Chump continues his Desperation Tour. Sophia Tesfaye (SALON) notes he's singing from his tired hymnal:
Donald Trump has spent his political life treating the press as a prop. Friendly outlets are the audience he performs for, while hostile ones are the villains he performs against. But the president has never had to confront a prop that has stopped cooperating. It’s why he has spent several days raging at nearly every corner of the media, including the one network he has long treated as his own. Increasingly obsessed with controlling the image of his political decline rather than reckoning with reality, Trump has set out on a campaign of intimidation as his usual spectacle starts to finally fizzle out following more than a decade of domination. But browbeating Fox News and continuing to sideline CNN and POLITICO cannot conceal what is there in plain sight: shrinking crowds and falling poll numbers.
Over a whirlwind weekend of rallies across Alabama, Ohio, Oklahoma and Texas, the cracks in the MAGA facade became impossible to ignore. Trump has always treated crowd size at his rallies as a proxy for legitimacy and domination. In his eyes, the image of an overflowing arena functions as proof that the country loves him, that the media lies about him and that his political project remains invincible. This is why the sight of empty seats in high school gymnasiums and muted cable coverage that tell a less flattering story cuts so deeply.
“In actuality, my Events for very good Republican Politicians are probably more crowded than ever. There are no empty seats, there haven’t been for years, and there never will be. The Rallies are ‘HOTTER’ than ever,” he wrote on Truth Social Monday, demanding that “The New York Times, and many other Artificial Media Outlets, should be arrested for their dishonesty.” The president was referencing a Times report that during an event on Friday, Trump’s venue on the campus of the University of South Alabama was not full and that Trump’s midterm campaign swing feels “more like a farewell tour.”
But the day before, Trump had turned his fire on a less obvious target.
“Sad to see that Fox & Friends (Sunday) is not covering our packed house and incredibly enthusiastic (beyond!) Rally that took place in Ohio last night, or the ones in Alabama, Texas, or Oklahoma over the past two days,” he posted on Truth Social Sunday morning. The rallies were “absolutely phenomenal, better than ever,” he insisted. “Our people want to see our Rallies, and reports on our Rallies, on FoxNews, or they will very quickly stop watching (like I am doing right now!).”
Tom Latchem (THE DAILY BEAST) notes the smaller audiences as well:
With his approval ratings in the dirt over the economy and failing war on Iran, Trump’s latest midterm blitz has seen him address high school gyms and venues dramatically smaller than those he packed during his first presidential campaign, drawing crowds up to 75 percent smaller.
The clearest comparison of his dwindling power came in Mobile, Alabama, where Trump held one of the defining rallies of his insurgent 2015 campaign, so popular it had to be moved to a bigger venue. Around 30,000 people descended on the 40,000-plus capacity Ladd-Peebles Stadium to see Trump that August, according to an estimate from city officials reported at the time.
When Trump returned to Mobile last Friday, however, the president appeared at the Mitchell Center, an arena with room for around 10,000 people. Local media reported that around 8,000 attended.
The venue was about 75 percent smaller than the stadium Trump used in 2015, while the estimated crowd had fallen by around 73 percent.
The Desperation Tour is about Chump going to states he once had huge popularity in and talking up GOP candidates who are in tight races. Instead, however, he's making every event on this pity tour about himself.
President Donald Trump’s glib comments about Iran attacking Los Angeles and San Diego were greeted with amusement by MS NOW host Catherine Rampell, who claimed the president is making life miserable for the Republican Party.
On Monday night, the president defended the costs of his war on Iran, insisting once again he prevented the country from developing nukes.
He then added, “They could take out a city. Let them take — Let them take out Los Angeles. Let them take out San Diego.”
On Tuesday morning, Rampell joked with MS NOW’s Peter Alexander that California's Republican candidates must be cringing —particularly the GOP nominee for governor.
The Desperation Tour is poorly planned, very poorly planned. For example, last week it was in Texas -- Denton, Texas. Then it went on to Ohio and other states. Today? It's back in Texas. San Antonio. Chump will be sharing the stage with? Not Texas Governor Greg Abbott. He has announced he has other events to attend.
In another sign of the Desperation Tour's diminishing appeal, Dan Gooding (NEWSWEEK) notes:
More Americans are identifying as Democratic than at any time since the first years of the Obama administration, less than a month before the midterm elections.
The latest quarterly poll from Gallup shows 50 percent of Americans asked either said they were a Democrat or leaned that way, compared to 39 percent for the Republican Party. The share of those on the left has been steadily rising since the end of 2024, while the number of those saying they were Republican or Republican-leaning has fallen.
Aaron Blake (CNN) offers an analysis which includes:
One of the most telling signs of broader GOP panic? Republicans feeling compelled to distance themselves from Trump even in these red areas — whether calling for an end to the Iran war, overhauling their websites to erase mentions of the president, or declining to campaign with Trump.
