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Good evening everyone. Tonight’s rundown has a clear thread running through it. Republicans are facing pushback everywhere they turn, at home and abroad, and none of it looks like it’s going away anytime soon.
Donald Trump found that out this weekend in Ireland, where thousands took to the streets of Dublin and public figures like Rosie O’Donnell openly called for protests against his visit. Back home, Roger Marshall is facing his own wave of backlash from constituents fed up with where the party stands. And Ted Cruz walked into a college football stadium in the middle of a deep red state and got booed for nearly ten minutes straight, loud enough that you couldn’t even hear his answers.
Add to that a growing chorus of warnings from the very people building artificial intelligence, a fight over a five thousand dollar payment that may or may not exist, and a string of stories on immigration enforcement, and it’s clear the pressure is building on multiple fronts at once.
This is exactly the kind of reporting that gets buried or spun elsewhere, and it’s why this newsletter exists. If you find real value in getting it straight, without the noise, do not wait on this one. Subscribe now, share it with someone who needs to see it, and help make sure this work keeps reaching people. It only works if you’re in it with me
Here’s everything you need to know.
AI Fears Rapidly Grow:
Amodei Calls for Global AI Slowdown. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published a 3,800 word essay Saturday calling for the entire AI industry to deliberately slow the pace of capability development. “We must slow the pace at which we improve the capabilities of AI models,” he wrote. “Progress will still seem fast, and we must make wise use of the time we gain.” He warned that a race to the bottom driven by commercial competition makes the risks of the technology more acute, and said he has grown more convinced over the last few months that “fully addressing the risks requires even more prudence.” He proposed that AI companies commit to bringing in independent, embedded evaluators with employee-like access to verify safety practices, and called for global coordination, including with authoritarian governments, to set common standards.
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Altman and Musk Quickly Back the Call. Hours after Amodei’s essay went up, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman posted his agreement on social media, saying “this has been a primary topic of discussions we’ve had at OpenAI in recent weeks” and that his company would adopt the same independent evaluator model. Elon Musk, whose xAI company builds the Grok chatbot, responded with a simple “Dario is right.” The alignment among three normally fiercely competitive executives is notable, and it follows years of AI labs racing each other on capability while occasionally warning about the very technology they are building. Altman had already floated the idea of pacing development back in July, saying on a podcast that slowing down would “give ourselves enough time for society to harden around these new capability levels.”
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Ex-Anthropic Researcher’s Resignation Set the Stage. Amodei’s essay came days after Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon resigned and posted publicly that the people building AI “earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade” and that this “is not a marketing stunt.” Coxon said executives often soften their language for the press while privately expressing real fear, adding that “no other human activity poses this level of danger.” In a later interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, he went further than Amodei’s own essay, saying there is “a very real possibility” that recursive self-improvement, AI systems making themselves smarter without human help, could arrive within the next year or two, with “a chance that we could all die.” His resignation set off a broader furor inside the industry, with other researchers publicly calling on their own leaders to pause development.
The OpenAI-Hugging Face Incident Fueled the Alarm. Much of the urgency traces back to an incident in which a swarm of OpenAI’s own AI agents breached the systems of a smaller AI company, Hugging Face, without OpenAI’s knowledge, a breach that went undetected for weeks until Hugging Face itself flagged it. Amodei described the swarm as having acted like “a fanatically devoted collective,” carrying out cybersecurity attacks on targets it was never asked to target. He warned that if left unchecked, this kind of self-directed capability “could outrun our ability to understand and control these systems, and so must be pursued very carefully, if at all.” The incident has already drawn a Senate probe into OpenAI, and Amodei said it raised the possibility that a similar swarm could take over large portions of the internet within six to twelve months, potentially causing hundreds of billions of dollars in damage.
Not Everyone Buys the Altruism, and Some Say It Doesn’t Go Far Enough
Critics in Silicon Valley have suggested Anthropic and OpenAI’s sudden safety concerns are less about altruism and more about locking in their market lead by pushing for regulations that smaller competitors would struggle to meet. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang made that argument explicitly at a conference this week, asking “what better way to create demand than to create a problem” and suggesting AI labs are stoking fear to sell new cybersecurity products. On the opposite end, University of Louisville computer scientist Roman Yampolskiy argued Amodei doesn’t go far enough, saying that if artificial superintelligence “cannot be reliably controlled, aligned, predicted, or contained, then the rational policy is not to manage its arrival, but to prevent it,” and calling for an outright international ban rather than a managed race. Hugging Face CEO Clément DeLangue, whose company Nvidia is in the process of buying for $12.9 billion, added that AI safety cannot “be solved behind the closed doors of a handful of frontier labs.
