Hey everybody. I’m back! Thanks to Terry for filling in for me yesterday.
Our top story today. The United States ambassador to Greece, days before her confirmation hearing, texted a donor asking him to wire 100,000 dollars to her American Express account, in a way that, in her words, “won’t show up anywhere.” That’s Kimberly Guilfoyle. The Wall Street Journal has hundreds of her messages, and they read like a how-to guide for selling access to this administration. And remember, this is the same crowd that spent four years yelling about Hunter Biden’s laptop. Turns out they weren’t against selling access. They were just against someone else doing it.
We’ll also get into why the men in charge of saving the Republican majority spent last week in Bosnia, convicted election deniers back in the Oval Office pitching a plan for voting machines, Trump handing out FEMA money like a campaign favor, and a Texas Republican whose racist post turned into a donation drive for the wrong campaign.
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Let’s get to it.
1. Leaked Texts Expose Kimberly Guilfoyle Pay-To-Play
Guilfoyle is Don Jr.’s former fiancée and one of the loudest voices in MAGA. In December 2024, Trump nominated her to be ambassador to Greece. Around that same time, a Kentucky donor named Eric Deters, a former congressional candidate who had paid her 300,000 dollars in speaking fees over the years, started asking her for favors. He wanted the Justice Department to go after one of his enemies. He wanted a word with the incoming IRS commissioner about his taxes. He wanted to get on Tucker Carlson’s show. And he offered Guilfoyle a million dollars if she delivered.
And according to the Journal, she went to work. She forwarded him the messages she sent to the IRS chief. She told him she was lobbying the Justice Department. And she bragged that every cabinet secretary gets right back to her.
A few weeks after Guilfoyle’s nomination, Deters CC’d a producer on her podcast on a message about the money. She told him, “Do not say we have any arrangement.” Then: “What a nightmare you’ll literally cost me my ambassadorship. Stop writing.”
But eventually, Deters got frustrated. He’d paid her all this money and she hadn’t delivered on a single promise. So he wrote it all down in a memo and sent it to her. She responded: “Eric, I really wish you would stop papering these things. It’s really dangerous and not helpful to you or me while you could just call me on signal.”
Notice that she doesn’t deny their arrangement. She’s just mad he put it in writing, and not on Signal. Which is a pretty notable admission, by the way. Apparently that’s where this administration keeps the real business. On Signal, where it disappears.
Then came July 3rd, 2025. Six days before her confirmation hearing. She sent him instructions to wire funds to her American Express account and wrote: “It won’t show up anywhere if you wire money to American Express. Please.” Then: “Honey please I need you to get this done for me today.” He said no. His exact words: “I can’t do this without getting a divorce.”
Her lawyer says she disputes the messages but won’t say which ones. When Marco Rubio was asked about it, he didn’t deny the reporting. He just got defensive and attacked the reporters for doing their jobs. JD Vance was also asked about it. He said he didn’t know exactly who they were talking about, and he’d need more context. Of course.
But let’s be honest, this really isn’t complicated. Guilfoyle was selling access to the administration. She was mad that somebody put it in writing somewhere other than the White House-approved corruption platform. And she got caught. What else is there to know?
2. Trump’s Strategists Caught On Pro-Putin Payroll
James Blair and Chris LaCivita are the two guys in charge of Trump’s midterm operation. LaCivita was one of Trump’s 2024 campaign managers. Blair was deputy chief of staff at the White House until he left this year to run Trump’s super PAC, MAGA Inc. They now share the unfortunate job of saving the Republican majority next month.
You would think they would have their hands full. But the New York Times reports that they spent last week in Bosnia, in a small self-governing region that’s been aligned with Moscow for years. The leadership of this pro-Russia enclave was under US sanctions for years until the Trump administration lifted them. Those same people hired LaCivita and Blair, paying them hundreds of thousands of dollars through a Washington law firm to advise on the election the territory held last Sunday. They say they were working for the government, not the pro-Putin party. But when that party has absolute control, there’s really no difference.
Asked about the reporting, Trump waved away concerns. Have a listen.
Independent people? These are the guys in charge of the GOP midterm operation. One of them runs MAGA Inc., which Trump is always calling his. They’re about as close as you can get to the White House without being inside. This is what influence peddling is all about. You don’t need power. You just need someone to pick up your calls. If Guilfoyle could do it as the ambassador to Greece, these two certainly can.
Politico reports Trump’s people are furious. They should be. Republicans are on the back foot everywhere. It should be all hands on deck. But the ones in charge of the rescue operation are collecting checks in the Balkans. Which pretty much sums up this whole administration.
3. Trump Plots Midterms With Election Deniers
Tina Peters is the former county clerk in Colorado who helped conspiracy theorists copy hard drives from Dominion voting machines in the aftermath of the 2020 election. For this blatant abuse of power, a jury convicted her on seven counts. Trump couldn’t pardon her state crimes, so he threatened Colorado’s federal funding until the governor commuted her sentence. In the end, she served less than two years.
On Monday, Peters was in the Oval Office with Cleta Mitchell. If that name sounds familiar, Mitchell was the lawyer on the call where Trump pressured Georgia to find him 11,780 votes. They wanted Trump to get the Commerce Secretary to declare that voting machines are a national security threat because some of their parts are made overseas, and then use federal rules to restrict them before November.