On Monday, the Houston Chronicle reported that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott won’t appear with Trump when the president visits San Antonio this week. Abbott’s campaign blamed scheduling conflicts, but these are the kinds of events GOP candidates would never have missed once upon a time, especially in a red state.
And indeed, many of the worst signs for the GOP are emanating from Texas.
There’s the awkward ad from Senate nominee Ken Paxton’s estranged wife (who has accused him of infidelity) in which she encourages people to vote Republican. There are the leaked audio clips in which Paxton is heard complaining about Trump and the national GOP hurting his campaign. And on Monday, GOP state Rep. Briscoe Cain posted on X: “If the election were held tomorrow, all state wide races go blue.”
Just to underscore how stunning that would be, Democrats haven’t won any statewide race in Texas since 1994. And this isn’t some moderate Republican spouting off; this is a MAGA lawmaker who tried to help overturn the results of the 2020 election for Trump.
None of this means the GOP is doomed. While there are enough signs in the polling to cause the party to worry, Democrats’ path to the Senate majority still goes through those double-digit Trump states. That’s a high bar to clear.
Turning to other Chuamp failures, let's note Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. Ellen Mitchell (THE HILL) notes:
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s ouster of top generals and admirals from the U.S. military are “damaging our readiness,” according to Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), a retired astronaut and Navy captain.
A member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Kelly said Hegseth’s intended 20 percent reduction of the top of the ranks — announced last week — would only hurt national security.
“When you hurt readiness, it means that all of us ... are less safe because we have the most unqualified secretary of Defense we've ever had in this country's history,” Kelly said Sunday on CBS News’s "Face the Nation."
He also accused Hegseth of often firing people “because of the color of their skin or because they’re women.”
Kelly is, of course, a Democrat. Republicans are complaining about Hegseth as well. Alexander Bolton (THE HILL) reports:
Key Republican senators say they were blindsided by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s announced 20 percent reduction of the U.S. military’s general and admirals, and they're voicing concerns about the lack of consultation with Congress and the possibility that qualified senior officers were sacked for political or ideological reasons.
Senior Republicans on Capitol Hill are questioning whether too many experienced and highly qualified generals and admirals are being pushed out because of politics and what impact it might have on military readiness in the future.
“I wouldn’t have made that a priority if I had been asked,” said Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), who said he was only informed of the 20 percent reduction shortly before it was announced.
“I didn’t get a long lead,” he said when asked if he got a heads up before Hegseth’s announcement Wednesday.
Wicker didn’t have many details about the significant reduction in senior ranks. “I think he’s probably interested in cutting out bureaucracy at the top level,” he speculated.
Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine), who is handling the Pentagon’s request for an emergency supplemental spending package as well as the annual defense spending bill, said the sudden and large reduction of generals and admirals raises questions and concerns.
Collins said she didn’t get advanced notice of the steep reduction in military leadership ranks.
She noted she told Hegseth at a hearing earlier this year that his ouster of senior military officials was “deeply troubling” and risked “depriving us” of the “talent, dedication and patriotism” of women and people of color who were disproportionately pushed out.
Republican US House Rep Thomas Massie has introduced a call for Hegseth to be impeached. A Republican senator has declared he regrets his vote to confirm Hegseth. John Light (TALKING POINTS MEMO) reports:
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) has a book to promote. In it, he revealed this week, he delves into his greatest regret: voting to confirm Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
“The president referred to Pete Hegseth as right out of Central Casting — and I agree with that: He’s an actor. He’s not a manager,” Tillis told MS NOW’s Morning Joe.
This confession comes with a hint of déjà vu. An outgoing senator with a brand as a moderate — at least within the spectrum of today’s Republican Party — regrets a pivotal confirmation vote. Perhaps it brings to mind Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), the doctor-turned-legislator who, despite his reservations, confirmed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead Health and Human Services. Kennedy then immediately broke promises Cassidy said he had made to him, and began acting on his life’s work to undercut the vaccine regimen in America. Who could have seen it coming?
For any who may have forgotten, Hegseth was the most controversial nominee in Chump's cabinet and the vote was split 50 for and 50 against. JD Vance, as Vice President, is President of the Senate. To break the tie, JD Vance voted in favor of confirming him.
In other problems for Hegseth, Edith Olmsted (THE NEW REPUBLIC) notes:
The Associated Press spoke to a group of nine servicemembers who all claim that the U.S. military’s medical system failed them after they were injured in the deadly attack on March 1.
Army Lieutenant Colonel Arturo Lincón, a veteran of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, suffered extensive injuries from shrapnel, including to his left vertebral artery, which put him at risk for a stroke. However, his injuries were not considered serious enough to get him admitted to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany. Instead, he was dismissed to the Army barracks and instructed to schedule outpatient appointments.
