Hey everybody, welcome back. Thanks for being here.
Our top story today: the FBI was building a bribery case that ran straight through Susan Collins’ office. Trump killed it. He fired the agents working the case, including one who was targeted for investigating his attempt to overturn the 2020 election. ProPublica broke the news this morning. At the center of it is a defense contractor who admits he bought his way into the defense budget with a check to a Collins Super PAC, run through a shell company. He’s serving more than seven years in prison for it. And it wasn’t just Collins. The FBI had officials of both parties wrapped up in this case by the end of 2024. Then Trump took office and squashed it. The corruption in this country is staggering and I am sick of it.
We’ll also get into Trump’s press ban backfiring in real time, his big beautiful arch becoming a sniper nest, Republicans begging for a diesel export ban they used to hate, and the housing chief who built a dirt file on the Attorney General.
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Let’s get to it.
1. Trump Protects the Swamp
In late 2019, Susan Collins was staring down the reality of losing her seat in the U.S. Senate. To cover for a poor political environment, Scott Reed, an ally who ran her Super PAC, sat down at Corner Bakery near the Capitol with three executives from the Hawaiian defense contractor Navatek. The year before, Collins had helped the company land a Navy research contract in Maine. Now her fundraiser went asking for half a million dollars. The boldness and audacity of these people is startling.
Here’s the problem, among many. Federal law prohibits corporations and federal government contractors from making contributions in connection with federal elections. And volleying a donation to a Senator that coincides with a government contract in-hand is subject to scrutiny as bribery. So the company’s CEO, a man named Martin Kao, said he’d set up a shell company to hide the money. The PAC chairman replied by email: “very smart. Thanks for doing this” and so Kao named it the “Society of Young Women Scientist and Engineers.” However, he forgot the letter “S” at the end of “scientists” on the filing. That typo tipped off the Campaign Legal Center, a watchdog group, to the $150,000 that Kao passed through to the PAC.
That’s the check. $150,000. A week after it cleared, someone from the PAC emailed a lobbyist asking for Kao’s phone number, because, “Senator Collins would like to call Martin to thank him.” Two months later, Kao told his executives that Collins had committed to $32 million in Navy contracts for the company. The Senate followed through on at least $10 million in the budget for Navatek that year. Collins reportedly used her position on the Senate Appropriations Committee to tilt the balance of where the contracts went.
Kao got caught. He pleaded guilty in 2022, and he’s doing seven years now behind bars. But before he went in, he spent two years talking to the FBI’s public corruption unit. He gave them a 50-page road map: more than a dozen members of Congress, their staff, the lobbyists, the phone numbers. He said the politicians knew exactly what the money was for. His words: “it takes two to tangle.” By the end of 2024, they had approval to open a broader bribery investigation into Congress.
Then Trump came back and his administration purged that unit agent by agent. One of the lead agents was fired in a one-page letter for having worked to investigate Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election. Her partner in the case was pushed out this year. Same story at the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section. Trump’s people ordered it to drop the case against former New York Mayor Eric Adams, a Trump ally. The lawyers resigned en masse rather than participate in such a scheme.
Now, Collins’ office calls all of this outlandish and says the FBI found nothing and she’s never been charged. But here’s what doesn’t need an answer. Trump didn’t kill this case to protect Susan Collins. He killed it because the people running it had also investigated him. And the collateral damage is corruption cases in Washington falling by the wayside. Lewandowski. Witkoff. Trump Jr.’s wedding. Nobody’s looking anymore, because the people whose job it was to look for corruption got fired for doing their job.
2. The White House Press Revolts
Last week, Trump announced he was banning CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from the White House for what he called “fiction and lies” that amounted to national security threats.
Obviously, those companies are suing. But the rest of the press pool wasn’t having it either. On Monday the five networks that make up the White House TV pool, including Fox, put out a joint statement protesting the ban. Then, along with most of the pool photographers, they packed up their equipment and left.
Despite the boycott, Trump tried to go ahead with an event commemorating his precious new helipad. Here’s how that went:
“Can’t hear what the president is saying.”
If only it were like that all the time.
Even the Newsmax host had to admit Trump’s strategy backfired. And you know this gets to him. As much as he claims to hate the media, Trump lives for those cameras. He picked his cabinet based on who he thought would do the best on camera. Some of his top aides, like Pete Hegseth, were commentators on TV.
See, here’s the thing. Trump needs the press more than the press needs him. What is Trump without his oval office rants and signing ceremonies? What is Trump without reporters to show his scale models and renovation projects? Nothing. As I said at the DNC in 2024, he is a weak man pretending to be strong. He is a small man pretending to be big. All those distractions from the real job? They only work if the press shows up.
3. Trump's Arch Becomes a Sniper Nest
You’ve probably heard about Trump’s arch by now. A gaudy monument between the Lincoln Memorial and the hallowed ground of Arlington Cemetery being pushed forward over the objections of architects, historians, and veterans who would prefer to keep the area quiet.
On Sunday, Trump reached for the same old national security excuse. This time, it’s even more ridiculous. He said that at the “strong request of the military,” he’s converting the arch into a top grade military complex. Apparently it will now serve triple duty as a sniper’s nest, drone base, and ammunition storage. Asked to explain the bizarre plan, the Pentagon reserved comment.
Anderson Cooper asked Andrew McCabe, a former deputy director of the FBI, for his take. Have a listen:
He couldn’t hold back a chuckle. I don’t blame him. Snipers stationed on top would be too far to protect any likely target in DC proper. Unless we’re in 1812 and the British are coming to burn Washington, there’s no reason for an installation like this next to the Potomac.
