Good morning and welcome back to this morning’s edition of the Democratic Wins Media newsletter. Three different institutions told Donald Trump “no” this week — a state supreme court, his own Army Secretary, and, of all places, Fox News. Not one of them is a Democratic operation. That’s what makes today’s edition worth your time: the resistance to this administration’s demands isn’t coming from where you’d expect, and every one of these stories is a crack in the wall. What also makes this edition worth your time? We’re only 60 days until the November midterms. Help us reach as many voters as possible by sharing our newsletter today.

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In today’s edition:

• Missouri’s Supreme Court unanimously blocks Trump’s gerrymandered map — the old lines are back for November, and voters get the final say.

• Army Secretary Dan Driscoll resigns rather than watch Pete Hegseth fire the generals rebuilding the Army for the drone age.

• Kaitlan Collins exposes the unceremonious firing of Maria Bartiromo for leaking the network’s own coverage instructions to the Trump White House.

Before the news, a word about why this newsletter exists. The Ellison family now controls CBS News and CNN with Bari Weiss in charge. Bezos owns the Washington Post. Murdoch runs Fox and Roku. The billionaires are buying every outlet that could hold them accountable. Democratic Wins Media is the alternative: we’re fully reader-funded, editorially independent, and will never be purchased. If you have been reading on a free subscription, this morning is the moment to upgrade to a paying membership. Subscribe or upgrade right now.

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HUMILIATING DEFEAT FOR TRUMP: MISSOURI’S HIGHEST COURT THROWS OUT HIS MAP — UNANIMOUSLY

The Missouri Supreme Court ruled unanimously Thursday that the Trump-backed congressional map Republicans rammed through last fall cannot be used in November — and that Missourians themselves will vote on whether it ever takes effect. The old lines drawn after the 2020 census are back in force for the midterms. The fight started when the group People Not Politicians submitted more than 300,000 petition signatures — over double the requirement — to force a statewide referendum. Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins waited until primary election day in August to reject the petition, claiming referendums can’t touch congressional redistricting. The court disagreed, writing that the petition was “legal, sufficient, and timely” and that the secretary got it wrong. Trump erupted on Truth Social, calling the ruling a “Dark Day” for justice in Missouri. Attorney General Catherine Hanaway says she’ll ask the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene, so this isn’t over — but as of today, the map Republicans were counting on for an extra House seat is dead.

Why it matters: Republicans hold the House by four seats, 218–214, and Trump’s entire redistricting blitz exists because he knows he can’t win a fair fight. Seven judges in a red state just said the voters — not the president — decide the rules.

By the numbers: 300,000+ signatures. 7–0 ruling.

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ARMY HEROS HUMILIATE PETE HEGSETH WITH DISGUSTING NICKNAME

Army Secretary Dan Driscoll resigned this week after 18 months on the job, and the reason is damning: sources told CNN he told the administration that Pete Hegseth was blocking the Army’s modernization push — specifically by firing the generals responsible for it. Chief among them: Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George, dismissed this spring while leading the drive to rebuild the Army around drone warfare after Ukrainian operators embarrassed U.S. armored units in joint exercises. Axios reports the White House asked Driscoll, a Republican and an Iraq veteran, to stay through the midterms; he said it was time to go. The Daily Beast adds vivid color: at Gen. Christopher Donahue’s retirement ceremony at Fort Bragg last week, an Army official says the brass privately mock Hegseth as “No Tab Pete” — a jab at his lack of the Ranger and special-skill tabs the men he keeps firing actually earned. The Beast counts more than 20 senior military leaders gone on Hegseth’s watch.

Why it matters: This is not Democrats attacking the Pentagon — it’s the Pentagon’s own Republican leadership refusing to stay. When the Army Secretary quits over the firing of warfighting experts, “supporting the troops” and supporting this administration are officially two different things.

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KAITLAN COLLINS EXPOSES THE UNCEREMONIOUS EXIT FOR ONE OF FOX’S TOP HOSTS

Fox News Media abruptly cut ties with Maria Bartiromo on Thursday after 12½ years — no on-air sign-off, no explanation, just a terse statement and, per Mediaite, her top producer fired alongside her. The reason, first reported by Status’ Oliver Darcy and confirmed to CNN by its own sources: Bartiromo disclosed confidential internal guidance to the Trump White House. After Trump’s flop of a July primetime address pushing baseless claims that China meddled in the 2020 election, network management instructed staff not to amplify the conspiracy theories. Puck reports Bartiromo screenshotted that guidance and sent it to senior White House officials — and Fox found out when the White House called. On CNN’s The Source, Kaitlan Collins called it a “pretty unceremonious exit.” The backdrop explains Fox’s caution: the network paid $787.5 million to settle Dominion’s defamation suit over 2020 election lies Bartiromo helped amplify, and Smartmatic’s suit naming her is still being litigated.

Why it matters: Even Fox — after paying three-quarters of a billion dollars for spreading election lies — won’t touch Trump’s 2020 conspiracy revival. When his friendliest network fires its most devoted booster for choosing him over the facts, that tells you exactly how radioactive this stuff is heading into November.

The Bottom Line

A unanimous red-state court, a Republican Army Secretary, and Fox News all reached the same conclusion this week: there’s a line, and Donald Trump is on the wrong side of it.

💪 How you can best help

Here’s the highest-leverage thing you can do this morning: become a paying subscriber. A 7-0 ruling that put Trump’s Missouri map in front of the voters instead of on their ballots, an Army Secretary resigning rather than bless the firing of the generals modernizing our military, and Fox News terminating a 12-year star for feeding its internal memos to the White House — these are the stories that get flattened into “both sides are mad” when a newsroom answers to an owner who needs this White House’s goodwill to protect his own empire. Democratic Wins Media doesn’t have one. We answer to readers, which is the only reason we can tell you when the news is good and still tell you not to relax. We’re running way behind our paid subscribers goal for September. Every upgrade goes directly into funding the reporting you just read, and right now, there’s not a more important time to upgrade with less than two months until the November midterms. Keep this newsletter landing in your inbox every morning by upgrading now →

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Good evening and welcome back to your nightly edition of the Democratic Wins Media newsletter. Three men had a chance to answer a hard question today. Ken Paxton let a debate deadline pass rather than stand on a stage with James Talarico. Pete Hegseth sent a spokesman to call CNN’s reporting a fabrication while a former defense secretary went on television and dismantled him by name. And the administration’s $70 billion war request is heading to a Senate where Republicans are growing frustrated, Democrats are unconvinced, and nobody has been given a plan for ending the war. The through-line tonight is avoidance — and what it costs when the people avoiding are the ones in charge.

Tonight’s three stories:

• Ken Paxton has now chickened out on four debate invitations — while the billionaires who built his career keep their checkbooks shut

• The normally restrained former Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta, went on CNN and said Hegseth is weakening the U.S. military — “Never, never,” he said, asked if he’d seen anything like it

• Republicans take aim at Hegseth — and they are doing it alongside Democrats

Before the news, a word about why this newsletter exists. The Ellison family now controls CBS News and CNN with Bari Weiss in charge. Bezos owns the Washington Post. Murdoch runs Fox and Roku. The billionaires are buying every outlet that could hold them accountable. Democratic Wins Media is the alternative: we’re fully reader-funded, editorially independent, and will never be purchased. If you have been reading on a free subscription, this evening is the moment to upgrade to a paying membership. Subscribe or upgrade right now.

KEN PAXTON EXPOSED AS A COWARD — RUNS AWAY FROM DEBATING JAMES TALARICO

James Talarico accepted a CNN debate invitation Wednesday morning — the fourth televised debate he has agreed to in this race. Ken Paxton has agreed to none of them. CNN’s deadline came and went Wednesday evening without an acceptance from Paxton’s campaign. Senior adviser Nick Maddux instead issued a statement attacking the network’s proposed moderators, and when the Austin American-Statesman asked the campaign directly whether the invitation had been accepted or declined, it got no response. It is the same maneuver from three weeks ago, when Paxton let the deadline lapse on a Sept. 22 debate in the Rio Grande Valley sponsored by Hearst Newspapers and NBC/Telemundo. Paxton has not stood on a debate stage in more than a decade.

The money is telling the same story. Mediaite reported this week that Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks — the West Texas oil billionaires who bankrolled Paxton’s rise and shielded him through impeachment — have given his Senate campaign nothing this cycle. FEC records show Dunn spending millions elsewhere: $5 million to a super PAC in Michigan, $2 million to another PAC, nearly $2 million to Speaker Mike Johnson’s House operation. For Paxton, a single $110,000 expenditure on texts attacking Talarico.

Why it matters: A candidate who won’t take questions and can’t get a check from the men who made him is a candidate whose own side has done the math. Talarico has said yes to every invitation. Paxton has said yes to none — in a race Cook Political Report now rates a toss-up, in a state no Democrat has won statewide since the 1990s.

By the numbers: Debates accepted — Talarico 4, Paxton 0.

NORMALLY RESTRAINED FORMER DEFENSE SECRETARY RIPS HEGSETH TO SHREDS

NATIONAL SECURITY · Washington, D.C.

Leon Panetta went on CNN Thursday and told Wolf Blitzer that Pete Hegseth is undermining the strength of the United States military. Panetta — an Army veteran, nine-term congressman, Bill Clinton’s budget director and chief of staff, and Barack Obama’s CIA director and secretary of defense — built the case in order: a badly depleted missile stockpile, the USS Abraham Lincoln held at sea for months at a cost to sailors’ health, morale and maintenance, and a command structure being stripped of the experienced officers who actually lead troops in the field. Blitzer asked whether he had ever seen anything like this at the Pentagon. Panetta’s answer: “Never, never.”

The interview aired the same week Army Secretary Dan Driscoll resigned after months of conflict with Hegseth, and two days after Sen. Thom Tillis publicly urged Trump to fire the defense secretary over what he called inept management of the military. Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell responded to CNN’s reporting by calling the suggestion that Hegseth is unfocused on modernization a total fabrication.

Why it matters: Panetta is not a bomb-thrower — he is about as close as Washington gets to an institutionalist on national security, the guy who normally declines to make it personal. He spent his airtime calmly explaining, with specifics, that the man running the Pentagon is making the country less safe in the middle of a war. That is not a partisan attack. It is a former secretary of defense refusing to pretend.

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SENATE REPUBLICANS TAKE AIM AT PETE HEGSETH’S HEAD AS FAILURES MOUNT

Senate Republicans return from recess on Sept. 14 on a collision course with Pete Hegseth, The Hill reported Thursday. Their grievances: the exodus of senior officers, the absence of any plan to end a war with Iran now past six months, and an administration that has courted Republican votes for its $70 billion-plus emergency defense request while largely skipping Democrats. Sen. Mike Rounds, a senior Armed Services Republican, said the administration needs to bring the effort back to a bipartisan footing with both parties at the table. Sen. Lisa Murkowski made the same point in August, noting Pentagon war briefings work better bipartisan — because Democratic votes will be needed if the reconciliation route collapses.

That is the arithmetic. And Democrats have been asking the question Republicans are only now getting to. At July’s Appropriations hearing, Sen. Patty Murray, the panel’s top Democrat, said the session had done little to justify the president’s request or to show the administration has any exit plan — and warned against rubber-stamping another $70 billion to keep the war going. Six weeks later, Republican senators are saying a milder version of the same thing.

Why it matters: Democrats are not spectators in this fight — they are the votes the administration has to come and ask for. Patty Murray asked for an exit strategy in July and got a lecture. Republicans asked for one in August and got nothing. The party that has been demanding accountability the whole time is the party that now holds the leverage. This is another show of the frustration even Republicans are expressing regarding Pete Hegseth’s performance as the Secretary of Defense. It’s no longer just Democrats calling for his resignation. Two Republicans, Senator Thom Tillis and Rep. Don Bacon have joined Democrats in calling for Hegseth’s dismissal.

By the numbers: 260 days at sea — the USS Abraham Lincoln’s deployment before it finally docked in Thailand this week.

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DEMOCRATIC WINS OF THE DAY

Mikie Sherrill killed New Jersey’s data center giveaway. On Aug. 27, the governor signed legislation ending the state’s AI data center tax credit program — a $500 million incentive created in 2024 under her predecessor. One company, CoreWeave, had already collected the maximum $250 million before the state economic development authority paused the program in June for review. It caps a summer in which Sherrill also signed a separate rate class for data centers so their power costs don’t land on everybody else’s utility bill.

Mark Carney told Howard Lutnick to stay in his lane. After the commerce secretary went on CNBC and claimed Canada torpedoed a nearly finished trade deal for purely political reasons, the Canadian prime minister was asked about it Thursday in Thunder Bay. He said he doesn’t think “appointed, unelected” American cabinet members are experts on Canadian politics, and added Canada is ready to sit down whenever the Americans are. Not a Democratic win, strictly — but a useful picture of how Trump’s negotiators are landing abroad.

Rob Sand is still ahead in Iowa. Emerson College Polling/Nexstar Media, fielded Aug. 31–Sept. 1 among 750 likely Iowa voters (credibility interval ±3.6 points), has Democrat Rob Sand leading Republican Zach Lahn 49–46 for governor, with independents breaking for Sand by 12. Two honest caveats: the margin is inside the poll’s error range, and it’s narrower than the 48–43 edge Emerson found in early August.

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THE BOTTOM LINE

The people running this country spent today refusing to answer questions — about a debate, about a war, about $70 billion — and the people demanding answers were, in every case, on our side of the aisle.

💪 How you can best help

Here’s the highest-leverage thing you can do tonight: become a paying subscriber. A Senate candidate who has now passed on four debate invitations while his billionaire patrons spend their money in other states, Obama’s defense secretary going on CNN to say the Pentagon is being run into the ground and answering “never” when asked if he’d seen anything like it, and a $70 billion war request that Republicans cannot pass without the Democrats they’ve refused to brief — these are the stories that get flattened into “both sides are mad” when a newsroom answers to an owner with defense contracts and a merger sitting in front of this administration. Democratic Wins Media doesn’t have one. We answer to readers, which is the only reason we can tell you when the news is good and still tell you not to relax. We’re running way behind on our September paid subscribers goal, with the most consequential eight weeks of this cycle ahead of us. Help us ensure this newsletter continues to reach voters everyday and night by upgrading today. Upgrade now →

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Good morning and welcome back to your am edition of the Democratic Wins Media newsletter. We’re sixty-one days out. Here’s the shape of this morning: Republicans keep finding reasons not to be in the same room as the president, and the president keeps deciding the solution is more of himself. Scores of them are skipping next week’s convention in Dallas — so he’s added a second night of speeches. Meanwhile a federal judge in Maryland told him, in thirty-five pages, that he cannot rewrite the Fourteenth Amendment by executive order after the Supreme Court has already said he can’t. And Ted Cruz went on a podcast and described the exact moment a White House aide walked a printout of Elon Musk’s Epstein post into the Oval Office.

This morning’s three stories:

• Cruz leaks to the press the Oval Office moment Musk named Trump in the Epstein files — an which mysterious aid printed it and handed it over to Trump. If you’re thinking it’s Natalie… you’re right.

• A judge blocked the second birthright citizenship order — “the President must follow it.”

• 45 Republicans are skipping Trump’s midterm convention… What does Trump decide to do? Double his own speaking slots.

Before the news, a word about why this newsletter exists. The Ellison family now controls CBS News and CNN with Bari Weiss in charge. Bezos owns the Washington Post. Murdoch runs Fox and Roku. The billionaires are buying every outlet that could hold them accountable. Democratic Wins Media is the alternative: we’re fully reader-funded, editorially independent, and will never be purchased. If you have been reading on a free subscription, this morning is the moment to upgrade to a paying membership. Subscribe or upgrade right now.

TED CRUZ STABS TRUMP IN BACK - LEAKS TO PRESS THE MELTDOWN OVER TRUMP-MUSK FEUD

Sen. Ted Cruz gave an account this week, on Patrick Bet-David’s PBD Podcast, of where he was when Elon Musk publicly accused the president of appearing in the Jeffrey Epstein files. Cruz was in the Oval Office on June 5, 2025, arguing for school choice. Then, he said, Natalie Harp came in with the post printed on a piece of paper and handed it over. Harp is the executive assistant West Wing colleagues call the “human printer” — she follows the president with a portable printer, feeding him news stories and social media posts through the day. Cruz said he didn’t know what the paper said until Trump read it aloud, and that Trump’s knuckles turned white. “I learned some curse words I didn’t even know,” Cruz said. The school choice discussion, in his words, went off the rails. Two threads matter here and they aren’t the same. Musk’s post — published less than an hour after Trump threatened to cancel federal contracts for his companies — was deleted within two days, and Musk later said it went too far. Separately, the Wall Street Journal reported that Attorney General Pam Bondi and her deputy Todd Blanche had privately told Trump in May 2025 that his name appeared multiple times in the Epstein files, and that they did not plan to release more documents. Appearing in investigative files is not evidence of wrongdoing. In July 2025, DOJ and the FBI put the no-further-disclosure position in writing.

Why it matters: The House voted 427-1 to force these records out. The Senate agreed. Trump signed the bill. The Justice Department then blew the December 19 deadline, and it is still fighting in court — Judge Emmet Sullivan found in June that Blanche had conceded he was in violation of the Act, and warned in August that contempt was on the table. Cruz’s story is a small window into why: the president’s reaction to the subject, from the beginning, has been fury rather than disclosure.

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FEDERAL JUDGE SLAMS TRUMP’S SECOND ATTEMPT TO OVERTURN BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP

U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman blocked the president’s second attempt to restrict birthright citizenship on Wednesday, granting a preliminary injunction in CASA, Inc. v. Trump — the first ruling on the executive order he signed August 6. That order sought to deny automatic citizenship to children of people the administration labels “alien enemies,” children of parents it says engaged in a commercial transaction to give birth in the U.S., and children of some foreign government workers. It came six weeks after the Supreme Court struck down his Day One order 6-3 on June 30 in Trump v. Barbara, with Chief Justice Roberts and Trump appointees Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett joining the three liberal justices. In a 35-page opinion, Boardman wrote that the new order is “almost certainly unconstitutional as applied to the certified class for the simple reason that the Supreme Court in Barbara already decided that the children in the class are citizens at birth.” She called the government’s reading of Barbara a distorted interpretation with no supporting language in the opinion, and added: “No presidential executive order can undo what the Supreme Court has done.” Her order bars the State Department, DHS, and the Social Security Administration from denying citizenship to any child in the class born after February 19, 2025. She also flagged a concerning pattern of labeling immigrants enemy aliens and terrorists without evidence, citing Kilmar Abrego Garcia — deported to CECOT after being hastily labeled MS-13 — and Venezuelans removed as alleged Tren de Aragua members on the basis of tattoos, shoddy affidavits, and contradictory testimony.

