Hey everybody. Welcome back. Thanks for being here.
Our top story today. The IRS has a report that shows exactly what Republicans’ big tax cut did to your taxes. Who actually got a break, and who ended up paying more. It was supposed to come out in July. Then September. It’s now October 14th and the Treasury Department is sitting on it. The administration says it wants the numbers to be accurate. What a convenient time to suddenly care about getting the facts right, three weeks before the election. So while the White House tries to spin the delayed release, a former top IRS official says the real reason is that the numbers don’t match what they’ve been bragging about to voters on the campaign trail.
We’ll also get into a brutal inflation report that even Fox can’t spin, the crypto dinner that shows who Trump really works for, top Republicans giving up on the House, and concerning new reporting that Elon Musk’s Starlink may be cutting back access for the Ukrainian military at the worst possible time.
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Let’s get to it.
1. White House Hides Tax Cut Data
Every year, after filing season, the IRS publishes a report showing what people at every income level deducted and what they owed.
And this year, that data will be the first real look at the big tax law Republicans passed in 2025. Politico reports the release was scheduled for July. Then it slipped to September, and as of today it still hasn’t come out. The IRS says it’s waiting on the Treasury, meaning Scott Bessent, to sign off.
An administration official told Politico the priority is getting the numbers right after major changes to the code. But here is Nina Olson, who spent nearly 20 years as the national taxpayer advocate inside the IRS: “I think they are hiding stuff that doesn’t line up with all the crowing the CEO has been doing.” The CEO is Trump’s hand-picked guy running the IRS, who has spent months selling this law on TV.
And there’s a reason to hide it. The Congressional Budget Office already projected what this law does. Gains for middle and upper income households. Losses for the lowest income households. Meanwhile the administration has been bragging that this was the biggest tax cut for working families in history. The data would tell us which side has it right.
But let’s be honest. If the report showed what Republicans have been preaching, do you think it would’ve been delayed? If it really was saving families thousands of dollars a year, don’t you think they’d be plastering those numbers everywhere they can? Of course they would. But they’re not. They are hiding the numbers. And there’s really only one reason to do that: the numbers are bad.
2. Even Fox Can’t Spin Inflation
Prices rose 3.7% over the last year, up from the 3.4% reported in August. In September alone, they jumped 0.6%, the biggest one-month increase since May. Take a look at this graph from The New York Times.
See that line? Inflation was on its way down from peak COVID. Then Trump launched his “little expedition” in Iran, and it spiked. Gas climbed almost 10% in a month. Plane tickets are up 22% on the year. In response, the Fed hiked interest rates for the first time in three years, and mortgage rates went right along with them. The data this month was so bad that another rate hike is now possible in October. The team at Fox Business didn’t take that news so well. Have a listen:
They’re clutching their pearls over the idea of a rate hike before the midterms, as if it’s something being done to the administration and not the direct result of its policies. But even they can’t spin the numbers.
When the White House tries, they usually mention Iran, saying that prices will come down right away once the war ends. But tariffs are also a big part of the story. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York looked at their effects on everyday prices through February, before the Iran war started. They found that Trump’s duties added almost 3% to the price of goods. It wasn’t just the imported stuff either. American-made goods also got more expensive because of the overseas parts many domestic manufacturers use.
So there you have it. Trump’s tariffs were already pushing up prices, and the war made it worse. They’ll hide the data that they can, but the picture is clear as day. Trump’s economy is not working for Americans.
3. Trump Hosts Foreign Crypto Buyers
In November, Trump is hosting a dinner at his Washington golf club for the biggest holders of his very own Trump coin. The top 29 get a VIP reception with the President. Trump’s companies own 80 percent of the coin and collect a fee every time it trades, so the President has made some serious cash: at least $635 million from royalties last year.
His biggest customers have something in common, and if you’re a regular listener it won’t surprise you. Most of them are foreign. CBS looked at the coin’s holdings leaderboard and found that 52 of the 100 wallets listed moved their money through exchanges that don’t serve Americans. That includes number one on the leaderboard, who owns about 3 million dollars worth of Trump’s coin and will almost certainly be at the VIP reception.
While a foreign war rages and prices climb, Trump is wining and dining the highest foreign bidders. Americans are starting to understand where his focus lies. Take a look at this recent poll from AP.
Asked about Trump’s priorities, 56% said he focused “a lot” on his personal business interests. Only 23% said the same of the country overall. A third thought he didn’t care about the country at all, and a majority said he didn’t care about people like them.
Americans are also suspicious when it comes to the money that Trump is raking in. Six in 10 say he’s done something illegal or unethical to profit from the office. Even a third of Republicans say he’s crossed one of those lines.