Mitchell’s theory is that elections are critical infrastructure, and Commerce has emergency powers over threats to critical infrastructure. Peters has also asked the Pentagon to take custody of the machines.
Ed Martin, a Trump loyalist who ran the DOJ’s weaponization working group before getting pushed out, went on his show to break the news. Have a listen.
First of all: “Do what he’s going to do?” That’s a pretty ominous statement.
And the logic behind it is nonsense. The states have control over elections. The Commerce Secretary has no business getting involved, and the courts would step in if he did. Nonetheless, this administration will try every method they can think of to put the federal government in charge: executive orders, holding FEMA money hostage. The SAVE Act. Those all failed. But until November they’ll keep grasping at straws to take this election out of the voters’ hands.
I don’t know what Trump will do if this election doesn’t go his way. Hopefully nothing. What I can tell you is the people who tried to overturn the 2020 election are the ones advising him on an election that’s less than a month away.
4. Trump Plays Politics With Disaster Aid
At the start of September, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine asked for federal help in 23 counties after severe storms tore through the state. Trump sat on the request. Until the time was just right.
During an Ohio rally for Republican Senator Jon Husted, the President announced to the crowd that he had just signed a disaster declaration. And remember, Husted is in a tight race against Democrat Sherrod Brown.
Ohio is not an exception. The Associated Press reports that Trump has repeatedly announced disaster relief funds only when it serves the candidates he endorses. In Wisconsin, he endorsed the Republican for governor and announced disaster funds in the same Truth Social post. “18 Million Dollars should help, A LOT,” he said.
At a rally for Michael Whatley in North Carolina, Trump brought up the billions in relief that the state had requested for Hurricane Helene. “Now if Michael loses,” he said, “I’m not sending it.” The President claimed he was only joking.
But this isn’t just a joke. It’s a reality. While the White House claims “there is no politicization of the president’s decisions on disaster relief,” Politico found otherwise. In his first 14 months, Trump had approved 23 percent of requests from Democratic-led states. That compares to 89 percent from Republican-led states.
And the line is still long. When Trump approved Ohio’s request, nine other states were still waiting. That includes two from Hawaii, one an expedited request after back-to-back hurricanes in August and September. Presidents typically approve expedited requests within days.
And this is no joking matter either. When your house floods, you don’t care who you voted for. Neither should your government. But Trump is toying with American lives, treating disaster recovery like some sick political game. And he’s telling you right from the campaign stage.
5. Texas Democrat Surges After GOP Racist Post
A few weeks ago I wrote about Bo French, a Republican running for the Texas Railroad Commission. He posted a bigoted caption on a photo of South Asian students from the University of Texas celebrating a historic win over Ohio State. Even after he faced criticism from both parties, French doubled down. He had no remorse.
The post turned out to be a great fundraising tool. But not for French. For his democratic opponent, state Rep. Jon Rosenthal. Up until that point, French had far outraised him. Since the post, Rosenthal has outraised French, drawing in 488,000 dollars. And 60 percent of those funds came from small individual donors.
Thanks to his blatant racism, Bo French has seemingly shifted the momentum of the race towards his opponent. And for what? French argues that his comments were simply about immigration. That we shouldn’t prioritize foreigners over Americans. But those students were Americans. And they were doing nothing more than living out an American life, cheering for their favorite football team.
Asian Americans, like a lot of minority voters, have overcome barriers, worked hard, and built their lives here. They aren’t going to back a party that tells them they don’t belong. That shows up in the polls. And come November, it will show up at the ballot box.
Some other stories that caught my eye:
A bipartisan pair of House members wants colleagues on record promising to seat whoever wins in November. The Wall Street Journal reports that Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) and Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) are circulating a public letter to Speaker Mike Johnson and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. Signers commit to recognizing state-certified winners and seating them when the new Congress convenes. Republicans Mike Lawler and Brian Fitzpatrick have signed on, giving the effort a likely House majority if every Democrat joins. Gottheimer justified the letter by pointing to January 6: “Given our experiences of late, I think it’s worth taking this extra measure.” But worries about midterms certification have another source. Earlier this year, the Heritage Foundation fellow argued the House could deny seats to states without voter ID laws or order new elections over purged voter rolls. Johnson’s office did not respond to requests for comment. A Notre Dame law professor calls these scenarios unlikely, especially if the results aren’t close. Still, the House has refused to seat certified winners before. The most recent fight, over New York Democrat Adam Clayton Powell Jr. in the late 1960s, ended with the Supreme Court limiting when it can happen.
Republicans have spent half a billion dollars since Labor Day, and the polls haven’t budged. According to the Washington Post, that’s when President Trump opened up his war chest for the midterms. And the money has flowed into competitive House and Senate races ever since. Trump pitched his spending in September as a difference-maker: “I’m going to spend whatever amount of money necessary to try to help us.” But the attack ads haven’t landed. A month later, high-quality surveys still show Democratic Senate candidates tied or leading in competitive races, including Alaska, Georgia, Maine, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio and Texas. Consider a few specific cases. Texas Democrat James Talarico is still viewed more favorably than unfavorably despite more than $115 million spent against him. And Michigan’s Abdul El-Sayed has gained five points of favorability since August, despite $76.2 million in attacks. Timing is part of the problem. By waiting until September, Trump-linked groups are sometimes paying more than five times what earlier buyers paid for the same airtime.
