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Letters from an American
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In the election of 1920, Americans handed a landslide victory to the Republicans and their presidential candidate Warren G. Harding, giving them control of both Congress and the White House. After the moralizing of the Progressive Era and the horrors of World War I and the Spanish flu epidemic that followed it, Americans looked forward to an era of “normalcy.” Once in charge, Republicans rejected the Progressive Era notion that the government should regulate business and protect workers and consumers. Instead they turned the government over to businessmen, believing that only men who had built businesses truly understood how to build the country. Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon—one of the richest men in America—cut taxes on the wealthy to spur investment in industry. He also gave rebates and tax abatements: between 1921 and 1929 he returned $3.5 billion to wealthy men. At the same time, Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover, who had made a fortune as a mining engineer and consultant, expanded his department to fifteen thousand employees with a budget of more than 37 million dollars, working as a liaison between businessmen and the government and helping businesses to avoid antitrust lawsuits. He urged European countries to buy American. Their policies seemed to work brilliantly. Between 1925 and 1926, more than twenty-two thousand new manufacturing companies formed. Industrial production took off. Business profits rose, and if wages didn’t rise much, they didn’t fall, either. And oh, the changes the new economy brought! By 1929, more than two thirds of American homes had electricity, which brought first electric lights, then refrigerators, washing machines, vacuum cleaners, toasters, and radios. Consumers rushed to buy them, along with ready-made clothing, beauty products, and cars, all of which the new advertising industry, which grew out of the government propaganda campaigns of World War I, promised would bring them glamor, sophistication, romance, and power. In the Roaring Twenties, it seemed that government and business had finally figured out how to combine government promotion with the efficiency of an industrial economy to benefit everyone. Business was booming, standards of living were rising, and Americans were finding the time to read, learn, invent, and improve. In 1928, Republicans tapped Hoover for president. He promised that continuing the policies of the last eight years would bring the U.S. “in sight of the day when poverty will be banished from this nation.” He won with a whopping 58.2% of the vote. With Hoover in the White House, Americans wanted in on the inevitable growth of the economy. They invested in industries producing steel, coal, and consumer goods, and in utilities and transportation. Stock prices rose. And rose, and rose. By 1929 the rush to buy stocks had become a rush to speculate in the stock market. Prices that in spring 1928 had seemed too high to be real were laughably low by fall. Radio had been at 94½ in March 1928; by September 1929 it was 101 but had split so often that the holdings from 1928 were actually worth 505. And so it went, down the stock lists. Those with less money to burn could get into the market by buying on margin, putting down 10 or 20 percent of the cost of a stock and borrowing the rest from a broker with the promise that the loans would be paid off by the anticipated increase in the stock’s value. Those excited by the scene dismissed skeptics who warned that stock prices were a bubble as ignorant, anti-American naysayers. “Be a bull on America!” boosters urged. “Never sell the United States short!” October 24, a Thursday, was the beginning of the end. Heavy trading in the morning slowed the ticker tape that recorded trades. Brokers fearful of being caught sold more and more heavily. When the tape finally caught up after 7:00 that night, it showed that an astonishing 12,894,650 shares had changed hands. By afternoon, bankers managed to shore up the market, which regained…
Heather Cox Richardson ·
Despite Trump’s statement yesterday that billionaire Elon Musk had removed the restrictions from Starlink and Starshield that are crippling Ukraine’s ability to protect itself from Russia, Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky said today the restrictions continue. An article published tonight by Anton Troianovski and Eric Lipton in the New York Times sheds a spotlight on the oil deals that lie behind Trump’s rush to normalize relations with Russia at Ukraine’s expense, as well as repeated statements from him and his cronies that they want to open up business transactions with Russia as incentives for Russia’s president Vladimir Putin to stop his war on Ukraine—an argument that, on its face, never made sense. Troianovski and Lipton report that a project designed to liquefy natural gas in Alaska and export it would not only use Russian technology but also be funded with money from a Russian company close to Putin that is currently under U.S. sanctions. That company, Novatek, told the reporters that it is planning to take “minority shareholder” status in the Polar LNG project, a move the reporters call “a striking effort by the Russian energy giant to seek ownership of American gas production.” U.S. sanctions against Novatek mean Polar LNG would need special permission from the Treasury Department to use Novatek’s equipment. The Graham Act sanctions bill Congress recently passed specifically targets Novatek because of its ties to Putin—a likely reason that Trump just waived the new sanctions just two days before they were to go into effect. Joel Riddle, the chief executive officer of the company, Polar LNG, resigned when he learned that the funding came not from the United Arab Emirates, as he had been told, but from Russia. “It’s not only unlawful, but it’s not in the U.S. interest to have Russian technology controlling the commercialization of Arctic gas in the North Slope,” Riddle told the New York Times reporters. At least two other Polar LNG executives have also resigned, citing their concerns about the Russian financing. Talks about gas in Alaska were joined with talks about the sale of parts of Russian energy giant Lukoil to the U.S. government and investors, some of whom are tied to Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and special envoy—and business partner—Steve Witkoff. Also involved in the Alaska project is Gentry Beach, who was a college friend of Donald Trump Jr. It seems that Trump, Putin, and their allies in the administration are trying to replace the post–World War II international order and carve the world up into the system of spheres of influence they want as quickly as possible before the midterms. Central to those systems are private deals that enrich Trump and his cronies. On October 20, Cate Brown, Aaron C. Davis, and Sebastian Rotella of ProPublica reported that the deal to capture Venezuela’s oil sets up a strategic partnership between the U.S. and a Venezuelan oligarch, Alejandro Betancourt, who has been accused of money laundering. A deal signed by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio calls for the U.S. to take a 35% stake in Betancourt’s firm, North American Blue Energy Partners, by buying shares in a parent company that’s registered in Barbados. A source told the ProPublica reporters that the people making the deal wanted to work with Betancourt because a publicly traded company would have to report to shareholders. They wanted flexibility and secrecy. The registration of the parent company in Barbados enables the identities of its investors, who could make fortunes from the deal, to remain hidden. In exchange for the investment, the U.S. can buy up to 20% of the oil produced at a steep discount, but that cost doesn’t factor in moving the oil, which is so thick it has to be blended with other products to flow through pipes. Betancourt’s company currently produces only as much oil in one year as the U.S. uses in three days. The U.S. insists the deal is a good one for both co…
Heather Cox Richardson ·
Talk & Draw with Liza Donnelly & Heather Cox Richardson Lots of people worked long and hard to try to make sure all Americans could vote. Today is the anniversary of just one of those efforts: the 1915 New York City Women’s March. — Notes: You can find Liza Donnelly at her Substack: Seeing Things.