Americans are right on both counts. And consider the hypocrisy. Trump once claimed to be the champion of Americans left behind by globalism. He told voters a story of DC elites bought off by foreign capital, and demonized immigrants as the source of the country’s troubles. But now that same foreign capital is lining up with cash in hand, and Trump is rolling out the red carpet. It’s no wonder voters have abandoned him.
4. Top Republicans Admit House Is Gone
Over the past week, GOP super PACs have started pulling money from House Republicans in tough races. It turns out that decision is part of a broader strategy. Surrender the House and save what they can.
Publicly, the White House insists Trump remains “committed to maintaining Republican majorities in both the House and Senate.” Speaker Mike Johnson says that any polls forecasting defeat are simply wrong.
But five senior Republican lawmakers told Politico something very different. Privately, they’ve concluded the House is gone. Democrats are on track to pick up between nine and 19 House seats, and they only need three. The lawmakers say the goal for the GOP is to limit the damage. That means saving the Senate majority.
And who do they blame? Their dear leader, President Trump.
“President Trump has made this election all about himself,” a senior House Republican said. “Now we have to survive the political storm.”
And there’s no sign the storm is passing. As we discussed a few days ago, the polling suggests there’s almost nothing Trump can do before Election Day to win over undecided voters. According to Republican lawmakers, he can only make things worse.
5. Ukraine Loses Starlink Under Fire
I want to be careful here, because this story is still developing. But here’s what we know as of now.
Overnight, Russia launched 39 ballistic missiles and more than 120 drones at Kyiv and Kharkiv, aimed at the power grid. As a reminder, Trump announced an energy ceasefire a few days ago. Russia hit twenty-six electrical facilities, leaving 600,000 people without power this morning.
This is the second night of attacks in a row. And the second time Ukraine received no early warning before the missile strikes. That warning normally comes from American intelligence.
At the same time, Ukraine lost something else. A senior adviser to Zelensky on military technology said SpaceX had introduced a new restriction overnight without telling anyone. The military version of Starlink now cuts out when a terminal moves faster than about 100 miles an hour. In other words, it cuts off from drones.
That matters because drones are now Ukraine’s main weapon, both for hitting Russian targets and for shooting down Russian weapons. They’re cheap, and they don’t put soldiers at risk. As long as this limit stays in place, Ukraine fights with one hand tied behind its back.
Maybe there is some reasonable explanation here. But SpaceX, and Elon himself, have yet to comment.
But look at the past week. The White House released a video criticizing Ukraine’s strikes on Russian oil facilities. Elon Musk posted, “Zelensky has gone too far.” And over the weekend, the administration reportedly warned Ukraine and its European allies that it could cut off intelligence sharing if Ukraine kept hitting Russian energy facilities.
Days later, the warnings stopped and the drones lost their link.
Look, Trump has squeezed our ally, time and again, to score a win for himself or for Russia. And the White House threatened to cut off Ukraine’s intelligence just days ago. So until we have a reason to believe otherwise, this sure looks like another gift to Trump’s good old friend, Vladimir Putin. We will continue to monitor this story and keep you updated.
Some other stories that caught my eye:
The White House is scrambling to explain the legal credentials of Katie Zacharia, Trump’s new press secretary, after a shaky debut at the podium. Zacharia made her first appearance on Tuesday, which the White House called a “powerful, inaugural briefing” in an email to reporters. It lasted just 14 minutes, with about five and a half minutes of questions from three reporters. Afterward, a reporter asked where she passed the bar. Trump had called her an “attorney” when he announced the pick on Truth Social. Zacharia explained that she passed it in China, and White House officials later noted that she moved there with her husband for his job after law school. But noncitizens aren’t allowed to take China’s national bar exam. Journalist Judd Legum had already reported that she isn’t licensed to practice law anywhere in the country.
The new Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool liner failed in at least 85 places because of a rushed, flawed renovation. The inspection report, obtained by the Washington Post, was commissioned by the contractor itself. It documents blisters, peeling and cracks across the basin. Crews were still spraying coating the day before the pool was refilled on June 4, even though the material needed 72 hours to dry. An Interior Department spokesperson said the contractor is “contractually obligated to fix the Reflecting Pool” and is “well on its way to doing so.” The $14.7 million job went to Atlantic Industrial Coatings under a no-bid contract this spring. The administration wanted it finished for the July Fourth celebration of the nation’s 250th anniversary. The report never mentions vandalism. But Trump has kept blaming vandals anyway, calling any contractor error “relatively inconsequential.” In July, prosecutors charged four people with damaging the liner, including former Olympic canoeist David Hearn. Those charges were later dismissed. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro said her office would not have indicted Hearn if it had known contractor error was to blame.