Ireland Erupts Against Trump:
Rosie O’Donnell Leads Calls For Protests Against Trump. Comedian Rosie O’Donnell publicly backed the weekend’s protests against Trump, telling the Irish Independent, “The country must protest, he is the antithesis of everything this country stands for.” O’Donnell moved to Ireland after Trump’s return to the White House, saying she no longer felt comfortable living in the U.S. under his administration. She specifically called on Irish President Catherine Connolly to “speak truth to power” when meeting with Trump, adding, “I don’t think she should drop what she believes in to be polite to a madman. He is like a mad king that has destroyed the country.” O’Donnell and Trump have feuded publicly since 2006, when she questioned his standing as a “moral authority” over a Miss USA scandal, and the two have traded insults ever since.
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Trump Calls Reunification “Fantastic” and Wades Into the Falklands. Trump went further than his earlier comments during a meeting with Taoiseach Micheál Martin, telling a reporter a united Ireland would be “fantastic” and adding, “It’s going to happen eventually. It may as well happen now.” He acknowledged there was “no good answer” to the question when he later addressed business leaders, but did not walk back the sentiment. In the same string of remarks, Trump revived talk of the Falkland Islands dispute between the U.K. and Argentina, saying he thinks he’ll “probably be able to settle” the territorial standoff if it flares up again. Analysts noted both comments landed as a pointed jab at Britain, coming amid Trump’s frustration that London has stayed out of the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran.
Trump Meets Irish President Who Has Called Him a “Bully”. Trump sat down with President Catherine Connolly, a left-wing former protester who demonstrated against him during his first term and has previously called him a “bully” over his Middle East policy. Afterward, Connolly said she told Trump directly of “the strong view of the Irish people that the normalization of war and genocide can never be accepted.” She gave him a collection of poems by the late Irish writer Michael Longley that includes the poem “Ceasefire.” When pressed by reporters on how the meeting went, Trump initially let his protocol chief, Monica Crowley, answer for him before saying only that it was “very nice.”
Thousands March in Dublin as Eric Trump Defends the Family. A protest march drew thousands into central Dublin, with demonstrators waving Irish and Palestinian flags and chanting “Donald Trump not welcome here” and “Irish government, shame on you.” Paula Butler, who came with the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre, said she was there to oppose Trump’s “attitude to women, to refugees, to migrants,” and dismissed his unity comments, saying, “What he knows about Irish unity, I’d say I know more on my little finger.” Kim Mathis, an American who moved to Dublin last year, said “part of the reason we moved to Ireland was to get away from Trump and all of his horrific policies.” Eric Trump pushed back on the criticism from Doonbeg, telling RTE that the family’s golf course is the area’s largest employer and urging people to “go have them attest to what we’ve done for the country,” while confirming his father plans to return next year for the Ryder Cup.
Other news:
Ted Cruz Gets Booed Off ESPN’s College GameDay. Ted Cruz made a nearly ten minute appearance on ESPN’s College GameDay at the University of Texas in Austin to promote the Protect College Sports Act, a bipartisan bill aimed at stabilizing the chaotic NIL landscape in college sports, and the crowd booed so loudly through the entire segment that Cruz’s answers were almost impossible to hear. At one point the boos briefly died down before the crowd shifted into chants of “Ted, you suck.” Cruz told viewers he believes the bill will ultimately clear the 60 vote threshold in the Senate, and the legislation has drawn support from figures like Nick Saban and Deion Sanders, though it has repeatedly stalled in Congress despite backing from Trump. The reaction seemed less about the substance of the bill, which most students in the crowd likely knew little about, and more a reflection of Cruz’s party affiliation showing up in a college town in the middle of a deep red state.
Lutnick says the $5,000 dividend wouldn’t come from tax money. Howard Lutnick told NBC that the proposed $5,000 payment to Americans would not be funded by taxpayers, saying “It’s not tax money.” An estimated $500 billion of the roughly $1 trillion needed could come from a new visa program letting wealthy visitors pay up to $5 million each for extended stays, with more than 100,000 people already on a waitlist. The administration is also pointing to the government’s stake in Intel, now worth an appreciated $8.9 billion, as another funding source. Kevin Hassett said the payment would move through the reconciliation process, adding “don’t underestimate President Trump,” while JD Vance has pointed to tariff revenue even after the Supreme Court ruled that “liberation day” tariff money must be returned. The Tax Foundation has noted a similar $2,000 rebate proposal would exceed actual tariff collections, and a new AP poll shows just 32 percent approve of Trump’s handling of the economy, down from 40 percent.
Trump supporters shrug off high gas prices in new man-on-the-street video. Comedian Jason Selvig caught a Trump supporter’s reaction to rising gas prices, asking directly whether Iran had anything to do with it. The supporter dismissed the idea, saying “I don’t think Trump has anything to do with this, I think they’re just doing this to make him look bad. The liberals.” When pressed on who is actually responsible, the supporter said “He doesn’t control the gas prices. Everything’s gone up. The truck’s gotta pay for their gas and it gets to the consumer which is us.” Asked directly who is at fault, the response was simply “I have no idea. I don’t blame Trump though.”
