Today in Politics, Bulletin 230. 10/16/25 Ron Filipkowski Oct 16 ∙ … Republicans continue to melt down over No Kings. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) on Fox: “Follow the money. Cut off the money. You look at this No Kings rally—there’s considerable evidence that George Soros and his network is behind funding these rallies which may well turn into riots. I’ve introduced legislation that would allow DOJ to use RICO to prosecute the money that is funding these No Kings protests.” … Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent worked for Soros for 24 years. Soros literally funded Bessent. … Fox host Sean Hannity: “I want to give some unsolicited advice. They are going to have these No Kings rallies. To me, it has all the feel of the environment of 2020 – the mostly peaceful BLM riots. I would advise people to find out if there is a rally near you and stay away.” … Mike Johnson on CNBC: “I think it has a lot to do with the ‘Hate America Rally’ that’s gonna be on the Mall on Saturday. You’re gonna have all the Antifa and BLM and pro-Hamas people, all the Marxists will be on the Mall.” … Rep. Lisa McClain (R-MI): “They’re gearing up for their ‘I Hate America Rally’ this weekend - a rally where they will cheer for chaos instead of country.” … Karoline Leavitt: “The Democrat Party’s main constituency is made up of Hamas terrorists, illegal aliens, and violent criminals.” … Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT): “This is grossly dark. These are broken people. But it’s also so politically dumb. How do they think Americans will react to being told that anyone who doesn’t support Trump is a terrorist?” … MN Gov. Tim Walz: “Most Republicans are good people. Most Democrats are good people. The WH says outrageous things to make you hate your neighbor. Your neighbor isn’t the problem. The White House is.” … Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-NM) to Meidas: “These guys are trying to create a pretext for the deployment of the military against American citizens. And part of how they’re trying to do that is by labeling them terrorists—by labeling them as committing crimes and using words that they know would give them some sort of pretext to deploy troops against Americans. It’s really important that as people step out and exercise their free speech and their rights to assemble and march this week. Do not be scared—these people are trying to scare you.” … MSNBC Kyle Griffin: “Hillary Clinton was lambasted for years for the phrase ‘basket of deplorables.’” … Jemele Hill: “At least she didn’t call Democrats deplorables because it would lead to endless news stories about it for months and used as evidence that she is unfit to do her job.” … Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY): “The notion that the No Kings rallies are anything but a patriotic act consistent with the 1st Amendment right to express yourself and petition the government for change in policy continues to reveal that Republicans are clueless as it relates to the Constitution, or they continue to lie for political reasons.” … AOC on House Republican leadership referring to No Kings as ‘Hate America’ rallies: “If I, as a Democrat, disagree with you as a Republican, I’m not going to question your allegiance to this country. And I believe that when we devolve into that, that is when we are actually stoking division—when we call those who disagree with us un-American—that is what is un-American.” … No Kings organizer Ezra Levin was asked by HuffPost why rhetoric from Republicans has gotten so hysterical about the rallies: “I don’t think it’s that complicated. The one thing an unpopular authoritarian regime is scared of is mass, organized, peaceful people-power. That is it. I have to laugh at how ridiculous this is. But I appreciate the speaker for giving the ‘No Kings’ rallies free publicity.” … Professor Stanislav Vysotsky, an expert on fascism: “Yes, this is classic authoritarianism. It’s an intentional framing of the opposition as violent and dangerous in order to dehumanize them, which then justifies a violent crackdown. Authoritarians routinely paint their opposition as a menacing existential threat to peace and safety for just that reason.” … “Levin recalled that he and other organizers closed out their flagship No Kings event in Philadelphia in June by leading 100,000 people in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance while waving American flags: ‘It’s funny how much Johnson is scared of this imagery.’” … After claiming he negotiated everlasting peace in the Middle East last week, Trump posted this today: “If Hamas continues to kill people in Gaza, which was not the Deal, we will have no choice but to go in and kill them.” … After saying last week that he was leaning towards giving Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine, Trump changed his mind today after a two-hour call with Putin: “I did actually say would you mind if I gave a couple thousand tomahawks to your opposition? He did not like the idea.” … “We need tomahawks for the US, too. We need them. We can’t deplete for our