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Good morning, everyone. Ken Paxton got caught on tape admitting that Trump’s Iran war and soaring gas prices are sinking his Texas Senate campaign, as Republicans find themselves in trouble from Iowa to Maine. A US senator says the Pentagon blocked him from visiting a military base as part of an effort to hide the true costs of the war, while most families of the soldiers killed in its deadliest attack skipped Trump’s White House event for Gold Star families. And Trump wants to turn his own Palm Beach golf club into the next Camp David, complete with free memberships for future presidents.
This week, I'll be sitting down with Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, Sen. Chris Murphy and Rep. Sara Jacobs. I'll be asking Sen. Murphy about the Pentagon blocking him from that base in Qatar and what Congress can do to force transparency on the Iran war, and I'll be pressing all three on the biggest issues heading into the midterms. You won't want to miss these conversations.
With less than four weeks until the midterms, the stakes could not be higher, and the stories that matter most are often the ones that get buried. Every day, I bring you the news straight, sourced and without spin, with no corporate owners and no algorithm deciding what you see.
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Let’s get into it.
Calls for Trump’s removal are growing after he suggested Iran could “take out” Los Angeles and San Diego, with California’s governor and senator both demanding the 25th Amendment. Gov. Gavin Newsom told The Hill that Trump is “mentally ill,” declaring “TIME FOR THE 25TH!” and Sen. Alex Padilla echoed him on X: “Three words. 25th AMENDMENT NOW.” Section 4 of the amendment allows the vice president and a majority of the Cabinet to declare a president unable to serve, making the vice president acting president. Newsom has called Trump’s remarks “dangerous” and possibly “treasonous,” ordered California’s State Threat Assessment Center to watch for foreign actors who might take the comments as an invitation to attack, and slammed JD Vance and Marco Rubio for their “deafening” silence. The White House continues to insist Trump was talking about a nuclear Iran, though he never mentioned nuclear weapons, while a former Trump aide working on the midterms admitted the comments mean Republicans are now “addressing something he said” instead of focusing on Democrats.
Republicans Face Mounting Trouble in Key Senate Races From Texas to Iowa to Maine
Ken Paxton privately admitted that Trump’s Iran war and soaring gas prices are dragging down his Texas Senate campaign. In audio obtained by Axios from a closed-door fundraiser in Washington, Paxton told donors and lobbyists that his biggest problem is “the war, it’s gas prices, it’s diesel,” adding that diesel over $6 a gallon means “people are feeling the pinch.” He called affordability “by far our biggest problem” and the reason “we’re having a hard time with numbers,” then conceded he has “no control over gas prices” and that “I don’t make the decisions.” At the same fundraiser, he reportedly said Trump’s Dallas convention “dropped our numbers” and that his campaign is “all coming from D.C.” Polls show Democrat James Talarico narrowly leading in a state Democrats haven’t won a Senate seat in since the 1980s, and Trump is rallying with Paxton in San Antonio on Wednesday.
In Iowa, a state Trump won by 13 points in 2024, Democrat Josh Turek now leads Republican Ashley Hinson 48% to 44%. A new Suffolk University poll found independents breaking for Turek by a stunning 58% to 30%, and one in four Trump voters who aren’t backing Hinson said it’s because she’s a “sycophant” or “puppet” of Trump. Trump’s favorability in the state is 15 points underwater, while tariffs have hammered corn and soybean exports and the Iran war has driven up diesel costs for farmers. In the governor’s race, Democrat Rob Sand leads by 12 points in a state that hasn’t elected a Democratic governor in two decades. “We’re seeing independents turning their backs on Republican candidates in three states in a row,” Suffolk’s pollster said, pointing to similar shifts in Michigan and Ohio.