Why it matters: This is the second time this judge has had to enjoin the same policy, and the Supreme Court has already resolved the question with two of his own appointees in the majority. The order was signed anyway. Boardman’s line about the government having no legitimate interest in enforcing something likely unconstitutional is the whole argument: the Fourteenth Amendment is not a policy preference, and citizenship at birth is not something one office can revoke by memo.

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TRUMP PANICS AS AT LEAST 45 REPUBLICANS CHOOSE TO SKIP HIS MIDTERM CONVENTION

Trump will now speak on both nights of next week’s Republican midterm convention, Reuters reported Wednesday. He was originally slated to headline only Thursday. A party official’s explanation: the president wants to set the tone for the entire convention. The change comes with at least 45 Republican candidates and members of Congress confirmed not to attend the September 9-10 event, and dozens more undecided. Their stated reasons: time better spent in their districts, prior commitments, the $25,000 entrance fee, and — for some — a desire to stand somewhere other than beside a president polling in the low thirties. Rep. Max Miller, the Ohio congressman we wrote about Monday, told the New York Times he was invited but is staying home to campaign and be with family. A Republican operative told Reuters that organizers have discussed opening seats to the general public because they couldn’t fill them with officials and donors. Wednesday night runs opposite a Patriots–Seahawks Super Bowl rematch; Thursday night runs opposite the 49ers and Rams playing in Melbourne on Netflix. Some Republicans told Politico they’re worried he’ll spend his airtime on the White House ballroom, or repeat that voters’ affordability concerns are a hoax.

Why it matters: Their private worry is that he makes the election about himself. He has now doubled the amount of time he’ll spend doing exactly that, on two nights when most of the country will be watching football. Democrats spent months trying to nationalize these races around a president at 33 percent approval. He has volunteered. We’d like to formally thank him for the contribution.

By the numbers: 45 confirmed absences. $25,000 to attend. Two nights of speeches, up from one.

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The Bottom Line: A federal judge told him the Supreme Court has already spoken, 45 members of his own party told him they’d rather be home, and his answer to all of it was to book himself a second night in Dallas.

💪 How you can best help

Here’s the highest-leverage thing you can do this morning: become a paying subscriber. A senator describing the aide who printed Elon Musk’s Epstein post and carried it into the Oval Office, a federal judge writing in thirty-five pages that the Supreme Court has spoken and the president must follow it, and 45 Republicans finding somewhere else to be while he adds a second night of speeches opposite the NFL — these are the stories that get flattened into “both sides are mad” when a newsroom answers to an owner with business sitting in front of this administration. Democratic Wins Media doesn’t have one. We answer to readers, which is why this morning’s lead separates a deleted post from a Wall Street Journal report instead of running them together for the headline. We’re behind on our September paid subscribers goal with 61 days until the midterms. Every upgrade goes directly into funding the reporting you just read. Upgrade now →

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Good evening and welcome back to tonight’s evening edition of the Democratic Wins Media newsletter. Tonight the president is hosting battleground Republicans for dinner in the Rose Garden, which he has repaved and furnished with the yellow-and-white striped umbrellas from his Florida club. The lawmakers coming to dinner want one thing from him: money. He is sitting on a $400 million super PAC and has spent almost none of it on this election. Meanwhile a Republican senator spent the afternoon publicly demanding he fire his Defense Secretary, and James Comey’s lawyers filed a motion arguing the Justice Department charged him under a law that doesn’t fit what they say he did. Sixty-two days to go.

Tonight’s three stories:

• James Comey just checkmated Donald Trump again— and cited the government’s own dictionary problem.

• White House in bind after Thom Tillis publicly told Trump to fire Hegseth — “I have never witnessed more inept management.”

• A crisis dinner in the Rose Garden — with battleground Republicans being called to the White House as Trump refuses to spend money on their elections.

Before we get into tonight’s report, a word on why you’re getting this from Democratic Wins Media. We’re reader-supported — no corporate sponsors, no billionaire donors. Tonight that means the Kansas item below says what the polling actually shows instead of what we’d prefer it showed. That’s the product. We’re [X] paid subscribers away from our September goal. Let’s dive right in.

JAMES COMEY JUST CHECKMATED DONALD TRUMP… AGAIN

Attorneys for former FBI Director James Comey filed a motion Tuesday arguing the Justice Department’s case against him fails on its own terms. The government has charged Comey with threatening the president over a photo he posted of seashells arranged to read “86 47,” contending an objective viewer could read it as a call to kill Donald Trump. Comey’s lawyers argue the charge collapses even if you accept that reading. A call for other people to commit violence, they wrote, “can only be incitement—which the indictment does not charge.” Running an incitement case through a threats indictment, they argue, violates settled law and would unconstitutionally broaden the grounds for conviction beyond what the grand jury actually charged. They lean on Fourth Circuit precedent — United States v. White, where the court held that posts to the general public urging others to kill an activist were political hyperbole rather than a true threat. They also went after the government’s evidence that “86” means to kill: prosecutors rely on a 2005 edition of Cassell’s Dictionary of Slang and a 1991 New York Times article that itself stopped to explain the term was military jargon for killed in action. If a newspaper had to define it, the defense argues, that isn’t its ordinary meaning.

Why it matters: This is a motion, not a ruling — a judge hasn’t decided anything, and the case is live. But read what the government is reduced to. To prosecute the former FBI director for a photo of seashells, the Justice Department has to establish that a two-digit number is a death threat, and its proof is a slang dictionary from 2005 and a newspaper article that had to explain the term to its own readers.

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WHITE HOUSE IN BIND AFTER REPUBLICAN SENATOR CALLS ON TRUMP TO FIRE PETE HEGSETH

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) posted a lengthy statement Wednesday calling on the president to replace Pete Hegseth. It opened as a tribute to outgoing Army Secretary Dan Driscoll — the right man at the right moment, Tillis wrote — whose exit the Wall Street Journal reported late last week would come before year’s end after months of tension with Hegseth. Then Tillis turned. A Defense Secretary with the right priorities, he wrote, would be fighting to keep leaders like Driscoll and the flag officers he has instead forced into retirement; what Hegseth is building is a leadership void at the top of the military. Tillis noted he spent eight years on Senate Armed Services, including as chair and ranking member of the Personnel and Readiness subcommittee, and then delivered the line: “I have never witnessed more inept management of the brave men and women who serve our country.” He added that Hegseth is intimidated by competence and retreats into culture wars rather than attending to national defense and the well-being of the force. He closed by urging the president to find someone new.

Why it matters: We told you Tuesday that people close to this administration had started routing their concerns about Hegseth through the press — four sources describing a private Oval Office conversation to The Atlantic. This is the next step: a Republican senator with eight years on the relevant committee putting it under his own name, in public, on the record. That’s not a leak. That’s a signature.

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TRUMP PANICS, CALLS BATTLEGROUND REPUBLICANS TO WHITE HOUSE FOR EMERGENCY MEETING

The president is hosting several dozen battleground-state Republican lawmakers for dinner Wednesday night in the Rose Garden, Politico first reported. They are coming to ask for money. MAGA Inc., his super PAC, holds roughly $400 million and has spent almost none of it on the midterms — just over $800,000 on calls and texts to help Darline Graham win her South Carolina runoff, in a state nobody considers competitive. Senate Majority Leader John Thune went on Fox News Tuesday to make the request publicly: he’s hopeful the president and MAGA Inc. will engage, because “we’ve got some states that are incredibly expensive.” The numbers explain the urgency. An Economist/YouGov poll this week put Democrats up six on the generic ballot, 46 to 40; Reuters/Ipsos had it 43 to 38. Cook rates 21 House seats as toss-ups, 16 of them Republican-held. Democrats lead or are tied in Senate races in North Carolina, Georgia, Alaska, Michigan, Ohio, and Texas — every one of them a state Trump carried. The dinner is in a Rose Garden he had paved over and outfitted with the striped umbrellas from his Florida club.

Why it matters: Republicans in the toughest seats in the country are being served dinner by a president polling in the low thirties, in a garden he remodeled to look like his resort, while asking him to release money he has been sitting on all year. Next week 45 of their colleagues will skip his convention. That’s not a party with a turnout problem. That’s a party whose candidates have concluded their own leader is the liability.

By the numbers: $400 million on hand. Roughly $800,000 spent — in a safe state.

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DEMOCRATIC WINS OF THE DAY

Two Democratic pollsters, four days apart, both find Kansas tied. Global Strategy Group, a Democratic firm, surveyed 800 likely Kansas voters from August 12–16 and found Adam Hamilton at 44 percent to Sen. Roger Marshall’s 43, with a Libertarian candidate pulling 5 — margin of error ±3.5 points. Call that what it is: a one-point margin inside the margin of error is as good a sign as ever that Kansas is in play. Public Policy Polling, surveying for Senate Majority PAC on August 8, found the mirror image — Marshall 46, Hamilton 45. Two pollsters working independently four days apart landing on a dead heat is the story, because Kansas hasn’t elected a Democratic senator since 1932. Cook and Sabato both moved the race off “safe Republican” after Hamilton won an 11-way primary. He co-founded the largest United Methodist congregation in the country, raised $3.6 million in his first months, and is running on affordability in a state where Trump’s approval is 17 points underwater. Marshall’s attack is that Hamilton is too woke for Kansas. Hamilton is a megachurch pastor. Watch that Libertarian 5 percent — in a race this close, it decides it.

Brown is running the 2006 playbook against Husted — and it’s working. Twenty years after opposition to the Iraq War carried him into the Senate, Sherrod Brown has built his Ohio comeback around the cost of the Iran war. His August 14 ad features an Ohio farmer saying Sen. Jon Husted voted to continue the war 13 times while his diesel prices climbed: “When you start taking money out of my pocket it becomes personal.” The sharpest vote came in July, when Husted voted against a resolution to force U.S. troop withdrawal — one day after telling CNN he wants the war over. It failed 47-49. Brown puts the cost to Ohio taxpayers at $45 million a day; the war has run roughly $37.5 billion so far. A Washington Post/Ipsos survey found 68 percent of Americans say the war wasn’t worth fighting against 28 percent who say it was, a wider negative margin than Iraq or Afghanistan ever recorded. The polling is genuinely close — the Pollsmax average of 17 surveys has Husted up about a point — but the most recent public poll, from Abacus Data on August 28, has Brown ahead 52 to 46.

$20 million, raised in one day, by people who mostly can’t run for anything. Olivia Rodrigo’s inaugural Daisy Chain Fields festival at Great Park in Irvine raised $10 million on August 29 through ticket sales, sponsorships, and artists who waived their fees — then Melinda French Gates walked onstage and announced that she and her organization Pivotal would match every dollar, doubling it to $20 million. The money is being split evenly among ten nonprofits: Planned Parenthood, the Center for Reproductive Rights, the National Institute for Reproductive Health, the National Women’s Law Center, Black Mamas Matter Alliance, Baby2Baby, Jhpiego, the Johns Hopkins Center for Indigenous Health, the National Domestic Workers Alliance, and FreeFrom. Several of them have lost federal funding this year — Title X family planning funds have been frozen at HHS, and Medicaid allocations were scaled back in last year’s budget law.

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The Bottom Line: A Republican senator asked the president to fire his Defense Secretary, a Republican leader asked him on television to open his wallet, and 45 Republicans decided to skip his convention — sixty-two days out, the people who need him most are the ones saying it loudest.

💪 How you can best help

Here’s the highest-leverage thing you can do tonight: become a paying subscriber. The Justice Department trying to prove a two-digit number is a death threat using a 2005 slang dictionary, a Republican senator with eight years on Armed Services publicly telling the president to fire his Defense Secretary, and battleground Republicans eating dinner in a repaved Rose Garden while asking a man with $400 million to spend some of it on them — these are the stories that get flattened into “both sides are mad” when a newsroom answers to an owner with business sitting in front of this administration. Democratic Wins Media doesn’t have one. We answer to readers, which is why the Kansas item above tells you Marshall is still ahead in the average instead of leaving that part out. We’re behind on our September paid subscribers goal with 62 days until the midterms. Every upgrade goes directly into funding the reporting you just read. Upgrade now →

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Good morning and welcome back to today’s edition of the Democratic Wins Media newsletter. We are sixty-two days out from the midterms, and this morning is about who shows up. In Georgia, Republican mayors and a former Republican senator are publicly backing a Democratic incumbent over the president’s handpicked challenger, and the reason they give is almost boringly practical: he answers the phone. In New York next week, all four living former presidents will stand at Ground Zero on the 25th anniversary, and the sitting one won’t, because he was told he couldn’t give a speech. And in Dallas, at least 45 Republicans have told Politico they’re skipping the convention the president built to save their majority. One of them is going dove hunting.

This morning’s three stories:

• Georgia Republicans defy their DC bosses and are endorsing Jon Ossoff — including a former GOP senator.

• Every living former president will be at Ground Zero. Trump won’t. — Trump threw a temper tantrum when he heard there’d be no speeches

• At least 45 Republicans are skipping “Trumpapalooza” — dozens more are undecided.

Before the news, a word about why this newsletter exists. The Ellison family now controls CBS News and CNN with Bari Weiss in charge. Bezos owns the Washington Post. Murdoch runs Fox and Roku. The billionaires are buying every outlet that could hold them accountable. Democratic Wins Media is the alternative: we’re fully reader-funded, editorially independent, and will never be purchased. If you have been reading on a free subscription, this morning is the moment to upgrade to a paying membership. Subscribe or upgrade right now.

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GEORGIA REPUBLICANS DEFY TRUMP AND ENDORSE JON OSSOFF

The New York Times reported Monday that Gail Fry, the Republican mayor of Toccoa — a northeast Georgia city of fewer than 10,000 people — is backing Sen. Jon Ossoff over Trump-endorsed challenger Mike Collins. Fry voted against Ossoff six years ago. She changed her mind over an $8.4 million federal grant he secured for her city’s natural gas infrastructure, and over something simpler: “We have gotten more support from Sen. Ossoff than any other office that we’ve contacted.” She joins two South Georgia Republican mayors who crossed over in early August, first reported by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Tifton Mayor Julie Smith, a former president of the Georgia Municipal Association, put it this way: “I don’t have to track him down. He tracks me down.” Valdosta Mayor Scott James Matheson said he’d take heat for it and didn’t care. In the same stretch, former Republican Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona endorsed Ossoff, telling the AJC that Ossoff’s character, constituent work, and respect for the institution outweighed their policy differences — and adding that he was troubled by Collins’s refusal to acknowledge Biden’s 2020 victory. Conservative commentator Erick Erickson made a similar point on the Politically Georgia podcast: farmers in South Georgia and Republicans in Houston County know they can reach Ossoff’s office and get help.

Why it matters: This is the affirmative case, and it isn’t ideological — it’s a returned phone call and a grant for a gas line in a town of 9,000. The president has spent months attacking Ossoff’s appearance on Truth Social. Ossoff spent them getting Republican mayors federal money. One of those is a strategy.

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EVERY LIVING FORMER PRESIDENT WILL BE AT GROUND ZERO. THE SITTING ONE WON’T.

Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush have all confirmed they will attend the ceremony at the World Trade Center site marking the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, the New York Times reported. Hillary Clinton, who was a senator from New York that day, will attend as well. For Biden, 83, it will be a rare public appearance; he is being treated for an advanced prostate cancer. President Trump was originally scheduled to be there. The Times reported he withdrew after learning he would not be permitted to deliver a speech — the National September 11 Memorial and Museum has barred politicians from speaking at the commemoration since 2012, allowing them only to read poems or texts such as the Gettysburg Address, so the day stays focused on the victims and their families. Trump disputes that account. A source told the Times his travel plans made departing from Joint Base Andrews more practical. He will mark the anniversary at the Pentagon, where he is a featured speaker. Vice President JD Vance is expected at Ground Zero on the administration’s behalf, and will not speak. Trump headlines the Dallas convention beforehand and leaves September 12 for his golf course in Doonbeg, Ireland, where the Irish Open is being played.

Why it matters: Four former presidents from both parties, one of them undergoing cancer treatment, will sit in silence at a memorial for 2,977 people because that is what the day asks of them. The rule that a politician can’t give a speech there is not an insult. It’s the entire point — the families asked for it fourteen years ago. Being unable to attend an event you can’t headline is a complete description of a person.

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TRUMP HUMILIATED AS REPUBLICANS REFUSE TO SHOW UP FOR TRUMP’S MIDTERM CONVENTION

Politico reported Wednesday that at least 45 Republican candidates and members of Congress will not attend the September 9-10 midterm convention in Dallas, with dozens more undecided. The reasons vary: staying in their districts to campaign, prior commitments, the $25,000 entrance fee, and — for some — a straightforward desire not to stand next to the president. One House Republican called it a waste of time and made the strategic argument out loud: you shouldn’t need to rally your base this late, you should be persuading independents, and independents are neither attending nor watching. Rep. Tom Barrett, defending a competitive Michigan seat, said he’d be more useful at home and noted he can’t control what the president says on stage but can control where he is. Reps. Chris Smith of New Jersey and Andrew Garbarino of New York are staying in their districts for 25th anniversary September 11 events. House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole is going to a dove-hunting event in Oklahoma. Speaker Mike Johnson will attend and says he’s promoted it everywhere, while conceding members want to be home before early voting starts. Both nights run opposite the first two games of the NFL season. The RNC says outreach and enthusiasm have been incredible.

Why it matters: Joshua Blank of the Texas Politics Project told The Hill the timing sits “somewhere between ill-conceived or just not conceived at all,” and called the whole thing more of a reaction than a plan. That’s the tell. This convention exists because Republicans are worried about turnout, and the response from 45 of their own candidates is that being seen there costs more than it gains. Democrats didn’t do that to them.

By the numbers: 45 Republicans out, dozens undecided, $25,000 to walk in the door.

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The Bottom Line: Republican mayors are endorsing a Democrat because he returns their calls, four former presidents will stand silently at Ground Zero because the families asked politicians not to speak, and 45 Republicans would rather be anywhere than on stage in Dallas — showing up, it turns out, is a skill.

💪 How you can best help

Here’s the highest-leverage thing you can do this morning: become a paying subscriber. A Republican mayor in a Georgia town of 9,000 endorsing the Democrat because he got her a gas line, four former presidents from both parties attending a memorial where none of them is allowed to speak, and 45 Republicans finding somewhere else to be on the two nights their party built to save its majority — these are the stories that get flattened into “both sides are mad” when a newsroom answers to an owner with business sitting in front of this administration. Democratic Wins Media doesn’t have one. We answer to readers, which is why this morning’s second story leaves out the insult everybody else reprinted and this morning’s first one includes the endorsement everybody else missed. We’re behind on our September paid subscribers goal with 62 days until the midterms. Every upgrade goes directly into funding the reporting you just read. Upgrade now →

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Good evening and welcome back to your nightly edition of the Democratic Wins Media newsletter. Tonight’s lead is the most important thing we’ve published in a while, so we’ll put it plainly. A whistleblower inside the Postal Service says the agency has spent the summer rushing an untested system for handling mail ballots — building it, on and off, while a federal court order barred them from doing exactly that — and that the design is flawed badly enough that millions of Americans might not get their ballots at all. The target launch date was today. Also tonight: the biggest podcast in America told its audience the Iran war can’t be won, and Canada’s prime minister was asked about a cabinet secretary mocking one of his soldiers online and said it was beneath the office.

