Just dropped · Trial Balloon · Ep. 189
Navigating the Nonsense
“Sen. Ted Cruz fired back at JD Vance for suggesting he’s already focused on a 2028 presidential bid, calling the vice president ‘insecure’ while insisting he’s focused on the 2026 midterms,” Politico reports.
Said Cruz: “In my experience, people engage in political bomb-throwing when they’re feeling insecure. So he’s welcome to make whatever comments he likes. I’m going to keep focusing on the midterms and helping us win on Election Day in the next 30 days.”
“In unveiling a panel to study the future of warfare this week, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth did more than announce some advisers. He brought Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, back into the Trump administration fold,” the New York Times reports.
“With him came a raft of potential new conflicts of interest.”
“Mr. Musk had largely failed at his high-profile government cost-cutting expedition last year, not coming close to meeting his stated goals and leaving some agencies in disarray. After departing government duty, he prompted an epic fight with President Trump and threatened to start his own political party.”
“But after a long make-nice campaign, Mr. Musk is back in Washington with a seat at the table of the Pentagon, as a co-director of a group advising an agency that is a source of his vast personal wealth.”
Wired: “DHS agents not only tracked and intimidated people observing ICE activity in Maine, but stored information about them in a Palantir-built database, newly unsealed court filings say.”
“If the Democrats win, you will have an economic depression, much like 1929. If the Republicans win you will each have $5,000 in your pocket.”
— President Trump, quoted by the Wall Street Journal, once again promising to pay voters to vote Republican in the midterm elections.
“President Trump, who has long staged a rhetorical and legal assault against voting by mail even as he used the method himself to cast his ballots, released a video on Saturday urging Republicans to vote early and by mail in the midterm election,” the New York Times reports.
Said Trump: “Vote early. Vote by mail. Or vote in person on Election Day.”
“It was the latest contortion from Mr. Trump on mail balloting. He has for years promoted unfounded claims that mail voting is rife with fraud, while working to restrict the practice for Americans, an effort that has been stymied by lawmakers and the courts. As recently as July, he said ‘mail-in ballots are inherently corrupt.'”
“Justice Samuel Alito said in an interview this week that he ‘thought about’ retiring during the Supreme Court term that concluded in July but decided to continue serving out of a belief that he was making ‘a valuable contribution,'” the New York Times reports.
Washington Sun: Alito explains his decision to defer retirement.
“President Donald Trump posted Sen. Tom Cotton’s cell phone number to the world on Saturday, as part of a plea for his Truth Social followers to badger his Republican ally into making daylight saving time permanent,” the Washington Sun reports.
Mediaite: Trump posts Republican senator’s number in Daylight Savings feud: “Call Tom on his cellphone.”
“Angela Paxton wants to clear the air,” the New York Times reports.
“Mrs. Paxton, the estranged wife of Ken Paxton, a conservative firebrand locked in a fierce battle for the U.S. Senate seat in Texas, is urging voters in a new ad to back the entire Republican ticket when they go to the polls next month.”
“While Mrs. Paxton doesn’t mention her husband — whom she is divorcing, alleging adultery — by name in the ad, she addresses ‘the elephant in the room’ by telling voters they should look past their qualms with any single candidate and think about the future of the Republican Party.”
Mediaite: Republicans sound alarm on Ken Paxton’s “slow-moving car crash” of a campaign.
“Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) plans to try to block Democratic nominee and New York socialist Darializa Avila Chevalier from taking her seat in Congress if she wins the Nov. 3 election — over her saying she used the American flag as a napkin,” the New York Post reports.
“Dozens of Internal Revenue Service employees improperly viewed the tax records of celebrities, government officials and business leaders from 2022 through 2025, according to an inspector general’s report released on Friday,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Unauthorized access is illegal, even if employees don’t disclose tax information outside the government, and it can be punished through criminal prosecution or employee discipline.”
“The head of Tennessee’s prison system is resigning after the failed execution of Christa Pike, Gov. Bill Lee announced Saturday,” NBC News reports.
“Voters are deeply dissatisfied with President Donald Trump and his Republican Party heading into the Nov. 3 midterm elections, according to an Associated Press-NORC poll, and Democrats have built a clear advantage on pressing issues such as the cost of living and healthcare over just a few months.”
“But the survey also points to a bigger problem for both parties: Few registered voters think either party is able to solve important problems or help Americans like them.”
Politico: “Major Democratic contributors and small-dollar givers are flooding Senate hopefuls with cash, but in some of the most politically crucial states they could lose winnable gubernatorial races because they’re being so dramatically outspent by Republican nominees and their allied groups.”
“In former and future presidential battlegrounds Florida, Texas, Ohio, Georgia, Wisconsin and Nevada, the gubernatorial advertising gap is yawning. For the remainder of the campaign, Republicans are on track to outspend Democrats on television about 6-to-1 in Florida, more than 3-to-1 in Texas, 2.5-to-1 in Georgia, more than 2-to-1 in Wisconsin, and only slightly more narrowly in Ohio and Nevada.”
“Sen. Ruben Gallego’s leadership PAC has been subpoenaed as part of a federal investigation into the Arizona Democrat’s use of campaign cash to fund a luxurious lifestyle,” Politico reports.
“The Justice Department issued a federal grand jury subpoena — the existence of which has not been previously reported — on Aug. 21 to Gallego’s Juntos PAC. It demands that the PAC produce information related to ‘activities on or about’ Sept. 9, 2025, as well as records and statements Gallego submitted to the Senate Ethics Committee related to its probe into allegations of misuse of campaign funds, which the panel dismissed in June.”
“The subpoena says it relates to an ‘ongoing criminal investigation’ and that the requested records will be turned over to a grand jury.”
“Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Ro Khanna are heading to California to rally Saturday in support of an initiative that would place a one-time, 5% tax on the wealth of billionaires in the state,” ABC News reports.
“Their efforts to barnstorm the state come as early voting begins, and millions of dollars have been spent to kill the initiative.”
“The measure would affect roughly 200 of California’s billionaires, with the money going to cover federal Medi-Cal cuts. Gov. Gavin Newsom has become its most prominent opponent, arguing that the tax could be dodged by billionaires who could leave the state for another.”
Los Angeles Times: “Rather than prioritizing visits to battleground districts, which will decide which party controls Congress, Trump is rallying in Republican strongholds such as Texas, Oklahoma and Alabama, betting that his presence will be enough to energize a base that may be thinking about sitting out the election because his name isn’t on the ballot.”
“As one of the Supreme Court’s most stalwart conservative and prolific justices, Clarence Thomas’ views on the biggest cases of the day — from guns to race to religion — are rarely in doubt,” CNN reports.
“Yet when it comes to perhaps the most significant climate change-related case to reach the high court in nearly two decades, environmentalists aren’t yet writing Thomas off, even though he has consistently sided against them.”
“That’s because Thomas has in recent years staked out positions that align with a Colorado city that is suing Exxon and a Canadian energy company Suncor for damages caused by climate change.”
“President Trump’s top cabinet members huddled for hours at Camp David on Friday to discuss next steps in the Iran war and the Saudi-Houthi conflict in Yemen,” Axios reports.
“The highly unusual meeting was not announced by the Trump administration. The last time a similar meeting took place was in June 2025, just days before Israel went to war against Iran.”
Taegan Goddard
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire -- which for more than two decades has been one of the nation's most influential political news sites.
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