Heather Cox Richardson ·
Alexander Ward and Lara Seligman of the Wall Street Journal reported today that Trump called Elon Musk yesterday to ask him to stop throttling Starlink’s military-grade communications system, Starshield, in Ukraine. Slowing down the system degrades Ukraine’s defenses as well as its offensive drones, leaving it even more vulnerable to Russian attacks. Russia’s president Vladimir Putin has taken advantage of this vulnerability by increasing strikes against Ukraine’s civilians. The whole question of who ordered the slowdown in the first place remains a blame game between Trump and Musk, both of whom support Russia in its war on Ukraine. Members of the administration, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and U.S. ambassador to NATO Matt Whitaker, have tried to sell the slowdown as a business decision that Musk has the authority to make. Whitaker told the Fox News Channel yesterday: “They are a private company. Obviously they have terms of use that are applied to all of their customers, including the Ukrainians, and I think it’s more of a dispute along those lines…than anybody in this administration trying to change the way that Starshield or Starlink is used.” Strategic studies scholar Phillips P. O’Brien wasn’t buying that explanation, posting that it is evident “the White House is desperately trying to make [Musk] the fall guy for what is happening to Ukraine.” He continued: “If Trump wanted to help Ukraine militarily and with starshield he could. He is president. He doesn’t want to.” But it is simply astonishing that the president of the United States, the commander in chief of the United States military, is suggesting he had to negotiate with a private citizen to tell him to stop interfering with American foreign policy. This afternoon, asked about the call, Trump told reporters: “[I]t was a very interesting situation. So I don’t want to comment one way or the other, but, uh, my re—, my relationship with Elon is a very good one.” He reiterated: “I don’t want to comment on it. You know, whether I called or whether somebody else called, doesn’t make any difference. I guess the bottom line, he put it back.” It remains unclear if the Ukrainians do, in fact, have full use of the networks again. Siobhán O’Grady, Carlotta Gall, and Anton Troianovski of the New York Times reported yesterday that a senior Ukrainian commander told them he had lost more than a million dollars worth of drones when Starshield went fuzzy from the slowdown. For the next three days, he had to stop almost all operations, endangering his troops by hampering their ability to stop Russian advances by striking Russian command posts and fuel hubs. Meanwhile, Bloomberg reported today that officials from Rosneft, Russia’s biggest oil producer, say sanctions and Ukrainian drone strikes that are pushing deeper and deeper into Russia threaten the company’s survival. Profits for the company, which produces about a third of Russia’s oil, are falling and its debt is rising as the strikes cause fuel shortages. Ukrainians are repeatedly hitting the refineries, one as far as 2,500 kilometers (about 1,553 miles) from the border, first damaging the structures and then destroying repairs after workers have rebuilt the structures, forcing the company to take on more and more debt as it shovels money into repairs that don’t survive. Even when it can find the money, sanctions limit its ability to replace equipment. The officials say even a few more months of war could destroy Rosneft. The crisis explains why Putin and Trump are so desperate to stop Ukrainian attacks on Russia’s oil refineries and to lift sanctions on Russia. Rosneft’s loans from the Credit Bank of Moscow are becoming problematic, straining the bank. In a sign this year’s writers are straining to make things as obvious as possible, Alex Horton and Dan Lamothe of the Washington Post broke the story today that in February, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth apparently decided he wanted to display in his office one of…
Heather Cox Richardson ·
In which I try to answer your questions about modern politics.... In today’s Politics Chat: Trump said he asked Elon Musk to lift restrictions on Starlink and Starshield, the communications networks Ukraine relies on to fight off Russia. The slowdown of those networks during a massive Russian barrage left Ukraine unable to defend against incoming drones and missiles. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton suggested that Vladimir Putin has something on Trump. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s staff dropped and damaged a globe Dwight Eisenhower used to plan World War II. White House leaks suggest aides are jockeying for power as Trump heads toward lame duck status. Vice President JD Vance backed Vivek Ramaswamy’s attack ad against Amy Acton, which drew bipartisan revulsion. Secretary of State Marco Rubio appears to be iced out of talks with Russia. Republicans timed the biggest Medicaid and SNAP cuts in their budget bill for after the midterms. New candidates across the country are reshaping American politics much as in the 1850s. Attorney General Todd Blanche would not rule out challenging some votes. Get full, free access to Letters from an American here. You can also find Heather: YouTube Bluesky Instagram Facebook Threads TikTok
Heather Cox Richardson ·
In which I try to answer your questions about modern politics.... In today’s Politics Chat: Socialism is a system in which the government owns the means of production. After the Civil War, opponents of Black voting used the term socialism to attack Black political participation. Two days before congressionally mandated sanctions on Russia were set to take effect, Trump said he would waive them. Russia has proposed a trilateral meeting with Trump and Chinese president Xi Jinping to decide the fate of Ukraine. Ukrainian forces lost control of their drones when Starlink slowed during one of the worst bombardments of the war. The Wall Street Journal reported that Elon Musk ordered the slowdown. Europe and Canada are working to build their own satellite systems. Republicans in Congress say they are frustrated with Trump’s actions, but they have not moved to stop him. Trump announced $8 billion for farmers, but payment rates will not be announced until after the election. Get full, free access to Letters from an American here. You can also find Heather: YouTube Bluesky Instagram Facebook Threads TikTok