Tonight’s three stories:

• A USPS whistleblower says the new ballot system is “fundamentally flawed” — and rushed in defiance of court orders.

• Joe Rogan called the lake renaming a distraction from a war “we can’t win” — hours before new strikes.

• Carney humiliates Pete Hegseth and his cronies: “beneath their office.”

Before the news, a word about why this newsletter exists. The Ellison family now controls CBS News and CNN with Bari Weiss in charge. Bezos owns the Washington Post. Murdoch runs Fox and Roku. The billionaires are buying every outlet that could hold them accountable. Democratic Wins Media is the alternative: we’re fully reader-funded, editorially independent, and will never be purchased. If you have been reading on a free subscription, this evening is the moment to upgrade to a paying membership. Subscribe or upgrade right now.

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A WHISTLEBLOWER SAYS MILLIONS MAY NOT GET THEIR BALLOTS

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) published a whistleblower report Monday from an official inside the U.S. Postal Service alleging the agency is rushing a “fundamentally flawed” IT system to handle mail ballots — built in violation of multiple court orders. According to the report, USPS began development in June under the president’s March executive order, paused for about a month after the First Circuit blocked implementation, then resumed roughly a month ago while that order was still in effect. The result, the whistleblower says, was a slapdash process: a project that would normally take a year or more, compressed into weeks, with leadership discarding standard practices including testing, aimed at a September 1 launch. The design flaw is the part to understand. If a single barcode on a single ballot in a bulk mailing of 10,000 fails to scan during verification, the entire batch is rejected and returned to the state — stopping all 10,000 from reaching voters. The report warns that potentially millions of Americans may not receive a mail ballot on time or at all, and asks whether catastrophic failure would be “a feature rather than a bug.” The whistleblower is identified only as a USPS official; these are allegations in a disclosure, not findings. Blumenthal noted Monday that a third of Americans vote by mail.

Why it matters: Here’s the sequence. The Supreme Court let USPS proceed last week on the narrow ground that challenges were premature. USPS then issued its final rule. Judge Indira Talwani blocked it, writing that the Constitution gives states the power to run elections and that Congress has never authorized the Postal Service to regulate election mail. The White House called her an activist judge and promised to appeal. And underneath all of it, according to this disclosure, the machinery was being built anyway — badly, and against a court order. Ballots start going out this month.

By the numbers: One unscannable barcode can reject a batch of 10,000 ballots.

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JOE ROGAN HUMILIATES TRUMP AND HEGSETH’S WAR IN IRAN

On Tuesday’s episode of his podcast, Joe Rogan and comedian Brian Simpson worked their way through the Lake Ontario renaming — Simpson objecting mainly that it wrecks HOMES, the acronym schoolchildren use for the Great Lakes. Then Simpson asked what the point of the name change was. Rogan’s answer: it could distract people from “the fact that we’re in a war that we can’t win in Iran.” He added that it makes no sense, and asked who cares what the lake is called. Hours later, U.S. Central Command announced that at noon Eastern, American forces had begun striking Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps targets inside Iran — a response, CENTCOM said, to attempted IRGC attacks on commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and on U.S. service members in the region. The president had promised the strikes after American troops were attacked in Jordan, and warned Tuesday that a larger attack was still waiting in the wings.

Why it matters: Rogan isn’t a Democrat and this isn’t evidence of anything — it’s one guy’s opinion on a podcast. But it’s the podcast with the largest audience in America, heard disproportionately by young men who broke toward Trump in 2024, and its host told them the war can’t be won and the theatrics are a distraction. That’s not a poll. It’s something harder to measure and probably more consequential.

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CANADIAN PRIME MINISTER MARK CARNEY HUMILIATES PETE HEGSETH AND HIS PENTAGON CRONIES

Asked Tuesday about Trump administration officials mocking Canada’s military online — including a post by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth about a young Canadian cadet that was widely read as ridiculing her appearance — Prime Minister Mark Carney gave a short answer: “It’s beneath their office.” We aren’t reprinting the post or describing the cadet; she’s a private person and that’s the whole point. Pentagon Deputy Press Secretary Jacob Bliss responded that the post speaks for itself. Last month Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy claimed Canada doesn’t have a military. It does: roughly 70,000 regular members and 30,000 reserves, who fought alongside Americans in both world wars, Korea, the Gulf, and Afghanistan after September 11. Carney also set a condition for restarting trade talks, which collapsed August 21 — when the Americans “stop doing memes,” stop throwing shade, and get serious, the discussions can resume. He called the behavior unconstructive, then shrugged that it’s their democracy. Canada is meanwhile expanding trade elsewhere, including with China. Carney has said the U.S. demands were unacceptable, including what he described as threats aimed at French language and Canadian culture.

Why it matters: Ten days from the 25th anniversary of September 11, the Secretary of Defense is posting jokes about a soldier from the country that sent troops to Afghanistan with us and lost 158 of them there. Carney’s response is the correct one and it costs him nothing, because the person who looks small in that exchange isn’t the cadet.

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DEMOCRATIC WINS OF THE DAY

The seat Democrats came 5,133 votes short of — and the year it flips. Janelle Stelson lost Pennsylvania’s 10th to Rep. Scott Perry in 2024 by 1.6 points, the second-closest House race in the country, in a cycle that broke against Democrats nationally. She’s running again, and the environment has moved: Democrats now lead the generic congressional ballot by roughly six points across the major averages, in a year when the president’s approval sits in the low thirties. Stelson spent 37 years as a news anchor in central Pennsylvania living rooms before she ever ran for anything, and she’s built this campaign on two things incumbents rarely volunteer for — a ban on congressional stock trading and term limits — plus affordability. Gov. Josh Shapiro has endorsed her. If there’s a wave, seats decided by 5,000 votes are where it lands first.

Talarico keeps filling rooms in counties Trump won. Two thousand people turned out for his town hall in Collin County — the fast-growing Republican stronghold north of Dallas that Trump carried by double digits — and the pattern has held all summer. He rallied in Kerrville two days ago, in Beeville on August 22 as part of the New American Dream Tour, and drew a packed auditorium at San Jacinto College in Pasadena on August 9, where he argued the rules of the American economy were written for billionaires rather than the people playing by them. He’s also pressing Tarrant County’s Commissioners Court to abandon a plan to close 92 polling places used in 2022, many of them serving poorer and minority neighborhoods. Republicans have not lost a statewide race in Texas since the 1990s. Cook rates this one a toss-up.

South Carolina is being polled for the first time in a generation — and one survey has Andrews ahead. Impact Research, a Democratic firm working for the campaign, surveyed 900 likely voters August 14–22 and found Annie Andrews leading appointed Sen. Darline Graham 42 to 39. Why is this so big? The fact that South Carolina is being polled, let alone the fact that a Democrat is winning tells you nobody has a firm read on an electorate that hasn’t had a competitive Senate race in decades. What’s not in dispute: Graham needed a Trump endorsement, a Myrtle Beach rally, and a tele-rally to beat a sitting congressman by four points, and Andrews, a Charleston pediatrician, is asking national Democrats to treat the state as live. South Carolina hasn’t elected a Democratic senator since 1998. We’re ready to take that seat back.

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The Bottom Line: A Postal Service employee decided the country needed to know that the system meant to deliver your ballot was built in weeks, without testing, against a court order — and that’s the most encouraging thing in tonight’s edition, because somebody inside told the truth.

💪 How you can best help

Here’s the highest-leverage thing you can do tonight: become a paying subscriber. A Postal Service whistleblower warning that one bad barcode can void ten thousand ballots in a system rushed to launch today, the most-listened-to podcast in America telling its audience the Iran war can’t be won, and a prime minister explaining that mocking a young soldier online is beneath the office of the American Secretary of Defense — these are the stories that get flattened into “both sides are mad” when a newsroom answers to an owner with business sitting in front of this administration. Democratic Wins Media doesn’t have one. We answer to readers, which is why the South Carolina item below carries both polls — the one we like and the one we don’t — instead of just the flattering one. We’re behind on our September paid subscribers goal with 62 days until the midterms. Every upgrade goes directly into funding the reporting you just read. Upgrade now →

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Good morning, and welcome to September. Welcome back to your am edition of the Democratic Wins Media newsletter. We have sixty-three days until the midterms. This morning starts in Granbury, Texas, with a 66-year-old retired paper supply salesman who has voted Republican his whole life and is done. Not over anything abstract — over the data centers going up near his house, the noise they make, and a Truth Social post from the president telling people like him that if they don’t want one, they’ll end up backwards and poor. He has a response to that, and it involves Mar-a-Lago. Also today: the Chief Justice of the United States told his own conservative colleagues that letting the president knock down the East Wing was no victory for the separation of powers. And somebody close to this administration keeps handing reporters damaging material about the Secretary of Defense.

This morning’s three stories:

• Lifelong Texas Republicans are defecting over data centers — “my party has failed.”

• Trump’s orbit likely behind three damaging Hegseth leaks in three days — including a private Oval Office conversation.

• Roberts broke goes nuclear on conservative majority after ballroom ruling — and called the project likely unlawful.

Before the news, a word about why this newsletter exists. The Ellison family now controls CBS News and CNN with Bari Weiss in charge. Bezos owns the Washington Post. Murdoch runs Fox and Roku. The billionaires are buying every outlet that could hold them accountable. Democratic Wins Media is the alternative: we’re fully reader-funded, editorially independent, and will never be purchased. If you have been reading on a free subscription, this morning is the moment to upgrade to a paying membership. Subscribe or upgrade right now.

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LIFELONG TEXAS REPUBLICANS ARE WALKING AWAY FROM THEIR PARTY

Tom Weeks, 66, is a retired paper supply salesman in the North Texas suburb of Granbury who has voted Republican his entire life. He’s been fighting the construction of data centers and a bitcoin mine near his home, rattled by round-the-clock noise. On Monday the president posted that communities opposing data centers only risk ending up “backwards and poor,” urged Americans to “let Data Reign,” and said China couldn’t be happier about the opposition. Weeks answered on CNN’s Laura Coates Live, calling the post insulting and adding: “Let them build one at Mar-a-Lago.” He told the Washington Post last week that his party has failed him, and that he won’t vote for any Republican who’s held office during the fight. He plans to back Gina Hinojosa, the Democrat challenging Gov. Greg Abbott. He isn’t alone. Rena Schroeder ran as a Republican for a state Senate seat in March, now identifies as an independent, and helped start a group called Break Rank that she says has drawn about 100 voters. Glenda Berg, an 84-year-old retired bookkeeper near Belton who voted for Trump three times, is backing Hinojosa and James Talarico. A UT/Texas Politics Project poll found 57 percent of Texas voters oppose data center construction in their own community. Abbott has since halted approvals on roughly 1,800 projects, citing power and water use.

Why it matters: This is what a realignment looks like at ground level — not ideology, but noise, water, power bills, and a president telling people their complaint makes them stupid. Rep. Tim Burchett, a Tennessee Republican, responded to the same post with “I guess I’m backwards and poor.” When a sitting GOP congressman and a retiree in Granbury reach the same conclusion on the same afternoon, the problem isn’t messaging.

By the numbers: Trump’s approval sits at 33 percent in a Reuters/Ipsos survey of 924 registered voters taken August 28–31, and 32 percent in a UMass Amherst poll of 1,000 adults taken August 21–26 (margin of error 3.5 points), where 68 percent said he is not handling the Iran war well.

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TRUMP’S ORBIT POTENTIALLY BEHIND DAMAGING HEGSETH LEAKS

The Atlantic reported Monday, citing four people familiar with the conversation, that outgoing Army Secretary Dan Driscoll went to the Oval Office last week and told the president how many generals and senior officers had been fired, pushed out, or passed over under Pete Hegseth. Trump was surprised, according to the report, and expressed concern about the depth of the cuts. Driscoll argued the Army can’t modernize with that many leaders gone, then told Trump he intended to resign; his departure became final Monday. The Army — more than 450,000 active-duty soldiers — now has no permanent civilian secretary and no Senate-confirmed chief of staff, and by The Atlantic’s account fewer generals than at any point in recent history. Driscoll had backed Gen. Randy George, whom Hegseth fired in April; Gen. Chris Donahue, who led U.S. Army Europe and Africa, was removed after. Pentagon officials told the magazine they fear Hegseth’s spokesman Sean Parnell could take the Army job, with one defense official warning of “generational damage.” Note the pattern: the Washington Post published the classified assessment warning the Iran war is unsustainable on Sunday, the Post published the secret influencer hires on Sunday, and The Atlantic published the Oval Office conversation on Monday.

Why it matters: Four people describing a private conversation with the president is not a slip — it’s a decision, made by people with access. We’re not going to tell you Hegseth is about to be fired; nothing in the reporting says that, and predictions are cheap. What the reporting does establish is that people inside this administration have concluded the fastest way to reach the president about his Defense Secretary is through the press. That’s a real thing to know, and it’s usually a late-stage development.

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THE REPUBLICAN APPOINTED CHIEF JUSTICE JUST WENT NUCLEAR ON HIS OWN PARTY OVER TRUMP’S BALLROOM

The Supreme Court voted 5-4 on Monday to let construction continue on the $400 million White House ballroom built where the East Wing stood. Read what the majority actually held: in an unsigned opinion, five Republican-appointed justices concluded only that the National Trust for Historic Preservation likely lacks standing to sue — writing explicitly that they were not passing on the legality of the project. They leaned on sworn declarations from the Director of National Intelligence and the heads of the Secret Service, Army, and State Department, who said pausing would damage national security facilities being built underground. Chief Justice John Roberts dissented, joined by Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson. His six-page opinion opens by saying the decision is “no victory for the separation of powers.” Roberts wrote that the construction is likely unlawful under a statute barring any structure on federal park grounds in the District without express congressional authority — and that the roughly $2.5 million Congress appropriated in 2024 for ordinary residence maintenance cannot plausibly authorize hundreds of millions in private donations to demolish the East Wing. The litigation continues in the lower courts, but the building will likely be finished first.

Why it matters: The Chief Justice of the United States, appointed by George W. Bush, told four fellow Republican appointees that the president is likely infringing on Congress’s power and the Court just made it harder for anyone to say so. And the practical outcome is the one Roberts flagged: by the time the case is resolved, the ballroom will exist. That’s not a legal victory. It’s a construction schedule outrunning a docket.

By the numbers: $400 million in private donations, against a $2.5 million congressional appropriation for residence upkeep.

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The Bottom Line: A Republican since birth in Granbury, a Republican congressman in Tennessee, and the Republican Chief Justice of the United States all said some version of the same thing yesterday — and only one of them has to be on a ballot in November.

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Here’s the highest-leverage thing you can do this morning: become a paying subscriber. A lifelong Texas Republican telling CNN to go build a data center at Mar-a-Lago, four separate people describing a private Oval Office conversation about the Defense Secretary to a magazine, and the Chief Justice of the United States writing that his own majority handed the president a likely-unlawful demolition and called it standing — these are the stories that get flattened into “both sides are mad” when a newsroom answers to an owner with construction interests and business before this administration. Democratic Wins Media doesn’t have one. We answer to readers, which is the only reason we can tell you that “Supreme Court approves ballroom” is the wrong headline and then spend three paragraphs on the right one. We’re behind on our September paid subscribers goal with 63 days until the midterms. Every upgrade goes directly into funding the reporting you just read. Upgrade now →

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Good evening and welcome back to your nightly edition of the Democratic Wins Media newsletter. Tonight, three things that don’t fit the story this administration tells about itself. The president spent Sunday insisting Canadian companies are fleeing to America — and this morning General Motors committed more than $700 million to a plant in Ontario. Pentagon officials are leaking classified assessments to the press, which is normal, except they’re doing it to get the country out of a war rather than into one, which is not. And the Speaker of the House was asked about a congressman whose ex-wife accuses him of abusing her and their toddler, and called him a great member of Congress with some personal issues — while a Republican senator who happens to be the woman’s father says he should resign.

Tonight’s three stories:

• Ontario’s conservative premier laughed off “Lake America” — then GM put $720 million into Canada.

• Pentagon brass is leaking to stop a war, not start one — analysts call it unprecedented.

• Mike Johnson is standing by alleged wife beater Rep. Max Miller — while Republican senators tell him to quit.

• Scroll to the bottom to find your Democratic Wins of the day.

Before the news, a word about why this newsletter exists. The Ellison family now controls CBS News and CNN with Bari Weiss in charge. Bezos owns the Washington Post. Murdoch runs Fox and Roku. The billionaires are buying every outlet that could hold them accountable. Democratic Wins Media is the alternative: we’re fully reader-funded, editorially independent, and will never be purchased. If you have been reading on a free subscription, this evening is the moment to upgrade to a paying membership. Subscribe or upgrade right now.

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ONTARIO PREMIER DOUG FORD SLAMS TRUMP IN LATEST TIT FOR TAT IN U.S. TRADE WAR

Ontario Premier Doug Ford went on ABC’s This Week Sunday, wearing a Canada soccer jersey, and dismissed the president’s executive order renaming Lake Ontario as backward and pointless. He compared the signing ceremony to a Saturday Night Live sketch and said nobody is going to use the new name. Ford — leader of Ontario’s Progressive Conservative Party, not a liberal — had already installed a lakeside billboard reading “Lake Ontario, Now and Always.” Trump responded across Sunday with a series of Truth Social posts: a Google Maps screenshot showing the renamed lake, then a declaration that he doesn’t want Canadian cars, parts, or anything, then an offer for Canadian companies to relocate to the U.S. tariff-free, then a claim by evening that they were already lining up. Some are: a July KPMG survey of 275 Canadian manufacturers found four in ten had moved production to the U.S. or were weighing it. But on Monday, Reuters reported General Motors is committing more than C$1 billion — about US$720 million — to its Canadian operations, including building the next-generation GMC Sierra at its Oshawa, Ontario plant. Current U.S. duties on Canadian vehicles run 25 percent, and the president has vowed to double that on January 1.

Why it matters: The renaming and the tariffs are the same instinct — the belief that saying a thing loudly enough makes it true. Google changed a label on a map. Ontario put up a billboard. And an American automaker, on the same day the president said he didn’t want Canadian anything, decided to build trucks in Ontario. Businesses respond to costs and contracts, not to posts.

