Good morning. I’m Thom Hartmann. If you’re on Substack and watching this right now, take a couple of seconds to tap the ❤️ and restack this edition. That’s the most effective way to ensure we break through the algorithm and get these stories in front of the people who need them the most.
House Republicans are quietly bracing for a massive wipeout in the midterms as Democrats continue to make gains in congressional districts Donald Trump won by double digits just two years ago. A new NPR focus group of Georgia voters who cast their ballot for Trump in 2024 now regret it and are now signaling they’ll be voting for Democrats in November. Leaked text messages show Trump’s new press secretary, Katie Zacharia, is getting a wave of criticism from her co-workers in the White House after her disastrous first briefing, and new scrutiny over her legal career given that she never actually passed the bar exam. And the president recently told an audience at a campaign rally that sky-high gas prices are actually fine, because it means the country is “making a fortune” off of working families paying more at the pump.
Before we go further, independent media is under attack and we’re counting on readers like you to help us fight. Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook, where many of you found us, is deliberately burying our stories in its algorithm after we called him out for cozying up to Trump. Top GOP donor Elon Musk is also blocking our stories from reaching our followers on his platform. The MAGA billionaires who control most of the media don’t want people reading these stories.
In case you missed it, click here to read yesterday’s exclusive report from Raw America White House correspondent Brian Karem, about White House staffers hiring lawyers in preparation for filing whistleblower complaints against Trump. And click here to watch our recent interview with Florida Democratic Party chair Nikki Fried, who revealed how Democrats are aiming to flip Trump’s home state.
Panicked House Republicans Prepare for Blowout Loss in Midterms
House Republicans are going through a range of emotions right now including panic, anger and resignation. Some Republicans are even admitting as much on the record according to Punchbowl News.
Republican Congressman Dave Joyce of Ohio, who has served for 13 years, said the current political mood in America is “certainly toxic for Republicans.” He acknowledged that even though voters “were promised things in ‘24,” virtually “none of those things are really coming to fruition.” and that his party should simply be honest with their constituents instead of trying to put a positive spin on things.
Republican Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania is running for another term in one of the most competitive districts in the country. He’s also wondering why Republican leaders ever pretended 2026 would be good for them. He noted the historical trend of the incumbent party in the White House almost always losing midterm elections, with second-term presidents typically seeing even more brutal midterm results. Fitzpatrick said the lone outliers are major historical events like the 9/11 attacks, and “those factors are not present.”
We’re seeing evidence of Republican panic in how GOP-aligned super PACs are spending their money. Even Republicans in deep-red territory are facing brutal polls that show them either losing to Democrats or within the margin of error.
In the meantime, Democrats are continuing to find new opportunities to potentially flip Republican seats in districts previously seen as GOP strongholds. This includes Indiana’s 5th Congressional District, which Trump won by 17 points two years ago. New York’s 21st Congressional District may also flip, even though Trump won it by more than 20 points. Additionally, both Nevada’s 2nd Congressional District and Kentucky’s 6th Congressional District are up for grabs. National Republican Congressional Committee Chair Richard Hudson’s North Carolina district along with Congressman Mike Flood’s district in Nebraska have also become competitive.
Down in Florida’s 16th Congressional District, Sydney Gruters — who is the wife of current Republican National Committee chairman Joe Gruters, is in a tight race with former Sarasota Mayor Kelly Kirschner, who is currently outspending her on TV ads. Republicans have even had to spend significant sums in an attempt to keep outgoing Congresswoman Nancy Mace’s deep-red South Carolina district.
This is exactly what the framers envisioned when they authored Article I, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution and gave House members two-year terms. Madison explained in Federalist 52 that the House of Representatives needed “an immediate dependence on, and an intimate sympathy with, the people,” That immediate dependence is what no president can veto, fire or pardon his way around. Republicans aren’t fretting because of bad polls, but because the Constitution is working as intended.
Swing State Voters Regret Their Vote for Trump and Move Toward Democrats
Some of the voters in crucial swing states who reelected Trump in 2024 are openly regretting their decision, and many of them are making up for it in the midterms.
NPR sat in on two online focus groups on Tuesday night with 12 Georgia voters who swung from Joe Biden in 2020 to Donald Trump in 2024. Eleven of those voters said they’re underwhelmed by Trump’s performance as president. 10 of them said they regret their vote.
One 43-year-old participant named Charles P. said he’s unable to find “any positive to this administration at all,” blaming Trump for higher inflation, a new war in the Middle East and tariffs that haven’t done anything except make everything more expensive. Richard A., a 56-year-old Republican voter who’s been out of work for 10 months, lamented that food has simply become too expensive, ICE is “tearing families apart” and the war in Iran is raging on with no end in sight
Rich Thau, who is the president of the messaging firm Engagious, has been moderating the monthly focus groups this year. He observed that in prior months, voters said the primarily evaluated candidates on a case-by-case basis. But this month, seven of the 12 said Trump is pushing them into the arms of Democrats, which Thau said was a brand-new trend he hadn’t seen before.