Heather Cox Richardson ·
Get full, free access to Letters from an American here. You can also find Heather: YouTube Bluesky Instagram Facebook Threads TikTok
Heather Cox Richardson ·
Everything feels out of whack in the United States. First of all, the president’s behavior is becoming more and more erratic. Earlier this week, he walked past the open door of his armored car, known as “The Beast” and wandered toward an open field before Secret Service agents redirected him. And he is losing any filter he used to have. At campaign rallies, he has taken to commenting on how he finds Ohio Republican senator Jon Husted physically attractive. “I looked at his a‑‑, and then I looked at his legs, and my—I said, ‘His a‑‑ is like, it’s like a pile of muscle.’ Then I looked at his legs, and I said, ‘Man, his feet are big.’ Then I looked at his shoulders, and I tapped him on the shoulder, and it actually hurt my hand. It was like a piece of steel. I said, ‘This guy’s a monster.’” Today he snarled at CNN’s Kaitlan Collins: “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re a dummy. You’re a low-IQ person, you’re a dummy, and you work for CNN.” In the news, Trump’s abandonment of the traditional allies of the United States to embrace Vladimir Putin and Russia remains front and center. Today, videos circulated of Trump’s special envoy to Russia, Steve Witkoff, praising Putin as a “humanitarian” even as the Russian military continues to bombard Ukrainian civilians, this week killing a baby in a stroller at a public park. Today, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton told Kara Swisher: “I continue to believe that Putin has things on Trump. I continue to believe that he is holding photos, videos, whatever it might be.” Clinton reiterated that Trump “is a willing Putin puppet to help Putin. Putin’s not going to stop with Ukraine…. I guess Trump has this idea that he wants to divide the world,” Clinton said. “He gets the Western Hemisphere, Putin gets Russia and Europe, and Xi Jinping gets the rest of the world.” Meanwhile, Trump claims he had nothing to do with the slowing of Starlink over Ukraine, telling a reporter: “I wasn’t involved.” When asked if Elon Musk ordered it, Trump responded: “I don’t know who did it, but I was not involved.” Congress members, including Republicans, have vowed to hold whoever was responsible for the cuts accountable. Representative Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) said on Monday that those limiting Starshield “will be fully investigated and will be held fully accountable.” He said Congress would investigate and mete out “immediate harsh and punitive budget cuts to any responsible agency or agency head.” Musk is not taking that threat calmly. In response to a report by Calen Razor in Politico that Democrats intend to investigate Musk’s role in cutting Ukraine’s access to Starlink communications networks, leaving Ukraine vulnerable to Russian attacks, Musk posted on social media: “Live by the sword, die by the sword. Those who pick fights with me should understand that I will find out who is really pulling the strings and come for them, not just their puppets …” His was a shocking threat against members of Congress, but the move of Europeans and Canadians to develop their own satellite communications systems given the dangers of relying on Starlink seems to be worrying Musk. If Congress also moves the United States away from his contracts, he could be in real trouble. As Douglas P. McCormick noted in Fortune last June, Musk’s trillion-dollar fortune is not real. Almost all of his net worth is unrealized equity in companies he runs. His wealth is simply the market’s estimate of the worth of his promises to deliver in the future, and those promises depend on government contracts. Americans are beginning to see the costs of Trumpism more generally. As Paul Krugman noted in his newsletter this morning, twelve million Americans have lost healthcare coverage under Trump, and those who still have it have seen the cost of their premiums rise sharply. The situation will get worse in the future, since when they wrote their One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Republicans put the worst of their cuts off until after the mi…
Heather Cox Richardson ·
A blockbuster story in the Wall Street Journal tonight by Alexander Ward, Natalie Andrews, and Josh Dawsey says that it was billionaire Elon Musk who ordered Space X to slow down its service in Ukraine, rendering some drones that stopped incoming missiles and others aimed at Russian targets useless. The reporters say it is unclear if Musk operated without input from White House officials. Some of their sources say he did; others say he coordinated with multiple senior officials, including Trump. According to Jennifer Jacobs of CBS News, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth appeared to try to dismiss the slowdown as a business decision: “We haven’t pulled anything back. There are terms of service that ultimately need to be complied to. And that’s where Starlink has the option to make those decisions, but nothing’s changed from our view. We haven’t made any directives or anything like that.” He added: “[W]e wish the Ukrainians, obviously, success.” After the slowdown caused a public uproar, the Wall Street Journal reporters write, representatives from SpaceX, the parent company of Starlink, called the White House to coordinate messaging to say that Starlink and the administration had agreed to the slowdown ahead of time. Musk’s decision to change the course of a war with “a seeming flick of a switch,” taking it upon himself, with or without the complicity of White House officials, to reverse the foreign policy of the United States of America for the benefit of Russia’s president Vladimir Putin, is a stunning