In Maine, Sen. Susan Collins struggled through her debate against Democrat Troy Jackson in one of the country’s most competitive Senate races. When Collins touted her success in getting road salt removed from Trump’s tariff list, Jackson shot back, “We can’t eat road salt,” a line that quickly went viral. Collins also tried to rebut Jackson’s claim that she has “always had health care” by pointing to a single year without coverage in 1994, a response critics widely mocked. Others hammered her vote to confirm Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and some online critics called her performance “pathetic.” Collins, 73, has survived tough races before, but this cycle she’s running against a national environment that is punishing Republicans tied to Trump.
Republicans are trying to spend their way out of trouble, outspending Democrats by more than $400 million in Senate races. Much of that money is going to Texas, where GOP groups have already spent nearly $200 million to prop up Paxton after Talarico out-raised him by $50 million. Meanwhile, the top Republican super PAC has pulled its ads out of North Carolina, effectively conceding that race, and shifted money into Kansas and deep-red South Carolina. Democratic Senate candidates have generally far out-raised their Republican opponents, and the top Democratic Senate super PAC just posted a record $151 million quarter. A recent New York Times/Siena poll showed Democrats tied or ahead in five reliably Republican states.
The common thread across these races is a backlash against Trump’s war, prices and policies, even in places he once dominated. Trump is spending the final weeks of the campaign rallying in red states like Nebraska, Texas and Oklahoma instead of traditional battlegrounds, a sign of how much ground Republicans are defending. In Iowa, two Republican House members recently broke with Trump to back a resolution to pull US forces from Iran without congressional approval. Voters across these states consistently cite grocery prices, gas and fuel costs and health care as their top concerns. With less than four weeks to go, Democrats need to flip four Republican seats to win the Senate, and the map of possible pickups keeps growing.
Pentagon Blocks Senator From US Base as Gold Star Families Skip Trump’s White House Event
Sen. Chris Murphy says the Pentagon denied him access to the largest US base in the Middle East, calling it part of an “unconstitutional effort” to hide the costs of the Iran war. The Connecticut Democrat was blocked from visiting Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, which Iran has repeatedly attacked during the war, and says the Pentagon also refused to brief him while he was in the region. “There is an active, unprecedented, unconstitutional effort underway to hide the costs of this war and the implications of this war from Congress and the American people,” Murphy said. A Pentagon official said the denial was consistent with a travel restriction issued by Pete Hegseth in March and applied “evenly.” Murphy noted that Marco Rubio’s State Department helped arrange his meetings with Gulf leaders, including Qatar’s emir and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, a sharp contrast with the Pentagon’s stonewalling. “I’ve never encountered anything like this in my time in the Senate,” he said, calling on Republicans to demand an end to what he described as “a deliberate campaign of obfuscation.” He’s not alone: members of Congress from both parties have been pushing the administration for more information on the war’s cost, strategy and casualties.
Most families of the six soldiers killed in the war’s deadliest attack are skipping Trump’s White House event for Gold Star families. Only one relative of those killed in the March 1 Iranian drone strike at Port Shuaiba in Kuwait confirmed they would attend Tuesday’s reception with Trump and the first lady. Joey Amor, whose wife, Master Sgt. Nicole Amor, was among those killed, said there are still questions about “what information was available” and “what decisions were made” before the attack, writing, “I am done asking quietly. Today, I am asking the American people to stand with these six families and demand transparency.” His frustration comes after soldiers told the AP that commanders were warned the base was vulnerable to drones and sent troops there anyway, while the Army’s investigation, completed in June, still hasn’t been released. The widow of an airman killed this summer said she was given less than two weeks’ notice and had no interest in supporting “an administration that has been so reckless with the lives of our service members.” Some Gold Star families have said they are grateful for how the administration has honored their loved ones. The war, launched Feb. 28, has killed 19 US troops and wounded more than 800.
