Hey everybody. Welcome back. Thanks for being here.
Our top story today. A federal grand jury in Washington has refused to indict Cassidy Hutchinson. Trump’s Justice Department wanted to charge her with lying to Congress, over the testimony she gave to the January 6th committee I sat on. But a group of regular people heard the case and decided there wasn’t enough to charge her. For four years the president has called her a liar. When it finally came time to prove it, there was nothing there. We’ll talk about what she said, why they went after her, and why it fell apart.
We’ll also get into Trump refusing to say he’ll accept the midterm results, Alaska Republicans turning on Trump’s election lawsuit, the opioid ban that didn’t survive a big Republican donation, and Flavio Bolsonaro fleeing Brazil for the United States with a visa from the State Department.
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Let’s get to it.
1. DOJ Loses Hutchinson Indictment
Yesterday, a Justice Department lawyer admitted to a Washington judge that a grand jury had rejected their proposed indictment. Turns out the DOJ was gunning for Cassidy Hutchinson, accusing her of lying to Congress. An indictment is famously easy to get: in the legal world, they say that a grand jury would indict a ham sandwich. But this one wouldn’t touch Hutchinson.
I know a thing or two about this case, so let me give you some context. On January 6th, Hutchinson was the top aide to Mark Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff. In 2022, she sat in front of me and my colleagues and told the country the president knew people in his rally crowd were armed, and wanted the metal detectors taken down so they could get closer. She also told us Trump wanted to go to the Capitol with the protestors, and relayed the story about Trump lunging for the steering wheel when the Secret Service refused.
Trump’s allies have painted her as a liar ever since. The DOJ tried to make it official. They swung, and they missed.
It’s just one more failure in the twisted revenge campaign that’s been ramping up the past few weeks. On Monday a judge ruled that Maurene Comey had been fired illegally. The same day, the DOJ grasped at straws to charge her father on a leak case it closed twice. The DOJ clearly knows what’s coming next Tuesday, and is doing all it can before having to answer to Democrats in Congress.
Hutchinson threw away her political career to tell the truth to me, my colleagues, and the country. I believed her. I still believe her. And so do the group of Americans who just embarrassed the DOJ.
2. Trump Preps Midterm Election Lies
Yesterday a reporter asked the president a simple question. Will you accept the results of the midterms, whatever happens? Here’s the president.
“If they’re honest elections.” The qualifier changes every cycle. In 2016, it was “if I win.” In 2024 it was only if the election was “fair and legal and good.” After more than 60 losses in courts across the country, he still hasn’t accepted 2020. In Trump’s mind, no election in which the GOP loses is honest. And Americans know it. A Post-ABC poll found that just 28 percent of Americans believe he’ll accept the midterm results if Republicans lose.
It’s not just the president sowing doubt. The same election denial machine from 2020 and 2024 is already up and running. The Washington Post counted nearly 600 right-wing accounts and podcasts that have pumped out more than 7,000 statements questioning the election. Mentions of non-citizens on the ballots and mail fraud are twice as common as they were in 2024. The usual suspects are involved. Steve Bannon has been saying the Democrats “have to cheat to win.” And Trump himself has made nearly 300 statements questioning elections since taking office.
The whole executive branch is in on it. DOJ ordered all 93 U.S. attorney offices to prioritize noncitizen voting cases. DHS launched what it calls a Criminal Voter Fraud Surge, which puts out pictures of blurred suspects in handcuffs almost every day. Unsurprisingly, Politico found they announce the same arrests twice. Monday’s release touted 48 cases; 28 of them had already been announced the week before.
Now the facts. Noncitizen voting is illegal and rare. The administration claimed 16,000 in Nevada, sent the state 185 names, and all 185 were citizens. Georgia found 432 possible cases over 30 years. So why all the noise? A Georgetown law professor explained the point: “to have the theories and the filings in place, and the specter of mischief in the air, before the counting starts so that the results can be attacked if, but only if, they don’t come out the right way.”
Democrats won’t be caught off guard. Leadership has drawn up a list of 162 ways Republicans could try to mess with the election, and Jim Himes says the intelligence committees are preparing for bogus claims about foreign interference.
I saw with my own eyes what this rhetoric can lead to. But that kind of ending isn’t inevitable. Lawyers and lawmakers across the country are doing their homework and getting out in front of attempts to undermine this election. But voters are the ones with the real power. So get out there and make that margin decisive.
3. Alaska GOP Rejects Trump Lawsuit
Last week the DOJ sued Alaska to block certification of the Senate race if the Democrat beats Dan Sullivan, claiming that a third candidate with the same name as the incumbent will confuse too many voters. The president admitted he personally ordered the suit. Yesterday, the state of Alaska, which is currently run by Republicans, asked the judge to throw it out immediately.
Their filing says the suit “has no legal basis.” The only law it cites covers voter registration, not counting or certifying. The ballot already makes it clear which Sullivan is the incumbent, and a confused voter can still rank both. Moreover, the DOJ lawsuit would require investigating how people meant to vote, something that would clearly violate the secret ballot. Peltola’s campaign and watchdog groups filed their own motions to dismiss. A Kentucky election law professor called the whole thing “a press release disguised as a lawsuit.”
The judge has already noted the terrible timing. The suit was filed October 22nd, when Alaskans had already started voting. It’s no coincidence. The DOJ knows they don’t have a case, so they’re settling for causing the most chaos possible to undermine the results when things don’t go their way.