Republican Senator faces boos. The crowd erupted during a recent Senate debate in chants of “Shame on you!” as Senator Roger Marshall tries to explain why he sued 700 of his patients, leading to 81 arrests.
Trump wants a 30-foot George Washington statue at the Smithsonian. Trump posted on Truth Social calling George Washington “easily America’s Greatest Hero” and is pushing the Smithsonian to install a 30-foot “Colossus statue” of him along with an exhibit running through February 2032. The statue would replace the 1967 Infinity sculpture by Jose de Rivera. The push follows a 162-page report from earlier this year accusing the Smithsonian of overemphasizing oppression and division, and a July order for new signage that has not yet been installed. Trump has separately complained that the Delaware crossing and the victory at Trenton are underrepresented, and has proposed a new “Center for American Heroes.” Smithsonian secretary Lonnie Bunch, who is planning to depart, said he has fought “for the independence of the Smithsonian,” and the episode comes alongside the removal of a sculpture at the Kennedy Center and reported plans to possibly sell a Kehinde Wiley painting one Art in Embassies director called “very woke” and “aesthetically terrifying.”
10,000-year-old mastodon tooth found in California. Geomorphologist Brigid Lynch discovered a fossilized mastodon tooth believed to be around 10,000 years old at a preserve in San Mateo County. Paleontologist Wayne Thompson described it as being in “immaculate condition,” saying it sent “chills and shivers up and down my spine.” Pacific mastodons trace back roughly 2.5 million years and went extinct more than 10,000 years ago due to climate change and overhunting. The tooth has been donated to Stanford for carbon dating, and curator Christine Garcia spoke to the broader value fossils like this hold for understanding the region’s history. The find follows similar discoveries in New York in 2024 and on a California beach in 2023.
ICE agents beat protesters and enter a home in Frederick, Maryland. Officers drove vehicles at and onto sidewalks near protesters and used batons during a confrontation in Frederick, Maryland, with at least two people hospitalized. City council president Cesar Diaz described nearly being struck, saying he was “one foot away from her” when a vehicle came close. Activist Soolah Kemp gave her own account of a vehicle driving directly at her. Roughly 200 protesters formed a human chain attempting to block agents from entering a home. Representative April McClain Delaney called for “a full, transparent investigation,” and Senator Chris Van Hollen accused agents of “creating chaos and instilling fear,” while DHS did not directly respond beyond saying “criminal illegal aliens are not welcome.”
North Carolina detention officer charged with 20 counts of forgery. Former Guilford County detention officer Michael Diehl has been charged with 20 felony counts of forgery for allegedly faking magistrates’ signatures on ICE detainer-extension forms. The scheme was uncovered after a flagged form connected to inmate Claudio Nepomuceno led investigators to 19 additional forged documents tied to other inmates. Diehl was fired, arrested, and released on a $5,000 bond, and investigators say more charges are possible as the case continues. The case comes as ICE has detained more than 70,000 people since Trump’s inauguration.
Mississippi police say more arrests coming in Tasia Fortune case. Police Chief RaShall Brackney said the investigation into Tasia Fortune’s death “remains active” and that “additional arrests will be pending.” Jarques Ratliff is expected to appear in court Monday. Fortune’s mother, Christy Spivey, described her grief and disbelief, rejecting any suggestion of suicide by saying “she would never, ever, ever.” Fortune had endured a difficult life that included foster care, homelessness, an abusive relationship, and raising four children, while also holding onto her faith and hopes of starting her own cleaning business. Spivey closed by asking people to “say her name. Keep it going.”
CDC declares record cyclospora lettuce outbreak over. Health officials have declared the record-setting cyclospora outbreak linked to Taylor Farms shredded iceberg lettuce imported from Mexico officially over. The outbreak sickened more than 12,000 people and killed two across 21 states before the product was pulled from shelves. It sparked broader fear around produce, led some growers to plow lettuce under, and drew criticism of the administration’s food safety response. The FDA’s investigation into the exact source is still ongoing, and Taylor Farms says its Mexico facility remains closed pending that investigation, even as unrelated cyclospora outbreaks continue elsewhere.
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DOJ sidesteps legal fight by deporting woman through secretive terror court. The Justice Department avoided a looming legal battle by deporting Nazira Haji Zada through the Alien Terrorist Removal Court, a venue that had sat dormant for roughly 30 years before this case. She was actually removed from the country about two weeks before the DOJ announced it, timed to land around the 9/11 anniversary. Prosecutors alleged she was “the matriarch” behind an ISIS-inspired plot to carry out a mass shooting on Election Day 2024, a plan her son and son-in-law were convicted over. Haji Zada agreed to the alien-terrorist designation and forfeited her green card in exchange for a guarantee that her admission would not be used against her in future criminal proceedings, a deal approved by Judge Joan Ericksen. The arrangement heads off a constitutional challenge her attorneys had planned to bring against the court’s secretive procedures, including its use of classified evidence, in a court structured similarly to the FISA court with five judges appointed by Chief Justice Roberts.
See you soon.
— Aaron
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