JD Vance appears to be softening Trump’s demands on Iran’s nuclear program, even as Marco Rubio declares victory in the Strait of Hormuz. Trump said the day before the war began that he wanted “no enrichment” from Iran, insisting, “Not 20%, 30%,” but Vance told Reuters that Tehran just needs to do “something meaningful on their enrichment capacity” and stop building highly enriched fuel. That’s a notable shift for an administration that launched a war over Iran’s nuclear program, and it echoes the limits Trump once mocked in the Obama-era nuclear deal he tore up in his first term. Rubio claimed Wednesday that Iran has “lost complete control” of the Strait of Hormuz and that its economy is “in total and complete freefall.” But oil prices rose and stocks fell the same day after a British maritime monitor reported nine attacks on tankers in the strait so far this month, already half of September’s total. Rubio insisted that any deal must ensure “Iran will never have a nuclear weapon, simple, period, end of story.”
The US pulled its bombers from a British air base after Iran-linked threats aimed at killing as many American troops as possible, a US official said. RAF Fairford, about 100 miles west of London, has been used by US planes to strike Iran during the war, and the Trump administration believes the threat was intended to destroy as many US aircraft and kill as many troops as possible. The official could not say what kind of attack was being planned, and British police have released few details about their investigation. Police have arrested seven people in connection with the suspected plot, most recently a 22-year-old man in central London on Tuesday. Six of the seven have been released on bail, which drew criticism from Trump last week. Trump said he removed the bombers because he didn’t want to tempt “the enemy.” The threat is a reminder that the war’s risks now reach well beyond the Middle East, even as the administration insists Iran is on the verge of defeat.
Trump Wants to Turn His Palm Beach Golf Club Into the New Camp David
Trump wants to transform his West Palm Beach golf club into an official presidential retreat modeled after Camp David. The Washington Post has confirmed that, under a proposal from the club’s lawyer, Palm Beach County, which owns the land the course sits on, would hand a parcel to the federal government to serve as a permanent retreat for future presidents and a venue for summits with foreign leaders. Trump would pay to build a presidential residence and facilities on that land, while the rest of the course would remain a private club run by the Trump family business. Future presidents would even be offered complimentary memberships to the Trump club. “Just as Camp David, Windsor Castle, or the Elysee Palace are known worldwide, so too will the Presidential Golf Course in Palm Beach County,” the lawyer wrote. County officials say they are seriously considering the plan and are already in talks with the General Services Administration.
The plan would likely be a boon for Trump’s own business. Trump reported nearly $37 million in income from the golf course last year, and his club would continue to operate privately right next to an official site of presidential importance, likely drawing even more business. The White House pitched the location’s advantages, noting it’s minutes from what is now called “Donald J. Trump International Airport.” The club’s lawyer said construction wouldn’t finish before Trump leaves office, framing the project as “a gift” to his successors. Trump has visited Camp David far less often than many of his predecessors, once saying its rustic charm would wear off after half an hour. Instead, he has spent at least 137 days golfing during his second term, according to one tracker, despite once mocking Barack Obama for golfing as president.
The proposal is the latest example of Trump reshaping the presidency around his own properties and brand. The Palm Beach area has already been transformed in Trump’s image, with the airport and nearby road renamed after him and Mar-a-Lago serving as a hub for MAGA events and networking. Ironically, Mar-a-Lago itself was once gifted to the federal government as a “Winter White House,” but the National Park Service returned it because it was too expensive to maintain, and Trump bought it in 1985. Sportswriter Rick Reilly, who has golfed with Trump, said the president cares less about the game than the attention he gets at his clubs. Bringing foreign leaders there, Reilly said, would be a way for Trump to “make a power play with these people and show them who is the king of America.”
