Hey everybody. Welcome back. Thanks for being here.
Our top story today. Two weeks ago Ken Paxton stood there and smiled while Trump told a crowd he’s not the best-looking guy. Last Thursday he was in a room in Washington with a dozen donors and no cameras, and somebody asked him straight up if Trump was a drag on his campaign. Paxton answered like a guy who figured it would never leave the room. He said the convention dropped everyone’s numbers, including his. But what he didn’t know is that someone was recording the entire thing.
We’ll also get into Republicans finding a migrant caravan right on schedule, Hispanic voters walking away from Trump in big numbers, the Speaker of the House already sweating a Democratic majority, and Trump’s new government chatbot contradicting him on just about everything.
So do me a favor. Like this video, share it with someone who needs to see it, and subscribe so you never miss an episode.
Let’s get to it.
1. Paxton Caught on Tape Saying Trump Hurt Him
Last Thursday, Paxton was at a private fundraiser in Washington with about a dozen donors. The moderator asked him whether or not Trump was a bit of a drag on his campaign. One of those people recorded his answer and gave it to the New York Times. Have a listen.
That convention was the Republican midterm convention in Dallas earlier this month. Trump spoke both days. He went on stage, told Texans to vote for Paxton, and threw in that Paxton may not be the best looking guy. Paxton tried to smile through it, but you could see him die a little inside.
Trump, by the way, said a few days after Dallas that the convention “really helped Ken Paxton.” Well, Ken Paxton doesn’t seem to think so. And he doesn’t think it helped anyone else on the ticket either.
Publicly, the campaign says the tape was manipulated and Paxton will close strong alongside Trump. But we’ve all heard the recording. He thinks Trump hurt his chances, and he doesn’t think there is anything he can do to turn it around.
Meanwhile, James Talarico is doing everything right. He’s been challenging Paxton to a debate for weeks. Fox News offered to host it, but Paxton still hasn’t answered. And Talarico is ahead in every independent poll. Not some of them. All of them.
Paxton doesn’t have an answer for any of it. He’s running out the clock and betting that a Republican can’t lose in Texas. Talarico is about to test that theory.
2. Republicans Revive the Caravan Scare for the Midterms
If you follow politics, you’ve heard this one before. An important election is coming up, and so suddenly there’s a swarm of scary migrants marching on the border. The story is all over Fox, and Republican accounts are up in arms. The message is the same as it was in 2018: vote for us, or the radical left will let them all in.
The caravan is about 600 people from Honduras, mostly families and kids. Right now they’re in Mexico, about a thousand miles from the border. DHS probably jumped for joy when they spotted them just in time for the midterms. Here’s Secretary Mullin on Newsmax:
Meanwhile, his department was posting football edits on X. It’s all theater. The administration needs these caravans to be some huge national security threat to scare you into keeping the GOP in power.
It’s also a last ditch attempt to distract you from gas prices and other domestic issues. This is what wannabee dictators do when things aren’t going well at home: they conjure up invading armies.
We’ve seen this movie before. In 2018, Trump sent thousands of troops to the border over a caravan. Fox news was on the story 24/7. The day after the election, no one was talking about it. Same play, same timing. No one’s buying it.
3. Hispanic Voters Abandon Trump in Record Numbers
Two years ago, Trump made historic gains with Hispanic voters, almost winning them outright. MAGA built its midterm strategy under the assumption they would keep these voters, and they even redrew the maps in Texas and Florida trying to capitalize on their edge.
That bet is going bad.
Look at the districts Republicans drew to lean on Hispanic voters. Every one of them moves double digits toward Democrats. One district in Texas swings 31 points.
The topline numbers are just as bad. Among Hispanic likely voters, Democrats lead 64 to 29. In 2024, Harris won them by seven. Now, only 26% of Hispanics approve of Trump. On cost of living, that number is eight.
These are not big city blue voters either. We’re talking about voters in Republican strongholds, places that Trump won by double digits that are now in danger because of this shift.
The New York Times went down to the Texas border to see the shift for themselves. Voters told them that they were furious. That they felt abandoned. They wanted criminals deported and a better economy. Instead, they got neighborhood raids, a foreign war, and prices that haven’t budged.
In 2024, Republicans boasted of an enduring multiracial coalition. That coalition has lost a pillar in record time. Really, it’s no surprise. Led by a builder who only knows destruction, it’s only a matter of time before the whole thing falls apart.
4. Speaker Johnson Panics Over Trump Investigations
This past week, the founder of Cook Political Report told ABC News that a Democratic takeover of the House is a “done deal.” And there’s “not a lot” the GOP can do to improve their midterm odds.
