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Good evening. Election Day is one week away, and today might have been the wildest day of the campaign yet. Donald Trump glitched repeatedly on stage in Texas, stumbling over Ken Paxton’s name, and then said he’ll respect next week’s results only “if they’re honest elections.” Hacking attempts knocked the Federal Election Commission’s filing system offline, cutting off spending disclosures in the final stretch. Overseas, Trump’s closest ally, Benjamin Netanyahu, watched his governing bloc collapse in Israel’s exit polls amid record turnout. And Flávio Bolsonaro, the Trump-aligned candidate who just lost Brazil’s presidential election, reportedly fled to the United States after defying a court order to surrender his passports. I also sat down with Vice President Kamala Harris today. We covered a lot of ground, so tell me what you think. The people trying to dodge accountability are running out of places to hide, and independent journalism is a big reason why. Over the past week, we went back 50 years to expose Donald Trump’s ties to Russia, we’ve been on top of every attempt to interfere with this election, and now we’re sitting down with the most important voices in American politics. We don’t answer to billionaires or corporate owners. We answer to you. If you value this work, now is the time to stand with us. Subscribe today and help us keep pushing through Election Day and beyond
Let’s get into the news. A federal grand jury refused to indict former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson over her Jan. 6 testimony, according to two people familiar with the matter who spoke to the Washington Post. In a brief court appearance Tuesday, a Justice Department lawyer told a magistrate judge that the grand jury “had not concurred” on the proposed indictment. Trump and his allies have spent years demanding that Hutchinson be punished for her explosive 2022 testimony that Trump urged armed supporters to march on the Capitol and reportedly lunged for the steering wheel when told he couldn’t join them. The DOJ opened the case after Republican Reps. Jim Jordan and Barry Loudermilk referred her for prosecution, and in an unusual move, the Civil Rights Division presented it to the grand jury. Grand juries almost never reject indictments, because prosecutors only need to show probable cause, which makes this a rare and striking rebuke. It’s the latest failure in the DOJ’s campaign against Trump’s perceived enemies, after another D.C. grand jury refused in February to indict six Democratic lawmakers over comments they made to service members.
Trump Glitches During Texas Rally as Experts say Tuesday Could Mark the end of the Trump Era: Polling experts say next week’s midterms could mark the end of the Trump era, as top analyst Nate Silver warns that Trump is on track to become “a super-lame duck.” “If the election goes roughly as the polls say it will go, then in some ways it would mark the end of the Trump era, I think,” the FiveThirtyEight founder told the New York Times’ Ezra Klein on Tuesday. Silver said that once the votes are counted, “the 2028 election campaign begins,” and he compared Trump’s position to George W. Bush’s after Republicans lost both chambers in 2006 amid anger over the Iraq war. His Silver Bulletin model gives Democrats more than a 90% chance of flipping the House and better than a 70% chance of winning the Senate, with voters frustrated over the cost of living and the Iran war and Trump’s approval at historic lows. Silver credited Democrats with nominating “pretty good candidates” against weaker Republicans like Texas Senate nominee Ken Paxton, and said he’d “be shocked if Democratic turnout wasn’t high by midterm standards.” He also cautioned that polls have favored Democrats in each of the past three presidential elections, while Trump has dismissed unfavorable polls as “false.” Donald Trump ‘glitched’ multiple times in Texas today during his rally. The first glitch came while trying to say Ken Paxton’s name:
 Election Officials Brace for Federal Interference as Trump Says He’ll Respect Results Only “If They’re Honest Elections” Hacking attempts have knocked the Federal Election Commission’s electronic filing system offline one week before the midterms, according to an email seen by Reuters. The system has been down since around 10 p.m. ET Monday, and the FEC says its IT staff are “actively working to restore service.” While it’s down, political groups can’t file the 24-hour and 48-hour reports that show how much they’re spending on specific races in the final stretch. “I’ve never seen this in 26 years,” said Steven Mele of the compliance firm MBA Consulting Group, warning that “there will be less disclosure on the elections” until it’s fixed. The FEC doesn’t administer elections, so the outage shouldn’t affect anyone’s ability to vote. The FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Trump said Tuesday he will respect next week’s midterm results “if they’re honest elections,” a conditional answer that is heightening fears he’s preparing to challenge the outcome. He made the comment at Joint Base Andrews before leaving for a campaign trip to Texas. A day earlier, he wrote on Truth Social that he is “watching closely” for fraud in Minnesota’s Senate race, warning, “Don’t allow them to play with the Votes after the race is over. The Federal Government will be watching closely.” He also claimed Republican Michele Tafoya can only lose “if they cheat by playing games with the Ballots as they come in.” Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) said Trump is “blatantly laying the groundwork to steal an election if his chosen candidate doesn’t win.” Meanwhile, Attorney General Todd Blanche defended the DOJ lawsuit seeking to block certification of Alaska’s Senate race if Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan loses, telling CNN, “There could be a crime.”
