“We’re a free country. For now.”
Democratic Hopes for a Wave Election Diminish
“Democratic hopes for a wave election that would carry them to a significant House majority have been tempered in recent weeks amid a shifting political landscape and a torrent of hard-hitting attack ads from Republicans,” the Washington Post reports.
“Democrats remain favored to win, but GOP leaders believe they can minimize the number of seats they would lose — and, perhaps, find a path to preserving their advantage in the chamber.”
Trump Mulls Narrowing Definition of Gender
“The Trump administration is considering narrowly defining gender as a biological, immutable condition determined by genitalia at birth, the most drastic move yet in a governmentwide effort to roll back recognition and protections of transgender people under federal civil rights law,” the New York Times reports.
“A series of decisions by the Obama administration loosened the legal concept of sex in federal programs, including in education and health care, recognizing sex largely as an individual’s choice — and prompting fights over bathrooms, dormitories, single-sex programs and other arenas where gender was once seen as a simple concept. Conservatives, especially evangelical Christians, were incensed.”
“Now the Department of Health and Human Services is spearheading an effort to establish a legal definition of sex under Title IX, the federal civil rights law that bans gender discrimination in education programs that receive government financial assistance.”
Trump Warns of Voter Fraud
President Trump tweets an intimidating warning:
All levels of government and Law Enforcement are watching carefully for VOTER FRAUD, including during EARLY VOTING. Cheat at your own peril. Violators will be subject to maximum penalties, both civil and criminal!
Donald Trump’s Perverse Advantage
Frank Bruni: “Elizabeth Warren screwed up. That’s clear. Her big confirmation of Native American blood offended some Native Americans, did nothing to muffle or muzzle Donald Trump and left many journalists — me included — questioning her tactical smarts.”
“But the media focus on her misjudgment, her character and whether she had the right stuff for the White House underscores the absurdity of our current politics, in terms of the advantage it confers on the president. We expect much of anyone stepping forward to challenge him. We expect absolutely nothing of him.”
Trump Doubts Saudi Account Journalist’s Death
President Trump strongly criticized Saudi Arabia’s explanation for the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in an interview with the Washington Post late Saturday, saying that “obviously there’s been deception, and there’s been lies.”
At the same time, Trump defended the oil-rich monarchy as an “incredible ally” and kept open the possibility that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman did not order Saudi agents to kill Khashoggi.
Said Trump: “Nobody has told me he’s responsible. Nobody has told me he’s not responsible. We haven’t reached that point. I haven’t heard either way.”
“Trump had told reporters Friday that the Saudi explanation was credible, but U.S. officials said he has privately grimaced that his son-in-law Jared Kushner’s close relationship with the crown prince has become a liability and left the White House with no good options.”
What Private Polls Tell Us About the Midterms
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Saudi People Shocked by Flip-Flop on Khashoggi
“Saudi Arabia’s about-face admission that journalist and government critic Jamal Khashoggi was killed inside its consulate in Istanbul earlier this month sent shockwaves through a country where many had believed — and defended — initial official claims that the authorities had nothing to do with it,” Bloomberg reports.
Said one Saudi man: “A very sad day for this nation, to see what the country had descended into.”
Trump Says U.S. Will Pull Out of Missile Pact with Russia
President Trump said he would pull out of a Cold-War era treaty with Russia that limited the number of missiles in each country because Russia has violated the agreement, USA Today reports.
Said Trump: “Russia has violated the agreement. They have been violating it for many years. And we’re not going to let them violate a nuclear agreement and go out and do weapons and we’re not allowed to.”
He said the U.S. would pull out “and then we are going to develop the weapons” unless Russia and China agree to a new deal, though China isn’t currently a party of the agreement.
The Guardian reported that John Bolton was pushing for the U.S. to withdraw “in the face of resistance from others in the Trump administration and U.S. allies.”
Trump Hints at ‘Major Tax Cut’ Before Midterms
“Making an audacious pre-midterm promise, President Trump told reporters in Nevada on Saturday that he is working with Republican congressional leaders on ‘a very major tax cut for middle-income people,’ to be announced in early November or just before,” Axios reports.
Roll Call: “Both the House and Senate are effectively out of session until the postelection lame-duck session, but if one were to take Trump at face value, he did point to ‘putting in’ the tax legislation before then.”
Sanders Suggests Reckoning with Warren Over 2020 Plans
“Bernie Sanders says he speaks with Elizabeth Warren nearly every day — just not about 2020,” Politico reports.