country. So they are very vital, very accurate and very good. But we need them, too. So, I don’t know what we can do about that.” … WSJ: “The Trump admin is preparing sweeping changes at the IRS that would allow the agency to pursue criminal inquiries of left-leaning groups more easily. A senior IRS official involved in the effort has drawn up a list of potential targets that includes major Democratic donors. The undertaking aims to install allies of Trump at the IRS criminal-investigative division to exert firmer control over the unit and weaken the involvement of IRS lawyers in criminal investigations.” … “The proposed changes could open the door to politically motivated probes and are being driven by Gary Shapley, an adviser to Scott Bessent. Shapley has told people that he is going to replace Guy Ficco, the chief of the investigative unit, who has been at the agency for decades, and that Shapley has been putting together a list of donors and groups he believes IRS investigators should look at.” … “Among those on the list are George Soros and his affiliated groups. The effort within the IRS coincides with a larger admin effort to probe left-leaning groups for helping to finance organizations that the president says are creating anarchy in Democratic-led cities. Trump has directed Bessent, who is also acting IRS commissioner, to identify financial networks that the president says are fomenting political violence.” … Bessent: “We have started to compile lists of the other networks, and there’s a long record here. This is mission-critical for us now. We are operationalizing this here at Treasury. We are going to track down who is responsible for this.” … Aaron Reichlin-Melnick: “Reminder that it’s a full-blown federal felony crime for anyone in the WH (and all Secretaries but the AG) to order the IRS to target people. It’s not just a crime to DO it, it’s a federal crime for an employee not to REPORT such order to the Treasury Inspector General.” … Trump’s former NSA John Bolton was indicted today. MSNBC: “The indictment says Bolton kept more than 1000 pages of diaries containing highly classified information, and shared them with two relatives. His email account was hacked by Iran, exposing some of the secrets.” … Trump also called for Andrew Weissmann, Lisa Monaco, Adam Schiff to be prosecuted: “I hope they will look at all of these people. And I am allowed to find out I’m allowed, you know, I’m in theory chief law enforcement officer.” … Rep. Marge Greene (R-GA) on the now $40 billion Argentina bailout: “Americans are getting decimated with high cost of living and skyrocketing insurance costs. Many of them have zero savings and some are maxing out credit cards to survive. Tell me how it’s America First to bailout a foreign country with $20 or even $40 BILLION taxpayer dollars.” … Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR): I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the Trump admin is using American tax dollars to fund infrastructure in Argentina because that’s where they’re all going to flee when we kick them out of office.” … NYT: “The Trump admin has secretly authorized the CIA to conduct covert action in Venezuela, stepping up a campaign against Nicolás Maduro. For weeks, the US military has been targeting boats off the Venezuelan coast it says are transporting drugs, killing 27 people. American officials have been clear, privately, that the end goal is to drive Maduro from power.” … “Trump acknowledged that he had authorized the covert action and said the US was considering strikes on Venezuelan territory: ‘We are certainly looking at land now, because we’ve got the sea very well under control.’ The new authority would allow the CIA to carry out lethal operations in Venezuela and conduct a range of operations in the Caribbean.” … “The scale of the military buildup in the region is substantial: There are currently 10,000 US troops there, most of them at bases in Puerto Rico, but also a contingent of Marines on amphibious assault ships. In all, the Navy has 8 surface warships and a submarine in the Caribbean.” … AP: “Dozens of reporters turned in access badges and exited the Pentagon on Wed rather than agree to govt-imposed restrictions on their work, pushing journalists who cover the American military further from the seat of its power. News outlets were nearly unanimous in rejecting new rules imposed by Pete Hegseth that would leave journalists vulnerable to expulsion if they sought to report on info - classified or otherwise - that had not been approved by Hegseth for release.” … “Many of the reporters waited to leave together at a 4 PM deadline set by DOD to get out of the building. As the hour approached, boxes of documents lined a Pentagon corridor and reporters carried chairs, a copying machine, books and old photos to the parking lot from suddenly abandoned workspaces. Shortly after 4, about 40 to 50 journalists left together after handing in badges.” … NPR reporter Tom Bowman talked about his sources inside the Pentagon over the years: “They knew the American public deserved to know what’s going on. With