed their own people when we can see the wreckage of Raytheon cruise missiles in the photos that we obtained that were taken from under the rubble? There were two direct hits on a school filled with children and teachers. It's not that there hasn't been reporting on this. It's that that reporting has not been translated into a very robust, aggressive investigation of what I would say is one of the worst single war crimes committed by the United States since Vietnam.
PFEIFFER: Jeremy, you have spent a lot of your career covering the consequences of U.S. military operations around the world, including consequences for civilians. And you've - you just referenced some past cases of this where there are similarities. Is there anything about this case that seems different to you than tragedies like this that you've reported on in the past?
SCAHILL: Most Iranians that we've spoken to - at different levels, whether they're government or ordinary people - believe that this was intentional because the United States wanted to kill the supreme leader in the opening moments of the war and then send a message to the Iranian people that no place, including your school, is going to be safe as long as this regime remains in power. So most military experts I talked to say they don't believe that that's the case - that they believe that this was a rush to war, an emphasis on lethality over everything else. They wanted to break records with the number of targets they struck very early on.
And they streamlined everything. They kicked aside concerns about civilian deaths. They used outdated satellite photos and didn't bother to have a human being vet it to make sure it wasn't a school full of children. You know, there's no evidence at all in the public right now to suggest that they understood that there were children inside of that school and decided to bomb it to send a message to Iran. But unfortunately, because of the characters that we have running the Pentagon and the statements of the president himself, that unfortunately should be a line of inquiry by the U.S. Congress to understand, did they intentionally attack this school because they believed they were the children of the IRGC that were attending it? Unfortunately, that's a question that needs to be asked.
In other news of the Iranian War, Jack Brook, Konstantin Toropin, Julie Watson and Russ Bynum (AP) report:
On a sunny, cloudless morning on March 1, the day after President Donald Trump started the war against Iran, Chief Warrant Officer 3 Robert Marzan was coordinating critical Army supplies out of Port Shuaiba in Kuwait.
In an instant, a drone crashed through the ceiling and exploded, killing Marzan, who had served in the military for 36 years. The force flung soldiers into the air, fragments of sheet metal and glass shards impaling them. The tin roof was peeled back “like opening up a sardine can,” one soldier recalled.
Six soldiers were killed and dozens were injured in the deadliest known strike on U.S. troops since Operation Epic Fury commenced on Feb. 28.
[. . .]
In the aftermath, many of the wounded — some with decades of service and combat experience — told The Associated Press that commanders had been warned that the facility, a rectangular building with wooden sides at a working seaport and industrial area south of Kuwait City, was particularly vulnerable to a drone strike.
That warning went unheeded, the soldiers say. Some also said higher-ranking officers pushed for an all-clear to be called, but it’s not certain from their accounts who ultimately made the decision to move soldiers out of a safer space in nearby bunkers. The wounded also would later say their serious injuries were not treated promptly or adequately in the weeks following the attack.
“We have the right to know what really happened,” Marzan’s widow, Tina Marzan, told the AP. “If somebody messed up, those people need to be held responsible.”
Battlefield conditions are inherently chaotic and assessments drawn by those involved are often in tension. The AP’s account of the attack is based on interviews with 13 soldiers, primarily officers, serving in key positions of responsibility there or familiar with high-level briefings leading up to the strike.
Along with several Gold Star families — the military’s designation for relatives of a soldier killed while on active duty — many are raising their concerns publicly for the first time and calling for the Army to reconcile what they say are failures of preparedness.
The DNC notes:
New reporting this weekend revealed that in the final hours of former Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem’s tenure, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) approved spending hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on marked-up luxury planes that went to a firm led by one of Noem’s political donors.
DHS paid $108 million in taxpayer funds for a luxury private jet to Daedalus Aviation Corporation. Daedalus’s chair, William Walters, donated $10,000 to Noem’s PAC in 2024 and contributed to pro-Trump groups. The donor’s firm previously purchased the plane for nearly $20 million less than what DHS paid. Noem also directed the agency to spend $106 million on two smaller luxury jets, and an additional $90 million for a pair of 17-year-old planes. Donald Trump’s Chief of Staff Susie Wiles directed current DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin to allow the sale to go through. During Noem’s tenure, DHS used taxpayer funds to purchase 10 airplanes worth more than $460 million — most of which were left unused.
After Noem took office, the agency awarded more than $900 million in contracts to companies led by Walters.
In response, DNC Deputy Communications Director Kendall Witmer released the following statement:
“Donald Trump promised to ‘drain the swamp,’ yet his administration is crawling with corruption. Kristi Noem already wasted hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on luxury planes, tricked-out trucks, and a starring role in an advertising campaign — and now there’s even more proof that those dollars were also benefiting her political donors. Americans are fed up with Trump and his inner circle and their elite donors getting rich while they are stuck with high prices on gas and groceries — and in less than 30 days, Americans will hold Trump and Republicans accountable.”
Noem had a well-established tenure of wasteful spending of taxpayer dollars. She directed at least $375 million in taxpayer money toward vanity projects, including $172 million for two private jets, $2.4 million for gold-detailed ICE vehicles, $120,000 for Mustangs for ICE, and $700,000 for tricked-out ICE trucks. Noem regularly used her position for her personal gain, including by providing over $200 million in taxpayer money to fund an ad campaign she starred in, some of which went to a private firm with which Noem has longstanding personal and business ties.
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