“But with the two progressive behemoths on a collision course in the presidential primary — and with some progressive activists alarmed that they might split the vote, allowing a more moderate Democrat to win the nomination — Sanders suggested Friday that a pre-2020 discussion among like-minded candidates could be forthcoming.”
Said Sanders: “I suspect that in the coming weeks and months, there will be discussions.”
Why Forecasts May Be Underestimating Democrats
Nate Silver: “The fundraising numbers are so good for Democrats — and so bad for Republicans — that it’s hard to know quite what to make of them. From a modeling standpoint, we’re extrapolating from years in which fundraising was relatively even, or from when one party had a modest edge, into an environment where Democrats suddenly have a 2-1 advantage in fundraising in competitive races. Moreover, this edge comes despite the fact that a large number of these competitive races feature Republican incumbents (incumbents usually have an easier time raising money than challengers) and that most of them are in red terrain.”
“If Democrats beat their projections on Nov. 6 — say, they win 63 House seats, equalling the number that Republicans won in 2010, an unlikely-but-not-impossible scenario — we may look back on these fundraising numbers as the canary in the coal mine.”
“That data, plus Democrats’ very strong performances in special elections, could look like tangible signs of a Democratic turnout surge that pollsters and pundits perhaps won’t have paid enough attention to. Right now, in fact, the polls are not showing a Democratic turnout advantage.”
McConnell Confronted at Restaurant by Angry Voters
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) “was confronted Friday night by some angry diners who loudly berated him for his politics,” TMZ reports.
“The Kentucky Senator was eating dinner with his wife at Havana Rumba in Louisville, when 4 men confronted Mitch. The main aggressor screams at McConnell, ‘Why don’t you get out of here? Why don’t you leave the entire country?'”
“The woman who shot the video tells us, before she started recording, the main aggressor slammed his fists down on McConnell’s table, grabbed his doggie bag and threw the food out the door of the restaurant.”
Change Is Coming to the House
Paul Kane: “The House is undergoing one of the most significant shake-ups in power since the Republican revolution of 1994, no matter who wins the majority in next month’s midterm elections.”
“After capturing the House for the first time in 40 years, Republicans literally had no one on their side in 1995 who had ever served in the majority and had to learn on the fly, leading to some critical stumbles.”
“More than 70 lawmakers who took the oath in January 2017 have already either resigned from office, decided to not run for reelection, lost in primaries or are running for another office. Add 30 House incumbents running for reelection in toss-up races, and it potentially could be a historically large freshman class.”
GOP Candidates Struggling In Key Battlegrounds
New York Times: “Republican leaders are increasingly worried that their candidates for governor and Senate are in political trouble across Michigan, Pennsylvania, Minnesota and other states that the party prizes, and that the difficulties could spill into House races that the G.O.P. needs to win in November to keep control of the chamber.”
“Their concerns also extend to Democratic-leaning states like California, Illinois and Virginia, where top-of-the-ticket Republicans are running well behind in polls — allowing Democrats to focus millions of dollars of spending as well as campaign time and turnout efforts in hotly contested House districts in hopes of knocking off G.O.P. incumbents.”
Proof of Collusion
Out next month: Proof of Collusion: How Trump Betrayed America by Seth Abramson.
“By pulling every last thread of this complicated story together, Abramson argues that—even in the absence of a Congressional investigation or a report from Special Counsel Mueller—the public record already indicates a quid pro quo between Trump and the Kremlin. The most extraordinary part of the case for collusion is that so much of it unfolded in plain sight.”
Quote of the Day
“Here we have a situation where the president goes to Montana and praises again a Republican congressman for body-slamming a reporter, and we’re supposed to be the mob? Give me a break.”
— Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), in an interview with CNN.
Saudi Leaders Use Troll Farms to Silence Critics
New York Times: “Each morning, Jamal Khashoggi would check his phone to discover what fresh hell had been unleashed while he was sleeping. He would see the work of an army of Twitter trolls, ordered to attack him and other influential Saudis who had criticized the kingdom’s leaders. He sometimes took the attacks personally, so friends made a point of calling frequently to check on his mental state.”
“Mr. Khashoggi’s online attackers were part of a broad effort dictated by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and his close advisers to silence critics both inside Saudi Arabia and abroad. Hundreds of people work at a so-called troll farm in Riyadh to smother the voices of dissidents like Mr. Khashoggi. The vigorous push also appears to include the grooming — not previously reported — of a Saudi employee at Twitter whom Western intelligence officials suspected of spying on user accounts to help the Saudi leadership.”