Ten of the 12 Trump voters in the Georgia focus group they’ll be voting to reelect Senator Jon Ossoff, with some participants saying they appreciate that he won’t be a rubber stamp for the administration. Thau said several participants in this month’s focus group viewed a Democratic Congress as the best way to restore order and rein in Trump. One Republican focus group member named Jennifer W. said that if the GOP stays in power, she fears “Trump would have free rein.”
You don’t have to go back too far to see a similar pattern. In 1972, Richard Nixon won 49 states. Two years later, the very same voters who gave him that landslide victory handed Democrats 49 new House seats. This is simply because people figured out that an executive branch incapable of being checked is dangerous. Buyer’s remorse is a fantastic self-correcting feature in a democracy, and it appears to be right on schedule.
Leaked Texts Show Trump White House Staffers Bashing New Press Secretary
Newly minted White House press secretary Katie Zacharia isn’t even a week into her new job, but her colleagues aren’t wasting any time tearing her apart.
The former Fox News personality delivered her first White House briefing Tuesday. She was seen fumbling her way through her prepared remarks, accidentally referred to the president as her husband and only took questions from three far-right outlets before walking offstage after just 14 minutes. The president and his team said they were impressed with her debut, but according to leaked text messages obtained by the Daily Mail, many of her colleagues didn’t share that view.
One top White House official told the Mail that Zacharia “could barely read.” Another source wondered if there was someone in the White House wanted her to fail. A third staffer said Zacharia’s hiring shows the Trump administration “is collapsing” under pressure, and that as the Iran war continues to escalate, the administration is “completely unequipped.”
Zacharia’s career as a lawyer has also come under scrutiny, with the Wall Street Journal reporting that the new White House press secretary failed the bar exam back in 2011 after finishing law school and never actually obtained a license to practice law. But during an August appearance on Fox News, she described herself “as a lawyer” while discussing the criminal case of MAGA commentator Charlie Kirk’s alleged murderer. The Journal observed that some states will bring criminal charges against someone for falsely claiming to be a lawyer.
When reporters asked Zacharia which state she was licensed to practice law in, she told them it was when she “moved to China.” She later changed that answer in comments to the New York Times, saying she “assumed the question was, ‘Where were you after law school.’”
Franklin Roosevelt hosted almost 1,000 press conferences over his 12-year tenure, speaking with reporters around his desk and taking questions. He understood that a president who refuses to talk to the press no longer serves the people. Trump’s approach to that tradition is hiring a talking head who lied about her legal career and ended her first briefing after less than 15 minutes. That’s a direct statement about how little this president thinks he owes us.
Trump Tries to Spin High Gas Prices as a Positive Development
Only a few hours after new Department of Labor data showed that inflation hit its highest point in several months, Trump went to a rally in a swing state and tried to convince Americans that skyrocketing gas prices were actually a good thing.
Trump told an Arizona crowd on Wednesday that oil-producing places like Texas, Oklahoma and North Dakota were “making a fortune” due to persistently high oil prices. Those states are all host to fossil fuel mega-corporations that have posted record-high profits since Trump launched his illegal war against Iran.
A gallon of regular gas costs an average of $4.33 a gallon right now, while a gallon of diesel will run the average driver $6.32. Trump maintains that these prices will go back down once his war is over, but he’s lost significant amounts of credibility by repeatedly giving everyone false timelines that haven’t held up. He also hasn’t shown a lot of interest in striking a long-term diplomatic agreement with the Iranian government.
Of course, Trump’s stock portfolio has arguably never been in better shape. The president is a major investor in the oil and gas sector, and one analysis found his fossil fuel investments have padded his net worth by roughly $15.5 million since January.
Meanwhile, working-class families are being squeezed beyond recognition. Brown University’s Watson School estimates that Americans have paid an extra $135 billion in higher fuel costs since the Iran war began in February. That amounts to roughly $1,030 per household. Senior economist Elise Gould of the Economic Policy Institute wrote this week that workers “are losing the race between wages and prices,” with real wages dropping for six straight months in comparison to last year. And a new Harris poll found three in four voters are worried about a new recession. Even 96 percent of Republicans told pollsters the country is in the midst of an affordability crisis.
When we fought World War I back in 1917, Congress passed a tax on windfall profits that reclaimed up to 60 percent of the money companies made from the war, because people on both sides of the aisle agreed that nobody should get rich from Americans dying. Today the president who needlessly went to war is personally up as much as $15.5 million thanks to his oil stocks, while calling the $4.33 price for a gallon of gas “a fortune” for himself and his rich friends. The fact that the law allows this shows just how far we’ve gone from the days when war profiteering was a crime.
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