“I was just kind of on my own, at least it felt like that,” Lincón told the AP. He underwent weeks of specialized outpatient care at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Washington. Months later, he is still struggling to receive Traumatic Injury benefits under the Servicemembers’ Group Life Insurance.
Meanwhile, Ryan J. Foley (AP) reports:
The shock gloves immigration agents could soon use to control detainees and protesters worked so powerfully during a military exercise that participants felt intense pain, stopped fighting immediately and feared additional exposures, according to a previously unreleased Army study.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement leaders were aware of the findings before signing a $16.7 million contract to purchase 6,000 pairs of shock gloves in August, according to records obtained by the watchdog group American Oversight and shared with The Associated Press.
The shocks had a profound impact on Army employees who played the role of combative prisoners during the exercise, which took place at the military prison at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas in October 2024. The participants, several of whom were large-statured men, stopped resisting seconds after officers applied shocks by touching gloves to their skin, and were left with “fatigue, soreness and excessive apprehensiveness to being shocked again,” the study found.
ICE has called the gloves “distraction and de-escalation devices" that will be safer than other non-lethal options to subdue targets for arrest and deportation and protesters who create civil disturbances. The agency has argued the rapid compliance they cause will keep officers safer and prevent incidents from requiring potentially lethal force.
But critics have warned the gloves will give ICE another weapon to intimidate and brutalize people even as the agency is under fire for excessive force that has left a trail of deaths and injuries across the nation.
On the topic of ICE and abuse, Jill Keppeler (UPI) reports:
A Chicago teacher who was shot five times by an immigration agent last year is suing the federal government for damages.
The federal government had originally charged Marimar Martinez with assault after she was shot by Border Patrol agent Charles Exum in October, saying she was a "domestic terrorist" who "ambushed" law enforcement agents and rammed them with her vehicle.
However, federal prosecutors later dropped those charges with prejudice, meaning the case against Martinez is permanently closed. An Illinois Accountability Commission later found that Exum had no justification in shooting her.
Martinez said she wants to spread awareness through the charges against the federal government, which include negligence, battery, assault, false arrest, false imprisonment and malicious prosecution.
One of the pronouncements in Martinez's trial was that ICE agents and the government had lied to the court. Kathryn Wilkens (MEDIAITE) reports that this has happened again:
A federal judge appointed by President Donald Trump tore into Immigration and Customs Enforcement in a blistering ruling Monday, accusing agents of making illegal arrests and falsifying official records to cover up their actions.
U.S. District Judge Gary R. Brown issued the rebuke in the case of Angel Jesus Almonte, who was arrested during a May ICE operation in the Bronx despite not being one of the two men agents were seeking. ICE also wrongly arrested Jeury Concepcion, a U.S. citizen, during the same operation.
Brown rejected ICE’s explanation that agents had simply mistaken the men for their intended targets.
“The claims of misidentification here prove baseless, the arrests were procedurally deficient and legally invalid, and ICE agents falsified official records trying to conceal their illegal actions,” the judge wrote, noting Concepcion suffered significant injuries.
The judge pointed to stark discrepancies in ICE’s account. Almonte was six feet tall and weighed 180 pounds, while the man agents claimed to have confused him with was 5-foot-7 and 110 pounds. The ICE team leader acknowledged that photographs made it “very easy to see they’re two different people.”
In March of this year, Kristi Noem was fired as Secretary of Homeland Security. Markwayne Mullin became the new Secretary of Homeland Security that same month. And though they got a new secretary, they continue to lie to the courts. Not a good look. Not a look that instills faith in their actions.
The Department of the Interior is headed by a lunatic (Doug Burgum) who sees our national lands as something to sell off. He's having his own problems in his department. Jimmy Tobias (GUARDIAN) reports:
An 18-year veteran of the US Department of the Interior has resigned in protest from the sprawling federal agency, denouncing “a deeply troubling assault on the rule of the law” that took place at the department under Donald Trump.
John Murdock, an attorney and self-described conservative Christian, began working for the agency’s legal office in 2002. In his resignation letter, first sent to his supervisor earlier this year and obtained exclusively by the Guardian and Public Domain, Murdock cites “glaring legal flaws” he witnessed within the agency during the course of the Trump administration, as well as concerns over offshore oil and gas drilling, the aggressive push to expand fossil fuels and the flouting of environmental regulation.
“We are headed in the wrong direction,” wrote Murdock, who officially stepped down on 30 September.
Murdock’s resignation and public comments come amid an exodus of longtime government workers and scientists within federal agencies, including at the interior department, which has lost thousands of employees ever since Elon Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) began its controversial efforts to slash government employment last year.