Other news:
Cornell students are skipping class and refusing to spend money on campus Wednesday in a “Zero Day” economic blackout in solidarity with Jane Doe. Organized by Cornell Black Students United and the Cornell NAACP, the protest includes a seven-hour sit-in at Toni Morrison Dining Hall, one hour “for the seven hours she endured,” according to organizers. Students are being asked to avoid the campus store, dining halls, vending machines and printing services, while being careful not to interfere with dining workers, with organizers saying, “Our pressure is on the institution. Our solidarity extends to its workers.” The action follows a “Justice for Survivors” rally that drew thousands to campus Monday and a student town hall on sexual violence Tuesday. Students are demanding Cornell expel or revoke the degrees of everyone “complicit” in the alleged assault, rewrite its sexual misconduct policy, require prevention training, fully comply with New York’s “Enough is Enough” law and submit to an external review of its administration. “We really just want Jane Doe to know that we care about her,” one organizer said, adding that students want to make sure “nothing like what she has to go through ever happens again.”
A previously unreleased Army study found the shock gloves ICE just bought cause intense pain, instant compliance and lasting fear. ICE leaders knew about the findings before signing a $16.7 million contract in August for 6,000 pairs of the gloves, according to records obtained by the watchdog group American Oversight. In a military prison exercise, participants, including large men, stopped resisting within seconds and said “just seeing the GLOVE was enough to make them want to comply.” The study found the gloves work by “overloading the peripheral nerve endings” to cause pain, and participants who were wet reported even stronger shocks, with one feeling discomfort for 30 minutes afterward. Critics warn the gloves are easy to use, leave no marks and give ICE another tool to intimidate people as the agency faces scrutiny over deaths and injuries, and even the manufacturer says they shouldn’t be used on children, pregnant women or disabled people. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto says ICE still hasn’t answered a letter from 16 Democratic senators demanding to know how the gloves will be used.
Tropical Storm Isaias has formed in the Gulf and is expected to become the first hurricane of the Atlantic season before hitting the Gulf Coast this week. The storm formed early Wednesday off eastern Mexico with winds of 40 mph and could make landfall anywhere between eastern Louisiana and the western Florida Panhandle. The National Hurricane Center warned of an “increasing risk of dangerous wind and storm surge” and urged residents to have a hurricane plan in place. Heavy rain is expected across the Gulf Coast and much of the Southeast starting Friday and into the weekend. The storm was about 580 miles southwest of the mouth of the Mississippi River as of Wednesday morning, moving east-northeast at 8 mph. The Atlantic season has been unusually quiet this year because of a strong El Niño.
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Two of Trump’s top political advisers spent part of the midterm crunch in the Balkans, getting paid to advise a pro-Russian government on its election. James Blair and Chris LaCivita, who run MAGA Inc., the Trump super PAC sitting on $415 million to help Republicans keep Congress, traveled to Republika Srpska in Bosnia ahead of its elections Sunday and were each paid hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to The New York Times. The territory’s ruling party is aligned with Vladimir Putin and has spent heavily courting Trump’s orbit, with Trump-connected lobbyists and operatives collecting more than $4 million from its government since last year. That influence campaign paid off when the Trump administration lifted sanctions last year on party leader Milorad Dodik, who was sanctioned for undermining the US-backed peace agreement that ended the Bosnian war. After his party won Sunday, Dodik thanked Putin for his support and credited Trump’s 2024 victory with creating a favorable political environment. A MAGA Inc. spokesman insisted the two remained “fully engaged” in the midterms, noting they hosted a team call during the trip.
Israel marked three years since the Oct. 7 attack, as grieving families turned the anniversary into demands for accountability from Benjamin Netanyahu. Hamas-led militants killed about 1,200 people and took 251 hostages on Oct. 7, 2023, the deadliest day in Israel’s history, and mourners gathered Wednesday at the Nova music festival site, where 378 people were killed, at 6:29 a.m., the minute the attack began. Across Israel, protesters blocked highways, filled a Tel Aviv fountain with red dye and lined a beach with figures representing the dead beside Hebrew letters reading “total failure,” calling for an independent state inquiry that Netanyahu has resisted. A bereaved father interrupted Netanyahu’s speech at a state memorial, shouting, “You did not protect my son,” and a new book by Haaretz reporters claims the UAE’s president warned Netanyahu of a major Hamas operation a week and a half before the attack, which Netanyahu calls “an absolute lie.” In Gaza, more than 74,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war that followed, according to the territory’s health ministry, and Israeli strikes have continued despite a ceasefire declared last October. The anniversary comes less than three weeks before Israel’s Oct. 27 election, the first chance for voters to pass judgment on Netanyahu since the attack.
