Good morning. I’m Thom Hartmann. Before we get to today’s stories, please take a second to click the ❤️ and restack this newsletter. That’s the best way we can break through the algorithm and reach the people who really need these stories.
Last night, Trump lunged and growled at an ABC reporter who asked him a tough question about his proposal that has been widely regarded as a bribery scheme. During his midterm convention speech, he urged his supporters to promise to do everything to help Republicans, including to “cheat like hell.” During Ted Cruz’s speech at the convention, one attendee could be clearly heard shouting for top Democrats to be “shot,” and none of the speakers seemed to care. And Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky and his staff were just caught spending almost $18,000 in taxpayer money on a private jet trip while he lectures all of us about fiscal responsibility.
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Trump Lunged and Growled at Female Reporter Who Asked Tough Question
Donald Trump had another viral meltdown on camera, and last night the target of his wrath was, once again, ABC reporter Rachel Scott.
Scott did what every political journalist is supposed to do. She asked the president a tough question about his latest proposal to give every adult American $5,000 if Republicans keep their majorities in Congress. Economists say the total cost of that scheme is approximately $1.35 trillion, and Trump still has yet to explain where that money would come from or how it would even work in practice.
Scott’s question was simple: if Trump is so confident that his policies are actually working, then why does he need to bribe people to vote for Republicans?
Trump bristled at the question, and began his answer by rambling about former President Joe Biden, who hasn’t been in office for nearly two years. Then, Scott tried to ask him a follow-up question, which, again, is standard journalistic practice when a subject doesn’t give a direct answer. Trump then wheeled around, pointed at her, and spat, “not you.”
Scott was undeterred, saying the question was valid given that he previously promised Americans a $2,000 tariff “rebate” check that never materialized. Trump became incensed at that point, stepping into Scott’s personal space and growling “not you” several times. One photographer captured an image of Trump’s face twisted into a scowl as he was leaning toward Scott. The president then added that he viewed Scott and her network as “the worst.”
Trump has a pattern of being particularly hostile to female reporters. He’s previously called Rachel Scott “obnoxious.” He also told a Bloomberg reporter aboard Air Force One “quiet, piggy” when she asked him about the Epstein files. During a Christmas eve press conference at Mar-a-Lago, he called a CBS correspondent “stupid.” Trump also went viral for telling Norah O’Donnell she was a “disgrace” during a 60 Minutes interview. And when CNN’s Kaitlan Collins asked him about Epstein during an Oval Office press gaggle, Trump chided her for not smiling. It’s not hard to notice his open disdain for female journalists, and that he never has the same level of vitriol for male reporters.
The framers didn’t put freedom of the press in the First Amendment by accident. They’d lived under a king nobody was allowed to question, and they understood that a leader who can’t tolerate a follow-up from a reporter is a leader who’s already decided he answers to no one.
Trump Urges Republicans to ‘Cheat Like Hell’ to Help GOP in the Midterms
During his keynote speech on the final night of the midterm convention in Dallas, Texas last night, Trump stood on stage and seemingly urged his own supporters to commit voter fraud in the November election.
At one point in the speech, Trump asked the crowd to hold up their right hands and make a pledge to “the greatest president in the history of the United States.” He then went on to say he doesn’t even care if they’re registered to vote and that they should “cheat like hell” if it meant Republicans could keep their majorities in Congress.
It’s easy to be desensitized to what Trump does, but it still bears repeating that the sitting president of the United States encouraging his supporters to break the law to help Republicans win during an official Republican Party event. Trump, naturally, made these comments in the same speech where he called for strict voter ID laws nationwide, which he said were necessary to stop voter fraud.
Trump’s speech came as Republicans are preparing for a blue wave in November that could wrest control of both the House and even the Senate, rendering Trump a lame duck until he leaves office in 2029. His approval numbers are also at historic lows, and he’s largely seen as the reason for the tenuous economy while Americans blame him for the ongoing war in Iran that’s led to disel prices topping $6 a gallon. Dozens of Republican members of Congress even skipped the convention because they don’t want to be associated with such a deeply unpopular administration.
It’s not hard to see why Trump is throwing everything he can at the wall and hoping something sticks, including the $5,000 bribe, his call for Republicans to “cheat like hell” and him telling his supporters to just “pretend I’m on the ballot.” Trump even went on to tell the crowd that if they didn’t turn out for Republicans, theu would “go to hell.” Imagine if a Democratic president told voters they would risk eternal damnation for not voting in an election.