no reporters able to ask questions, it seems the Pentagon leadership will continue to rely on slick social media posts, carefully orchestrated short videos and interviews with partisan commentators and podcasters. No one should think that’s good enough.” … WSJ: “More than three dozen organizations and individuals, including companies with business before the govt, attended a dinner with Trump on Wed evening after opening their checkbooks to support the new $250 million ballroom under construction at the WH. Companies that sent reps included Lockheed Martin, Microsoft, Meta, Alphabet’s Google, Amazon, and Palantir. The guest list also featured wealthy individuals and families, such as oil billionaire Harold Hamm, Blackstone CEO Steve Schwarzman and Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss.” … “Trump is discussing other construction projects. He is planning to build a large white arch in a traffic circle across from Arlington National Cemetery. He expects that project will also be funded by corporate donations. It is unclear how much the project would cost. The president has his own model replica of the arch and a map of the National Mall in the Oval Office, and has been showing guests the design.” … Trump at the dinner on the ballroom: “All the glass on the sides is bulletproof. It can hold 999 people. So many of you have been really, really generous. A couple of you, here saying, ‘Sir, would $25 million be appropriate?’ I said, I will take it.” … Trump showing them more of his plans for DC: “That’s Arlington Memorial Bridge - at the end of it you have circle. In 1902, they were going to put a statue of Robert E. Lee up, would have been ok with me—would’ve been on with a lot of the people in this room.” … Trump: “Somebody said, ‘would we think about taking the World Cup away from Boston if they don’t straighten it out?’ The answer is yes. We have the right to do that with FIFA. If we think that LA is gonna be bad, that applies to the Olympics too.” … Trump announced at the dinner he was cancelling funding for the largest infrastructure project in the US: “The project in New York—it is billions and billions of dollars of that Schumer has worked 20 years to get. It is terminated.” … Trump makes this announcement less than 3 weeks before the hotly-contested NJ governor’s election, which kneecaps Republican nominee Jack Ciattarelli, who immediately went into damage control: “NJ needs a Governor who has the standing to work with, and when necessary disagree with, the President and advocate for NJ’s fair share of fed tax dollars - including the Gateway Tunnel. This is a critical infrastructure project and I will fight to get it done.” … Former Rep. Tom Malinowski: “The Gateway Tunnel isn’t something we need to ‘advocate’ for. Congress appropriated the money. There is a legally binding funding agreement. No president can lawfully ‘terminate’ it. And we shouldn’t have to elect a governor the president politically owns to get it.” … Democratic nominee Mikie Sherrill: “Trump is terminating the country’s largest and most important infrastructure project, the Gateway Tunnel, ripping away tens of thousands of jobs and stealing billions of dollars from our state. I’ll fight tooth and nail to get this funding back and complete this essential infrastructure project for our state, commuters, and economy. Ciattarelli refuses to stand up to Trump, no matter the cost to NJ.” … Rep. Rob Menendez (D-NJ): “Terminating funding for the largest investment in public transit infrastructure in our nation’s history is a direct assault on working-class New Jerseyans and New Yorkers.” … Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ): “Hey Ciattarelli, still can’t think of anything you disagree with Trump on? You support him ‘terminating’ the Gateway Tunnel Project?” … Kim: “This is mob boss politics. It’s a direct attack on NJ and on our entire nation’s economy. This isn’t Trump’s money. This is YOUR money. Stupid games of political retribution cannot stand.” … Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ): “The wannabe king is at it again stealing money from Blue States. Do any Republicans in NY or NJ have anything to say about this theft? This is the most important mass transit project in our state, and I won’t rest until funding is restored.” … Rep-elect Adelita Grijalva responded to Mike Johnson’s “bless her heart” answer when told she is demanding to be sworn in: “Spare us the patronizing ‘bless her heart’ comments. It took Johnson less than 24 hours to swear in his Republican colleagues. He’s stalling because he’s scared of his puppet master Trump. This delay isn’t about process. It’s about obstruction. Release the files.” … Grijalva on MSNBC: “The excuses depending on the day keep changing. The timing is the fact that I am the 218th signer to the discharge petition for the Epstein files.” … Former IG Mark Greenblatt: “I can confirm that another Inspector General has been fired by Trump, this time at the Export-Import Bank. Another dismissal of an IG is deeply alarming, weakens independent oversight, and erodes a vital safeguard for