Hey everybody. Happy Monday. Thanks for being here.
Our top story today. Barack Obama is back on the campaign trail, and he isn’t holding back. He was in Cleveland on Saturday and he went right at Trump. The grift, the war, the people he’s put in charge. As you can imagine, Trump’s feelings were hurt. He was up late posting about it and told his own rally that Obama spoke to an empty room. He never passes up a chance to lie about crowd size. The room was packed. Meanwhile Trump keeps booking smaller rooms and still can’t fill them.
We’ll also get into the Republican voter fraud hunter who just got caught doing voter fraud, the Justice Department suing to block an election result in Alaska before a single vote is counted, the record number of empty chairs across Trump’s administration, and how Brazil beat back Trump’s meddling at the ballot box.
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Let’s get to it.
1. Obama Torches Trump in Cleveland
Rallying for Amy Acton and Sherrod Brown, the former president threw some haymakers. Here’s one of the highlights.
He hit the nail on the head. Even as Americans are squeezed by his disastrous policies, our President is focused on all the wrong things. He’s not the only one with his priorities backwards. Obama made a similar point about our so-called Secretary of War. Have a listen.
It’s true. We’re eight months into a war nobody asked for in which American service members have died, and the man in charge of the world’s most powerful military is spending his time on frivolous culture war issues.
Obama also hit Ramaswamy over that despicable ad we talked about last week, and asked what happened where “the standards of behavior have gotten so low that somebody can run an ad like that.” And believe it or not, plenty of Republicans seem to agree with him. The only two people still defending it are Vivek and Trump.
Which shouldn’t surprise anyone. At a separate event, Obama reminded voters they’ve seen this movie before. He was the target, back when Trump made a name for himself demanding his birth certificate. This is what Trump does. It’s all he’s ever done.
Look, it’s hard not to feel refreshed listening to a politician who can form complete sentences. And on top of that, speak so eloquently about the issues that matter. But it’s also a good reminder that the dirty, divisive politics of today aren’t inevitable. The country made a choice to embrace Trump even after he showed his true colors, and we’ve suffered the consequences ever since. The good news is that we live in a democracy, and the country can still choose to reject him. It finally gets that chance on November 3rd.
2. Voter Fraud Hunter Caught Cheating
Scott Presler is one of the GOP’s most famous voting operatives, focusing on so-called election integrity and voter registration. He led the pressure campaign to pass Trump’s SAVE America Act. When John Thune wouldn’t force the unpopular bill through, Presler stood outside his office and threatened a primary challenge. He amplifies conspiracy theories and constantly accuses Democrats of registering ineligible voters.
This is what a post from him typically looks like. Report any suspicious activity immediately.
That’s exactly what the Bulwark did on Friday. According to their reporting, in 2024 Presler bought a house in Pennsylvania. He voted from that address, but so did three other people who aren’t his relatives. There was a political consultant from Louisiana who voted in Florida in 2020, voted in Pennsylvania in 2024, and then voted in Florida again in April 2025. There was a right-wing influencer from Oklahoma who posted that he’d “moved to Pennsylvania just to vote for Trump,” but was back home in Oklahoma by mid-November. And there was a man whose political donations list an address in Arlington, Virginia.
Pennsylvania law says your voting address is the place you intend to return to, and that you don’t gain residency somewhere you come “for temporary purposes only.” The state Supreme Court reaffirmed last year that this intention matters. A Philadelphia election lawyer told The Bulwark that the legality of Presler’s little operation is “not even a close call.”
Presler’s PAC says he’s a generous guy who has friends stay with him while they work in Pennsylvania, and said it was “pure madness” the state can’t clean its voter rolls. That’s a remarkable thing to say when you’re helping muck them up.
So MAGA’s top guy on voter fraud has been running a voter fraud operation out of his house. Remember that next time any of this voter fraud nonsense comes up. None of this is about fraud or election integrity. It’s about who wins and who loses. So expect a lot of noise when the GOP loses this November.
3. Trump Fears Losing Alaska
GOP Senator Dan Sullivan is in trouble in his race against Democrat Mary Peltola. In the open primary she got 49.5 percent to his 41. But there’s also a third candidate on the ballot named Dan J. Sullivan who got 2.5 percent.
The state tried to remove him, arguing he was a spoiler put there to confuse voters. The Alaska Supreme Court said there was no evidence of that, and Dan J. Sullivan stayed on. The ballot lists his middle initial and makes clear which Dan Sullivan is the Republican incumbent.
The DOJ wasn’t satisfied. On Thursday night, with early voting already underway, they sued the state of Alaska to block it from certifying the result if Peltola wins, claiming that the second Sullivan will skew the results. An election law professor called it “one of the worst legal arguments I’ve ever seen.” The incumbent said he didn’t ask for the intervention.
So why did the DOJ step in? On Friday, the president fessed up, telling reporters “I’m the one that said do it.” Normally, the DOJ would never run with such a weak case. But Blanche follows orders. Listen to how he described his role last week.
Our nation’s top law enforcement official works for Donald Trump. Very reassuring.
Let’s be clear about what’s happening. The president ordered Blanche to file a lawsuit with little to no legal basis because he’s worried about losing Alaska. Blanche didn’t ask questions.
