Good morning. I’m Thom Hartmann.
Trump is opting to continue his personal revenge tour instead of having his attorney general nominee confirmed by the Senate. Republicans in tough reelection races are scrambling to sell voters on Medicaid cuts they voted for as the midterms look increasingly brutal for the GOP. Newly released pages from Dr. Anthony Fauci’s diary reveal that Barack Obama privately called Donald Trump a “hopeless idiot” and his son a “f—ing moron.” And an Ohio congressman running for reelection is facing calls to resign after police reports revealed domestic violence allegations from his ex-wife, who is also the daughter of a current Republican senator.
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Trump Choosing Revenge Over Confirming Todd Blanche
Trump’s former personal criminal defense attorney was supposed to be confirmed as the next attorney general. It should be simple. Trump has the votes in the Republican-controlled Senate. But two Republican senators, John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, are standing in the way. And even though they’ve given Trump a blueprint for getting their votes, Trump has no interest in following it.
Tillis announced last year he was retiring from the Senate after clashing with Trump over Medicaid cuts in his home state. Cornyn lost his reelection bid back in May after Trump endorsed a scandal-plagued primary opponent against him. Neither man has to worry about getting elected to another term, which may explain their newfound independent streak.
Both senators want it on paper that the proposed $1.8 billion slush fund for Trump loyalists has been officially removed from the controversial settlement Trump struck with the IRS back in May. That deal also includes full audit immunity for Trump, his family, and his businesses. Cornyn and Tillis want to rein in both.
Trump is now making threats instead of negotiating. He posted on his Nazi-infested social media site that Blanche would just stay on as acting attorney general “in any event,” and that he might pull the nomination entirely and resubmit it after Cornyn and Tillis leave Congress in January. In other words, he’s waiting them out, so he can do whatever he wants anyway.
Tillis called Trump “recalcitrant.” Cornyn pushed back on the idea that this is just personal payback for Trump endorsing his opponent, calling that claim “a convenient excuse” that isn’t true, and warning Trump that stalling Blanche’s confirmation is “a gamble,” since nobody knows if the Senate will still be in Republican hands next year.
Adam Schiff, who led the 2020 effort to impeach Trump, said the current standoff over Blanche is just a preview of what’s coming should Democrats retake the chamber. He foreshadowed “a restoration of checks and balances” and said he hopes Congress will return to being an actual counter to presidential power again.
A deal to get Blanche confirmed is still possible. The acting attorney general met privately with both senators on Thursday. One person familiar with the meeting told Politico the two sides were “working collaboratively” face-to-face. But both senators said the real obstacle isn’t Blanche, but Trump and his inner circle, who they say want the slush fund on the backburner.
It isn’t just Cornyn and Tillis who have problems with the slush fund. Republican John Neely Kennedy of Louisiana said flatly that the administration “does not want” an official agreement to kill the slush fund. And Republican Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said she also has major concerns and is still waiting for Blanche to put his promises in writing.
Trump apparently would rather burn time and risk having his nominee lose his confirmation than give an inch to anyone he considers an enemy, even senators already on their way out the door.
The advice and consent clause in Article Two wasn't written to hand a president a rubber stamp. It was written so the Senate could stop a chief executive from filling the government with men who answer to him personally instead of to the law. Two Republicans finally decided to use that power, and Trump's response is that he'll simply wait until they're gone.
Republicans Scramble to Sell Medicaid Cuts Ahead of Midterms
Republicans in tight reelection races are aiming to get ahead of backlash over the significant cuts to Medicaid in last year’s so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (OBBBA). NPR found Republicans are trying to spin the more than $1 trillion in cuts as necessary to fight the statistically insignificant specter of fraud.
Healthcare policy expert Jonathan Oberlander of the University of North Carolina pointed out that while repealing the Affordable Care Act (ACA) used to be “target No. 1” for Republicans, the backlash to that effort was key to Democrats retaking the House in dramatic fashion in 2018, when they flipped 40 seats. Now, Republicans are staring down the barrel of a potential 2018 repeat and trying to manage the fallout from deeply unpopular healthcare cuts they voted for.