Republicans have already publicly trashed the president’s convention rhetoric, with one confiding to Politico that the move looked “desperate.” Of course, Richard Nixon cheated in an election too, but he had the decency to do it in secret, and when the country found out he was gone within two years. We’ve now got a president saying the quiet part into a microphone, and the only question left is whether Americans still care enough to make him pay for it.
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Republican Convention Attendee Heard Calling for Top Democrats to Be ‘Shot’
It’s easy to keep the focus on Trump, though this next story should really should be getting a lot more coverage than it is.
While Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas was giving his own speech to the assembled crowd of Republicans in his home state, he mentioned the names of high-profile Democrats. And someone in the crowd was heard shouting three separate times that those Democrats “should be shot.”
Cruz mentioned New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, along with Michigan U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, and Texas U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico. Even after the man was heard screaming for violence, Cruz went on with his speech without once addressing the comment. His office still won’t even confirm whether Cruz heard it, even though all of us did loud and clear.
In a CNN interview last night, El-Sayed lamented that violent rhetoric like that man’s comment has sadly become normalized in American politics. He emphasized that the whole point of democracy is to help society peacefully settle disagreements without having to resort to violence. Democratic congresswomen Katherine Clark of Massachusetts and Debbie Dingell of Michigan said the man’s remark was “chilling,” and called on their Republican colleagues to denounce it.
While some have, it’s worth noting that at the convention, none of the speakers acknowledged it or tried to distance themselves from it when it mattered.
Cruz’s comments ironically also mentioned political violence, though he focused on the 2024 attempt on Donald Trump’s life and last year’s shooting of MAGA activist Charlie Kirk in Utah, without pointing to examples of Democrats being targeted, like Melissa Hortman in Minnesota or last week’s attack on Ohio gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton. Even though Ted Cruz and the Republican National Committee clearly denounced political violence in a speech, they had nothing to say when one of their own demanded it so loud it was heard on primetime national TV.
Threats against elected officials and political candidates are becoming so frequent that they’re being treated as background noise instead of as a clear and present threat. That’s a worrying omen regardless of where you stand politically.
In 1856 a congressman beat Senator Charles Sumner nearly to death on the Senate floor, and instead of shunning him, his supporters mailed him new canes. Five years later the country was at war with itself, and it started the same way, with a room full of people deciding that a call for violence against the other side wasn’t worth interrupting a speech over.
Rand Paul’s Office Flies on Private Jets While He Preaches Fiscal Responsibility
Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul has built his entire political brand on opposing wasteful spending in government. But his own office apparently thinks fiscal responsibility is for everyone else, not them.
In 2024, six members of Paul’s staff flew on a private jet from Washington to Pittsburgh to investigate whether the Secret Service could have done more to stop the assassination attempt on Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania. The total bill was just shy of $18,000 in taxpayer money.
For context, if you drove out of Washington at 8 AM, you could arrive in Butler, Pennsylvania by 1 PM. And if that’s still too long, a flight on a commercial airline would only take about an hour. That math was evidently clear to other Capitol Hill staffers who were also investigating the assassination attempt, including several Democratic aides who made that trip for a few hundred dollars flying commercial or traveling by car.
A spokesperson for Senator Paul’s office defended the private jet use as the most efficient way for the investigative team to get to Butler. But that explanation doesn’t hold up considering that multiple other congressional offices spent thousands of dollars less to make the same trip.
The Butler trip is just one example. Records confirm the senator’s office has a pattern of chartering private jets to state travel around Kentucky, isn’t a very big state. Just one trip can costing anywhere from $5,000 to more than $24,000. Both Paul’s campaign and leadership PAC have spent more than $100,000 on private jets over the last decade.
While Congressional rules will usually allow official funds to cover a congressman or staffer’s travel, private jet use for staff is exceedingly rare. And taxpayers deserve an explanation from their public officials when their tax dollars are spent on luxurious frivolities.
The rampant use of private jets from Rand Paul is particularly rich, given that he’s spent years grinding the business of the Senate to a halt over his concerns about the federal deficit. He’s claimed fiscal responsibility prevented him from voting for must-pass government funding bills, and he’s routinely called himself the last honest fiscal conservative in Washington. But that’s hard to take seriously when considering that Rand Paul’s office apparently thinks that flying commercial is beneath them.
When the Senate set up the Truman Committee in 1941 to hunt down waste in the war effort, Harry Truman drove ten thousand miles in his own car to inspect the defense plants himself, and that committee saved taxpayers billions. That’s what fiscal responsibility looks like when it’s real instead of a brand, and the difference is the whole story here.
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I’m Thom Hartmann. Thanks for reading, and thanks for supporting independent media. Once again, click that ❤️ and restack this post so we can reach the people who need to hear these stories the most. Have a great weekend.