assumption of power reminiscent of Revolutionary War general Benedict Arnold’s weakening of the Americans’ defenses and draining of supplies at the strategic fort at West Point to enable the British to capture it before he was discovered and defected to the British Army. Another lens through which to see this story is the apparent eagerness of White House officials to turn Musk into a scapegoat for a decision they were happy to endorse until it blew up in their faces. A New York Times story by Tyler Pager suggests a different leak from the White House. Pager relates that billionaire Venezuelan banker Julio Herrera Velutini wanted a presidential pardon. His family hired Alina Habba, a former Trump lawyer who at the time was working at the Justice Department, as general counsel at a company, Concord Partners, that was launched by Herrera’s daughter, has no public profile and whose business is unclear. Habba’s contract is worth more than $50 million over four years. Just weeks after she began to work for Concord Partners, Trump granted Herrera a full pardon. Habba denied having any role in the pardon and refused to describe her work for Concord Partners, but Pager reports that “[p]eople familiar with Ms. Habba’s contract said they believed that she was brought in to help with Mr. Herrera’s push for a pardon and expressed surprise at the scale of the compensation.” Thomas Frank at Politico received a recording of a speech Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Administrator Cameron Hamilton gave today at a private conference in Little Rock, Arkansas, in which he said the Trump administration plans to shift responsibility for disaster management to the states. Hamilton’s speech built on an internal memo from October 15, which Frank also covered, that said the administration seeks to turn disaster response over to local and state government, thereby “reducing federal dependency.” “Federal dollars should be building greater capability, not creating greater dependency,” Hamilton said today. Today Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan of the New York Times reported that sources have told them that Trump wants to move the press out of the White House and that Bill Pulte, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency who has pushed to go after Trump’s political opponents for mortgage fraud, is one of those pushing the idea of restoring the press briefing room to its original form as a swimming pool. Another is Boris Epshteyn, the lawyer…
Heather Cox Richardson ·
I am just through the door from several days’ travel and am wiped out, so this will not be a real letter. Instead, just two observations. First: it was exactly ten years ago tonight that then–Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton told the American people that Russian president Vladimir Putin hoped to have a “puppet” in the White House, and that Donald Trump was that puppet. A scowling Trump responded: “No puppet. No puppet.” Clinton continued: “It’s pretty clear. Trump interjected: “You’re the puppet.” Clinton continued: “It’s pretty clear you won’t admit…” Trump interjected: “No, you’re the puppet.” Clinton: “...that the Russians have engaged in cyberattacks against the United States of America, that you encouraged espionage against our people, that you are willing to spout the Putin line, sign up for his wish list, break up NATO, do whatever he wants to do, and that you continue to get help from him because he has a very clear favorite in this race.” Trump shook his head disparagingly. Ten years later, Trump is openly embracing Putin and is working to destroy the strongest and most successful alliance in human history to cement that partnership, apparently with an eye to enriching himself. And so, the events of the present change the way we see the past. Had Trump strongly supported Ukraine as Congress has demanded, and stood firm against Russia, a country that is, after all, a minor economic player whose military is flailing at its attempt to absorb its neighbor, we would rightly dismiss Clinton’s warning as campaign hyperbole. As it is, though, Trump’s tie to Putin—the story he has always tried to bury by calling it the “Russia, Russia, Russia hoax”—seems likely to emerge as the central story of the Trump years. As Clinton wrote today: “In just the last few days: Trump made a deal for the U.S. to buy Russian diesel, an economic lifeline for Putin; he and Elon Musk blamed each other for an order that slowed down Starlink satellite connectivity over Ukraine, hampering the country’s defenses during a devastating Russian attack; and Trump waived sanctions on Russia that Congress, led by his late friend Lindsey Graham, had pushed for. Now, Putin has proposed a summit with Trump and Xi to decide Ukraine’s fate for them, bulldoze a century of international cooperation, and frame Russia as an equal to the U.S. and China. “We’ll see if Putin’s puppet continues to dance on his strings.” Second, as no one paying even a modicum of attention can have missed, Trump is so unpopular that support for Republicans has fallen into historically low numbers. The gutting of Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), tariffs that have destroyed markets for agricultural products and increased prices, the war on Iran that has sent prices of gasoline and especially diesel soaring and thus increased the cost of everything that travels by train or truck, the blatant corruption that is lining the pockets of Trump and his cronies while ordinary Americans can’t make ends meet, and now Trump’s open embrace of Russian president Vladimir Putin—all wildly unpopular positions—mean that the districts that were firmly Republican by double digits just two years ago are now up for grabs. That shift has revealed something interesting. Republicans running for office are refusing to hold town halls or to engage in debates with Democratic challengers. When they do show up, they tend to show how unserious they are about filling elected office, as Republican Dan Sullivan of Alaska illustrated when he asked the moderators at a debate with Democrat Mary Peltola if she had been given the questions beforehand because she seemed to be reading from notes while he didn’t know how to answer the questions. As the moderators quashed his allegation, Peltola noted: “I’m prepared!” In the past, Republicans in safe Republican districts did not have to appeal to constituents or campaign, apparently because the letter “R” was enough to get voters to…