Those cuts are already wreaking havoc across the country. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projected about 10 million fewer people will have insurance by 2034 because of the OBBBA. Enrollment in health insurance plans offered on ACA exchanges has already dropped by roughly three million since the bill’s passage last July. And only about a third of voters approve of how the administration is handling healthcare costs, according to polling from the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF).
Republican Congressman Mike Lawler, who is running in a toss-up seat in New York, is running ads touting Medicaid “reform,” even though he voted for the bill that cut it. He’s also doubling down on debunked claims that undocumented immigrants were receiving Medicaid benefits, despite them never being eligible to begin with.
Rural hospitals, which lean heavily on Medicaid expansion funding, are also at risk of closing thanks to that law. Congress tucked $50 billion into a Rural Healthcare Transformation Fund to soften the blow, but a KFF analysis showed that still pales in comparison to the $137 billion in Medicaid cuts hitting rural areas.
Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine is spending big money on ads touting the $190 million she secured for rural hospitals in her state, where more than 6 in 10 hospitals are in rural areas. That’s a small relief, but still a drop in the bucket compared to the bigger picture.
This is all happening while ACA premiums have skyrocketed by nearly 22 percent across the country between 2025 and 2026, after Republicans allowed premium tax credits to expire.
The most insidious part of the Big Ugly Bill is that the harshest provisions, like more stringent work requirements and more frequent eligibility checks won’t actually kick in until after the midterms. So Republicans get to campaign on the tax cuts, while quietly setting up whoever holds power later to be left holding the bag when those cuts actually land. Healthcare affordability is likely to be a core issue in the 2028 election.
When Franklin Roosevelt built Social Security in 1935, he started the payroll taxes early on purpose, because he wanted working people to feel they'd paid for it and owned it, so no future Congress would dare take it away. Republicans have learned that lesson backwards. They've timed the pain to arrive after the ballots are counted, and that timing is a confession. You don't hide a thing you're proud of.
Obama Called Trump a “Hopeless Idiot” and Don Jr. a “F—ing Moron”
More than a thousand pages of Dr. Anthony Fauci’s private diary from the Covid-19 pandemic were recently released by Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, who’s been trying for years to blame Fauci for the pandemic while pushing unproven claims about a lab leak from China.
One passage of that diary is now revealing what former President Barack Obama reportedly said in private about Donald Trump and his eldest son.
In a November 2021 diary entry, Fauci recounted a conversation with Obama about the “crazy things” Republicans were saying about him, including Donald Trump Jr. selling merchandise with the slogan “Fauci Kills Puppies.”
Fauci wrote that Obama told him Trump Jr. is “a f—ing moron,” then went on to apologize for that language, before going on to call then-President Donald Trump “a hopeless idiot” and “a pathologic[al] liar.” Obama reportedly added he was frustrated that no other Republicans were willing to publicly defend Fauci against what he called “terrible, slanderous behavior.”
Obama’s outburst should be seen in the context of how ugly things got for Fauci at the height of the pandemic. His office got roughly 3,600 threatening or angry calls in just 36 hours over the false puppy claims, which reportedly forced his assistant to stop answering the phone for two weeks.
This diary release comes as Paul keeps pushing to prosecute Fauci over the pandemic. In this week’s hearing before Senator Paul’s committee, Fauci pleaded the Fifth more than a hundred times, telling lawmakers directly that he believes Paul’s real goal isn’t information, but getting him to say something that could land him “behind bars.”
In 1954, it took Army counsel Joseph Welch asking Joe McCarthy on live television whether he had any sense of decency left to finally break the spell of a senator who'd turned his committee into a personal weapon. Rand Paul just dumped a private citizen's unredacted diary into the public record and came away with nothing except somebody else's opinion of Donald Trump. The gavel isn't a badge, and a hearing room isn't a courtroom, no matter how badly a chairman wants it to be.
GOP Senator’s Daughter Files Restraining Order Against GOP Congressman
Republican Congressman Max Miller of Ohio is being hit with domestic abuse allegations — which he continues to deny — from his ex-wife, Emily Moreno. Police reports obtained by ABC News show Moreno, who is the daughter of Republican Senator Bernie Moreno of Ohio, alleged multiple incidents of physical violence during their marriage and divorce, right as Miller is running for reelection.