CNBC pressed the Speaker about that likely outcome. Here is how he responded:
That says it all for Speaker Johnson, who has tied his entire political career to Trump. Now he will have to defend the President from a Democrat majority, which won’t be as friendly as his GOP colleagues. They “would do nothing all day,” Johnson said, “but go after the President, his family, his cabinet, and his donors.” That sounds like a good deal to me.
Rep. Robert Garcia, who will likely chair the Oversight Committee, certainly has a lot to investigate. “There’s so much corruption and grift,” Garcia explained, “that it’s going to take the entire House on the Democratic side to do an investigation properly.”
Then, CNBC asked the Speaker another question: what would Republicans do should they hold onto the House? His answer is telling:
“Exactly what we’ve already been doing.” That’s the pitch? Johnson has no shame about what President Trump and the Republican Party has done to this country. In fact, he wants to do it all over again. You heard it here first: more ICE raids, more foreign entanglements, and more blatant corruption.
So go ahead, Mike. Double down. We’ll see where it gets you in November.
5. Trump's Government Chatbot Calls Out His Lies
Yesterday we spoke about America.gov, the AI-powered search tool Trump launched to help Americans navigate the federal government. “Everything will be answered easily and quickly,” he said of the new website.
But the President may not appreciate the answers that it provides. The New York Times reports that America.gov cites official government sources, which happen to contradict an extensive list of Trump’s false claims.
According to the chatbot, official reviews by several government agencies “did not find that the 2020 presidential election was stolen or decided by fraud.” The certified result? Joe Biden received 306 electoral votes; Trump received 232. Simple as that.
The chatbot also fact-checked the President’s lies about tariffs. Official analyses of recent U.S. tariffs find that “Americans face the greater economic burden,” while “foreign exporters absorb a smaller share.” His tariffs are a tax on the American people.
The chatbot also admitted that the President’s Big Beautiful Bill is estimated to add trillions of dollars to the national debt and to cut health insurance for more than 10 million people. And it reportedly agreed that, on average, the law “made the poorest people in America even poorer and the richest people in America even richer.”
This morning, the White House did update the chatbot. But it turns out those updates actually censored resources and information. While the chatbot had avoided answering a few questions it deemed political, that blackout has now been extended across the President’s false claims.
When asked about the 2020 election now, the chatbot refuses to answer: “I do not offer political commentary on elections.” The fairness of the election doesn’t need political commentary. It is a political fact.
Yesterday, I joked about Trump’s promise that the “the federal government will no longer stand in your way.” But he might have been right. At least up until this morning, America.gov exposed the web of lies that Trump has weaponized to justify his abuse of executive power, and to radicalize his voter base. His own website was actually telling people the truth. The government wasn’t standing in anyone’s way. But that only lasted about 24 hours.
This November, let’s vote the Democrats into Congress to make it stick.
Some other stories that caught my eye:
The last U.S. troops left Iraq on Wednesday, ending more than two decades of American military presence in the country. The New York Times reports that the final 2,500 service members pulled out of Erbil, home to the last base of the coalition fighting ISIS. The withdrawal deal was initially struck with the Biden administration in 2024. And the Trump administration kept the September 30 deadline despite the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran. Now Baghdad faces Iran-backed militias without American forces in the country. At a ceremony in Baghdad, Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi said the exit “marks Iraq’s transition to a phase in which it assumes full responsibility for its security and stability.” Al-Zaidi has promised to bring those groups under state control by mid-2027. But that might be complicated. Days before the withdrawal, a leader of Kataib Hezbollah, a powerful Iran-backed militia, levied a clear threat against Al-Zaidi: any government complying with U.S. sanctions on Tehran “will be brought down through various means.”
Rep. Jamie Raskin sent letters Tuesday to Amazon, Google, Meta and Oracle demanding details on secret deals they signed with local officials to build AI data centers. As the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, Raskin wants each company’s data-center portfolio and a full accounting of its nondisclosure agreements. “Residents cannot weigh a project’s costs against its benefits, hold their officials accountable or safeguard their own resources when the basic terms are kept secret,” he wrote. Amazon says it no longer uses NDAs with government partners on these projects. The other three companies didn’t immediately comment. Data centers have become a political liability, blamed for higher power bills and heavy water use. A new Wall Street Journal poll found 62% of voters support pausing data-center development. Last week, Raskin joined Democrat Greg Landsman and Republican Tom Barrett to introduce a bill limiting these agreements. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro already banned them by executive order in August.