Sen. Ruben Gallego says he is “absolutely thinking about” running for president as he rolls out a sweeping economic plan. The Arizona Democrat’s 32-page agenda calls for a $20 minimum wage and a New Deal-style public service jobs program funded by taxes on data centers and AI companies, paying people for work like coaching Little League, caring for the elderly and counseling people fighting addiction. He’s also proposing a “robot” tax to discourage replacing workers with automation, letting people charge tech companies for their personal data and tripling union membership by 2035. The plan would also require companies to pay double for overtime instead of time and a half, and require humans to review AI-driven hiring and firing decisions. Gallego blamed both parties for failing the working class, saying Republicans have been worse but “Democrats can’t not be blamed.” He said his biggest consideration is whether he can run while still being “an active father” to three young children.
Members of Meta’s Oversight Board are warning that the AI safety committees promised under Trump’s new White House accord could be little more than window dressing. Last week, companies including OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Meta, Nvidia and xAI pledged to create independent safety committees, but the voluntary accord doesn’t bind them to anything and says the committees should be made up of the companies’ own board members. Board members say real oversight requires independence, transparency, its own budget and the power to push back, with one saying, “If that friction doesn’t exist, it’s a sure sign that there’s no effective independent oversight going on.” Another member put it simply: if a committee can’t control its own budget, membership and decisions, “that isn’t oversight.” A Stanford law professor called Meta’s own board “more of a cautionary tale” than a model, noting it’s hard to “bite the hand that feeds” you. The warning comes as OpenAI and Anthropic prepare to go public at estimated valuations of more than $1 trillion each.
A new Florida poll shows Republicans leading the governor and Senate races, even as Hispanic voters turn on Trump. Republican Byron Donalds leads Democrat David Jolly 48% to 41% in the governor’s race, and Sen. Ashley Moody leads Democrat Angie Nixon 50% to 40%. But among Florida’s Hispanic voters, who helped Trump win Miami-Dade County in 2024, 49% now disapprove of his job performance compared with 45% who approve. Statewide, Florida voters are split evenly on Trump at 48% approve and 48% disapprove. The cost of living was by far the top issue, with 30% saying it’s most likely to influence their vote. Democrats point to recent special election wins in Florida as proof the party is winning back Hispanic voters, driven in part by anger over Trump’s immigration crackdown.
Henri Kagan and Kenso Soai won the Nobel Prize in chemistry for solving a century-old mystery about how molecules come to favor one “mirror image” over another. Kagan, 95, of France, discovered a way to manipulate chemical reactions that has revolutionized how chemists make pharmaceuticals, flavors, scents and new materials. Soai, of Japan, designed the first chemical reaction in which only one of two possible mirror-image molecules forms, a feat the Nobel Committee said no one had achieved “other than life itself.” The committee called their work “spectacular.” The two will share a prize worth about $1.2 million. The literature prize will be announced Thursday, followed by peace on Friday and economics on Monday.
Texas is set to carry out the first US execution since Tennessee’s botched attempt to put Christa Pike to death last week. Jamaal Howard, 46, is scheduled to receive a lethal dose of pentobarbital Wednesday for the 2000 killing of convenience store clerk Vickie Swartout, which was caught on surveillance video. Howard, who was 20 at the time, took $114 and a carton of cigarettes during the robbery. His attorneys argue he is intellectually disabled and has an appeal pending at the Supreme Court, which barred executing intellectually disabled people in 2002. The state argues he hasn’t presented evidence meeting the legal requirements for that claim. It would be the 30th execution in the US this year, with Florida leading the country at 16.