Miller and Moreno were married between 2022 and 2024 and have a two year-old daughter. The wedding itself was held at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, with the then-former president himself giving a toast.
According to the police reports, Moreno told officers that the congressman “threw her against the wall, which resulted in an obvious grab mark on her upper arm,” and said he had previously held a gun to her head and even threw hot water on her. The report also recounts her young daughter telling her, “Daddy kill you.” Moreno also told police her daughter was injured while in Miller’s care.
Miller has yet to be charged with a crime, and Ohio’s Department of Children and Family Services said it didn’t find evidence to substantiate the child abuse claims. Miller denies abusing his wife and daughter, and is suing his ex-wife for defamation, saying her allegations are a “repeated pattern” meant “to ruin my reputation, gain an edge in custody and litigation matters, and seek revenge.”
This isn’t the first time Miller has been hit with domestic violence allegations. Former Trump White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham wrote in her 2021 memoir that she’d been physically abused by a partner while working at the White House, and later identified that partner as Miller. The Ohio congressman sued Grisham for defamation over her claims while running for Congress in 2023, and the two reached a confidential settlement. Grisham is now suing him again, saying he violated that settlement by publicly denying the allegations.
On Thursday, Emily Moreno’s attorneys filed for a restraining order against Miller, saying it was necessary due to harassment and threats.
Miller has responded to all of this by attacking his own former father-in-law. In May, he accused Senator Moreno of funding “his daughter’s malicious campaign” against him and said his ex-wife had “mental health issues.” A spokesperson for the Ohio senator said Bernie Moreno’s “top priority is the safety and well-being of his daughter and granddaughter” and that he’ll “do whatever it takes to ensure a just outcome.”
Miller is running against Democrat Brian Poindexter, a union ironworker. Even though he’s running in a district Trump won with 55 percent of the vote in 2024, Miller himself won with only 51 percent that year. Cook Political Report recently downgraded the race from “Solid Republican” to “Likely Republican” after polling showed Poindexter trailing by a single point.
Outside groups have already seized on the allegations, including a pro-labor PAC that ran robocalls describing the Moreno and Grisham claims to roughly 100,000 households across the district. Democrat Sam Liccardo of California is calling for a formal House Ethics Committee investigation. Democrat Shontel Brown, who represents a Cleveland-area district, has called on Miller to resign. House Speaker Mike Johnson emphasized that the allegations have not yet been proven and called for the ethics investigation to run its course.
In Town of Castle Rock v. Gonzales, the Supreme Court told Jessica Gonzales that her restraining order carried no constitutional right to have anyone enforce it, and by the time that ruling came down her three daughters were already dead. That's the machinery a woman walks into when she asks a court for protection, and it's why a Speaker of the House shrugging and saying the key word is allegation isn't neutrality at all. It's a decision about who gets the benefit of the doubt and who gets to wait.
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I’m Thom Hartmann. Thanks for reading, and thanks for supporting independent media.
Here are a few stories you may have missed:
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Mitch McConnell Continues to Co-Sponsor Legislation Despite Being Hospitalized. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has been hospitalized since June 14 and has yet to make any public appearances. However, he is still remotely co-sponsoring legislation, including a recent resolution honoring the late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and a Russian sanctions bill named after Graham, among several other bills. Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear (D) has repeatedly called on McConnell to publicly address Kentuckians either on video or by phone to assure constituents he’s still capable of serving. As of this writing, the 84 year-old senator has yet to release anything to the public aside from two still photos and online statements.
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New York Alleges Prediction Market Kalshi Running ‘Illegal Gambling Operation.’ The Office of New York Attorney General Letitia James recently filed a new lawsuit against the Kalshi prediction market in Manhattan, alleging the site is violating state law by not registering with the New York State Gaming Commission. Kalshi — which retains Donald Trump Jr. in 2025 as a strategic advisor — previously sued the state in October after the Gaming Commission sent it a cease-and-desist letter.