Let's wind down with this from Senator Elizabeth Warren's office:
Senators concerned that “the President has in fact accepted the ring as part of a quid pro quo agreement to reduce diamond tariffs.”
Washington, D.C. — U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) questioned the White House, the General Services Administration (GSA), and the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) about the location and ownership of the watch-sized 18-karat gold ring encrusted with 321 diamonds and 75 gemstones gifted to President Trump by Antwerp World Diamond Centre (AWDC), noting the “unseemly appearance of this transaction.”
In June, AWDC gifted this ring to Trump just weeks before the President exempted European natural diamonds from Section 301 tariffs, making Belgium’s diamond industry the only major player with zero-percent tariff access to the U.S. market. In August, Senators Warren and Blumenthal wrote to AWDC and David Gotlib Luxury Cufflinks, probing them on what seemed to be a “cartoonish bribery attempt” that raised fresh concerns about the President’s record of distributing special treatment to giant corporations and wealthy insiders who come bearing gifts.
The disposition of the ring is currently unknown.
“In June 2026, AWDC presented the ring to U.S. Ambassador to Belgium Bill White…[who] posted that he could not ‘wait to present this ring to President Trump and have it on display in the Oval Office.’ As of July 2, 2026, the White House confirmed that the ring had not yet been presented to President Trump. To date, we are not aware of any public reporting indicating the current location of the ring,” wrote the senators.
The gift may have been processed through one of two different channels. Gifts given by anyone other than a foreign government to the President, the White House, or the U.S. government are first screened, categorized, and evaluated by the White House Gift Office. If a gift is made to the President personally, it may be retained by the President, while those made out to the government of the United States are cataloged and distributed to the appropriate government agency.
As a public-private partnership, AWDC may have acted on behalf of a foreign government, in which case the ring is subject to the Foreign Emoluments Clause and therefore should have been processed through different channels.
“The circumstances in which AWDC gifted this ring, and the lack of clarity about its disposition, raise significant questions about whether the President has in fact accepted the ring as part of a quid pro quo agreement to reduce diamond tariffs,” wrote the senators.
The senators demanded that the White House, GSA, and NARA release information about the ring and its whereabouts by October 19, 2026.
Senator Warren has long conducted oversight on the Trump family’s apparent attempts to profit from their government roles:
- In August 2026, Senators Warren and Blumenthal pressed Antwerp World Diamond Centre (AWDC) and David Gotlib Luxury Cufflinks over the decision to gift an 18-karat gold, diamond-encrusted ring to President Trump right before the Trump administration announced tariff exemptions on European diamonds.
- In August 2026, Senators Warren, Blumenthal, and Kim probed Korean company Base Group’s mysterious $2 million payment to President Trump while under a trade-related investigation by the Trump administration, raising concerns about pay-to-play politics and bribery. In a new letter to Base Group Chairman Kim Sung-jip, the lawmakers pressed the company for answers on the suspiciously timed payment.
- In July 2026, Senators Warren and Blumenthal, along with Representative Stansbury, opened an investigation into reports that Softbank Group (Softbank) recently donated $50 million to the Trump Presidential Library — the largest publicly disclosed contribution to the Library and a possible attempt to curry political favor.
- In March 2026, Senator Warren released a new response from the Department of Defense (DoD) indicating that there are no effective processes in place to prevent possible conflicts of interest and corruption involving President Donald Trump’s family and the Department’s awarding of defense contracts. In a new letter, she and Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) pressed Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on this failure and pushed for answers regarding Trump’s sons’ latest investment in Powerus, a drone company.
- In September 2025, Senator Warren pressed the CEO of Rolex on why the company invited President Trump to be Rolex’s guest at the finals of the U.S. Open Tennis Championship earlier this month — just weeks after President Trump announced 39 percent tariffs on Swiss imports.
- In July 2025, Senator Warren pushed the CEOs of Amazon, Meta, Tesla, Apple, and Alphabet, on their attempts to secure billion-dollar tax handouts paid for by ripping away health care coverage, food assistance, and other services from millions of American families.
- In May 2025, Senator Warren wrote to Pilgrim’s Pride and JBS USA (the parent company of Pilgrim’s Pride), pushing them to explain Pilgrim’s Pride’s $5 million donation to the Trump-Vance Inaugural Committee, the single largest donation — bigger than Amazon, Meta, and Google’s donations combined.
- In April 2025, Senator Warren pressed Tim Cook about reports that spoke with Trump administration officials to win an exemption to Trump’s China tariffs, worth billions of dollars for Apple.
- In April 2025, on the 100th day of the second Trump administration, Senator Warren read 100 reports of corruption from President Trump’s term into the Congressional record, pointing to all the ways President Trump and his family have used the presidency to enrich themselves, give favors to donors, and make it more difficult to hold him accountable for corruption.
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