 For the first time, election officials in both parties are planning for the federal government itself as a potential threat to the vote, according to The New York Times. Poll workers are being trained on what to do if immigration agents show up, on the federal law that bars armed federal agents from polling places, and on the limits of what federal monitors can do. “This is the first time ever that we have had to engage in scenario planning to safeguard against potential federal interference in elections,” said Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows. “It seems like the federal government is now adversarial to the states.” Officials are preparing for scenarios that include federal agents seizing ballots, as happened in Fulton County, Ga., earlier this year, ICE appearing at polling sites, and Trump invoking the Insurrection Act, which he has refused to rule out. “We really are shadowboxing here, because we don’t know when or if the blow is going to land,” said Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon. The concern crosses party lines, and officials are stepping up their preparations. Utah’s Republican lieutenant governor, Deidre Henderson, said she doesn’t “necessarily expect” interference but that her state is planning for it anyway. One group has run about 140 training sessions for local officials and law enforcement this year, up from 67 in 2024. A Michigan county clerk said federal monitors deployed to her county during the August primary made claims about long lines and other problems that were “simply not true,” and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison put his concern about threats to the election at “a seven,” saying, “It’s as high as it’s ever been for me.” Experts note that courts have blocked most of Trump’s efforts to insert the federal government into elections, and that the worst scenarios are unlikely because judges would likely stop them. The White House called the concerns unfounded and blamed “radical Democrats” who oppose voter ID and citizenship checks. At the same time, Russia is ramping up its influence operations in the final stretch of the midterms, according to researchers and lawmakers briefed by intelligence officials. NPR reported last week that a Russian operation known as Storm-1516 spread two AI-generated fake videos with a baseless accusation against a Democratic Senate candidate, and one racked up about 857,000 views within 24 hours. Russian operatives are also pushing fabricated corruption claims about Democrats, AI-manipulated celebrity videos, and fake posts impersonating news outlets. “It’s a carnival out there,” said Rep. Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. Intelligence officials have long said Russia favors Trump and targets Democrats, and Himes and Sen. Mark Warner said a recent classified report shows Russia opposes candidates of either party who back Ukraine. Himes stressed there’s no sign Russia can interfere with the actual mechanics of voting, but researchers expect more fake claims about ballots and voting around Election Day.