Heather Cox Richardson ·
Tonight Lingling Wei, Alex Leary, Thomas Grove, and Josh Dawsey of the Wall Street Journal reported that Russia’s president Vladimir Putin has proposed a meeting next month with Trump and China’s president Xi Jinping to decide the fate of Ukraine. The reporters explained that a three-way summit with China and the U.S. would cement Russia’s status as one of the world’s three great powers, a status Putin has sought since 2000 when he entered the Kremlin. Such a summit would formally acknowledge that the U.S. had broken from Europe and allied with Russia, a goal for Putin as he tries to take control of Ukraine. A former Russian intelligence officer told the reporters that the summit would replace the rules-based international order established by the United States and its allies and partners after World War II with a system that divides the globe into spheres of influence. After ten years of Trump insisting that reports of his cooperation with Russia were a hoax, here we are, watching one profoundly unpopular man tear apart the global system under which we have lived for eighty years in order to climb into bed with Vladimir Putin. In just over a week, Trump has lifted sanctions on the sale of Russian oil on the global market, a way both to send desperately needed money to Russia to fund its war on Ukraine and to begin the process of reintegrating Russia into the global economy. Either Trump or Musk or both appear to have slowed down Starlink and Starshield—the two systems that manage communications for defense and offensive drones, respectively—making them inoperable during one of the worst Russian bombardments of the war. And on Friday, Trump waived additional sanctions Congress demanded in a recent law named for the late Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) two days before the sanctions were to go into effect. Putin confidant Kirill Dmitriev, who manages Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, reposted an AI-generated image of the U.S. eagle standing next to a Russian bear, snarling at a British lion standing next to the flag of the European Union—the U.S. and Russia standing shoulder to shoulder against the United Kingdom and Europe—with the caption “Things Have Changed…” Over the post, Dmitriev wrote: “Together.” He cheered on Trump’s waiving of the sanctions imposed by the Graham Act and, in response to a post claiming that Trump’s move to bolster Russia had caused panic in Europe and Ukraine, posted: “Checkmate.” In The Atlantic, national security scholar Tom Nichols noted with evident disgust: “The American commander in chief has abandoned the Western order, the most successful—and powerful—security arrangement in human history.” This decision, Nichols wrote, appears to have had nothing to do with the national interest of the United States. Instead, Trump appears to have thrown out the world order because of his own personal interests, his admiration for Putin, his resentment of Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky, “and quite possibly other factors that so far have remained obscured from the American public.” Outrage over Trump’s actions has come from across the political spectrum. Nichols notes that former federal prosecutor turned conservative commenter Andrew McCarthy wrote that Trump is giving Putin “aid and comfort.” Those words echo Article III, Section 3 of the Constitution, which defines treason against the United States, as “levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.” McCarthy’s blistering article in the National Review on Saturday reminds readers that Putin is a murderous dictator who is actively supporting Iran’s military operations against the United States with both intelligence and drones and provoking U.S. allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). And yet Trump is siding with him against Ukraine, a U.S. ally. McCarthy demanded Congress hold “immediate hearings about this week’s shocking escalation of the Trump-Putin alliance.” The backlash appears to have pushe…
Heather Cox Richardson ·
Around the United States of America and the world, people gathered today at more than 3,000 No Kings: Vote Early events to encourage Americans to vote in the November 3 midterm elections. The events were designed to encourage people to vote early to ensure their votes are counted in an election where the president and his party have made it clear they intend to silence their opponents. Since Trump launched the Big Lie that he had been cheated of victory in the 2020 presidential election by voter fraud, Republican-dominated state legislatures have restricted access to the vote. Although it is already illegal for noncitizens to vote in federal elections and such votes are vanishingly rare, Trump and his allies are insisting that states must restrict the vote to prevent voter fraud. According to the Brennan Center, which works to protect voting rights, in 2021 at least 19 states passed 32 laws to make voting more difficult. Since the 2024 election, 22 states have passed 47 laws that restrict the vote. As Bob Ortega of CNN reported yesterday, states have closed polling places in Black and Latino districts, required new paperwork to vote, reduced early voting, and restricted the use of student IDs for voter identification. Celina Stewart, the chief executive officer of the League of Women Voters, a nonpartisan organization that works to expand access to the vote, told Ortega: “In 17 years of working on voting rights, I have never seen such a widespread and coordinated effort to restrict access to the ballot.” No Kings organizer Ezra Levin said the way to judge the effectiveness of this No Kings Day was to answer the question: “Did we drive the biggest early vote in the history of the Republic?” He added: “I