By the numbers: US$720 million committed to Canadian operations by GM — announced the morning after the president said Canadian companies are leaving.

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PENTAGON LEAKS BEGIN TO UNRAVEL PLANS UNDER PETE HEGSETH

The Washington Post reported Sunday that senior military leaders warned Pete Hegseth a prolonged large-scale operation against Iran is unsustainable — an account drawn from a recent classified assessment and inside sources, meaning people within the Pentagon gave it to the press. Hegseth has publicly said the opposite, telling ABC News that U.S. munitions can sustain the war. What drew attention Monday was the direction of the leak. Andrew Fox, a retired British Army major and military analyst, wrote that “a leak like this is unprecedented,” noting it had not been officially denied, and suggested some U.S. officers remember the “and domestic” clause of their oath. Foreign policy scholar Arta Moeini observed that the military appears to want out of the region while civilian leadership keeps it engaged. The historical pattern runs the other way: administrations have selectively declassified intelligence to build a case for war. These are outside analysts reading a leak, not officials explaining one — but the underlying document, and the fact that someone handed it over, are not in dispute.

Why it matters: We told you this morning that the classified warning existed. Here’s the part that took another day to become clear: the warning reached the public because people inside the Defense Department decided it had to. That is not how this normally works, and it is not a comfortable thing to celebrate. It’s a signal that the ordinary channels for telling a Secretary of Defense that a war is failing have stopped working.

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SPEAKER MIKE JOHNSON DEFENDS ALLEGED WIFE BEATER

CNN’s Manu Raju asked House Speaker Mike Johnson on Monday whether he still backs Rep. Max Miller’s reelection. Johnson said yes, called Miller a great member of Congress, described the allegations against him as “some issues in his personal life he’s working through,” cited the House Ethics Committee investigation opened at the start of August, and said due process has to play out. The allegations: Miller’s ex-wife, Emily Moreno, has accused him of physically abusing her and the couple’s young daughter. Miller vehemently denies it. Moreno is the daughter of Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH), who has said Miller should step down and get professional help to end what he called a clear pattern of abuse. Sen. Jon Husted (R-OH) has also called on Miller to drop out, as has Sen. Tim Sheehy (R-MT), who used considerably harsher language. Separately, Moreno filed suit on her daughter’s behalf after a livestream by Miller included a link to case files containing an unredacted image of the two-year-old; Miller’s attorney apologized and took responsibility. Miller is loaning his campaign $1 million to stay in the race against Brook Park city councilman Brian Poindexter.

Why it matters: We’re not adjudicating the allegations — an ethics committee is, and Miller denies them. What isn’t in dispute is how his own party has responded. Three Republican senators, including the accuser’s father, have said publicly that he should go. The Speaker of the House looked at the same facts and reached for “issues in his personal life.” When the people closest to a situation say one thing and party leadership says another, that gap is the story.

If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence, the National Domestic Violence Hotline is available 24/7 at 1-800-799-7233, or text START to 88788.

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DEMOCRATIC WINS OF THE DAY

The Pennsylvania State Troopers Association endorsed Shapiro — after backing Republicans for Senate. The union representing thousands of Pennsylvania troopers announced Monday it’s backing Gov. Josh Shapiro over Republican state treasurer Stacy Garrity. The same association previously endorsed Republican Senate candidates Mehmet Oz and Dave McCormick, so this is not a reflexively Democratic group. Its stated reason was budgets and staffing: Shapiro’s administration, it said, listened to members’ concerns and funded their priorities. The record backs that up — the 2026-27 budget put $16.2 million toward four more cadet classes, and Shapiro has now funded 16 classes training more than 1,600 new troopers, fulfilling his promise of 2,000 additional officers on the beat.

Talarico and Cuban took the healthcare fight to Fort Worth. James Talarico appeared with Mark Cuban at the Ridglea Theater on Saturday to launch “Breaking Up Big Medicine,” an antitrust-based plan to lower prescription costs and medical debt, aimed in part at the 16.7 percent of Texans without insurance. Fox News The Five co-host Jessica Tarlov moderated. Cuban, who founded Cost Plus Drugs in 2022 to sell generics without the middleman markup, stopped short of a formal endorsement but twice referred to “when Talarico is elected” and argued that character is destiny. Talarico’s framing: if you’re protecting monopolies, you’re not actually pro-business.

A Republican senator went on Fox News and asked Trump for $200 million to save Texas. Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) told Fox’s Jacqui Heinrich on Sunday that the Senate GOP’s campaign arm has no money budgeted for Texas at all — “we need help from the president” — and suggested Trump spend $100 to $200 million of his reported $850 million. Kennedy said there’s no sense bubble-wrapping it, and that Paxton can’t win by arguing the other guy is worse. The money gap is why: Talarico raised $31.6 million last quarter to Paxton’s $9.3 million, and $72 million to Paxton’s $16.8 million since the start of 2025. Be clear-eyed about the polling, though — Cook rates this a toss-up, and a recent Emerson survey had Paxton up a point. It’s close, and it’s expensive.

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The Bottom Line: General Motors put $720 million into Ontario the morning after the president said Canadian business was fleeing, Pentagon officials leaked a classified warning to stop a war instead of start one, and the Speaker of the House looked at what three Republican senators call a resignation matter and saw a great member of Congress.

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Here’s the highest-leverage thing you can do tonight: become a paying subscriber. An automaker committing $720 million to an Ontario plant hours after the president declared Canadian companies were lining up to leave, Pentagon officials handing a classified assessment to reporters in order to end a war rather than justify one, and a Speaker describing domestic abuse allegations as personal issues while the accuser’s own father — a Republican senator — calls for the congressman to resign. These are the stories that get flattened into “both sides are mad” when a newsroom answers to an owner with tariff exposure and business before this administration. Democratic Wins Media doesn’t have one. We answer to readers, which is why tonight we could tell you a Texas poll that cuts against our side instead of leaving it out. We’re running way behind on our August paid subscribers goal. Every upgrade goes directly into funding the reporting you just read. Upgrade now →

Good morning and welcome back to your morning edition of the Democratic Wins Media newsletter. Two pieces of reporting landed this weekend that belong side by side. The Washington Post found that the Pentagon has quietly put conservative online influencers — retired officers with hundreds of thousands of followers — on the federal payroll, in civilian roles, assigned to promote the Defense Secretary’s agenda and go after his critics. The Pentagon won’t say what they’re paid or what exactly they do. Meanwhile the aircraft carrier at the center of the Iran war spent nine months at sea rationing food, running short of soap and water, and going more than two hundred days without a port call. There was budget for the posting. There wasn’t budget for the soap.

This morning’s three stories:

• The Pentagon secretly put pro-Hegseth influencers on the payroll — and won’t say what they’re paid.

• Democratic Senators demand public hearing on the USS Abraham Lincoln — nine months out, 200+ days without a port call.

• Trump posted AI footage of a strike in Iran that never happened — as his own commanders warned the war can’t be sustained.

Before the news, a word about why this newsletter exists. The Ellison family now controls CBS News and CNN with Bari Weiss in charge. Bezos owns the Washington Post. Murdoch runs Fox and Roku. The billionaires are buying every outlet that could hold them accountable. Democratic Wins Media is the alternative: we’re fully reader-funded, editorially independent, and will never be purchased. If you have been reading on a free subscription, this morning is the moment to upgrade to a paying membership. Subscribe or upgrade right now.

PENTAGON AND PETE HEGSETH EXPOSED FOR HIRING PAID INFLUENCERS TO PROMOTE PENTAGON WAR

The Washington Post reported Sunday that the Defense Department has quietly installed conservative military influencers in civilian government roles, with the goal of amplifying Pete Hegseth’s positions and attacking people who scrutinize the administration, according to people familiar with the matter and corroborating material. Pentagon records reviewed by the Post show that Rob Maness, a retired Air Force colonel with more than 135,000 followers on X, and Kurt Schlichter, a retired Army colonel with nearly 620,000, both held active government email addresses as of last week carrying a “.civ” suffix — the designation for civilian employees rather than military personnel or contractors. Both are assigned to the office of Anthony Tata, undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness. A third, retired Army colonel Thomas Anderson, who writes as “Cynical Publius” to more than 323,000 followers, was listed the same way earlier this year but had come off the records by late last week. Pentagon spokesman Joel Valdez declined to tell the Post whether any of the three draws a taxpayer-funded salary, what their duties are, or how long the jobs last. Tata, Maness, Schlichter, and Anderson all declined to comment.

Why it matters: This is public money, possibly, spent on political messaging by an agency that describes itself as the most transparent Defense Department in history and then declines to answer what the jobs are. The refusal is the story as much as the hiring. Congress appropriates defense funds for defense. Whether any portion of it is paying for posts is a question with an answer, and the Pentagon is choosing not to give it.

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DEMOCRATIC SENATORS DEMAND PUBLIC HEARING ON WHAT HAPPENED ABOARD THE USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN

In an August 24 letter to Armed Services Chairman Roger Wicker, Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) and nearly every other member of the committee’s minority — including Sen. Angus King (I-ME), Elissa Slotkin, Gary Peters, Mark Kelly, Elizabeth Warren, Kirsten Gillibrand, Tim Kaine, Jeanne Shaheen, Jack Reed, Richard Blumenthal, Mazie Hirono, and Jacky Rosen — asked for a public hearing with Defense Department leadership on the handling of extended deployments in the Iran war. The Lincoln left San Diego on November 21, 2025, for a deployment planned to run seven months. It ran nine, including more than 200 days without a port call. Families described food rationing, spoiled meals, shortages of water and soap, overflowing toilets, broken facilities, and lost mail, and eventually confronted the acting Navy Secretary directly. Three U.S. officials confirmed to CNN that a sailor went overboard from the Lincoln in early August and was recovered; the incident is under investigation. Military Times reported on August 11 that family members said multiple sailors had attempted it. Hegseth told reporters the accounts were “completely misrepresented” without specifying what he disputed. The senators also cite the USS Ford, which logged 11 months at sea — four past the Navy’s own limit — after a non-combat fire injured sailors and damaged 100 berths, forcing emergency repairs in Greece before it was sent back.

Why it matters: Read this against the story above it. The Department that won’t say what it pays its influencers is the same one that let a carrier crew run out of soap. Duckworth is a combat veteran who lost both legs in Iraq; Kelly is a retired Navy captain. These are not people making a rhetorical point about troop welfare. They are asking a Republican chairman to hold one hearing, in public, and so far he hasn’t.

By the numbers: Planned deployment: 7 months. Actual: 9. Days without a port call: more than 200.

If you or someone you know is a service member or veteran in crisis, the Veterans Crisis Line is available 24/7: dial 988 and press 1, or text 838255.

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TRUMP HUMILIATED FOR POSTING AI VIDEO OF IRAN WAR

The United States and Iran exchanged fire this weekend for the first time since July. On Sunday, U.S. Central Command said it carried out strikes on Larak Island in the Strait of Hormuz against the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, to stop it from mining the shipping lane. Iran answered by hitting two American bases in Jordan with ballistic missiles. Overnight, the president posted AI-generated video depicting an attack on Iran’s Kharg Island oil terminal — an attack that did not occur — writing that the island had been blown to smithereens. By Monday morning he was on Truth Social declaring Iran a failed nation, claiming its inflation is at 300 percent and that its government has killed more than 100,000 protesters. Those figures are his, not verified ones. The same weekend, the Washington Post reported on a classified August 14 assessment known as the Secretary of Defense Orders Book, in which senior generals and admirals warned that the conflict is unsustainable, has drawn down U.S. munitions stockpiles, and is eroding the military’s ability to respond to a crisis anywhere else.

Why it matters: The gap here is the entire point. In the classified channel, the people running the war are telling the Secretary of Defense it cannot go on. In public, the commander in chief is posting synthetic footage of a victory that didn’t happen. Six months in, with sailors on nine-month deployments and stockpiles running down, the administration’s most confident statements about this war are the ones generated by a computer.

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The Bottom Line: The Pentagon found room in the budget for influencers with six-figure follower counts and won’t say what they cost, while the crew of the Abraham Lincoln rationed food for nine months — and the only clean victory in this war so far was rendered by an AI.

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Here’s the highest-leverage thing you can do this morning: become a paying subscriber. Retired colonels with hundreds of thousands of followers quietly holding Pentagon civilian email addresses while the Department refuses to say whether taxpayers are paying them, a carrier crew nine months at sea with rationed food and more than two hundred days without a port call, and a president posting AI-generated footage of a strike that never happened while his own commanders warn in a classified assessment that the war can’t be sustained — these are the stories that get flattened into “both sides are mad” when a newsroom answers to an owner with defense contracts and business before this administration. Democratic Wins Media doesn’t have one, and nobody is paying us to post. We answer to readers, which is the only reason we can tell you what’s confirmed, what’s alleged, and what the Pentagon won’t answer. We’re running way behind on our August paid subscribers goal. Every upgrade goes directly into funding the reporting you just read. Upgrade now →

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Good morning and welcome back to your am edition of the Democratic Wins Media newsletter. Kristen Welker said on “Meet the Press” that the president’s endorsements have produced mixed results lately. That is a defensible reading of the record — ten of his picks have lost primaries this year, which is as many as lost in 2018, 2020 and 2024 put together. His response was to announce he’ll report her to the Federal Communications Commission. Not to argue with her. To report her. Meanwhile a retired Navy captain who now sits in the Senate explained what’s actually wrong at the Pentagon, and the Speaker of the House went on Newsmax to call the party currently suing to protect mail ballots a threat to the Constitution.

This morning’s three stories:

• Trump says he’ll report Kristen Welker to the FCC — for accurately describing his endorsement record.

• Mark Kelly on Hegseth: “we put idiots in charge of things” — Kelly continues to make Pete Hegseth his foil

• Mike Johnson caught in humiliating moment — days after a ruling that could cost millions their mail ballots.

Before the news, a word about why this newsletter exists. The Ellison family now controls CBS News and CNN with Bari Weiss in charge. Bezos owns the Washington Post. Murdoch runs Fox and Roku. The billionaires are buying every outlet that could hold them accountable. Democratic Wins Media is the alternative: we’re fully reader-funded, editorially independent, and will never be purchased. If you have been reading on a free subscription, this morning is the moment to upgrade to a paying membership. Subscribe or upgrade right now.

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TRUMP THREATENS REPORTERS IN LATEST EFFORT TO INTIMIDATE INTO SILENCE

On Sunday, Trump announced on Truth Social that NBC’s Kristen Welker “will be reported to the FCC for rebuke or punishment” after the “Meet the Press” host described his endorsement record as producing mixed results. He asked how anyone could be allowed to say such a thing while working on public airwaves, claimed a 100 percent Senate and 98 percent House success rate, and called his record the strongest in the history of politics. The record itself: 10 Trump-endorsed candidates have lost primaries this cycle, according to a CNN analysis of Ballotpedia data — as many as lost in 2018, 2020 and 2024 combined. Five were running for governor. In gubernatorial primaries where he wasn’t backing an incumbent, his candidates lost 42 percent of the time. Two-thirds of this year’s losses came in roughly three weeks this month, including Mike Lindell in Minnesota, Rep. Andy Ogles in Tennessee, and Rep. Cory Mills in Florida. A White House official did tell Politico he was 233-for-238 — but Ballotpedia notes that figure includes races where his pick ran unopposed.

Why it matters: He isn’t disputing the arithmetic; he’s asking a federal regulator to punish someone for reciting it. That is the part to hold onto. A president who genuinely had the strongest endorsement record in history would simply post the results — and in fact he did, and they don’t say what he says they say. The threat is the tell.

By the numbers: In the August 18 primaries in Wyoming and two Florida districts, roughly 300,000 Republicans voted. Only 28 percent picked the candidate Trump endorsed.

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MARK KELLY HUMILIATES PETE HEGSETH

Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) — a retired Navy captain, combat pilot, and former NASA astronaut — was asked in a Friday interview with MeidasTouch correspondent Scott MacFarlane how Pete Hegseth’s tough-guy public persona lands with actual service members. Kelly pointed to what happened when the Defense Secretary addressed a room of admirals and senior enlisted leaders about lethality and killing, and paused for applause: he got silence. Then Kelly made the substantive case. The United States fields the most capable and lethal fighting force in history, he said, and lethality isn’t the problem: “our problem is sometimes we put idiots in charge of things,” and they take the country to war for no good reason. He named Trump’s avoidance of military service, and said Hegseth is harder to explain because he served and should know better. His closing argument was that the military doesn’t need more testosterone, it needs better leadership. Kelly is currently awaiting a federal appeals court ruling on whether the Pentagon can punish him for appearing in a video reminding service members they are not obligated to follow illegal orders. At stake are his retired rank of captain and a reduction in his military pension.

Why it matters: The last line is the story. A sitting United States senator is facing military discipline — loss of rank, loss of pension — for telling troops what the Uniform Code of Military Justice already tells them. He said this anyway, on the record, using his name. There is a version of political courage that involves a press release, and a version that involves personal cost. This is the second kind.

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MIKE JOHNSON CAUGHT IN HUMILIATING MOMENT TALKING ABOUT “CRAZIES”

House Speaker Mike Johnson told Newsmax on Saturday that Americans are “quite literally locked into a contest to determine whether we’re gonna keep our republic” or “go down an entirely different road toward communism” — a reference to Democrats. He also observed, smiling, that it isn’t unlawful for “crazy people” to run for office, and that while that has always happened, never at this level and never with so many people determined to rip up the Constitution. He said it while Newsmax happened to be airing footage of Trump behind the Resolute Desk, which produced the clip now circulating. Set the coincidence aside. The timing of the argument is what matters: it came days after the Supreme Court cleared the way for the administration’s mail-ballot restrictions, a change that could affect millions of voters who cast ballots from home because of work, childcare, disability, or distance. The party Johnson was describing as a threat to the Constitution is the one that has spent the past week filing suit to keep those ballots being delivered.

Why it matters: Twenty-five Democratic attorneys general went to court on Wednesday to preserve mail voting. Arizona’s attorney general said it would happen over her dead body. Pennsylvania’s governor joined the case himself because his state’s AG wouldn’t. That is what the constitutional argument looks like in practice, and it isn’t rhetorical — it’s a docket. Name-calling on cable is what you reach for when the filings aren’t going your way.

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The Bottom Line: A president reporting a journalist to a federal regulator for accurate arithmetic, a Speaker calling the other party communists on cable, and a decorated Navy captain risking his pension to say plainly what’s wrong at the Pentagon — one of those three is behaving like someone who expects to win in November.