Trump Weighs Lifting Sanctions on What the U.S. Called Putin’s “Slush Fund” as Russia Says the War Will “Likely Escalate” The Trump administration is considering lifting sanctions on Russia’s flagship government investment fund, which the U.S. once called a “slush fund” for Vladimir Putin, according to a New York Times exclusive. The Biden administration sanctioned the Russian Direct Investment Fund days after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine and called it “emblematic of Russia’s broader kleptocracy.” A U.S. official confirmed that the administration is reviewing the fund’s application to have sanctions removed as part of an effort to “improve U.S.-Russia relations and help end the war.” The official also praised the fund’s chief, Kirill Dmitriev, as “a helpful envoy” to U.S. negotiators. Eric Green, who oversaw Russia policy at the National Security Council at the time, said lifting the sanctions would send a “real strong message” that the U.S. is relaxing economic pressure before any settlement in Ukraine. According to the Times, Russia is using the recent flurry of diplomacy to advance an agenda that appears to have little to do with securing peace. The fund is at the center of Trump’s diesel deal with Putin, and Dmitriev reportedly pushed for sanctions relief on his own fund during those talks. The fund helped arrange the first shipments of Russian diesel to the U.S. after Trump suspended sanctions on Russian diesel on Oct. 9. Three tankers have set sail this month, some reportedly without any U.S. buyers having paid for the fuel. Dmitriev, whose wife is close with one of Putin’s daughters, according to people who know them, boasted that the diesel deal is convincing Americans that “sanctions are, in principle, philosophically wrong.” His main U.S. contacts have been envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. “It’s been really, really good dealing with Kirill,” Witkoff told Putin at the negotiating table in St. Petersburg last week. Even as Washington offers more concessions, Russia’s foreign minister says the war “will continue and likely escalate.” Sergei Lavrov made the comment after Putin held a phone call with Finnish President Alexander Stubb and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, which Stubb called “frank and substantive.” Lavrov dismissed the call, saying the two leaders offered nothing new and that European countries were simply trying to get a role in negotiations. Ukraine’s foreign minister said the call was coordinated with Kyiv. Sweden’s prime minister said peace must come “through strength, not through appeasement towards Russia.” A UN commission also accused Russia of war crimes and crimes against humanity over deliberate attacks on Ukraine’s energy grid meant to “cause suffering” for civilians. The ceasefire in the Russian-occupied city of Oleshky took effect Tuesday and has been expanded, according to Melania Trump, who took credit from the Pope who helped broker it. The first lady said the timing was moved up two days “to protect the safety of civilians and to facilitate the delivery of critical humanitarian aid.” She said the ceasefire area now extends beyond Oleshky within the Kherson region to provide safe passage for humanitarian convoys. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said no violations had been observed, and Ukraine says it is “honouring its commitments.” Ukraine’s foreign minister said that if the truce produces results, “this can pave the way for other steps in the peace process.” Elsewhere, Russian attacks continued, including a strike on Pavlohrad that killed one person and wounded seven, among them two 10-year-old girls who needed surgery.
Flávio Bolsonaro Reportedly Flees Brazil for the U.S. After Losing to Lula and Defying a Court Order to Surrender His Passports Flávio Bolsonaro has left Brazil and is headed to the United States after losing Sunday’s presidential election, according to sources cited by Reuters and CNN. He left after missing a Tuesday morning deadline to hand over his passports under a Supreme Court order, and federal police then canceled them. A U.S. official first told CNN that Bolsonaro was headed to Florida, then said his exact destination was unclear. Allies told the Brazilian outlet Metrópoles that he would land in Florida on Tuesday afternoon and planned to request political asylum, adding that “the Donald Trump administration has been informed.” CNN Brasil reported that he left in the early hours of Tuesday with his wife and two daughters. Allies also told Folha de S.Paulo that the escape was “organized and enabled by a lawyer close to the Bolsonaro clan.” Just one day before he left, Bolsonaro insisted he had no intention of fleeing. “I have never thought about leaving the country,” he said in a video on Monday. “I will hand over my passports and defend myself against this travesty, which is a clear attempt to intimidate me.” Since then, the normally prolific social media user has gone silent. According to O Globo, he appeared “possessed” at a Monday meeting with friends and lawyers and made clear he was afraid of being arrested. A source close to Bolsonaro told CNN he feared arrest because he is under investigation for alleged corruption, money laundering, and currency evasion, all of which he denies. It remains unclear how Bolsonaro got out of the country, since police say he never passed through a regular immigration checkpoint. Argentine media reported that he crossed into Argentina, possibly on foot, and planned to board a private jet in Puerto Iguazú bound for the U.S., but the plane never took off. Argentina says it has “no record of Flávio Bolsonaro entering” the country. Bolsonaro has also held Italian citizenship since 2023 and reportedly has an Italian passport. Lawmakers from Lula’s Workers’ Party have asked the Supreme Court to order his arrest and to put his name on Interpol’s Red Notice list. His brother Eduardo, who lives in Texas and said before the vote that Flávio should leave Brazil if he lost, called the reports a “lie.” If the reports are confirmed, Bolsonaro would be following his father’s playbook and could deepen the rift between Washington and Brazil. Jair Bolsonaro also went to the U.S. after refusing to concede to Lula in 2022, and he was later sentenced to 27 years for plotting a coup. He is now under house arrest. Flávio, who lost 51.79% to 48.21%, still hasn’t conceded, though his Liberal Party has accepted the result. Lula has accused Washington of colluding with the Bolsonaros to put them back in power, and Reuters reported before the election on a State Department campaign to restore them to office. Eduardo already has an outstanding arrest warrant in Brazil for lobbying Trump to sanction the judges hearing his father’s case, and he is part of a growing community of Brazilian conservatives living in exile in the U.S.