think we’re gonna do it.” But just at the height of the pro-voting events, Meta took down the main No Kings organizing page on Instagram for about four hours. According to Levin, Meta didn’t respond to the No Kings team, “even as the account was offline at the peak of our national day of action and livestream.” Once the account was viewable again, “Meta told us in their response email that they made a bad call.” Still, though, No Kings administrators had no access to the account, blocking their ability “to post about an ongoing day of mass action for early voting.” Levin noted: “This is part of a much bigger concern: activists and movements around the world are increasingly vulnerable to decisions made by powerful technology platforms that can determine who gets heard and who gets silenced.” The League of Women Voters wrote that the timing of the blackout mattered. “When people are gathering, organizing, and seeking information about civic participation, cutting off a movement’s primary communication channel—even temporarily—is deeply troubling. This is about more than one account. It raises serious questions about transparency, accountability, and the power private technology platforms wield over public communication.” Meta later claimed the issue was technical, saying, “When accounts post, share or comment at very high frequencies it can trigger automated systems. That’s what happened with the No Kings IG account in the lead up to today’s day of action. Unfortunately, that automated action was clearly taken in error. Everything is now working as it should and we sincerely apologize.” The timing of the error was unfortunate. Just yesterday, Reuters reported on a story out of Brazil claiming that in internal communications, Meta employees acknowledged that the company had restricted the Instagram accounts of Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva during the country’s recent election. The story says the employees’ messages also recommended accounts related to his challenger, Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, the son of Jair Bolsonaro, the right-wing ex-president who tried to overthrow Lula’s government. Senator Bolsonaro did much better than expected in the election, and the two face a runoff. It was not until close to 6:00 Easte…
Heather Cox Richardson ·
Trump’s new pick for White House press secretary lasted less than five days. Katie Zacharia resigned today after a series of disastrous performances and news that she had misrepresented her legal credentials. Trump said he would let her decide if she wanted to stay but added that if he were in her shoes, he would “reconsider.” Wags noted that the time unit of a Scaramucci—named for the White House communications director who lasted only 11 days during Trump’s first term and used to identify an official whose stay in public office has been exceedingly brief—has been replaced by the Zacharia. Yesterday morning, Trump posted on social media that the execution of Nidal Hasan, who killed 13 people and injured 32 others at Fort Hood in 2009, will not be livestreamed. As Amy B. Wang and Alauna Safarpour of the Washington Post reported yesterday, 80% of Americans opposed livestreaming the execution to the public. A poll by the Washington Post, ABC News, and Ipsos showed that the only demographic polled in which a majority wanted a livestream of the execution was MAGA Republican men, of whom 57% wanted the event livestreamed and 42% were opposed. Veterans, Democrats, non-MAGA Republicans, Independents, and MAGA Republican women all opposed the livestream by overwhelming amounts. And so, the chaos of Trump’s MAGA administration continues. Chaos continues as well in Trump’s approach to Ukraine, and it has a deadly pattern. After SpaceX debilitated Ukraine’s military defenses on October 14, in the midst of one of the heaviest Russian bombardments of the war, by slowing down the speed of Ukraine’s Starlink terminals and the Starshield system that Ukraine’s military uses, Elon Musk, who owns SpaceX, and Trump, who controls Starshield, each blamed the other for the slowdown. Yesterday, Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), the top-ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, led a bipartisan group of nine senators demanding answers from Platte Moring, the inspector general of the Department of Defense. Noting that the slowdown meant that “U.S. diplomatic, military, and security personnel were unable to reach designated bunkers during Russian air raids,” they asked “[w]hether any Department of Defense or other U.S. government officials directed, authorized, approved, or had advance knowledge of changes to intelligence-sharing arrangements, warning capabilities, or Starlink and Starshield services affecting Ukraine.” They also asked if the slowdown was a policy decision or a contractor action, whether U.S. personnel received adequate warning, and whether “any restrictions on Starlink or Starshield services were directed, authorized, or implemented by SpaceX, the Department of Defense, or other U.S. government entities.” They also wanted to hear exactly what “immediate corrective measures are being implemented” to make sure such a crisis doesn’t happen again. Today Trump told reporters that neither he nor Musk had caused the shortage. “I didn’t do that. No, we didn’t do that at all. In fact, I don’t even think it was slowed down, from what I understood. Because I just checked this morning.” He continued: “I heard about it from the news, the media. And we didn’t slow it down at all. And I think it’s probably functioning, from what I understand.” When a reporter asked if Musk had had anything to do with the slowdown, Trump said: “I don’t know if it was anybody, because it wasn’t me, and I don’t think it was Elon, and from what I understand, it’s the same as it’s always been.” Joe Barnes of The Telegraph reported today that according to four sources familiar with the discussions over the issue, as well as “[a] high-ranking European official and two “well-placed Ukrainian sources,” it was Musk who approached Trump with the idea of slowing down the Starlink systems in Ukraine, and Trump agreed. But, according to Barnes, the outcry over Russia’s destructive attacks that night made Musk worry that European customers might turn against him, as…