Two commercial ships were hit by drones off Bulgaria’s coast, the first attack on shipping in the NATO member’s waters, and Ukraine’s president is blaming Russia. One vessel sank at the scene with no immediate word on its crew, while the other caught fire and its 18 crew members were evacuated, with two severely injured. Bulgaria’s prime minister called it “a blatant violation of international law,” and Zelenskyy said it was “a combined Russian attack using maritime and aerial drones.” Russia has not commented, and NATO declined to comment. Bulgaria’s prime minister warned the war is expanding geographically and increasing the risk of a wider global conflict. The attack came a day after a Turkish-owned cargo ship sank following a drone strike in the Black Sea, killing two people.
Iran-backed Houthi rebels claim they launched missiles and drones at airports and military bases in Saudi Arabia, deepening a new front in the Iran war. The Houthis said they targeted Riyadh’s main international airport, where flights were briefly disrupted, as well as Abha airport and several military bases near the Yemeni border. Saudi-led forces said they intercepted a ballistic missile north of Riyadh. The rebels also fired missiles at Aden’s airport, with one landing near the runway just before a passenger flight from Cairo was set to land. Yemen’s Human Rights Ministry warned the strike threatened “a humanitarian disaster,” as other passengers were waiting to board a flight to Jeddah when it hit. The attacks come as Saudi and allied Yemeni forces push a major offensive to retake territory the Houthis seized along the Red Sea coast, threatening a key shipping alternative to the Strait of Hormuz.
Germany’s former foreign intelligence chief has been arrested on suspicion of espionage and attempted treason in one of the country’s biggest spy scandals since the Cold War. Prosecutors say August Hanning, who led the BND from 1998 to 2005, paid a former agency office manager for about 2,000 secret documents and used them to prepare an analysis for a foreign spy service. The documents reportedly included material on Iran’s nuclear program, the Russian military and highly sensitive intelligence from allied countries. The office manager, who worked for successive BND presidents until March, was also arrested. Der Spiegel reported investigators are examining a possible link to Azerbaijan. A German security lawmaker warned the case could damage the country’s intelligence relationships with its allies.
A New Orleans judge tried to have a local TV station criminally charged over its reporting on her, but police found the station hadn’t broken any law. Criminal court Judge Kimya Holmes filed a police complaint against CBS affiliate WWL after it reported that her then-fiancé, who was charged with fraudulently collecting more than $712,000 in Covid relief money and later pleaded guilty, donated a $765,000 home to her in 2025. Holmes accused the station of putting her “in harm’s way” by publishing the home’s address and a photo of a Corvette leased by her ex-fiancé, relying on a state law requiring media outlets to remove certain information about judges. But the parts of that law she cited had been repealed weeks before the story aired, and when a detective told her, Holmes admitted that if true, “she does not have any grounds for a criminal complaint.” Holmes, who says she didn’t know about the fraud until after the couple split, faces a tough reelection race this month, and a media attorney said he “can’t imagine a public official filing a criminal complaint in response to reporting” whose accuracy was never challenged.
McDonald’s is being sued over claims it uses an AI tool that effectively lets its franchises fix prices. The proposed nationwide class-action lawsuit, filed in federal court in Chicago, alleges the company’s pricing platform pulls nonpublic sales and pricing data from thousands of independently owned restaurants to set menu prices, amounting to “algorithmic price-fixing aimed at customers who are already stretched thin.” McDonald’s calls the complaint “filled with inaccuracies,” insisting that “AI does not set menu prices” and that franchisees decide for themselves, though a Reuters investigation found some owners were pressured to use the tool and log when they ignored its recommendations. The suit was brought by an Illinois man who noticed the price of his usual Quarter Pounder meal varied even within his own neighborhood. McDonald’s own data shows the average price of a menu item rose about 40% between 2019 and 2024, and at least 90 bills have been filed nationwide this year to crack down on algorithmic pricing.
See you soon.
— Aaron
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