Netanyahu’s Bloc Collapses in Israeli Exit Polls as Record Turnout Leaves No Clear Winner Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing bloc is projected to collapse from 68 seats to 50, according to exit polls from Israel’s Channel 12, while his main rival, Gadi Eisenkot, holds a narrow edge. Eisenkot’s bloc is projected to win 52 seats, with Arab parties on track for a record 18, but neither side is close to the 61 seats needed to govern in the 120-seat Knesset. Netanyahu’s Likud is still projected to be the single largest party, with 24 seats to 22 for Eisenkot’s Yashar party, which leaves weeks of coalition bargaining ahead. Turnout hit 74.3% two hours before polls closed, the highest in decades, in an election widely seen as a referendum on Netanyahu after Oct. 7 and the war with Iran he launched alongside Trump. Exit polls are not official results, and they have both overestimated and underestimated Likud in the past, so the count could still shift. Official results are due by Nov. 4.
Netanyahu’s opponents are calling the results a “crushing defeat” after a final day in which he accused Arab voters of “stealing the election.” Eisenkot said the numbers show “a complete lack of confidence in Netanyahu and the October 7th government” and vowed to “replace the Netanyahu government” as soon as possible. Former Prime Minister Yair Lapid said, “This is a total collapse and the public has told them to go home.” Earlier in the day, as turnout surged in Arab communities, Netanyahu posted that “Muslim Brotherhood supporters are storming polling stations and stealing the election.” His Likud party also asked to extend voting hours, which Eisenkot’s party said was an attempt to “lay the groundwork for allegations challenging the integrity of the elections.” Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Trump’s endorsement may have backfired, because Israelis “don’t like to think that the prime minister standing for re-election is a pet boy” of another country’s leader.
Other news: The U.S. military says it killed five people in an airstrike on a suspected drug-trafficking boat in the eastern Pacific on Tuesday. According to media tallies, it is one of more than 70 such strikes since the start of Trump’s second term, and together they have killed more than 240 people. Trump has said the U.S. is in an armed conflict with Latin American cartels and argues the strikes are needed to stop drugs from reaching the U.S. But the administration has not provided definitive evidence that the people and boats it targets were involved in trafficking. Legal experts and human rights groups say the strikes could amount to extrajudicial killings, since they appear to target civilians who pose no immediate threat to the U.S. The legality of the campaign remains a subject of intense debate. The parents of Alex Pretti, the ICU nurse and U.S. citizen killed by immigration officers in Minneapolis, are demanding that the Justice Department release the evidence in their son’s death. Michael and Susan Pretti say the federal government has kept them in the dark for 275 days, even after they wrote to Attorney General Todd Blanche asking for basic information, including the names of the officers involved. “At every turn, they have ignored us, misled us and shielded Alex’s killers,” Michael Pretti said. “The federal government went on TV and lied about Alex,” Susan Pretti added. “They tried to slander his memory to cover up their crime.” The Hennepin County attorney says the federal government has stopped sharing evidence with state investigators, and the DOJ has moved to dismiss her lawsuit seeking it. A DOJ spokesperson said communication with families typically comes “at a later stage of a case.” The Trump administration is softening its tough talk on Canada as tariff-driven inflation weighs on voters a week before the midterms. Trump told reporters a deal with Canada would be “settled pretty soon” and claimed, “They’re willing to give us anything at this moment.” Prime Minister Mark Carney said the opposite: “To the extent any progress has been made, it’s because the U.S. is coming closer to our position.” Since talks collapsed in August, the U.S. has imposed 50% tariffs on hundreds of categories of Canadian goods, and Canada has retaliated. Last week, at the urging of Sen. Susan Collins, who faces a tight race in Maine, the U.S. lifted some of those tariffs and replaced them with others. Several close Senate races are in border states like Maine, Michigan, and Alaska, where polls show Trump’s tariffs are broadly unpopular. Utah authorities are linking serial killer Ted Bundy to another 1970s homicide. Summit County officials held a news conference Tuesday to share the findings that led them to close the case. The victim’s name had not yet been released, though the 