And it’s not just Alaska. Blanche told reporters the DOJ is looking at states across the country for fraud. In other words, for a reason to intervene. This time around, Trump is not waiting to lose before he cries fraud. He’s marking the seats he needs, and sending his loyalist DOJ to plant the seeds.
Stay aware, but don’t be intimidated. Get out there and vote. To borrow a phrase from the president: let’s make this one too big to rig.
4. Nobody’s Running Trump’s Government
The Washington Post reports that the Trump administration has more vacant Senate-confirmed positions than any administration since Ronald Reagan. These are the people who actually run federal agencies.
Here are the numbers from the Partnership for Public Service, a watchdog that tracks presidential appointments. 249 of these positions have no nominee at all. 110 nominees are still waiting on the Senate. In its first year, the administration filled 452 positions. This year, it has sent just 186 names to the Senate.
So how did we get here? The Trump administration has appointed far too many officials prone to scandals.
The personnel office, run by longtime Trump aide Dan Scavino, vets all of the candidates. And nothing moves because officials are afraid to put names forward. As one Trump official explained, “the incentive structure is to never do anything.”
Scavino hasn’t helped. He warned anyone recommending a hire: “your name is 100 percent attached to them.” And let’s be real. Given who’s actually been hired, who in their right mind would want that?
The White House is still standing by him. White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles called Scavino “one of the president’s most loyal and trusted advisers.” But these empty chairs matter. They sit at agencies handling national security, immigration, and the economy. Keep in mind that the midterms are next week. If Republicans lose the Senate, filling these jobs gets much harder.
Donald Devine ran President Reagan’s Office of Personnel Management. He said, “Certainly, if the Republicans lose the Senate, that’s going to get a lot worse.”
Look, the fewer clowns the better. But some of these jobs matter. They’re the ones that keep the lights on and keep the country safe. And the White House isn’t even trying to fill them, because they don’t have anyone serious enough to survive the scrutiny. So the chairs stay empty, and all we can do is hope we get through two more years without it breaking something.
5. Brazil Defeats Trump Interference
President Lula just pulled off a historic comeback. Earlier this month, he finished second to far-right Senator Flávio Bolsonaro in the first round. On Sunday, he won the run-off 52 to 48. Since Brazil restored direct presidential elections in 1989, no candidate had ever come from behind to win.
And that result is no small matter. Flávio is the son of former president Jair Bolsonaro. He ran on a promise to free his father. After Jair lost in 2022, he plotted a coup to overthrow the elected government. The plot failed but that didn’t stop his supporters from storming Brazil’s Congress, Supreme Court, and presidential palace.
Sound familiar? Well, Trump certainly saw himself in Bolsonaro. And he acted on it. When Jair’s case went before the Supreme Court last summer, Trump hit Brazil with a 50 percent tariff and called the case a “witch hunt”. His administration then sanctioned the Supreme Court justice overseeing it. It didn’t work. Jair was convicted and sentenced to 27 years.
Those measures were designed to influence the case. But they were also meant to boost Flávio’s campaign against Lula. During his victory speech, Lula said, “I had to overcome interference coming from the outside.” He also praised the election for defeating his opponent’s lies.
Now Flávio is following his father’s script. He refused to concede. And he wants the runoff annulled because a judge extended voting by two hours over transportation problems. He said it is “impossible to recognize the election results.” He lost by more than 4 million votes. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
And here’s the bottom line. Trump has railed against foreign interference in our elections. But he’s done exactly that abroad. Endorsements. Tariffs. Pressure on courts. He wants to take the MAGA movement global.
This weekend, Brazilians went to the ballot box and told him no. Let’s do the same when it’s our turn on November 3rd.
Corruption has become a top issue for voters, and it’s landing on Republicans eight days before the midterms. A Fox News poll this month found that voters now rank government corruption as their top concern, ahead of inflation and gas prices. Last Thursday, Trump was asked about Corey Lewandowski, his longtime adviser. Lewandowski faces a Justice Department inquiry into whether he profited from his senior role at Homeland Security. Trump said dishonest allies should be prosecuted: “If people are not honest, they’re stealing from me as president.” The White House says Trump is waging a war on fraud and blames Democrats for ignoring waste. The headlines keep coming. Trump’s ambassador to Greece resigned after being accused of soliciting $100,000 from a donor. His former personal lawyer landed a $50 million deal with the family of a Venezuelan banker who was later pardoned. Democrats have spent $182 million on corruption ads this year, more than in the previous four cycles combined.
The Trump administration has been pushing Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s former prime minister, to become the next Secretary-General of the United Nations. According to the Wall Street Journal, sources from three countries said U.S. officials brought Orbán the idea themselves. The plan is for him to run as a joint candidate of the U.S., Russia, and China. A State Department official called Orbán “the dream MAGA-conservative candidate.” The same official counted eight Security Council votes comfortably in his favor and ten within reach. The current Secretary General’s term ends December 31. A candidate needs nine of the council’s fifteen votes and no veto from a permanent member. That makes Britain and France, both permanent members, the likeliest obstacles. Trump endorsed Orbán in Hungary’s April election, while JD Vance campaigned for him. Orban is now out of power, and he has declined to comment about his candidacy. A formal announcement is reportedly on hold until after the midterms.