In short, the president ordered a long-shot lawsuit to protect a Republican senator, and the Republican state government said no thanks. That tells you how bad it’s gotten. Even the Republicans who would benefit don’t want the White House’s grubby fingers anywhere near their elections.
4. HHS Reverses Opioid Ban
In July, RFK Jr.’s HHS and the DEA said they would ban a compound found in some kratom products. It’s called MGPI, a semi-synthetic opioid stronger than morphine. Kennedy said it “put American lives at risk.” The agencies called it “an imminent hazard to public safety.” And they’re not wrong. The opioid has been linked to some overdoses.
David Gabbay is a kratom distributor, who currently faces wrongful death lawsuits over his products. But Gabbay and his wife knew how to game this administration. They gave 2.9 million dollars to Republicans this year. On August 25th, they also donated 160,000 dollars to the RNC. That’s the same day that the Justice Department announced it wouldn’t prosecute “trace amounts” of MGPI in kratom products.
When it comes to this administration, a little bit of bribery makes the pain go away.
The kratom industry’s lobbyist later said on a podcast, “The White House has gotten involved, and the DEA… What they’ve assured us is that we’ll be happy with the outcome.”
I’m sure they are. The government now allows levels of 25 to 500 times greater than what’s in products now. RFK Jr. said his department had simply “followed the science.” But the government’s own notice admits it has made no scientific findings that the substance is safe at those levels.
And he seems awfully uncomfortable when pressed about it. Last week a reporter asked Kennedy about a different kratom company, one that gave a million dollars to the MAHA PAC right before the Justice Department dropped its case against it.
Deny, deny, deny. That’s about as good as admitting guilt. Because it’s hard to come up with any excuses when the truth is plain to see. As one opioid researcher explains, “They’re not doing this because the science supports it. They’re doing this because the industry and the lobbyists are basically writing the policy.”
RFK Jr. is the guy who ran on taking on the industries that make us sick. And every time one of them shows up with money, he folds.
5. Trump Harbors Brazil’s Election Denier
Yesterday we talked about Brazil’s surprising election results. Flávio Bolsonaro lost to Lula by more than four million votes. Then he refused to concede, arguing it was impossible to recognize the results.
Sound like Trump’s kind of guy? Well, the president has decided to back his lies. Have a listen:
Rigged elections. When Trump doesn’t like a result, that’s a tale as old as time. And just as predictable: there’s no evidence. Even Bolsonaro’s own party accepted the result.
But Trump also landed on another outlandish lie. “I didn’t take sides.” Trump backed Bolsonaro’s campaign from the start. He ordered diplomats in Brazil to support Bolsonaro after his father was sentenced to 27 years in prison. He often praised him on social media, once calling him a “smart young man who loves his country.” And he hosted him for a White House meeting.
Now Trump’s support is going one step further.
On Monday, Brazil’s Supreme Court ordered Bolsonaro to surrender his passports. He’s under investigation for money laundering, corruption, and financial crimes. Sounds like a great candidate for the Republican party.
Bolsonaro responded to the order by saying he had “never thought about leaving the country.” On Tuesday, his passport deadline hit at noon. By that evening, he had landed outside Miami. The State Department says it will issue visas to him and his family. And a Trump adviser says the president personally signed off.
Lula called the escape shameful. He said Bolsonaro should have stayed and proved his innocence. He has a point. People with nothing to hide don’t usually skip town.
And we’ve seen this movie before. After Jair Bolsonaro lost in 2022, he decamped to Florida for three months, as his supporters stormed Brazil’s capital. Now his son is following the same flight path. This time, the White House is holding the door. What’s one more fugitive?
That’s the bottom line. The Trump administration waged an aggressive deportation campaign, stoking fear about immigrant crime. It has made it harder for the skilled workers who drive American innovation to get visas.
But a foreign politician running from a corruption investigation? Your visa is ready. Because this administration has a soft spot for the right kind of criminal.
Some other stories that caught my eye:
U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Mike Waltz got into a shouting match with Cuba’s foreign minister on the floor of the General Assembly. The clash came during a debate over the U.S. embargo on Cuba. The Trump administration has imposed crushing sanctions and an energy blockade on Cuba, causing massive power outages. When Waltz accused Cuba’s leaders of living in luxury while their people suffer, Cuban officials confronted him at the podium. Waltz shouted “Back up!” before warning the officials: “This is America.” Cuba’s foreign minister later hit back on X, telling Waltz he was not in a Green Beret unit or a Signal group. That was a jab at the 2025 leaked group chat that cost Waltz his job as national security adviser. Have a watch:
The Trump administration is moving to scrap Biden-era limits on methane leaks from oil and gas operations. President Trump announced the rollback Tuesday at a rally in Lubbock, Texas. The EPA plans to ease rules for high-emitting wells, end a program that finds large leaks, and let producers flare more natural gas. The White House is pitching the move as relief on energy bills ahead of the midterms. “Democrats crushed the small oil and gas operators,” Trump told the crowd. Meanwhile, the EPA says loosening the rules would save $45 billion. But methane is a potent greenhouse gas. It traps about 80 times as much heat as carbon dioxide over its first 20 years in the atmosphere. Biden’s rules aimed to cut emissions from covered sources 87% below 2005 levels by 2030, particularly by targeting low-producing wells. They supply about 8% of U.S. natural gas but account for roughly 60% of the methane from gas production. Large producers supported those rules. The push for full repeal came from smaller operators and a lobby tied to oil billionaire Harold Hamm, who gave more than $3 million to help reelect Trump.