1974 death of 17-year-old Melissa Ann Smith has long been listed as a local cold case. In April, Utah authorities also tied Bundy to the murder of Laura Ann Aime, 17, who disappeared on Halloween in 1974. Bundy, who killed at least 30 women and girls across several states, was executed in Florida in 1989. Advances in DNA testing continue to add to his list of confirmed victims nearly 40 years after his death. A Georgia man whose GPS sent him down an unfamiliar road came upon a burning house and helped save a sleeping family of 14. Casey Sparks, 37, was driving home to Alabama from a softball game on Oct. 17 when his GPS kept routing him onto a highway he hadn’t used before, and he spotted a glow “like a bonfire” near Lyerly. He told his 13-year-old son to call 911, ran into the house yelling for everyone to get out, and carried a little girl out of a hospital bed, handing her over a fence before going back in. James and Larita Burke, their 11 adopted children, and a grandchild all escaped before the fire destroyed the home. The local fire chief said that if they had been inside “probably no more than five more minutes, there would have been fatalities.” “We’re from the South, man, and we help each other,” Sparks said. The CDC’s Trump-appointed deputy director and chief medical officer, Dr. Jennifer Shuford, is resigning after just six months on the job, according to an agency email obtained by the Guardian. Shuford was appointed in April as part of a leadership team meant to stabilize the agency after former director Susan Monarez left less than a month into the job, publicly calling RFK Jr.’s directives “unscientific.” Shuford said she is leaving “to spend more time with my family,” and her departure is set for Nov. 12, after the midterms. During her tenure, Kennedy fired all 17 members of the CDC’s vaccine advisory panel and forced the agency to publicly contradict the scientific consensus on vaccines and autism. The CDC has also lost a third of its workforce while the U.S. has seen 48 separate measles outbreaks. Dr. Satish Pillai will serve as acting deputy director while a successor is found. Federal agents searched a Beverly Hills mansion on Tuesday as part of the investigation into former Rep. Eric Swalwell, according to the Associated Press. The home belongs to Stephen Cloobeck, a wealthy developer and former Swalwell donor, where Swalwell spent time before resigning from Congress in April amid sexual misconduct allegations. Cloobeck cut ties with him as the accusations mounted, saying, “I am no longer associated with a man that takes advantage of women.” The investigation began after a woman alleged Swalwell sexually assaulted her twice, and CNN reported that three other women accused him of other misconduct, including sending unsolicited explicit messages. Federal agents already seized Swalwell’s devices and searched his D.C. home in August, and the Manhattan district attorney is also investigating. Swalwell, a leading Trump antagonist who once was a frontrunner for California governor, denies any criminal wrongdoing. Tennessee authorities are hunting for a convicted murderer serving a life sentence who escaped from a state prison by slipping through a fence. Officials realized Jacob Morley, 28, was missing from the Northwest Correctional Complex in Tiptonville around 11:30 p.m. Sunday, and security footage shows him escaping in his prison uniform. Surveillance video then reportedly showed him stealing a truck around 1 a.m. Monday and driving past a fire department about 15 miles away. Morley was sentenced to life for killing his co-worker Cody Birchfield in 2022, whose body was found in a box under Morley’s home. The prison has a history of violence and severe understaffing, with a 61% vacancy rate for correctional officers in 2023. Officials are offering a reward of up to $2,500 for information leading to his arrest. A Florida surgeon has performed the first telerobotic surgery between two U.S. hospitals, removing a cancer patient’s prostate from 35 miles away. Dr. Vipul Patel of AdventHealth operated on Sunday from Celebration, outside Orlando, while the 66-year-old patient was at an AdventHealth facility in Minneola, with a surgeon on site for support. The patient is recovering well, according to AdventHealth. The procedure was part of a clinical study under an FDA investigational exemption, which allows the system to be studied but is not FDA approval, and it followed 10 test surgeries between Orlando and Luanda, Angola. “For generations, access to highly specialized care has often depended on where a patient lives,” Patel said. Researchers are still evaluating the technology’s safety, reliability, and cybersecurity, including the risk of connection failures.
See you soon. — Aaron |
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