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Here’s the highest-leverage thing you can do this morning: become a paying subscriber. A president announcing he’ll report an NBC anchor to the FCC because she accurately described a record that includes ten primary losses, a retired Navy captain telling the country the Pentagon’s problem isn’t lethality while that same Pentagon tries to strip his rank and cut his pension, and the Speaker of the House calling Democrats communists days after a ruling that could cost millions of Americans their mail ballots — these are the stories that get flattened into “both sides are mad” when a newsroom answers to an owner with broadcast licenses to protect and business before this administration. Democratic Wins Media doesn’t have one, and doesn’t have a license anyone can threaten. We answer to readers, which is the only reason we can check the endorsement record instead of just printing the claim. We’re running way behind on our August paid subscribers goal. Every upgrade goes directly into funding the reporting you just read. Upgrade now →

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Good morning and welcome back to your am edition of the Democratic Wins Media newsletter. On Thursday the president signed an executive order renaming Lake Ontario. By Friday, a city councillor in Ottawa was collecting suggestions for what to call the street named after him — leading candidate: Taco Avenue. That’s the week in miniature. He can rename things on his own government’s paperwork. He cannot make anyone else go along, and increasingly they don’t. Also this morning: one of his own former campaign advisers went on CNN and said his numbers are bad, though the comparison he reached for to soften it doesn’t survive a look at the actual polling. And a CNN anchor spent Friday night defending a reporter the president had insulted for reporting where he’ll be on September 11.

This morning’s three stories:

• Ottawa wants to rename Trump Avenue — because renaming things works both ways.

• A former Trump adviser said his numbers “suck” — then tried a comparison that doesn’t hold up.

• He’s skipping Ground Zero on the 25th anniversary of 9/11 — and attacked the reporter who found out.

Before the news, a word about why this newsletter exists. The Ellison family now controls CBS News and CNN with Bari Weiss in charge. Bezos owns the Washington Post. Murdoch runs Fox and Roku. The billionaires are buying every outlet that could hold them accountable. Democratic Wins Media is the alternative: we’re fully reader-funded, editorially independent, and will never be purchased. If you have been reading on a free subscription, this morning is the moment to upgrade to a paying membership. Subscribe or upgrade right now.

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OTTAWA WANTS TO RENAME TRUMP AVENUE. RENAMING WORKS BOTH WAYS.

On Thursday, the president signed an executive order directing federal agencies to call Lake Ontario “Lake America” on all U.S. government maps and documents. The order reaches exactly as far as American paperwork — it cannot bind Canada, and it cannot bind international mapmakers. Prime Minister Mark Carney rejected it, noting that “Ontario” comes from the Wendat word for beautiful lake. By Friday, Ottawa city councillor Riley Brockington said he plans to work with residents of a street called Trump Avenue to rename it once the city’s October election is finished. The leading suggestion so far is “Taco Avenue,” after the acronym that went viral in 2025 — Trump Always Chickens Out — during his on-again, off-again tariff threats. Residents have also floated Pelosi Avenue, Obama Avenue, Gulf of Mexico Avenue, and Rosie O’Donnell Avenue, according to Councillor Tim Tierney. The street was named about 25 years ago as part of a New York-themed subdivision, alongside Manhattan Crescent and Staten Way, back when Trump was a Manhattan developer. Brockington was direct about the change in circumstances: “We’re past the point of debating.”

Why it matters: He appears to believe renaming is a power he alone holds — that putting a word on a federal document changes what a thing is. It doesn’t. Canada still calls the lake Ontario. Meanwhile the neighbors he insulted are free to take his name off their street, and are discussing it publicly, and the odds-on replacement is a joke about him backing down. The renaming came as Canadians boycott American products and Canadian tourism to U.S. cities drops sharply. Symbolic gestures are the cheapest thing in politics. Everyone gets to make them.

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FORMER TRUMP CAMPAIGN ADVISER ADMITS ON LIVE TV “TRUMP’S NUMBERS SUCK”

David Urban, a former Trump campaign adviser, appeared on CNN’s The Source Friday and didn’t dress it up: “Trump’s numbers suck. But you know whose numbers suck worse? Democrats.” He put Trump at roughly 38 percent, Chuck Schumer around 12, and what he called the Democratic generic ballot at 31. Two of those need checking. The CNN poll he was citing, conducted in July, put Trump’s approval at 34 percent — a career low, four points below where Urban placed him. And 31 percent is not the generic congressional ballot; that figure tracks party favorability, a different measurement. On the actual generic ballot — the number that predicts midterms — Democrats lead. As of yesterday, FiftyPlusOne’s average had it 49.5 to 43.3, Silver Bulletin had Democrats up 6.7 before its likely-voter adjustment, and Decision Desk HQ had 47-41. Emerson had Democrats up 11 in July. Urban’s broader point: “orange man bad” isn’t a message, and Democrats need something affirmative. Only twice since World War II has a president’s party gained seats in a midterm. The Atlantic reported this week that Trump nonetheless ordered ads built around his own record, to nationalize the midterms around himself.

Why it matters: When a strategist has to compare his own candidate’s job approval to the other party’s favorability rating, and round his guy up four points to do it, that’s the tell. But take the rest of what Urban said seriously, because he isn’t wrong: running only against Trump is not a program. That’s the argument for a newsletter called Democratic Wins — the contrast is easy, and the affirmative case is the work.

By the numbers: Trump’s July CNN approval: 34%. Democrats’ generic ballot lead as of Friday: about 6 points.

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TRUMP MELTS DOWN AFTER BEING CALLED OUT FOR MISSING GROUND ZERO CEREMONY FOR GOLF

Maggie Haberman and three New York Times colleagues reported Thursday that the president will not attend the Ground Zero ceremony marking the 25th anniversary of September 11. The reporting: he wanted to deliver a speech, and the September 11 Memorial and Museum has barred politicians from speaking at the annual commemoration since 2012. His travel schedule also factored in — he is due in Ireland for the Irish Open, which runs September 10 through 13. He will appear instead at the Pentagon ceremony, where he is a featured speaker. On Friday, Trump responded with a lengthy Truth Social post mocking Haberman’s name and calling her unattractive. CNN’s Jake Tapper answered Friday night by pointedly declining to repost any of it, describing Haberman instead as a great person and an excellent journalist, and adding: “The president’s comments are disgusting and beneath the office.” In a follow-up, he warned against ever growing accustomed to this decline in what Americans expect from a president.

Why it matters: Strip away the insult and the reporting stands: on the 25th anniversary of the deadliest attack on American soil, the president is skipping the ceremony at the site because he isn’t allowed to give a speech there, en route to a golf tournament in Ireland. Attacking a reporter’s appearance is not a rebuttal to that; it’s a change of subject, and it worked on a lot of outlets. Tapper’s instinct — refuse to amplify it, restate the facts — is the correct one, and it’s the reason we haven’t reprinted the post either.

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The Bottom Line: He can rename a lake on his own maps, round his own approval rating up four points, and insult the reporter who checked his September schedule — and none of it changes the lake, the polling, or where he’ll be on the 25th anniversary of September 11.

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Here’s the highest-leverage thing you can do this morning: become a paying subscriber. A Canadian city councillor collecting suggestions to rename Trump Avenue the day after the president renamed a lake he doesn’t own, a former Trump adviser conceding on CNN that the numbers are bad while comparing job approval to party favorability to soften it, and a president skipping the Ground Zero ceremony on the 25th anniversary because he can’t give a speech there — these are the stories that get flattened into “both sides are mad” when a newsroom answers to an owner with business sitting in front of this administration. Democratic Wins Media doesn’t have one. We answer to readers, which is the only reason we can check a strategist’s numbers instead of just running his quote. There’s only two days left, and we’re running way behind on our August paid subscribers goal. Every upgrade goes directly into funding the reporting you just read. Help us keep this newsletter landing in your inbox every day and night. Upgrade now →

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Good evening and welcome back to your nightly edition of the Democratic Wins Media newsletter. Today, two federal judges had things to say about this administration today, and neither of them was gentle. In Washington, the Justice Department tried to satisfy a court order about the Epstein files by publishing a document overnight and telling the judge it was something it wasn’t — and the journalist suing them read the statute out loud on video to show it wasn’t. In Manhattan, a judge rejected the president’s latest attempt to erase his felony conviction and described the arguments as neither new nor legally sufficient. Meanwhile the Cook Political Report quietly moved Texas into the toss-up column. Friday nights are usually where news goes to die. Not tonight.

Tonight’s three stories:

• Trump caught in latest Epstein scandal — Trump’s attorney caught citing the wrong law.

• Kaitlan Collins predicts White House meltdown — Experts are weighing in on what happens next when Trump gets destroyed in the midterms.

• A judge rejected Trump’s latest bid to undo his conviction — “neither new nor legally sufficient.”

Before the news, a word about why this newsletter exists. The Ellison family now controls CBS News and CNN with Bari Weiss in charge. Bezos owns the Washington Post. Murdoch runs Fox and Roku. The billionaires are buying every outlet that could hold them accountable. Democratic Wins Media is the alternative: we’re fully reader-funded, editorially independent, and will never be purchased. If you have been reading on a free subscription, this morning is the moment to upgrade to a paying membership. Subscribe or upgrade right now.

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TRUMP CAUGHT IN LATEST EPSTEIN SCANDAL

Senior U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan ruled in June that the Justice Department was violating the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which requires a written justification for every redaction, published in the Federal Register. The deadline was December 19, 2025. It was never met. After journalist Katie Phang sued, Sullivan raised the prospect of contempt and gave Attorney General Todd Blanche until Thursday to respond — and said he would seek a sworn declaration about compliance, which would expose whoever signed it to perjury exposure. Thursday night’s filing came not from Blanche but from a senior counsel, and argued no declaration was necessary because the department had published the required notice that morning. Phang read the document. The seven-page notice is a scanned February 14 letter labeled a Section 3 report — the one-time summary to Congress — not the Section 2 redaction log the court ordered. “Oh, but Todd, we know how to read,” she said. The filing also refuses to produce handwritten FBI interview notes, and asks Sullivan to pause any order so DOJ can appeal. Phang’s reply is due September 3.

Why it matters: Section 2 exists because the redactions in these files are reportedly covering names — perpetrators, recruiters, and people who enabled the abuse of children. Congress passed a law requiring the government to explain every one of them. Eight months past the deadline, the Justice Department’s answer was to file the wrong document at the last minute and tell a federal judge the matter was closed. Sullivan has held prosecutors in contempt before, in the Ted Stevens case.

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KAITLAN COLLINS PREDICTS TRUMP MELTDOWN WHEN DEMOCRATS WIN THE MIDTERMS

The Cook Political Report shifted its Senate ratings last week, moving Texas from “lean Republican” to toss-up and Iowa from toss-up to “lean Democrat.” In July, the same forecaster moved Alaska from “lean Republican” to toss-up. That’s three seats trending the same direction from the most-cited nonpartisan handicapper in American politics. On the Pivot podcast Friday, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins was asked what happens if Democrats take the House. Kara Swisher predicted Trump would try to cooperate and reinvent himself, pointing to Jared Kushner’s meeting with Hakeem Jeffries. Collins disagreed. She said she doesn’t believe this White House will handle congressional oversight the way it did in the first term, that the president hated being impeached and expects it to happen again, and that there will be far more pushback from the DOJ and the White House than last time. “It will be a very different time for the Trump presidency,” she said. Collins labeled it an educated prediction based on her reporting, not a certainty. Since January, House Democrats have filed at least three impeachment resolutions; Rep. Al Green filed another Monday.

Why it matters: Separate the two halves. The Cook shifts are hard information — a forecaster with a reputation to protect moving three Republican-held seats toward Democrats. Collins’s forecast is informed speculation and we’re labeling it that way. But the useful thing in it isn’t the impeachment talk. It’s her point that oversight itself will be fought harder this time. Winning the majority is the beginning of that fight, not the end of it.

By the numbers: Three Senate seats moved toward Democrats in Cook’s ratings since July.

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TRUMP’S ATTEMPT TO APPEAL HIS CRIMINAL CONVICTION… DENIED!

U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein on Friday rejected the president’s latest attempt to move his New York hush-money case into federal court — his second try, and a step that would have made overturning the 2024 conviction considerably easier. Trump was found guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records tied to a $130,000 payment his then-fixer Michael Cohen made to Stormy Daniels, making him the first felon to hold the office. His lawyers argued the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity ruling should reach the case. Hellerstein, a Clinton appointee, disagreed on the facts: the conduct at issue was private, involved reimbursing hush money, and bore no substantive relation to the presidency. Stretching the statute to cover it, he wrote, would give the words a definition so broad as to be meaningless. He described the arguments as “neither new nor legally sufficient.” Trump has said he will appeal to the Supreme Court.

Why it matters: Immunity was supposed to be the skeleton key. Two years on, a federal judge has now said plainly that it doesn’t reach conduct that had nothing to do with the office — which is what the ruling actually said in the first place. The conviction stands, the appeals continue, and the word in the record is still felon.

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DEMOCRATIC WINS OF THE DAY

New York’s ICE cooperation ban is now in force — and already being enforced. The 287(g) ban in Gov. Kathy Hochul’s Local Cops, Local Crimes Act took effect Tuesday, requiring every New York law enforcement agency to end formal agreements deputizing local officers for federal civil immigration enforcement, and barring local jails from housing civil immigration detainees. Hochul framed it as a public safety measure, not a retreat: local police will still assist when an actual crime has been committed, and she noted 53 of New York’s 62 counties never had a 287(g) agreement to begin with. Of the roughly a dozen that did, most wound them down. Attorney General Letitia James’s new Office of Immigrant Trust has already subpoenaed the Nassau County police and sheriff over non-compliance — Nassau’s executive, Bruce Blakeman, is Hochul’s Republican opponent for governor in November.

Slotkin puts a number on Supreme Court reform. Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) said this week she wants justices required to retire at 75 or after 18 years on the bench, arguing the country shouldn’t be stuck indefinitely with a court shaped by whichever president got lucky with vacancies. She raised it in a St. Louis Public Radio interview published August 24, alongside her push to overhaul campaign finance. It’s a position rather than a bill of her own — the Senate’s 18-year term-limits measure was introduced in July by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse — but a first-term senator from a state Trump carried saying it out loud is how a reform stops being fringe.

The receipts on Hegseth. Six months into the Iran war, it’s worth remembering who said what and when. Hakeem Jeffries called for Pete Hegseth to resign or be fired in March 2025, over the Signal group chat that leaked military plans to a journalist. He did it again on June 24, 2026, telling the Defense Secretary to submit his letter of resignation over Iran. Since then: the Pentagon’s own acting comptroller testified the war had cost roughly $25 billion in its first two months; six American troops were killed when their base in Kuwait was hit by Iranian drones at the war’s start; and a military investigation into a strike on an Iranian girls’ school remains open. Hegseth is still in the job. The record of who called it early is not in dispute.

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The Bottom Line: On the same Friday one judge caught the Justice Department filing the wrong document to avoid explaining the Epstein redactions, another told the president his immunity argument was neither new nor legally sufficient — and the country’s most cautious election forecaster moved Texas into the toss-up column.

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Here’s the highest-leverage thing you can do tonight: become a paying subscriber. The Justice Department publishing a Section 3 report overnight and telling a federal judge it satisfied a Section 2 order, a judge in Manhattan calling the president’s immunity argument neither new nor legally sufficient, and the Cook Political Report moving three Republican-held Senate seats toward Democrats since July — these are the stories that get flattened into “both sides are mad” when a newsroom answers to an owner with business sitting in front of this administration. Democratic Wins Media doesn’t have one. We answer to readers, which is the only reason we can spend a Friday night on a court filing nobody else read. We’re running way behind on our August paid subscribers goal. Every upgrade goes directly into funding the reporting you just read. Upgrade now →

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Good morning and welcome back to your am edition of the Democratic Wins Media newsletter. Three times in the last twenty-four hours, someone who is supposed to be on the president’s side declined to be. Bret Baier corrected him on Fox News, on air, with the Truth Social post displayed on screen. A Republican governor in the reddest state in America asked his attorney general to investigate the president’s Justice Department. And a former Trump White House aide sat on CNN and asked a MAGA pundit why he doesn’t believe his own government’s intelligence about Iran. None of those people are Democrats. That’s what makes this morning worth your seven minutes.

This morning’s three stories:

• Fox News humiliates Trump — after Trump called his correspondent a flunky.

• Wyoming’s Republican governor is investigating Trump’s DOJ — and 1,000 more monitors are coming in November.

• A former Trump Aide just went to town on Scott Jennings — Scott Jennings McConnell “phone call” is still being questioned

Before the news, a word about why this newsletter exists. The Ellison family now controls CBS News and CNN with Bari Weiss in charge. Bezos owns the Washington Post. Murdoch runs Fox and Roku. The billionaires are buying every outlet that could hold them accountable. Democratic Wins Media is the alternative: we’re fully reader-funded, editorially independent, and will never be purchased. If you have been reading on a free subscription, this morning is the moment to upgrade to a paying membership. Subscribe or upgrade right now.

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FOX HUMILIATES TRUMP, CORRECTING HIS TRUTH SOCIAL POST

On Thursday’s Special Report, Fox News chief correspondent Jonathan Hunt reported that there had been no significant developments toward ending the six-month war with Iran, and noted that Trump himself had confirmed there were no plans for talks. Trump responded on Truth Social, calling Hunt’s report inaccurate, insisting Iran is begging to make a deal, and demanding that Bret Baier “straighten out his flunkies.” Baier put the post on screen and answered it point by point. “Jonathan Hunt is not a flunky. He’s a great reporter,” Baier said. The broadcast had never claimed Trump wanted to meet, he explained — they had aired a clip of Trump saying he didn’t, and reported that Treasury Secretary Bessent hopes to press G20 countries to increase pressure while Gulf allies including Qatar work inside Tehran for concessions. The rant followed Trump posting an apparently AI-generated “Mission Accomplished” image about Iran — the phrase George W. Bush used aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln in 2003, eight years before American troops left Iraq. Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) called the post a white flag.

Why it matters: Fox News reported that a war is going badly, and the president’s response was to attack the reporter by name. The correction is the story: the anchor didn’t hedge, didn’t apologize, and read the actual reporting back to the president on his favorite channel. Six months in, the administration’s Iran messaging can’t survive contact with the network most inclined to be generous about it.

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WYOMING’S REPUBLICAN GOVERNOR TAKES AIM AT DONALD TRUMP’S DOJ

Two Justice Department attorneys arrived unannounced at Laramie County polling places on Wyoming’s August 18 primary day, part of what DOJ called a monitoring initiative aimed at transparency. State and local officials say nobody told them. At Wednesday’s state canvassing board meeting, Gov. Mark Gordon — a term-limited Republican in one of the most conservative states in the country — said he has asked Attorney General Keith Kautz to look into it. Gordon was careful: he said he isn’t objecting to observers in principle, and that the election itself was run phenomenally. But he said the monitors’ behavior was aggressive and irregular and seemed to exceed the authority Congress granted them. He drew a line his voters will recognize: “I don’t like the federal government coming in and taking our votes, either.” Laramie County Clerk Debra Lee, also a Republican, said the monitors asked questions outside the scope of federal voting-rights law and sought to interview voters, calling it “a poorly managed exercise and one that showed complete disregard for our state laws.” The monitors visited six sites and produced credentials only when asked. Requests to interview voters and inspect machines were refused.