taxpayers.” … Punchbowl: “Speaker Johnson says he met with Sen. Maj Leader John Thune yesterday. He says Thune offered Schumer a vote on Obamacare subsidies but Senate Dems said no. Johnson adds it’s ‘not possible’ for Thune to guarantee an outcome to Schumer on the subsidies because it’s a member driven process and deliberations ongoing.” … Thune was asked about Russ Vought refusing to spend funds appropriated by Congress after they are passed with bipartisan agreement: “We need to fund the govt the old fashioned way - I don’t think you need rescissions. Q - Have you said that to the WH, maybe don’t do another rescissions package? Because it feels like that’s poisoned the well. Thune: It’s in everybody’s best interest, including the WH, to do a normal appropriations process.” … Bobby Kogan, director of budget policy for American Progressives: “Trump and Vought are now breaking both sides of spending law. They’re illegally not spending where the law requires them to spend, and they’re illegally spending where they don’t have money to spend. What we have is an appropriations king. Spending ‘deals’ are meaningless under that.” … Thune on ACA subsidies: “These premiums are going up a little bit because of the expiration of the enhanced tax credits. MSNBC: I think people hearing their premiums are doubling don’t feel that it’s a little bit.” Sorry this one is out a big late - it is because I had to have a root canal and that wiped out most of my afternoon. It also didn’t help that this was a day with a ton of news. I did my best to keep up! If you missed the last Bulletin, you can find it here. Meidas+ is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. … Hakeem Jeffries responded to Thune on MSNBC: Q - “What I’m hearing from you is it might be be enough that Thune is now saying he could do a vote on ACA subsidies. Jeffries: Republicans have tried to repeal the ACA more than 70 different times. They can’t be trusted on a wing and a prayer. We need a real path forward.” … Cami Mondeaux with Deseret News: “Speaker Johnson says he met with Thune yesterday about giving Dems a vote on ACA subsidies - said that Thune offered this to Schumer but he said no ‘because they wanted a guaranteed outcome’.” … Punchbowl: “Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) has been discussing with colleagues holding two side-by-side votes intended to end the shutdown. The first vote would be to reopen the govt, while the second would be on a one-year extension of the Obamacare enhanced premium tax credits, plus a commitment to pass a longer-term solution by a date certain.” … “Dems want a solution, though, not a vote. And Thune/Johnson won’t guarantee an outcome. The problem: House Republican leadership would be quite hesitant to guarantee a vote.” … Johnson: “If they will reopen the govt we’ll look at that but that’s not what they’re asking of us, they want us to guarantee an outcome and it cannot be done as I’ve just explained. We have to have time to process that.” … Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) on MSNBC: “We want to sit in a room and have a negotiation. We don’t want to negotiate through the press. I don’t need to watch Thune on TV in order to find out what he says he’s offering. Just get in a room like adults do and we can talk this out.” … Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI): “Faced with shutdown, Republicans again ignored health care crisis and tried to blame Democrats for wanting to help “illegals.” That fake story exploded on them. Faced with looming health care crisis, many Republicans agreed the ACA credits needed extending, but said they wouldn’t negotiate about it now. We didn’t trust them.” … “Faced with looming health care crisis, Senate Republicans now say they’ll “guarantee” a vote on extending ACA credits, but just not now. Still no reason to trust them. But notice the move: from ignoring health care, to lying about health care, to conceding healthcare fix is needed, to offering a vote some time later on extending ACA credits, to “guarantee.” … “Do the math: Republicans now have government shut down over WHEN they negotiate to extend ACA credits. Seems silly. Can they give a reason? Or is it House Republican terror over the Jeffery Epstein vote that keeps them away?” … NYT: “Federal agents deployed tear gas on Chicago residents and more than a dozen police officers on Tues, the latest clash in the nation’s third-largest city as the Trump admin has carried out its immigration crackdown. An SUV driven by agents collided with the car they were pursuing, sending that car into another vehicle that was parked nearby. After the crash, dozens of additional ICE agents in masks arrived and residents emerged from their houses, gathering on streets and sidewalks, throwing objects at agents and shouting, ‘ICE go home!’” … “As the agents left, they released tear gas, apparently without warning, sending people coughing and running for cover. Among those affected by the gas were 13 Chicago PD officers and at least one officer was seen rinsing his eyes out with water from a neighbor’s garden hose.” … City