Hey everybody. Welcome back. Thanks for being here.
Our top story today. A few months into this term, Trump’s political appointees at Homeland Security went to the federal agency that protects our elections with a request. Secretly buy a voting machine. Hack it. Don’t tell the manufacturer what you find. Send the results to the White House. The career staff refused. Then it turned out there was nobody left to do it anyway, because DOGE had laid them off. You’d think an administration that’s supposedly all about election integrity wouldn’t be trying to secretly hack a voting machine.
We’ll also get into the text messages that just turned the Habba and Grenell feud into yet another MAGA corruption story, Elon Musk’s suspiciously timed gift to every kid in America, Republicans running from Trump in their own commercials, and new reporting on the Patriot missiles Europe bought for Ukraine that Pete Hegseth won’t release.
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Let’s get to it.
1. White House Election Hack Exposed
ProPublica broke this story yesterday. Two former administration officials say that early in Trump’s second term, political appointees at Homeland Security asked CISA, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, to secretly acquire a voting machine, break into it, and report what they found so it could go to the White House. The agency was told not to alert the company that makes the machine if it found flaws. That’s the opposite of how CISA works. When it finds a weakness, the whole point is to get it patched.
The career staff were shocked. One of the former officials put it this way: “My thought was they could keep it in their back pocket to invalidate any election results they don’t like. This goes against everything CISA represents.” The staff told the appointees over and over that it couldn’t be done, partly because the specialists who could pull it off had just been laid off by DOGE. Eventually the appointees stopped asking.
Why does CISA matter? Trump signed it into law in 2018. And in 2020, it was CISA, with the secretaries of state and the machine vendors, that called that election the most secure in American history. Trump fired the director on Twitter for saying so.
Here’s what’s happened to the agency since. More than a thousand employees are gone, a third of the workforce. The next budget would cut another 700 million dollars and 900 more jobs. The administration declassified records that included private information states had shared with CISA in confidence. State officials say they’ll never share with the agency again. A Justice Department official called county clerks in Missouri asking for access to voting machines. Tulsi Gabbard seized machines in Puerto Rico, and when the contractor found nothing, the government dropped the contract. And CISA’s election security plan for this year came out on September 24th. Thirteen pages. Early voting was already starting.
Arizona’s secretary of state told ProPublica, “I don’t pay attention to what the president says. I pay attention to what his administration does. And what they’ve done is basically cut us off and left us on our own.” Officials in one large county have met privately with their machine vendor to plan for the federal government seizing their equipment.
So the agency built to protect the vote has been gutted, and the people who gutted it asked what was left of it to hack a voting machine and keep the results between them and the White House. Two weeks from an election the president’s party is losing, with a president who still says the last one he lost was rigged.
Can we just imagine for a second if this story came out about Joe Biden? Two weeks before an election his party was about to lose? Trump would’ve called it one of the greatest crimes in American history, and for once he wouldn’t have been wrong.
2. Trump Allies Caught Selling Access
Last week we told you about the fight between Ric Grenell and Alina Habba, and the President caught in the middle. If you didn’t catch that episode, here’s a summary: Habba, Trump’s former lawyer, said Grenell convinced her husband to donate $6 million to the Kennedy Center, which Grenell was running at the time. That money never arrived, so Habba went to the President and told him her husband got scammed.
The story already involved the usual MAGA grift. Habba’s husband was only friends with Grenell in the first place because he wanted to use Grenell’s power in the State Department to protect his Venezuelan business contracts.
But according to new reporting from Axios, the corruption went even deeper. That donation to the Kennedy Center? It came with some big promises. In texts, Grenell told Habba’s husband: “Once the money comes to the company here, I will arrange the donation to Kennedy Center,” and then, “you’ll be joining the VIP events and get close with the administration, even with POTUS.” Another line: “We need to make you the ‘American face’ down in V.” That’s V as in Venezuela.
Grenell denies ever sending the texts. The White House counsel is on the case, and nothing is definite yet. But so far, this has all the signs of the standard MAGA racket.
That includes foreign governments. The husband’s lawyers say Grenell told him to wire $17.6 million to a Houston defense company for a deal in the Democratic Republic of Congo, with $6 million being shaved off for the Kennedy Center. But when the wire went through, it wasn’t from the husband’s bank account. Instead it came from the Congolese finance ministry. Bizarre. The White House is still trying to figure out whose money they’re dealing with.
Many things still don’t make sense. Why did Habba’s husband end up getting his VIP benefits if the cash never reached the Kennedy Center? He apparently snagged a seat in the VP’s box. That’s the same VP who just told voters in Michigan that anyone selling access to the White House was disgusting and despicable. Did he know the guy sitting next to him at the Kennedy Center had paid for his seat?
There are a lot of mysteries, and it may be a while until we get all the answers. But this much is clear: in this administration, corruption is the new normal. Whether it’s a box seat, a pardon, or a credit card bill, someone is selling, and someone is buying.