Why it matters: Wyoming got two attorneys in one county. The administration says it intends to send roughly 1,000 staff across the country in November. This is the same White House now fighting in court to route mail ballots through a federal eligibility list — and the objection this week came not from a Democratic secretary of state but from a Republican governor and a Republican county clerk in a state Trump won by more than 40 points. Worth noting the split: Wyoming’s Republican secretary of state helped DOJ obtain the state’s voter data last year.

By the numbers: Two monitors in Wyoming this month. About 1,000 planned nationwide for November.

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FORMER TRUMP AIDE GOES TO TOWN HAMMERING SCOTT JENNINGS LIVE ON TV

On CNN NewsNight Thursday, Caroline Sunshine — a former Trump White House aide who has opposed the war — pressed pro-Trump pundit Scott Jennings on what the conflict was supposed to achieve. At the start, she said, Jennings defined success as the Iranian regime being overthrown. Jennings denied saying it. She said he’d also promised four to six weeks; he denied that too, and she offered to roll the tape. When Jennings argued the real objective was preventing Iran from ever obtaining a nuclear weapon, Sunshine countered that U.S. intelligence assessed both at the war’s outset and now that Iran did not want a weapon, was not building one, and did not have one. “Why do you not believe the intelligence?” she asked. Jennings replied by asking whether she believed the president’s son-in-law and his envoy. The exchange later turned personal, with Sunshine flatly disputing Jennings’s claims to have spoken by phone with the long-absent Mitch McConnell, and Jennings calling her a conspiracy theorist.

Why it matters: The person asking why the administration won’t believe its own intelligence agencies used to work in that administration. Six months into a war with no negotiations, no timeline, and no stated definition of victory that has survived contact with events, the argument about whether it was worth starting is now happening between Republicans — on cable, in public, with one side offering to roll the tape.

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The Bottom Line: When the anchor, the governor, and the former staffer all decline to go along on the same Thursday, the problem isn’t the coverage — and in Wyoming, a Republican county clerk just showed the rest of the country what saying no to this Justice Department looks like.

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Here’s the highest-leverage thing you can do this morning: become a paying subscriber. Bret Baier reading a president’s Truth Social post back to him on air and correcting it line by line, a Republican governor in a state Trump won by forty points asking his attorney general to investigate federal election monitors while 1,000 more are planned for November, and a former Trump White House aide asking on CNN why anyone should disbelieve their own intelligence agencies about Iran — these are the stories that get flattened into “both sides are mad” when a newsroom answers to an owner with business sitting in front of this administration. Democratic Wins Media doesn’t have one. We answer to readers, which is the only reason we can tell you when the news is good and still tell you not to relax. We’re running way behind on our August paid subscribers goal. Every upgrade goes directly into funding the reporting you just read. Upgrade now →

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Good evening and welcome back to the nightly edition of the Democratic Wins Media newsletter. Tonight’s edition is three versions of the same finding. A former prosecutor went on CNN and explained, calmly, that the president has no legal authority to knock down the Kennedy Center — and that courts have already blocked the plan to put his name on it. CNN’s numbers guy pulled up the polling on the tariffs and found a 52-point collapse in public trust on the issue Trump considers his best. And then C-SPAN opened the phone lines, and Republicans in Florida and Maryland and an independent in Ohio said roughly the same thing in plainer language. The law says no. The data says no. And the people picking up the phone at seven in the morning say no.

Tonight’s three stories:

• Courts blocked the Kennedy Center takeover — and a former prosecutor explained why demolition was never on the table.

• Trump’s tariff numbers have collapsed 52 points — with independents, he’s 60 under.

• C-SPAN callers, including his own voters, unloaded — “starting to regret it.”

Before the news, a word about why this newsletter exists. The Ellison family now controls CBS News and CNN with Bari Weiss in charge. Bezos owns the Washington Post. Murdoch runs Fox and Roku. The billionaires are buying every outlet that could hold them accountable. Democratic Wins Media is the alternative: we’re fully reader-funded, editorially independent, and will never be purchased. If you have been reading on a free subscription, this morning is the moment to upgrade to a paying membership. Subscribe or upgrade right now.

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THE KENNEDY CENTER TAKEOVER JUST HIT A WALL

Federal courts have blocked the effort to put the president’s name on the Kennedy Center and shut it down for two years of renovations, Raw Story reported Thursday — and the demolition threat that followed drew a blunt legal assessment on CNN. Dave Aronberg, the former State Attorney for Palm Beach County, told Brianna Keilar the plan doesn’t work at any level. The Kennedy Center’s board, he explained, is a statutory trustee of public property: it doesn’t own the land or the building, and it has no authority to demolish or decommission a congressionally created national monument. Only Congress can do that. “Destroying the Kennedy Center would be like destroying the Lincoln Memorial,” Aronberg said. Meanwhile, the board — stacked with the president’s appointees — is reportedly looking for a workaround by naming the surrounding plaza after him instead. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has defended the renovation push by calling the building dangerous and warning about falling concrete.

Why it matters: On Tuesday we told you government lawyers had floated demolishing this building in a court filing. Here’s the follow-through, and it’s the answer readers deserve: the courts said no, and the legal theory was never there. Aronberg’s framing is the one to keep — this is a separation-of-powers question. Either Congress still exists, or the executive branch does what it likes because it can.

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TRUMP’S NUMBERS ON TARIFFS HAVE FALLEN 52 POINTS

CNN’s Harry Enten laid out the political cost of the Canada trade war Thursday, and the trend line is steep. In October 2024, voters trusted Trump over Kamala Harris on tariffs by 22 points. Today, Enten said, he’s 30 points underwater on the issue — what Enten called “a 52-point switcheroo.” Among independents, he’s 60 points underwater. His overall approval sits 21 points below water, and by Enten’s count there hasn’t been a single poll showing him net positive since just before the Liberation Day tariffs took effect in 2025. Those original tariffs were struck down by the Supreme Court 6-3 as executive overreach, with Chief Justice John Roberts writing that Congress has granted tariff power only in explicit terms and under strict limits. Trump called the justices fools and promised alternatives. This month’s alternative: 50 percent tariffs on a swath of Canadian goods after talks collapsed, Canadian retaliation aimed at Republican districts, and a Truth Social post declaring that America doesn’t need Canada. Prime Minister Mark Carney, Enten noted, is doing fine at home.

Why it matters: Politicians usually abandon a policy when it polls like this. Trump has done the opposite — he’s escalated it, renamed a lake over it, and built his party’s whole midterm strategy around himself while carrying it. A 52-point swing on your signature issue isn’t a rough patch. It’s voters revising their opinion of the thing you’re best known for.

By the numbers: With independents, 60 points underwater on tariffs.

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REAL VOTERS TAKE TO THE PHONE LINES TO EXPRESS FRUSTRATION OVER TRUMP’S TRADE WAR

Early Thursday morning, C-SPAN took calls on the U.S.-Canada trade war, and the responses ran across party lines. Max, a Republican from Florida, said the president’s trade aggression used to produce results and now nobody buys it — that everyone assumes he won’t follow through, and that he seems not to notice he’s embarrassing himself. He closed with a line that could have been focus-grouped: everything’s expensive. Doug, an independent from Ohio, predicted the tariffs will hurt American workers and the broader economy. Virginia, a Maryland Republican, worried aloud about lumber tariffs hitting families already struggling with prices. And Ryan, another Florida caller, put it most simply: “Honestly, I voted for Trump in 2024. Starting to regret it.” He said the policies keep getting more draconian. The White House responded by pointing to factory construction, manufacturing employment, and investment commitments as evidence the agenda is working.

Why it matters: Call-in shows aren’t polling, and we won’t pretend otherwise — these are five people who chose to dial a phone at seven in the morning. But read this against the story above it. Enten has the measurement; C-SPAN has the sound. When a Republican caller’s summary of the president’s trade strategy is that nobody believes him anymore, and a 2024 Trump voter says he regrets it on live television, that’s the 52-point collapse showing up in a human voice.

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DEMOCRATIC WINS OF THE DAY

Pritzker renames Trump Tower. Gov. JB Pritzker posted an image of Chicago’s Trump Tower Thursday with the marquee letters crossed out and replaced: “EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY: Trump Tower is renamed to NATALIE TOWER!” The reference traces to Sen. Jon Ossoff, who told a rally earlier this month that Trump doesn’t want to do the job — he wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on the plane the Emir of Qatar gave him. The White House spent the following week responding to it.

“Over my dead body”: Mayes sues the Postal Service. Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes announced Wednesday that the state has joined 24 others suing to block the new USPS rule that would deliver mail ballots only to voters on a federally maintained eligibility list — telling ABC15 the change would happen “over my dead body.” Her practical argument may be the strongest one anyone has made: Arizona’s 15 counties are already finalizing ballots, overseas and military ballots go out September 19, and statewide early voting begins in about six weeks. Complying would mean redesigning envelopes and handing voter rolls to the Postal Service, which would then have to decide who gets a ballot. Mayes called that unconstitutional and physically impossible on the timeline. She also keeps making a point worth repeating: Republicans built Arizona’s vote-by-mail system in 1991, and roughly three-quarters of Arizonans now use it.

Fox News put “DEMS LEADING IN KEY TX DISTRICTS TRUMP WON” on screen, with Cruz sitting there. Sen. Ted Cruz appeared on Fox News’ The Will Cain Show Thursday under a chyron citing the new Texas Southern University polling — the survey we covered Wednesday showing Democrats ahead in three South Texas districts Trump carried by double digits. Cruz has been warning his own party for weeks. He told CBS News this week the Talarico–Paxton race will be a $200 million fight and conceded Paxton came out of a brutal primary bruised. Back on July 9, calling into Greg Abbott’s guest-hosted Hannity broadcast, he put it plainly: Talarico has a real chance, the race will be close, and the polling showed a one- or two-point contest. Public surveys have stayed tight since — Emerson had a dead heat this month, UT/Texas Politics Project had Talarico up 42-39 in an Aug. 5-13 poll of 1,200 registered voters, and a late-July Fox News poll had him at 51-48. Talarico raised a record $30 million in the second quarter, more than triple Paxton’s haul.

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BRIGHT SPOT

The books are still coming. Two days after Dolly Parton’s death, the Dollywood Foundation confirmed that her Imagination Library will keep operating exactly as she built it — the program was designed from the start to run through the foundation and thousands of local partners rather than through her personally. As of June, it had gifted more than 325 million books and was mailing over 3.5 million a month to children in five countries. It reaches roughly one in six American kids under five. Families can check availability and sign up at imaginationlibrary.com, and the foundation has asked that anyone wanting to honor her consider donating to a local partner — which, in the states that cut their funding, is now who’s covering the gap.

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The Bottom Line: The courts said the demolition was never legal, the data says the trade war cost him 52 points, and a man named Ryan in Florida said he’s starting to regret his vote — and all three of those arrived on the same Thursday.

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Here’s the highest-leverage thing you can do tonight: become a paying subscriber. A former prosecutor explaining on live television that a national memorial isn’t the president’s to knock down, a 52-point collapse in public trust on the one issue he’s built his whole presidency around, and a Republican caller from Florida telling C-SPAN that nobody believes the threats anymore and everything’s expensive — these are the stories that get flattened into “both sides are mad” when a newsroom answers to an owner with tariff exposure and construction business pending before this administration. Democratic Wins Media doesn’t have one. We answer to readers, which is the only reason we can tell you when the news is good and still tell you not to relax. We’re running way behind on our August paid subscribers goal, so help us ensure this newsletter continues to land in your inbox every day and night. Every upgrade goes directly into funding the reporting you just read. Upgrade now →

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Good morning and welcome back to your am edition of the Democratic Wins Media newsletter. Here’s a useful way to measure how a party is feeling about an election: watch what it does with its own president. In 2006, with George W. Bush stuck below 40 percent, Republicans running in competitive races almost never put him in their ads — and when they did, it was to say they’d stand up to him. They lost 30 House seats anyway. Twenty years later, the party is doing the opposite on purpose. It’s building a two-day convention in Dallas around a president at near-record-low approval, charging its own House members $25,000 to show up, and pulling candidates out of their districts to attend. Republicans are telling CNN, on background, that they don’t understand why.

This morning’s three stories:

• MAGA melts down after Jelly Roll’s joke on Jimmy Kimmel— over a joke about the president.

• Trump seems intent on making himself the center of November’s — and Republicans are quietly panicking.

• A CNN panel laughed a Trump defender off the air — over the family’s corrupt drone, mining, and banking ventures.

Before the news, a word about why this newsletter exists. The Ellison family now controls CBS News and CNN with Bari Weiss in charge. Bezos owns the Washington Post. Murdoch runs Fox and Roku. The billionaires are buying every outlet that could hold them accountable. Democratic Wins Media is the alternative: we’re fully reader-funded, editorially independent, and will never be purchased. If you have been reading on a free subscription, this morning is the moment to upgrade to a paying membership. Subscribe or upgrade right now.

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MAGA MELTS DOWN OVER JELLY ROLL’S JOKE ON JIMMY KIMMEL

Rep. Jimmy Patronis, a Florida Republican, spent this week publicly running a country music star out of his state. The offense: Jelly Roll, guest-hosting Jimmy Kimmel Live!, made jokes about the president’s weight. Patronis — who in June 2024 had enthusiastically invited the same performer to play the Gulf Coast Jam festival in the Panhandle — posted that Jelly Roll is now “100% not welcomed to Florida’s panhandle,” added that he doesn’t want to see the singer’s tour bus on I-10, and told him to take his “TDS” elsewhere. A coordinated pile-on followed from MAGA media figures, several declaring the singer’s career finished. The underlying facts are less funny than the jokes. Trump’s May physical at Walter Reed recorded him at 238 pounds, up 14 from April 2025, with a body mass index of 29.7 — a quarter of a point below the clinical threshold for obesity. His own physician recommended dietary changes, increased physical activity, and continued weight loss. Jelly Roll declined to apologize and returned Wednesday night with more material.

Why it matters: Set the jokes aside — a sitting member of Congress announced that a private citizen is unwelcome in his state, and monitored his travel routes out loud, because that citizen made fun of the president on television. This is the same late-night chair that sat empty last year after government pressure. The thinnest skin in American politics keeps demanding that everyone else adjust to it, and it keeps finding elected officials willing to enforce that demand.

By the numbers: The president’s physician recommended diet changes, more exercise, and continued weight loss in a report the White House released itself.

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REPUBLICANS ARE PANICKING ABOUT THEIR OWN CONVENTION

The Republican National Committee is staging a two-day midterm convention in Dallas next month — once nicknamed “Trumpapalooza” — with the president headlining the second night. The idea is to drag MAGA voters to the polls in an election where Trump isn’t on the ballot. Republicans are telling CNN they don’t think it will work, and they have a list of reasons. House members are being charged a $25,000 entrance fee. Candidates in competitive races will be pulled out of their districts during the final stretch. Some in the party have cringed at building the midterms around a president at near-record-low approval amid backlash over the economy and the war in Iran. Others worry Trump will use his headline slot to talk about his White House ballroom or to call the affordability crisis a hoax. And both nights are scheduled opposite the first two games of the NFL season. One GOP donor told CNN the programming “seems to just be five hours of speeches.” The RNC says the event will showcase momentum behind the president’s agenda.

Why it matters: Compare 2006. Bush was mired below 40 percent, and Republicans in competitive races almost never featured him in their advertising except to distance themselves. The party lost 30 House seats and the Senate anyway. Two decades later the GOP has decided that the answer to an unpopular president is more of him, billed to its own candidates at $25,000 a head, on the same nights as football. Democrats did not choose this strategy for them.

By the numbers: $25,000 — what a House Republican pays to attend a convention some of them can’t explain the purpose of.

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TRUMP PROMOTER ON CNN LAUGHED OFF STAGE FOR DEFENDING TRUMP’S KIDS CORRUPTION

On CNN NewsNight Wednesday, host Abby Phillip played a clip of Jon Stewart ribbing Michelle Obama on her podcast about all the money the Obamas left on the table — no meme coin, no weapons company, and, as Stewart put it, nothing like the drone company belonging to Don Jr. and Eric. Conservative pundit Jason Rantz tried to argue the Trump sons are simply private businessmen operating in the family’s existing field. Bakari Sellers pointed out that Michelle Obama isn’t in government. When Rantz replied that the Trump sons aren’t either, and invoked their real estate background, the panel started laughing. Phillip ran the list: the Trump family is not in the real estate business now, she noted — it’s in rare earth minerals, drones, and banking. Rantz pivoted to Hunter Biden’s paintings. “This is not a good hill to die on,” Sellers told him. Geraldo Rivera, also on the panel, said voters in Ohio are watching rich people get richer and feel like they’re being jerked around. Paul Begala added that it’s happening at their expense.

Why it matters: The tell isn’t the laughter — it’s that the defense had nowhere to go. A president’s adult sons moving into rare earth mining, military drones, and banking while their father runs the government is not a partisan characterization; it’s a list. Rivera’s point is the one that should worry Republicans most, because it isn’t ideological. People are watching the cost of everything climb while the first family opens new lines of business.

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The Bottom Line: A party that spent 2006 hiding its unpopular president lost 30 seats anyway — and this one is charging its candidates $25,000 to stand next to his.

💪 How you can best help

Here’s the highest-leverage thing you can do this morning: become a paying subscriber. A congressman announcing that a country singer’s tour bus isn’t welcome on I-10, a $25,000 door charge for Republicans to attend a convention scheduled against opening weekend of the NFL season, and a CNN panel laughing out loud at the idea that a drone company and a rare-earth mining venture are just the family real estate business — these are the stories that get flattened into “both sides are mad” when a newsroom answers to an owner with business sitting in front of this administration. Democratic Wins Media doesn’t have one. We answer to readers, which is the only reason we can tell you when the news is good and still tell you not to relax. We’re running way behind on our August paid subscribers goal. Every upgrade goes directly into funding the reporting you just read and ensuring this newsletter continues to land in your inbox every day and night. Upgrade now →

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Good evening and welcome back to your nightly edition of the Democratic Wins Media newsletter. Two things happened today that are going to show up in your life, and one of them will show up in your cart. Canada published a list of nearly 900 American-bound goods it’s about to tax, and toilet paper is on it. Meanwhile, two days after the Supreme Court cleared a path for this administration to put the Postal Service in charge of your mail ballot, roughly two dozen Democratic attorneys general and Pennsylvania’s governor walked back into court and filed again. One of those stories is about the price of a household staple. The other is about whether you get to vote from your kitchen table in November. Both trace back to the same desk.