Council member Andre Vasquez: “Chicago’s been doing just fine, and then these guys showed up. There is big concern about what these unidentified, masked men are doing in this city without accountability. Chicagoans are just trying to live their life. We’re not going to tolerate unconstitutional authoritarianism.” … Daily Beast: “Land O’Lakes CEO Beth Ford sounded the alarm at the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit. Ford noted the precarious position faced by American farmers, including a labor shortage due to the Trump admin’s harsh immigration measures: ‘These are folks who oftentimes try to get American labor are struggling to do so. They absolutely need labor, and if they don’t have it, that’s yet another element—and it could be a black swan event for a farmer if they don’t have somebody who can help and be on the farm.’” … “A ‘black swan event’ is an unpredictable and extreme occurrence that has severe consequences. These include natural disasters, disease outbreaks, or labor shortages in the agricultural industry.” … “Trump’s Labor Dept claimed in an Oct. 2 filing that Americans are unwilling to fill the gap left by these job losses. It wrote that the lack of undocumented workers ‘results in significant disruptions to production costs and threatening the stability of domestic food production and prices for U.S consumers.’ 42% of all farmworkers were born outside the US and lack official work authorization. A staggering 51% of all dairy laborers in the US are immigrants.” … Guardian: “9 months after Trump took office, promising to reduce prices on ‘day one’, a clear majority of Americans say their monthly costs have risen by between $100 and $749, according to an exclusive new poll conducted for the Guardian. Americans are reporting soaring inflation and are increasingly pessimistic about the economy. When asked to estimate how much their regular monthly household costs have increased from last year, 74% of those surveyed said they had seen increases of at least $100.” … AOC held a CNN town hall with Bernie Sanders. AOC: “I don’t care if someone likes me or not. That will never change the fact that I’m going to fight for them to have health care. I want MAGA to have health care. I want MAGA to be paid a living wage. But Trump doesn’t want people based on their political affiliation to benefit. And that is the difference between an authoritarian and a leader of a democracy.” … Moderator Kaitlan Collins: “Are you saying that Schumer should not be worried about a primary challenge from you?” Sanders interrupted: “We got a housing crisis, a health care crisis, and education crisis. Massive income and wealth inequality, a corrupt campaign finance system. And the media says, are you going to run? Nobody cares.” … I get what Bernie is saying about the media constantly asked horse-race questions. At the same time, I care because I want her to run. … AOC: “They’re saying that they’re doing all this work. They are twiddling their thumbs and talking to each other. I’ve never seen people who hate working so much in my life. I mean, genuinely, they won’t even pick up the phone. If I were Mike Johnson, you should be in that office negotiating with Hakeem Jeffries every day until we reopen this government. And any day that you don’t do that is a failure. It is a failure. And until there is accountability for people who refuse to work, to work, then we’re going to continue to be in this cycle. … AOC: “Some of the projects that they have canceled have been large scale wind energy projects. And again, they think this is a Democratic priority, right? Because it’s because it’s wind energy. But this is energy, period. And it’s jacking up the prices in Mike Lawler’s district, in Nicole Malliotakis’ district, in Republican districts across the state—they are jacking up the price, the prices on MAGA voters.” … Meidas broke this story: “The WH will shut down portions of the I-5 for JD Vance’s Marine Corps spectacle during No Kings Protests, triggering chaos, gridlock, and outrage amid the govt shutdown. Sources describe the closure as part of a ‘vanity parade’ that may involve Navy warships shooting live missiles into Camp Pendleton as a ‘show of force.’” … Gavin Newsom: “Trump and Vance think that shutting down the I-5 to shoot out missiles from ships is how you respect the military. PUT ASIDE YOUR VANITY PARADE AND PAY OUR TROOPS INSTEAD.” … The WH later issued a statement calling our story fake news (it was later confirmed by LA Times and SF Chronicle), but the only part they denied was closing I-5. Newsom: “We’re relieved the WH backed off its plans to shut down a major interstate. Now that I-5 will stay open, we hope the Trump Admin applies that same common sense to reopening the federal govt!” … Former OK Schools Chief Ryan Walters, who recently resigned: “I could not be more disappointed in the decision to move away from empowering our teachers in Oklahoma to use a foundational document like the Bible in the classroom. The war on Christianity is real.” … Maybe now all the drama from his tenure is over OK might have a chance to do