3. Musk Tries to Buy Forgiveness
Let’s start with Ukraine. On Friday, Musk said that the Starlink disruptions that are still limiting Ukrainian drone operations were decided by the US military and POTUS. But the Telegraph recently reported that it was Musk who went to Trump with the idea of capping the speed. When the cap caused chaos on the front lines, Musk started sweating the backlash and pointed the finger at the White House instead.
Then he started feeling charitable.
“Next year, I will give one of my SpaceX shares to every kid in America. This will be the first of many.” About 72 million kids. At Friday’s price, roughly ten and a half billion dollars. Sounds good to me. As long as there are no strings attached, I’m all for it. But the timing makes his true motivations clear.
The Ukraine slowdown is unacceptable, but it’s just one of Musk’s many abuses. And Democrats have been taking notice. Politico reported today that if Democrats win the House, Musk is at the top of the investigations list. They’re sure to have plenty of ammo.
Musk knows that he’ll have to answer for his conduct when Democrats take the House. So he’s handing out stock, making himself look like a nice guy so people feel bad when he’s finally held accountable.
Giving out stock is a good thing to do. But it doesn’t make up for the hundreds of thousands of fired federal workers, the lives lost abroad when USAID’s network crumbled, or the deadly disruptions to Ukraine’s operations that he won’t even own.
Musk can donate all he wants. We’ll take it. But I’m still looking forward to watching him squirm.
4. Republicans Hide Trump in Ads
Trump has repeated the same message at campaign rallies, at midterm conventions, and on social media: “pretend I’m on the ballot.” His theory? Republicans can’t win without him. But their ads say the opposite. Republicans can only win by leaving him out.
The New York Times went through every Republican TV and streaming ad in House and Senate races since September 9th. Less than one dollar of every hundred Republicans spent went to an ad that says the word Trump. That’s less than one percent.
And when Republicans do mention Trump, there’s often a catch. Take Alaska Senator Dan Sullivan. He is running an ad about how he “voted to force Trump’s DOJ to release the Epstein files.” A year ago, he voted against releasing them.
As for the Democrats? They can’t stop talking about the President. They are spending 20 dollars of every hundred on ads that name him. On the war. On tariffs. On health care. You name it.
Here’s the bottom line. In Republican ads, Trump is the 33rd most common topic. In Democratic ads, he’s the fourth. Why the split?
Reuters released a poll yesterday. Trump’s approval rating has dropped to thirty-one percent. That’s the lowest of either term. And a Republican pollster and strategist put it into the context of the midterms: “When the president’s approval rating is in the 30s, that’s not generally helpful for a campaign that needs to get to 50 percent.”
Trump is the only one who hasn’t gotten the message. He keeps telling voters to pretend he’s on the ballot. His own party is spending millions hoping they forget he exists.
5. Hegseth Blocks Missiles for Ukraine
European allies have already paid for American-made Patriot interceptors for Ukraine. Not a dime of it is American money. But under U.S. law, they can’t transfer American-made weapons without Washington’s sign-off. That signature belongs to Secretary Hegseth.
The Washington Post reported Monday that he hasn’t approved the transfers. He hasn’t rejected them either. He’s just sitting on them.
Whether Hegseth doesn’t understand the stakes or simply doesn’t care, he’s playing a dangerous game. Ukrainian officials told the Post last week that “only a couple” of interceptors remain in the stockpile. Meanwhile, Russia has ramped up strikes against Ukrainian cities and energy infrastructure, including 16 ballistic missiles overnight.
Republican Senator Thom Tillis wants to know who’s responsible. Here’s what he told CNN:
That’s a Republican senator talking about his own party’s administration. And he’s asking the right questions. Secretary Rubio says nothing has changed. The White House says it’s playing a constructive role. But what has actually happened? Our relationship with Ukraine has reached its lowest point.
Zelensky has had enough. He warned that Trump’s choices are “not the right side of history.” Trump waved him off. Then he said it’s time for someone else to negotiate for Ukraine. Have a listen:
Zelensky is fighting a war of self-defense for his country’s survival. Putin has wanted him gone since day one. Now the President of the United States wants him out of the picture too.
And the last few weeks make it pretty clear. He doesn’t think Ukrainians should decide their own future. He thinks Putin should. It’s a disgrace.
Some other stories that caught my eye:
Check out this awesome new campaign ad from James Talarico:
Pete Hegseth’s review of the 2021 Afghanistan withdrawal could drop right before the midterms. People familiar with the matter told The Washington Post on Monday that the report could be released as soon as this month. Some expect it to recommend disciplinary action against the generals involved. Options range from a censure to recalling retired officers to active duty and demoting them. Hegseth’s team said in a statement that “there will be accountability.” It did not say whether the release is being timed for the November 3 election. Hegseth’s top spokesman, Sean Parnell, runs the review. His team includes Stuart Scheller, a former Marine officer court-martialed in 2021 for publicly attacking top generals over the withdrawal. No Biden administration officials were interviewed. Past reviews found that Generals Mark Milley, Frank McKenzie, and Scott Miller repeatedly warned against pulling all U.S. troops out. Milley and McKenzie also told Congress that Trump’s 2020 deal with the Taliban played a significant role in the Afghan government’s collapse.