Tonight’s three stories:

• Democrats went back to court today over your mail ballot — and the judge called the order likely unconstitutional on her way out.

• MAGA friendly CBS Evening News can’t crack 4 million viewers — a year into its Trump-friendly makeover.

• Toilet paper is on Canada’s retaliation list — and yes, you’re going to think about 2020.

Before the news, a word about why this newsletter exists. The Ellison family now controls CBS News and CNN with Bari Weiss in charge. Bezos owns the Washington Post. Murdoch runs Fox and Roku. The billionaires are buying every outlet that could hold them accountable. Democratic Wins Media is the alternative: we’re fully reader-funded, editorially independent, and will never be purchased. If you have been reading on a free subscription, this evening is the moment to upgrade to a paying membership. Subscribe or upgrade right now.

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DEMOCRATS WENT BACK TO COURT TODAY OVER YOUR MAIL BALLOT

Roughly two dozen Democratic attorneys general, joined by Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, filed a new lawsuit Wednesday against the U.S. Postal Service, challenging the final rule that would carry out President Trump’s executive order restricting mail ballots in states that decline to hand over voter data. The filing came two days after the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 for the administration — on the narrow ground that the states had sued too early, not on whether the order is lawful. In Boston, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani found the Postal Service had violated her injunction by finalizing the rule anyway, writing that the government had feigned compliance. She declined to pursue contempt and instead pointed the plaintiffs toward challenging the finished rule head-on. Then, saying the Supreme Court’s ruling compelled her, she dissolved her remaining nationwide injunction — while calling the order likely unconstitutional and warning it could produce chaos. New York Attorney General Letitia James, one of 25 AGs on the new complaint, said the Postal Service “has no authority to decide who can and cannot vote by mail.”

Why it matters: Former U.S. attorney Joyce Vance, writing in her Civil Discourse newsletter, argues the administration “torpedoed its own best argument” — that the case wasn’t ripe — by issuing the very rule it had told the justices didn’t exist yet. Her read is that the Solicitor General isn’t expecting to control voting this year and is playing a longer game. That’s her analysis, not a finding of fact. But the practical situation is plain: the courthouse door is still open, Democratic AGs walked through it the same week they lost, and the judge who had to dissolve her own injunction went out of her way to say the order is probably unconstitutional.

By the numbers: 25 attorneys general plus one governor, filed two days after a Supreme Court loss.

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MAGA FRIENDLY CBS CONTINUES TO FAIL UNDER BARI WEISS’ LEADERSHIP

CBS Evening News averaged 3.875 million viewers a night during the week of August 10, down about 3 percent from the week before and still under the 4-million mark advertisers treat as a floor, according to Nielsen data reported by Adweek. NBC Nightly News drew 6.61 million over the same stretch. ABC’s World News Tonight drew 8.44 million — more than double CBS. Among the 25-to-54 viewers advertisers actually pay for, CBS managed 521,000 against NBC’s 999,000 and ABC’s 1.16 million. The year-over-year comparison is the sharper number: CBS was up 1 percent in total viewers and flat in the demo, while NBC climbed 16 and 29 percent and ABC climbed 20 and 25. The broadcast has been remade under Bari Weiss, installed atop CBS News last October by Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison, who has been friendly to this administration. Weiss also overhauled 60 Minutes, which returns in September without three of its seven correspondents.

Why it matters: This is the business case against captured media, and it’s being made by the audience rather than by critics. A network can decide to soften its coverage to stay on the right side of an administration, and it can also discover that nobody particularly wants to watch the result. Two competitors doing ordinary news grew by double digits over the same year. There’s a reason we tell you every night that nobody owns this newsletter.

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CANADA INTENDS TO TARIFF THE U.S. BACK INTO THE COVID ERA

You remember the aisle. Spring 2020, the shelves stripped bare, people rationing rolls and posting photos of empty shelving units. Nobody who lived through it forgot it. Here’s the 2026 version, and it’s different in an important way: this time the shelves will be stocked, and the price tag will be higher. Prime Minister Mark Carney published a list of nearly 900 American goods that Canada will tax at 25 to 50 percent beginning in September, and toilet paper made the list. American shoppers already absorbed one round of this. Procter & Gamble, which makes Charmin, announced in July 2025 that it would raise prices on roughly a quarter of its U.S. products by mid-single-digit percentages to offset about $1 billion in tariff costs. Most paper products sold here are manufactured domestically, but the raw material comes from Canadian forests, and in 2024 the U.S. imported $328 million in Canadian toilet paper — more than from any other country. The White House said Canada was offered a generous deal and turned it down. Trump told Glenn Beck on Wednesday that Canada is one of the worst countries in the world.

Why it matters: 2020 was a supply panic — a shortage nobody chose. This is a policy, chosen by one person, and it arrives as a line item. Toilet paper is the perfect political product precisely because it’s unglamorous: nobody trades down, nobody skips it, and everybody notices the price. An administration that promised to lower costs is now taxing the single most inelastic thing in the American cart.

By the numbers: The average American uses more than 141 rolls a year — the highest per-capita rate in the world, according to a Statista Consumer Market Outlook estimate.

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DEMOCRATIC WINS OF THE DAY

Shapiro to Pennsylvania: nothing has changed. Hours before joining Wednesday’s multistate suit against the Postal Service rule, Gov. Josh Shapiro told Pennsylvanians plainly that their options are the same as they’ve always been — vote in person on November 3, or vote by mail before it. He’s suing in his capacity as governor rather than on the state’s behalf, since Pennsylvania’s attorney general is a Republican. It’s the second time this year he’s gone to court over this executive order.

A Democrat is leading in a district Trump won by double digits. New polling from Texas Southern University’s Barbara Jordan Public Policy Research and Survey Center finds Bobby Pulido ahead of Republican incumbent Monica De La Cruz 50 to 45 in TX-15, with 5 percent undecided. In TX-34, Democratic Rep. Vicente Gonzalez leads Eric Flores 45 to 42. Trump carried both districts by double digits in 2024. TSU also polled TX-28, where Democrats lead by 11. The survey ran Aug. 18–22 among likely voters — 700 each in TX-15 and TX-34 (margin of error ±3.7 points) and 600 in TX-28 (±4.0) — screened for likely turnout and past participation. The same poll found James Talarico leading Ken Paxton and Gina Hinojosa leading Gov. Greg Abbott in all three districts.

Andrews makes her case to national Democrats. A day after Darline Graham won the Republican nomination, Democrat Annie Andrews — a Charleston pediatrician — went public with an argument the national party hasn’t accepted yet: that South Carolina belongs on the 2026 battleground map. Her campaign released an internal poll showing the race tied at 41, paired with a memo arguing that with the resources to defend her record and expose Graham’s weaknesses, Andrews could pull off an upset worth national investment. Treat the number as what it is — a campaign’s own survey, released by the campaign, to make a case for money. No independent public polling has tested this matchup, and Trump carried South Carolina by 18 points in 2024. What isn’t in dispute: Graham needed a rally, a tele-rally, and a presidential endorsement to clear a sitting House member by four points.

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The Bottom Line: The same desk that just made your toilet paper more expensive is trying to decide how your ballot gets delivered — and tonight, in both fights, somebody is still standing in the way.

💪 How you can best help

Here’s the highest-leverage thing you can do tonight: become a paying subscriber. Twenty-five attorneys general filing again two days after losing at the Supreme Court, a judge dissolving her own injunction while calling the order likely unconstitutional, and toilet paper landing on a retaliation list in a country that already sells us $328 million of it a year — these are the stories that get flattened into “both sides are mad” when a newsroom answers to an owner with tariff exposure and business sitting in front of this administration. Democratic Wins Media doesn’t have one. You read tonight’s second story; you know exactly what that looks like when it goes the other way. We answer to readers, which is the only reason we can tell you when the news is good and still tell you not to relax. We’re running way behind on our August paid subscribers goal. Help us keep this newsletter landing in your inbox every day and night. Every upgrade goes directly into funding the reporting you just read. Upgrade now →

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Good morning and welcome back to your am edition of the Democratic Wins Media newsletter. Trump was humiliated last night in South Carolina a Republican crowd booed the president out loud, on C-SPAN, in a room full of Republicans. That’s the shape of this morning: a party that still does what he says, and is getting louder about resenting it.

This morning’s three stories:

• A Republican crowd booed Trump during the concession speech — and the loser said the winner is good news for Democrats.

• Canada aimed its counter-tariffs at Republican districts — and the White House is scrambling for a response.

• Dolly Parton died Tuesday. Two states had already cut her book program. — 125,000 kids in Indiana, enrollment frozen in Missouri.

Before the news, a word about why this newsletter exists. The Ellison family now controls CBS News and CNN with Bari Weiss in charge. Bezos owns the Washington Post. Murdoch runs Fox and Roku. The billionaires are buying every outlet that could hold them accountable. Democratic Wins Media is the alternative: we’re fully reader-funded, editorially independent, and will never be purchased. If you have been reading on a free subscription, this morning is the moment to upgrade to a paying membership. Subscribe or upgrade right now.

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TRUMP HUMILIATED AS SOUTH CAROLINA REPUBLICANS BOO HIM INTO OBLIVION

Sen. Darline Graham won South Carolina’s Republican Senate primary runoff Tuesday, beating Rep. Ralph Norman roughly 52 percent to 48 percent. It took nearly everything the president had. Trump recruited Graham — a political newcomer appointed to the seat after her brother Lindsey Graham died July 11 of a heart condition — then endorsed her, headlined a Myrtle Beach rally for her Friday, ran a tele-rally Monday night, and pushed her repeatedly on Truth Social. Four points was the return. The real moment came afterward. Norman, conceding without a prepared speech, told supporters he never understood why the president got involved in the race. When he added that Trump “has that right,” the room booed. Norman said he’d accept the result but didn’t like it, claimed $8 million in outside PAC money was spent against him, and said his next role won’t be in politics. He also told his own supporters that Graham’s win is good news for Democrats: they got what they wanted.

Why it matters: Republicans booing the president at a Republican event in South Carolina is not a poll — it’s a room. Trump can still deliver a primary, but he’s now spending maximum political capital to move a deep-red electorate four points, and the people he beats are saying out loud that his pick is the weaker candidate. Graham faces Democratic nominee Annie Andrews, a pediatrician, in November.

By the numbers: A rally, a tele-rally, a personal endorsement, and days of Truth Social posts bought a 4-point margin in one of the reddest states in the country.

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CANADA LEAVES WHITE HOUSE SCRAMBLING AFTER MAKING CLEAR THEY WILL TARGET REPUBLICAN DISTRICTS IN TARIFF WAR

Prime Minister Mark Carney hit back Tuesday, and he hit back with a map. After trade talks collapsed Friday and the U.S. imposed 50 percent tariffs on roughly $20 billion in Canadian goods — using a never-before-invoked provision of the Depression-era Tariff Act of 1930 — Canada doubled its counter-tariffs on American steel and aluminum and added new duties on U.S. milk, furniture, clothing, and electronics. The total lands on about $20 billion in annual American exports. The Wall Street Journal reported the target list tracks hotly contested Republican-held districts that will decide control of Congress, including nearly 200 seafood products from Maine, where Sen. Susan Collins faces a competitive race. Bloomberg reported the administration is now weighing further penalties, with a White House official saying additional countermeasures are expected on top of a promised doubling of auto-parts tariffs. Trump’s public response Tuesday morning was to threaten to rename Lake Ontario “Lake America.”

Why it matters: The Journal’s own opinion page — Murdoch-owned, not exactly hostile territory — called this the president’s “dumbest” tariff plan yet and said a trade war with Canada makes no economic or political sense. Tariffs are paid by American importers, who eat the cost or pass it to customers. Canada picked the districts. Republicans in those districts will spend the fall explaining a price increase they didn’t vote for and can’t undo.

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REPUBLICAN STATES MOVE TO DEFUND DOLLY PARTON’S CHARITY BOOK PROGRAM

Dolly Parton died Tuesday in Nashville at 80, after what her publicist described as a brief battle with cancer. Her Imagination Library has mailed more than 300 million free books to children under five since 1995 and currently serves more than 3 million kids. In two states, it is being scaled back. Indiana’s Republican-controlled legislature eliminated the state’s 50 percent matching funds in its 2025 biennial budget, leaving local libraries and United Way chapters to cover a program reaching more than 125,000 Hoosier children; the state’s first lady, Maureen Braun, has been running a private fundraising drive to replace the money, and has not hit the target. Missouri cut its funding for the current fiscal year from about $6 million to $2 million, and the state froze new enrollment on July 1. Children already signed up keep receiving books while the money lasts. Washington state has also dropped its contribution. The charity said Tuesday the work ahead has never felt more meaningful.

Why it matters: These cuts happened months before Parton died — this isn’t a reaction to her death, and it shouldn’t be read as one. That’s precisely what makes it worth publishing today. Every politician in America spent Tuesday posting about how much Dolly Parton meant to them. Some of them had already voted to stop paying for the one thing she asked the country to help her do. The cut was contested inside the Indiana GOP, too, which tells you it was a choice and not an inevitability.

By the numbers: Missouri’s Imagination Library funding fell from $6 million to $2 million — a two-thirds cut, and no new children admitted since July 1.

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The Bottom Line: Trump can still win a primary in South Carolina, but he has to spend everything to do it, the room boos him anyway, and the bill for his trade war is coming due in the exact districts that decide November.

💪 How you can best help

Here’s the highest-leverage thing you can do this morning: become a paying subscriber. A Republican crowd in Columbia booing the president during a concession speech, Canada picking its retaliation targets by congressional district and the Journal’s own editors calling it the dumbest plan yet, and two states quietly walking away from a children’s book program the week its founder died — these are the stories that get flattened into “both sides are mad” when a newsroom answers to an owner with tariff exposure and business sitting in front of this administration. Democratic Wins Media doesn’t have one. We answer to readers, which is the only reason we can tell you when the news is good and still tell you not to relax. We’re running way behind on our August paid subscribers goal, so help us ensure this newsletter continues to land in your inbox each morning and evening. Every upgrade goes directly into funding the reporting you just read. Upgrade now →

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Good evening and welcome back to your evening edition of the Democratic Wins Media newsletter. Some nights the contrast writes itself. Tonight is one of those nights. In the span of about seventy-two hours, this administration argued in federal court that it may need to demolish the Kennedy Center, sent its vice president to Maine where he could not remember what country Canada is, and published a map of the United States that misplaced the nation’s capital and erased an entire state. Meanwhile — quietly, without cable news chyrons — Democrats spent the same seventy-two hours expanding the Senate map into Mississippi, moving to defend disabled Americans from a quiet DOJ end-run, and — within hours of losing at the Supreme Court — announcing they’d go right back to court to protect the mail-in ballot.

Tonight’s three stories:

• The administration says it might demolish the Kennedy Center — DOJ lawyers floated it in a court filing. In writing.

• Maine gave JD Vance a welcome he won’t forget — and then he forgot Canada is a country.

• The White House published a map that lost Maryland — Washington, D.C. is now somewhere south of Virginia Beach.

• Scroll to the bottom to find your Democratic Wins of the day.

Plus, Democratic Wins Media did some original reporting as we launched our YouTube channel. JPMorgan has a warning about what Donald Trump’s Hormuz disruption does to the price of food. Scroll to the bottom to find it.

Before the news, a word about why this newsletter exists. The Ellison family now controls CBS News and CNN with Bari Weiss in charge. Bezos owns the Washington Post. Murdoch runs Fox and Roku. The billionaires are buying every outlet that could hold them accountable. Democratic Wins Media is the alternative: we’re fully reader-funded, editorially independent, and will never be purchased. If you have been reading on a free subscription, this morning is the moment to upgrade to a paying membership. Subscribe or upgrade right now.

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TRUMP THROWS TANTRUM OVER KENNEDY CENTER

Justice Department lawyers representing the Kennedy Center raised the possibility of demolishing the building in a court filing Monday, arguing the venue faces “terminal decline” if President Trump’s sweeping renovation plans are blocked. According to media reports on the filing, government attorneys suggested the storied performing arts complex could be replaced by a large outdoor amphitheater overlooking the Potomac River. The threat landed eight months after the Kennedy Center’s board voted in December to rename the institution the Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts — a renaming that is itself the subject of ongoing dispute. The reaction was immediate and bipartisan in its disbelief. Former “Meet the Press” moderator Chuck Todd wrote that Trump “would rather destroy the Kennedy Center than see it left standing” without his name on it. Former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance noted that a future Congress could bar executive expenditures like this outright if enough members believe in the separation of powers. One immigration policy analyst compared the threat to menacing the Lincoln Memorial out of petulance.

Why it matters: A national memorial is not a bargaining chip, and the willingness to treat it as one tells you exactly how this administration understands public property — as leverage. Joyce Vance’s point is the operative one: the remedy here runs through Congress, and Congress runs through November.

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JD VANCE HUMILIATED ON CAMPAIGN TRAIL

Vice President JD Vance traveled to Brewer on Monday to campaign for Republican House candidate Paul LePage and was met by protesters lining the streets. Local outlets reported signs reading “Go Home HillBilly” — a jab at Vance’s 2016 memoir — alongside signs protesting the July killing of a man shot by an immigration agent in his vehicle in Biddeford. The trip did not improve from there. Asked about the president’s trade war with Canada and its effect on Maine — a state that shares a border with Canada — Vance acknowledged the stakes and then stumbled: “Canada is a state—sorry, Freudian slip,” he said, correcting himself to note that Canada is, in fact, a country. The slip came the same day Trump declared Canada would be treated like a state “no longer” while announcing fresh tariff threats, and hours before he pointedly referred to Prime Minister Mark Carney as “governor.” Pressed on the Biddeford shooting, Vance said he didn’t want to prejudge the case, then defended the agents anyway, and suggested Democrats concerned about killings by ICE should have “a little bit of perspective.”

Why it matters: Maine’s northern district is one of the seats that decides the House, and the administration sent its most fluent messenger to defend a tariff war against the state’s largest trading partner and an unexamined killing in one of its towns. He couldn’t do either. When your best communicator can’t make the case in the district, the case isn’t the problem — the policy is.

By the numbers: Trump announced new 50% tariffs on automobiles, auto parts, and steel on Monday, the same day Vance was in Maine telling voters the administration wants a fair deal.