So why do it? Because national security is the magic word. It’s how you make those pesky lawsuits and complaints go away.
It’s just another slap in the face to veterans from this administration. If you’ve visited Arlington Cemetery, you know the atmosphere is a lot different from DC proper. It’s a place of quiet respect where veterans take center stage. Trying to steal the spotlight with a gilded vanity project is bad enough. Justifying that project in the name of national security is sickening. If the arch does get built, we can only hope it comes crumbling down with the rest of this president’s twisted legacy.
4. The GOP Panics Over Diesel
Yesterday, we discussed how Trump’s war in Iran is responsible for record breaking diesel prices, despite the president blaming Ukraine. That raises the cost of farming and trucking, which in turn raises the prices of groceries and other consumer goods. And the GOP is panicking.
The Financial Times reports that Republicans are telling the White House to stop the bleeding by banning diesel exports before the election. A congressman from Tennessee has filed two bills. Iowa’s delegation sent a letter in support. And here’s Mike Rogers, the Republican Senate nominee in Michigan:
“The Iran War has to end.” And until it does, Rogers adds, Michigan families need an embargo on diesel exports to bring prices down. That’s a direct shot at a president who insists he’s winning the war and that gas prices aren’t his fault.
Remember, Trump even endorsed Rogers. Now that endorsement is dead weight. Rogers is slipping further behind his Democratic opponent Abdul El-Sayed in the polls, and he’s decided the way back is to break with the president and his agenda.
When the Biden administration floated the same idea, 61 House Republicans signed a letter calling the export ban a catastrophic mistake. They concluded it would hurt our allies, wreck supply chains, and actually raise prices within a few months.
Four years later, Republicans are desperate enough to demand a policy they know doesn’t work. But that doesn’t matter to them. They just need to convince constituents that they are doing something, anything, to fix the mistakes made by backing Trump and his reckless war.
Mike Rogers understands what other Republicans are coming to realize. The only path back is to break with Trump.
5. Trump's Revenge Machine Turns on Itself
Bill Pulte runs the federal housing agency. And believe it or not, even that agency has become a political weapon for Trump.
Last year, Pulte decided to dig through the mortgages of the president’s enemies. That includes Senator Adam Schiff, Attorney General Letitia James, and Lisa Cook at the Federal Reserve. He referred all of them for prosecution.
The Wall Street Journal reports he pulled one more file: Todd Blanche.
At the time, Blanche was second-in-command at the Justice Department, and he had a disagreement over the Schiff case. Pulte wanted to press charges. Blanche’s office refused because, to nobody’s surprise, they couldn’t find a crime. Officials told the Journal that Pulte responded by searching through Blanche and his son’s mortgage records, looking for anything to pressure the Attorney General’s office into indicting Schiff. He found nothing.
But the story doesn’t end there. Instead of pursuing the Schiff case, Blanche pursued an investigation into Pulte about whether he leaked case details to outsiders. Blanche even found that one of Pulte’s associates asked a congressional candidate to be a source for a negative story about his mortgages. That’s on the record.
No charges ever came in the Schiff case. And Trump has refused to fire Pulte because, the Journal says, he values his loyalty. He’s just another puppet who willingly takes the marching orders behind the president’s revenge campaign.
But just for a second, that campaign turned on itself. That’s how these things work. You build a machine for finding dirt on enemies, and eventually everyone’s an enemy. Even the president’s personal lawyer, sitting at the Justice Department, has gotten caught up in it.
Some other stories that caught my eye:
Paramount cleared the last major hurdle to its $111 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery on Monday, settling an antitrust lawsuit brought by a group of states. The concessions include an independent board to protect the editorial independence of CNN and CBS News, a commitment to release 30 movies in theaters each year, and an additional $1.5 billion in film production spending over five years. Paramount CEO David Ellison praised the deal, saying the shared aim was an outcome that “best serves consumers, workers and — most importantly — the creative community.” The states were less optimistic. California’s attorney general bluntly stated that the settlement is “not a vote of support for this merger.” Connecticut’s attorney general, meanwhile, said the states were “deeply disappointed” they couldn’t get a full divestiture of CNN and CBS News. The combined company will now control both CNN and CBS News, two major streaming services, and two film studios. Ellison’s family ties to President Trump and his installation of Bari Weiss atop CBS News have fueled fears about political influence over two major newsrooms.
French President Emmanuel Macron summoned party leaders and presidential candidates to the Elysée Palace to brief them on Russia’s escalating sabotage campaign against Europe, warning of the threat of civilian casualties. Macron explained that the Russians aim “to intimidate us and break our support for the Ukrainians,” and noted that “no one is safe.” Just a day earlier, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said he had intelligence that Russia intends to strike European countries backing Ukraine with drones or missiles. The Russians will claim the attacks are accidental, he added, but they are actually designed to test NATO’s Article 5 commitment. The warnings follow a sharp uptick in incidents. In one week alone, Italian jets shot down an explosives-laden drone over Lithuania, Russian fighters violated NATO airspace, and Russian drones struck a Ukrainian train within two kilometers of the Polish border. In August, a drone rigged with explosives was flown into a cargo plane carrying weapons for Ukraine at Germany’s Leipzig-Halle airport, which failed to detonate. Analysts say the attacks are calibrated to stay just below the threshold that would trigger a NATO military response.