better than 50th in the nation in education. … JD Vance’s response to the vile and racist text messages from the Young Republicans: “Grow up! Focus on the real issues. Don’t focus on what kids say in group chats. The reality is that kids do stupid things, especially young boys - they tell edgy, offensive jokes. That’s what kids do.” … Mother Jones: “One problem with this defense? The people in the group chat aren’t “kids.” By scanning public records and media reports, Mother Jones determined the ages of eight of the 11 participants in the chat: They appear to range from 24 to 35. Hendrix, the KS Young Republicans vice chair, and Luke Mosiman, chair of the AZ YRs, were, at 24, the youngest participants in the chat whose ages Mother Jones could determine.” … “The oldest appears to be Joe Maligno, who public records suggest is 35. In the chat, he spoke about gas chambers and used a racial slur toward Chinese people. Maligno previously identified himself as general counsel for the NY Young Republicans.” … Newsom called for a congressional hearing: “Vance’s refusal to unequivocally condemn the invocation of gas chambers and rape underscores that DOJ and other agencies with potential jurisdiction, such as the EEOC, that have aggressively investigated alleged antisemitism and unlawful gender ideology by the other institutions and organizations cannot be trusted to do so here. Congressional oversight is therefore essential.” … Vance’s comments set off a big debate among right-wingers, some of whom agreed with him that the vile comments were no big deal, with others saying that they are indefensible. Seth Dillon, editor of the Babylon Bee (right-wing version of The Onion), took the lead role in calling out Vance for his comments: “I don’t want unity with anyone who thinks this is part of ‘conservatism’ or that ‘winning’ somehow necessitates ignoring or mainstreaming this.” … “Something I’ve noticed about this ‘No Enemies to the Right’ phenomenon: The rules seem to be that you’re not allowed to attack anyone further right than you, but people further right than you are allowed to attack anyone on the Right they want. They can call decent, effective conservatives “ziocuck jew fa66ot,” they can accuse you of plotting to murder Charlie Kirk, but if you so much as question their poor behavior you’re met with impassioned pleas for ‘unity.’ … “The ‘unity’ only goes one way. That seems to be less of an appeal to unity, and more of a play to hand over the reins of our entire movement to the most extreme and depraved actors who claim to be on our side. Seems unwise. ‘No enemies to the right’ isn’t a strategy for beating the left; it’s a strategy for letting bad actors with bad ideas gain control of the movement unopposed. You don’t win by refusing treatment when you have cancer. It just spreads - often very quickly - and then you die. … Dr. Darrell Scott with Pastors for Trump: “Eff the Young Republicans and everybody who is in agreement with them.” … Axios: “Axios reached out to virtually every Democrat running for a House seat that could conceivably be won by a Democrat in 2026, with 113 responding in phone interviews or written answers. Of those, 20 said they wouldn’t vote for Jeffries as speaker or minority leader, with 5 more saying they were likely to vote against him.” … Another 57 candidates declined to commit to supporting Jeffries - saying it was premature to do so, citing ideological differences or outlining perceived flaws in strategy, messaging or leadership they want to see addressed. Only 24 said they would definitely vote for Jeffries, with another seven saying they would likely do so.” … Press and Journal (UK): “New accounts for Aberdeenshire’s Trump International Golf Club Scotland show it lost nearly £1 million last year. It is the 13th consecutive year in which Trump’s Balmedie resort has reported a loss. Since 2012, the company’s pre-tax losses total more than £15.7m. The latest figures, for the 2024 calendar year, show a loss of £938,000, after a £1.4m deficit in 2023.” … Daily Beast: “Some MAGA supporters who paid for Trump Watches are seriously ticked off. The majority of reviews for GetTrumpWatches on Trustpilot give the company just one star, with some people complaining that it is a ‘scam.’ The timepieces range from $499 to $2,999 per watch, or $5,389 for the ‘Ultra Mega Collector Set.’ The president has been criticized for hawking them on cable TV as a govt shutdown drags on over healthcare funding.” … “57% of the 30 customers who have rated the watches gave the company just one star. Another 3% of reviewers gave it two stars. The overall 2.8-star rating appears to suggest a record of over-promising and under-delivering. Reviews cite delays, non-arrivals, and ignored demands for refunds.” … “The watches are marketed as ‘Swiss-made,’ but corporate breadcrumbs point stateside. CNN reported in Oct last year that corporate records trace not to a Swiss atelier but to a registered-agent address in a Wyoming shopping center. The site’s FAQs do not name a factory location, while manufacturing origin remains opaque in public materials.”