Heather Cox Richardson ·
There is an old saying about rats and sinking ships. There’s also an old saying about how a democratic system taken over by a single party quickly becomes corrupt because the ruling party lacks oversight. Then, as corruption becomes the party’s driving force, the only people willing to work for it are either corrupt themselves or so unqualified they support the corrupt leadership to gain power, knowing that in a merit-based system it would be entirely out of their reach. OK, that second old saying is shared mostly among political scientists, but it’s accurate, and it’s right up there with the rats and the ships to describe what’s happening in Trump’s orbit now. The saga of Kimberly Guilfoyle, who was recently forced to resign from her post as U.S. Ambassador to Greece, continues to expand. Guilfoyle left her post after news broke that she had tried to get a donor, Eric Deters, to pay down her credit card debt. She and her lawyers countered the story by claiming Deters was withholding money she had earned, and said the text messages he shared with news outlets were false. Guilfoyle dated Don Jr. from 2018 to 2024 and was engaged to him the last four years of that time. Now there are rumors that during her time inside the family as a trusted loyalist, she kept a “burn book” about the family. While that may or may not be true, the fact that there’s such a threat out there reflects the cracking loyalties of Trump insiders. More to the point might be the video released today by Deters himself, saying that he had launched a lawsuit against Guilfoyle for defamation and that he would depose her and Don Jr. and demand subpoenas to clear his name. He also vowed to play a 16-minute phone conversation tomorrow that he claims has information which “might just bring down the entire Trump administration, an administration which I have supported from Day One.” Note that the story of Guilfoyle’s alleged shakedown is breaking now, although it happened more than a year ago. Also in the category of old stories coming to the surface is one reported yesterday by Marc Caputo of Axios. He wrote that Trump’s former lawyer Alina Habba is saying that another one of Trump’s advisors, Ric Grenell, did not deposit her billionaire husband’s $5.6 million donation to the Kennedy Center. According to Habba, Grenell asked that the donation be routed through a $17.6 million payment for a business deal, an accusation Grenell called “absurd.” Trump appointed Grenell to be U.S. ambassador to Germany and then acting director of national intelligence during his first term. After retaking office, he named Grenell as a special envoy to Venezuela before putting him in charge of the Kennedy Center. A fight that has been going on for more than a year in the administration broke into the open this morning in a Politico story by Daniel Lippman. He explained that Trump named Italian Paolo Zampolli, a former modeling agent who introduced Trump to First Lady Melania Trump at a party in New York City, as a special envoy at the State Department with a portfolio of cultural diplomacy. But Zampolli apparently ignored that assignment and struck out on his own on a wide range of issues, infuriating Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau. “My number-one boss is the president of America,” Zampolli told James Fontanella-Khan of the Financial Times in April. “I get my instructions from the White House, Commerce and the Department of War…anything to advance the America First agenda.” More than 16 administration officials have been included in the angry email chains Zampolli and Landau have exchanged, which at one point led to communications about the fight with a top-level foreign official. At one point Zampolli accused Landau of leaking to reporters what appeared to be the story that Zampolli had tried to get custody of his son by asking Immigrations and Customs Enforcement to deport Amanda Ungaro, the boy’s mother. That story created its own scandal when Ungaro, a former model, t…
Heather Cox Richardson ·
According to Ukrainian presidential advisor Serhiy Beskrestnov, last night, without warning, Elon Musk’s SpaceX restricted the speed limits for the Starlink terminals Ukraine’s military uses, known as Starshield, debilitating Ukraine’s drones even as Russian forces launched strikes against Ukraine’s energy and critical infrastructure—the very infrastructure Trump said must be left alone. As Christopher Miller of the Financial Times reported, Russia launched 39 ballistic missiles and more than 120 drones against Ukraine last night and, just as the night before, Ukraine received no intelligence warning from the U.S. Last night, though, Ukrainian drone operators also found they could not control drones at speeds above 160 kph (about 100 mph). Last night’s barrage was one of the largest attacks of the war, killing at least five Ukrainians and leaving at least 600,000 people without power. Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky noted that “[t]he strike was entirely deliberate and demonstrative in its scale—Russia has never before shown such ostentatious disrespect toward the United States.” He continued: “We ask America and EVERYONE in the world who does not turn a blind eye to reality to respond—and to respond forcefully. Russia has squandered the opportunity for de-escalation and has clearly chosen to continue its insane war of annihilation…. Peace can only come through strength, and we ask America to remember this principle of Reagan’s.” Ukraine relies on two satellite systems related to SpaceX. One is Starlink, which handles communications, defensive drones, and coordinating ground forces. The other is Starshield, which is used for offensive purposes and is controlled by the U.S. government. It appeared at first that Elon Musk deliberately sabotaged Ukrainian military operations while they were underway, in defiance of American national security policy. Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) pointedly wrote to Musk on social media: “[P]lease tell me these overnight disruptions to Starlink terminals in Ukraine were unintended—that [SpaceX] is doing everything it can to fix a temporary glitch.” He continued: “I’m confident this does not reflect a change in SpaceX policy because if so, intentionally degrading Ukraine’s ability to defend itself might be construed as aiding and abetting a mass murderer. Can you confirm that’s not SpaceX’s intent?” This would have been at least the second time Musk had used his power over communications to weaken Ukraine. In 2025, Joey Roulette, Cassell Bryan-Low, and Tom Balmforth of Reuters reported that in 2022, as Ukraine was retaking land Russia had invaded, Musk ordered engineers to deactivate Starlink in crucial areas, leaving the Ukrainian military without communications and hamstringing their ability to gather intelligence or aim at targets. One of the people who told the journalists about Musk’s 2022 order noted that Musk had been able to reshape the front lines of the battle and that he had taken “the outcome of a war into his own hands.” SpaceX is a defense contractor for the U.S. government, currently receiving more than $16 billion through NASA, the Department of Defense, the Space Force, the National Reconnaissance office, and the Space Development Agency, with as much as almost $30 billion forthcoming if it exercises all its options. SpaceX operates the U.S. military’s primary satellite communications—the same system limited last night in Ukraine—and launches most of the classified intelligence satellites for the U.S. Musk has spent about $366 million so far to swing the midterm elections toward Republicans, and SpaceX’s undermining of Ukraine supports Trump’s effort to help Russia’s president Vladimir Putin fund his ongoing attacks. That support for Russia flies in the face of traditional U.S. alliances with the democratic nations of Europe, instead isolating the U.S. alongside autocratic Russia. But after a furious outcry today about the failing communications service that left Ukraine vulnerable…
Heather Cox Richardson ·
This afternoon, the President of the United States posted two videos of lions and tigers attacking humans. Either he has entirely lost it, or he is desperate for a distraction, or both. It turns out the attacks on Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico were probably an attempt to get ahead of yet another damaging story about Trump’s hand-picked Republican Texas Senate candidate, Ken Paxton. Yesterday Elizabeth Findell, Mark Maremont, and Josh Dawsey of the Wall Street Journal reported that Paxton spent New Year’s Eve in 2024 in Dubai, partying with a woman who was not his wife, along with two fugitives from U.S. justice. Although Vice President J.D. Vance and other members of the administration have vowed to remove more than 760,000 enrollees from the Affordable Care Act, citing widespread fraud, the fugitives with whom Paxton was hanging out were wanted on federal healthcare fraud charges. They allegedly embezzled $15 million from a Chicago hospital, and one of them was charged with receiving at least $195 million from the U.S. government for fraudulent Covid-19 tests. One of the men donated $190,000 to Paxton, $25,000 of it after he was indicted. Ron Filipkowski of MeidasNews posted: “JD Vance running around the country saying he’s fighting health care fraud while his nominee for the senate in TX who he completely supports is partying in Dubai with a guy [who] stole over $300 million in health care fraud and gave Paxton $190,000. This is the Republican Party.” Meanwhile, although the administration has boasted that it is cracking down on fraud in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program by cutting benefits, ProPublica reported today that the real fraud comes from criminal syndicates, often from Romania, who last year walked away with $470 million stolen electronically from more than 990,000 households. The theft could be stopped with digital microchips, but Congress has refused to add them to the benefit cards. Now the Trump administration has stripped funds allocated to address the theft. Diesel prices jumped today as traders appeared to doubt Trump’s abandonment of Russian sanctions will do much for prices in the U.S. Steve Kopack of NBC News noted that U.S. diesel futures were up about 5% by midday. Generally, a jump in futures prices means higher consumer prices are forthcoming. The price of diesel is up 70% since the war on Iran began on February 28. Gulf Oil adviser Tom Kloza posted: “Absolutely stunning price spikes in wholesale diesel today…. Market clearly not believing that Russian oil is on the way.” He added: “US retail diesel price record of $6.53/gal could be topped by the midterms.” As Barbara Sprunt reported at NPR, a bipartisan group of senators is pushing back on Trump’s lifting of sanctions, calling it a “betrayal of the people of Ukraine.” Democratic senators Richard Blumenthal (CT), Chris Coons (DE), Dick Durbin (IL), Jack Reed (RI), Jeanne Shaheen (NH), and Sheldon Whitehouse (RI) joined Republicans Alan Armstrong (OK), Susan Collins (ME), John Cornyn (TX), Mitch McConnell (KY), Lisa Murkowski (AK), and Thom Tillis (NC) in asking Trump to rescind the deal. “The deal you struck with President Vladimir Putin on October 9th will not achieve just ends, nor will it benefit Americans,” they wrote. It “only provides Putin with more fuel to finance his war machine and enables Russia to continue its brutal attacks on Ukrainian civilians. Granting Moscow the ability to sell Russian diesel freely in global markets damages American security interests and is a betrayal of the people of Ukraine, who continue to defend themselves from Putin’s murderous, illegal war. This deal is a gift to our adversary and a betrayal of our Allies; it should be rescinded.” The senators emphasized that with last month’s Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026, Congress had tasked Trump with applying economic pressure on Russia, not with easing that pressure. When asked about the letter, Trump told repor…
Heather Cox Richardson ·