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WHITE HOUSE EXPOSES THEIR LOW IQ AS THEY PUBLISH A MAP WITHOUT MARYLAND

The White House posted a map of the United States on X Tuesday to promote the president’s latest renaming project — relabeling the Great Lakes “Lake America” — and managed to mangle the country it governs. The image, made of colorful Lego bricks and apparently AI-generated, placed Washington, D.C. in a fictional stretch of coastline between Virginia and North Carolina, somewhere south of Virginia Beach, marked by a building only loosely resembling the Capitol. Delaware was labeled “Maryland,” which left the actual Maryland nowhere at all. New Jersey’s spot went to “Delaware,” New Jersey itself was fused with Connecticut, Rhode Island was flattened to a sliver, and New Hampshire stretched south to swallow the Massachusetts coastline. The post was still up Tuesday afternoon. One reply summed up the response: “And this is why kids, you need to stay in school.” It is not the administration’s first cartographic failure — last month the State Department presented a map of Africa at a global AIDS conference in Rio de Janeiro that, per a Reuters analysis, mislabeled every single country and carried the watermarks of the AI tool used to make it.

Why it matters: This is what the renaming obsession actually costs — public staff time, public money, and the credibility of the United States government, spent on relabeling lakes while a tariff war raises prices in the states this map couldn’t locate. Competence isn’t a personality trait. It’s a governing requirement, and it shows up in the small things first.

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DEMOCRATIC WINS OF THE DAY

Buttigieg puts Mississippi on the map — literally. Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg endorsed Democrat Scott Colom in the Mississippi Senate race, telling MS NOW that Democrats should stop conceding ruby-red states and expand the 2026 map. Colom — the Lowndes County district attorney whose federal judgeship Cindy Hyde-Smith personally blocked in 2023 — is now running against her, and would be Mississippi’s first Black senator since Reconstruction. It’s Buttigieg’s seventh non-incumbent Senate endorsement of a cycle in which he’s issued more than 80 endorsements across more than 30 states. Colom’s response: Mississippi isn’t a lost cause, it’s a betrayed one.

Ossoff moves to protect disabled Americans from a DOJ end-run. Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) opened a formal inquiry with Attorney General Todd Blanche over a June 18 Office of Legal Counsel opinion asserting that states are not required to provide community-based care for people with disabilities — a direct attack on the 1999 Supreme Court ruling in Olmstead v. L.C., which held that needlessly institutionalizing disabled Americans is discrimination under the ADA. Ossoff’s Aug. 19 letter demands the Department rescind what he called a shameful document, arriving as states absorb the largest Medicaid cuts in U.S. history.

Newsom answers a Supreme Court loss within hours. After the Supreme Court allowed the administration to move forward with its executive order on mail-in ballots, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Monday that California will sue again to stop it — saying the state will move “to block these Orwellian rules” from taking effect. He paired the announcement with an Election Protection package now in print in the Legislature: AB 282 (Pellerin) would make seizing ballots, election records, or certified voting equipment before certification a felony, and SB 259 (Wahab) would create a felony for any official who orders a subordinate to interfere with a mail ballot’s delivery or return. The state budget backs it with $29 million for county staffing and equipment to speed up counting, plus $10 million for voter outreach.

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JP Morgan predicts global food crisis due to Trump

2.8% → 5%. That’s how fast JPMorgan expects global food inflation to accelerate between the first half of this year and the first half of 2027, according to an Aug. 15 report from a research team led by senior global economist Nora Szentivanyi. The bank points to five compounding pressures — war, weather, warehousing, water, and waste — and singles out fertilizer as the most immediate vulnerability. Qatar and Iran alone supplied roughly 18% of the world’s urea exports last year, and shipping disruption around the Strait of Hormuz puts those cargoes at risk. Here’s the part worth sitting with: when oil supply gets squeezed, countries tap strategic petroleum reserves. There is no equivalent global fertilizer reserve. Nothing to draw down.

Why it matters: The administration picked the fight that closed the Strait of Hormuz, and the bill for it doesn’t stop at the gas pump — it runs through fertilizer, through next year’s harvest, and eventually through the grocery aisle. “Affordability” isn’t a slogan Democrats invented for the midterms. It’s the thing this White House keeps making worse in ways it never bothers to explain.

Our full reporting on this is on our YouTube linked below.

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The Bottom Line: A government that can’t find Maryland on a map of America is asking you to trust it with the Kennedy Center, the Canadian border, and the next two years — and in about ten weeks, you get to answer.

💪 How you can best help

Here’s the highest-leverage thing you can do tonight: become a paying subscriber. Federal lawyers arguing in a court filing that a national memorial may need to come down, a vice president who needed a do-over to remember Canada is a country while standing in a border state, and an official White House map that put the capital south of Virginia Beach and deleted Maryland outright — these are the stories that get flattened into “both sides are mad” when a newsroom answers to an owner with construction contracts, naming rights, and business pending before the same administration handing them out. Democratic Wins Media doesn’t have one. We answer to readers, which is the only reason we can tell you when the news is good and still tell you not to relax. We’re running way behind on our August paid subscribers goal. Every upgrade goes directly into funding the reporting you just read. Upgrade now →

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Good morning and welcome back to your am edition of the Democratic Wins Media newsletter. We have three stories for you this morning, but they all share a similar thread: somebody is paying for this, and it isn’t the people who started it. A Canadian premier told Donald Trump that the man whose portrait sits near his desk would be sick to his stomach. American cattle ranchers — including a lot of Republicans — found out their president’s plan to lower beef prices runs through Argentina. And the president’s own trade representative went on television and told you, with a straight face, that a 50% tariff war with our second-largest trading partner has “no possible way” of touching your life. You’re already paying for it.

Here’s what we’re covering:

• “Reagan would be throwing up.” Ontario’s Doug Ford threatens to cut off electricity and critical minerals as Trump’s 50% tariffs land.

• American farmers lose it on Trump’s latest plan: 300,000 metric tons of imported trimmings, and even Republican senators from cattle country are balking.

• “No possible way it can really affect US well-being.” The line Trump’s trade rep delivered on CNBC yesterday, checked against the receipts.

Before the news, a word about why this newsletter exists. The Ellison family now controls CBS News and CNN with Bari Weiss in charge. Bezos owns the Washington Post. Murdoch runs Fox and Roku. The billionaires are buying every outlet that could hold them accountable. Democratic Wins Media is the alternative: we’re fully reader-funded, editorially independent, and will never be purchased. If you have been reading on a free subscription, this morning is the moment to upgrade to a paying membership. Subscribe or upgrade right now.

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A CANADIAN PREMIER JUST TOLD TRUMP TO KISS HIS A$$ ON LIVE TV

Ontario Premier Doug Ford spent Monday describing, in detail, what he thinks Ronald Reagan would make of Donald Trump’s trade war. Reagan, Ford said, would be “throwing up on him from the picture if he knew what was going on, spinning around in his grave right now.” He also told Trump that he could kiss his a** on live TV.

The occasion: roughly $20 billion in Canadian goods — alcohol, hockey equipment, cement, dairy — got hit with 50% U.S. tariffs over the weekend after trade talks collapsed. Trump has threatened another 50% on Canadian autos, auto parts and steel next year. Ford’s answer was to put Ontario’s leverage on the table. On critical minerals: “I’ll cut them off. You won’t get a grain of sand out of Ontario.” On electricity: “We power 1.5 million homes and businesses. Everything’s on the table.”

Trump responded on Truth Social that Canada “has been ripping off the United States of America for years” and told Canadian leaders to “fall in line” or face consequences that would be “far WORSE.” Prime Minister Mark Carney has already announced dollar-for-dollar retaliation beginning September 8.

Why it matters: Reagan is the one Republican icon this administration can’t dismiss as a RINO, and his position on tariffs is on tape — which is exactly why Ford keeps reaching for him. When the argument against Trump’s trade policy is being made most effectively by invoking the last Republican president conservatives universally revere, the fight isn’t left versus right. It’s Trump versus arithmetic.

By the numbers: $376 billion in U.S.–Canada trade in the first half of 2026 alone.

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AMERICA’S FARMERS LOSE IT ON TRUMP AFTER LATEST EXECUTIVE ORDER

Trump announced last week that he’ll sign an executive order bringing in 300,000 metric tons of tariff-free imported lean beef trimmings, which he said would sell at “25 percent below current market prices.” He did not say where the beef would come from. In February he signed an order raising Argentine beef imports by 80,000 metric tons.

John Boyd Jr., president of the National Black Farmers Association and a cattle and soybean farmer himself, went on MS NOW Monday and called it what it is: “I believe that this is a raw deal.” Trump, he said, “keeps making the announcement that he loves farmers, he loves cattlemen, and then undermines us.” Boyd’s read on who actually benefits: “This is more about helping meatpackers… he put the American farmers last.”

He is not alone, and this is the part that should worry the White House. Republican Sens. Tim Sheehy of Montana, Pete Ricketts of Nebraska and Deb Fischer of Nebraska — a cattle rancher — all pushed back. The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association warned about “flooding the market with government-subsidized, below-market beef.” Cattle futures fell.

Why it matters: Ground beef hit $6.89 a pound in July, and the administration’s answer is a one-time import surge that undercuts the American ranchers who’d have to rebuild the herd. Democrats have been making the structural argument for months — Chuck Schumer’s Family Grocery and Farmer Relief Act, introduced May 4, goes after the four companies that control 85% of the beef market rather than papering over the problem with foreign trimmings. Rural voters can tell the difference between a policy and a press release.

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TRUMP’S TRADE REP SAYS NOTHING CAN GO WRONG WITH THEIR TRADE WAR IN CANADA

U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer went on CNBC’s Squawk Box Monday morning to reassure America that a 50% tariff war with Canada is, economically speaking, a rounding error.

“There’s no possible way it can really affect US well-being,” Greer said. “This is 5% of imports from Canada. It’s 0.06% of our overall consumption in this economy.”

Well. Let’s check.

The Tax Foundation estimates Trump’s tariffs will raise taxes by an average of $840 per U.S. household in 2026, pushing the average effective tariff rate to 7.2% from 2.4% in 2024. Federal Reserve researchers have found close to full pass-through of tariff costs to consumers. And that’s before the other war: the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy’s tracker puts the added fuel cost from the Iran conflict at roughly $604 per household as of today — about $80.8 billion nationwide, and that’s only gasoline and diesel. New York’s wine exports to Canada are already down 77% year over year. Canada is our second-largest trading partner. You do not get to call that a rounding error.

Why it matters: A tariff is a tax. Americans are paying two of them right now — one at the register and one at the pump — and the administration’s response is to insist the second decimal place proves you’re imagining it. The job of a president facing $6.89 ground beef and $80 billion in war-driven fuel costs is to find ways to bring costs down, not to invent new ones and then tell you they don’t count. If Greer genuinely believes 0.06% is too small to notice, we’d invite him to give back 0.06% of his paycheck and see how long he goes without mentioning it.

THE BOTTOM LINE

When a Canadian premier has to invoke Ronald Reagan to explain your trade policy to your own party, when Republican ranchers are the ones warning you about your beef plan, and when your trade rep’s best defense is a number with two zeros after the decimal point — the argument is over. All that’s left is deciding who pays, and in November, who answers for it.

💪 HOW YOU CAN BEST HELP

Here’s the highest-leverage thing you can do this morning: become a paying subscriber. A Canadian premier telling Trump that Reagan would be throwing up over his tariffs, Republican senators from cattle country breaking with their own president over 300,000 metric tons of imported beef, and a U.S. trade representative going on CNBC to call a 50% trade war “0.06% of our overall consumption” while the average household eats $840 in tariff costs — these are the stories that get flattened into “both sides are mad” when a newsroom answers to an owner with his own import exposure and his own business pending before this administration. Democratic Wins Media doesn’t have one. We answer to readers, which is the only reason we can tell you when the news is good and still tell you not to relax. We’re running way behind on our August paid subscribers goal. Help us ensure this newsletter continues to land in your inbox every morning and night. Every upgrade goes directly into funding the reporting you just read. Upgrade now →

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Good evening and welcome back to your nightly edition of the Democratic Wins Media newsletter. Today was one of those days where the story told itself. Trump’s own biographer went on national television and said he’s proud when Republicans lose. His own favorite fact-checkers can’t keep up with the lies he’s telling about Canada. And a Republican icon went on his friendliest network to say the trade war he started is going to cost you money.

Nobody had to spin any of this. They said it out loud.

Here’s what we’re covering:

• Maggie Haberman says Trump is proud when Republicans lose. Not a slip — she reports he’s said it to people directly.

• CNN’s Daniel Dale needed a list to keep up with Trump’s Canada falsehoods. Unemployment, trade, tariffs, the military — nearly every number was wrong.

• Steve Forbes went on Fox Business and warned Trump the Canada war will hurt. When Forbes is telling Republicans a tariff is a tax, the argument is over.

Before the news, a word about why this newsletter exists. The Ellison family now controls CBS News and CNN with Bari Weiss in charge. Bezos owns the Washington Post. Murdoch runs Fox and Roku. The billionaires are buying every outlet that could hold them accountable. Democratic Wins Media is the alternative: we’re fully reader-funded, editorially independent, and will never be purchased. If you have been reading on a free subscription, this evening is the moment to upgrade to a paying membership. Subscribe or upgrade right now.

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TRUMP EXPOSED FOR CELEBRATING WHEN REPUBLICANS OTHER THAN HIM LOSE

Maggie Haberman — the New York Times correspondent who has covered Donald Trump longer and closer than almost any reporter alive — said this morning on Morning Joe that Trump is not especially interested in whether his party wins.

“This domestic politicking bores him,” Haberman said. Then the part that landed: “He has told people, and we wrote about this in the book, that he is proud Republicans don’t do well when he’s not on the ballot.”

Not “doesn’t care.” Proud.

Haberman reported that instead of midterm strategy, Trump’s attention is on his White House ballroom project — her explanation of the motive was simply “because he can” — and on insulating himself and his associates from investigations through pardons and expanded executive-privilege claims.

Why it matters: Every Republican on a 2026 ballot is running for a president who, by his biographer’s reporting, would privately enjoy watching them lose. That is not a party with a governing agenda. It’s a party working for one man’s ego, and voters in competitive districts are being asked to pay the bill for it.

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CNN BRUTALLY FACT CHECKS TRUMP’S CANADA LIES

CNN’s Daniel Dale, the closest thing American journalism has to an official Trump-statement referee, went through the president’s recent claims about Canada and found falsehood stacked on falsehood — calling the sheer number of them remarkable.

The tape, briefly:

Trump said Canadian unemployment is “10% and rapidly rising.” It’s 6.4%, and it has been declining for three months. He said Canada does 95% of its business with the United States; 72% of Canadian exports went to the U.S. last year. He blamed the entire U.S. trade deficit on Canadian agricultural tariffs — but roughly 97% of U.S. agricultural exports to Canada enter tariff-free, and the deficit is driven overwhelmingly by American imports of cheap Canadian crude oil. He claimed Canada doesn’t buy American farm goods; Canada is the second-biggest buyer on earth. He claimed Canadians want to be the 51st state; they overwhelmingly oppose it. He called Canada a high-tariff country; it ranks low in WTO tariff rankings. He suggested Canada lacks a military; Canadians have fought and died alongside Americans in war after war.

Why it matters: These aren’t rhetorical flourishes. They’re the stated justification for a 50% tariff that American families and manufacturers will pay for. When the premise is false at nearly every point, the policy isn’t a strategy — it’s a story he’s telling, and you’re getting the invoice.

By the numbers: Canada’s real unemployment rate is 6.4% — not the “10% and rapidly rising” Trump claimed.

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FOX NEWS GO TO WAR AGAINST DONALD TRUMP’S TRADE WAR WITH CANADA

Here is the tell. When Trump’s trade war needs defending, he sends it to friendly television. Today the friendly television wouldn’t defend it.

Steve Forbes — publishing magnate, two-time Republican presidential candidate, the man who ran on a flat tax and has spent forty years as a conservative economic standard-bearer — appeared on Fox Business’s Varney & Co. as Canada promised to match Trump’s 50% tariffs dollar for dollar. Asked about it, Forbes didn’t defend the president. He warned him.

“These threats just create uncertainty which hurts economic growth and investment,” Forbes said. He went further, laying out the case in language no Republican wants on tape: “Tariff is another word for tax, and putting taxes on products means there’s less economic activity, period.” Then the kicker, aimed squarely at his own party: “Republicans should know that.”

Forbes also noted a practical problem Trump has never addressed — American refineries are built for Canadian crude and “can’t use any other kinds.”

Why it matters: Democrats have been making this exact argument for months and getting called anti-growth for it. Now a Republican icon is making it on Trump’s favorite business network, and there’s no way to dismiss Steve Forbes as a liberal. The trade war doesn’t have an economic defense anymore. It only has loyalty.

You can watch our YouTube video covering Trump’s trade war here:

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Democratic Wins of the Day

Josh Shapiro named the actual scam. At a campaign stop in Lebanon, Pennsylvania on Saturday, the governor cut through the affordability talk to the point: “When he’s sitting behind the desk in the Oval Office, he’s not thinking about how to put money in your pocket… He’s thinking about how to put money in his own.” On the tariffs, he was blunter still — Trump “slaps a 50% tariff on our Canadian neighbors. By the way, Pennsylvania’s No. 1 trading partner” — and called the policy “literally just a tax on the American people.”

Tammy Duckworth is forcing Hegseth to answer for the USS Abraham Lincoln. The combat-wounded Army veteran joined 14 Senate colleagues demanding written answers from the Defense Secretary after reports of a man-overboard incident and deteriorating conditions aboard a carrier that has gone over 200 consecutive days without a port call — a modern record. The senators also demanded a bipartisan congressional delegation be allowed aboard. Their line to Hegseth: “It is time for you to demonstrate leadership, rather than peddle excuses.”

Mark Kelly’s 2028 stock keeps climbing. The astronaut-turned-senator who led that letter to Hegseth has moved from 3% to 10% among likely New Hampshire Democratic primary voters between October and February — the largest gain of anyone in the field, per the University of New Hampshire Survey Center — after a Granite State swing for Senate candidate Chris Pappas. This month, 314 Action Fund, which has raised over $100 million in the past decade, publicly urged him to run: “If Mark Kelly ran, we’d be there day one.”

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The Bottom Line

When the president’s own biographer, his own favorite fact-checker, and a Republican icon on his own network all tell the truth about him on the same day, the problem isn’t the messaging — it’s him.

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Here's the highest-leverage thing you can do this morning: become a paying subscriber. The president's own biographer reporting he's proud when Republicans lose without him, a fact-checker needing a running list to keep up with the falsehoods propping up a 50% tariff, and Steve Forbes going on Fox Business to tell his own party that a tariff is a tax — these are the stories that get flattened into "both sides are mad" when a newsroom answers to an owner with tariff exposure and business before this administration. Democratic Wins Media doesn't have one. We answer to readers, which is the only reason we can tell you when the news is good and still tell you not to relax. We're running way behind on our August paid subscribers goal. Every upgrade goes directly into funding the reporting you just read. Upgrade now →

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