Month: November 2025

In the previous post I wrote about the level of enthusiasm among Democratic voters. They are championing at the bit to send a message to Trump and his henchmen that they are not going to have a free hand to destroy the country the way he destroyed the White House.

Tomorrow night is the first chance we’ll have to do it and Bolts.com is where you’ll want to be tomorrow night to track how we’re doing around the country, big races and small:

Election Day is upon us: Tomorrow, voters around the country will be deciding pivotal local and state elections. A handful of contests have drawn the most headlines, and they’re likely to define political parties’ mood tomorrow night.

New Jersey and Virginia are replacing their governors, New York City is voting on its new mayor, and Californians are deciding an unusual redistricting measure, Prop 50.At Bolts, we have cast a wider lens: We know local and state politics can be tricky to follow, so we’ve spent much of the year tracking and reporting on key elections you should know about, with keen attention to the stakes for issues tied to criminal justice and democracy.

For example, Pennsylvania and Georgia are hosting statewide elections for their state supreme court and utility commission, respectively. Ballot measures may reshape how people vote in Maine and New York. Democrats are also defending legislative chambers in New Jersey and Virginia, while dozens of cities hold intriguing mayoral races, such as Albuquerque, Detroit, Minneapolis, and Seattle. 

And across the country, referendums could unlock billions in bonds and spending for parks, schools, and transit.Consider this newsletter to be your table of contents for election night.

Our cheat sheet lays out more than 190 elections we are closely watching, up and down the ballot. These include elections from governor and supreme court justice to mayors, sheriffs, and school board members, plus dozens of referendums that will directly shape local policy.All in all, 32 states are represented. 

Be sure to bookmark the page: We’ll be updating it with results once they are known.

New CNN poll:

Trump’s approval rating in the poll stands at 37%, the worst of his second term in CNN polling and roughly equivalent to his 36% approval rating at this point in his first term.

And his disapproval rating, at 63%, is numerically the highest of either term, one point above the previous high of 62% as he was leaving office in January 2021.

CNN’s Poll of Polls average, which puts Trump’s approval rating a few points higher at 41% as of Sunday, charts a similar trend since January. Approval of the president has dipped across partisan and demographic lines since the summer in CNN’s polling.

Looking ahead to next year’s midterms, Democrats appear to have a very early advantage: 47% of registered voters say they’d vote for the Democrat in their district if the election were held today, while 42% prefer the Republican. More say they’ve ruled out supporting a Republican (42%) than say the same about a Democrat (35%). And 41% say they would be sending a message that they oppose Trump with their vote, nearly double the 21% who say their vote would be a message of support for the president. Independents break in Democrats’ favor on the generic ballot (44% to 31% for Republicans, with 19% saying they wouldn’t pick either right now).

Registered voters who are Democrats or Democratic-leaning independents are far more likely than Republican-aligned voters to say they are extremely motivated to vote next year (67% compared with 46%). Those Democratic-aligned voters who consider the state of democracy to be a top concern are perhaps the most fired up within the party: 82% in that group say they are deeply motivated to vote, compared with 57 % among Democratic-aligned voters who call the economy their top concern.

CNN’s poll results suggest that the Democratic Party’s ongoing internal image troubles may not necessarily translate into defections at the ballot box. Democratic-aligned voters remain far less fond of their own party (65% have a favorable view of the Democratic Party) than Republican-aligned voters (80% have a favorable view of the GOP), but even those Democratic-aligned voters with a negative view of the party are almost universally behind the Democratic candidate in their district (93%) and broadly motivated to vote (71% say they are extremely motivated).

Oh and by the way:

Americans are broadly dissatisfied with the state of the country (68% say things are going badly) and the economy (72% say it’s in poor shape, and 47% call the economy and cost of living the top issue facing the US). About 6 in 10 (61%) say Trump’s policies have worsened economic conditions in the US.

Roughly 8 in 10 consider the federal government shutdown a crisis (31%) or a major problem (50%), and 61% disapprove of Trump’s handling of it. Nearly as many disapprove of the way each party’s congressional leadership is handling it (58% disapprove of each). Taken all together, about 9 in 10 American disapprove of at least one of those three players on the shutdown.

People are pissed and want to make their wishes known.

This is why I said this morning that Obama’s message over the weekend was important. Democrats want those wishes expressed by their leaders and I suspect they want the case for values and principles made with passion and commitment.:

Registered voters who are Democrats or Democratic-leaning independents are far more likely than Republican-aligned voters to say they are extremely motivated to vote next year (67% compared with 46%). Those Democratic-aligned voters who consider the state of democracy to be a top concern are perhaps the most fired up within the party

Red meat for Republicans is Trump telling 60 Minutes that the brutal ICE crackdown hasn’t gone far enough. Red meat for Democrats is Obama saying, “I believe in an America where we don’t fear each other but look out for each other.”

It’s the difference between the two parties. And Democratic leaders need to make sure they offer it up to their supporters.

We’d all better hope we aren’t in the wrong place at the wrong time

BREAKING: Kristi Noem just lied to reporters, claiming "No American citizens have been arrested or detained," despite daily video evidence to the contrary showing dozens of U.S. citizens being arrested.pic.twitter.com/0S3KFtcn14

— Really American 🇺🇸 (@ReallyAmerican1) October 30, 2025

There are so many of these stories every single day now and I’m afraid we’re just becoming numb to it. So I’m going to share some of them just to remind myself that this is happening. We have to bear witness. This is from the Chicago Tribune:

Dayanne Figueroa was on her way to get coffee before heading to work when she encountered a chaotic scene in West Town: heavily armed, masked federal agents making arrests on a residential street. 

People yelled as vehicles honked their horn — a sign now used to alert neighbors that immigration federal agents are in the area — and witnesses said federal agents had arrested several landscaper workers presumed to be in the country without authorization. 

As Figuero tried to drive through the 1600 block of West Hubbard Street on Friday, Oct. 10, an unmarked vehicle driven by federal agents collided with Figueroa’s as it tried to speed away from a hostile crowd, multiple videos reviewed by the Tribune show. 

Seconds after the crash, agents abruptly stopped their vehicle and exited with weapons in hand pointing at Figueroa, a U.S citizen. Agents then forcibly opened her door and pulled her out of the vehicle by her legs without identifying themselves, presenting a warrant or informing her that she was under arrest. As bystanders yelled, “You hit her! We have it on video!” agents ignored the crowd and forced Figueroa into a red minivan and drove away. Her car was left behind in the middle of the road, her coffee still in the cup holder, and her keys in plain view.

The Department of Homeland Security later released a statement claiming that Figueroa was at fault, saying “she crashed into an unmarked government vehicle and violently resisted arrest, injuring two officers.”

Right. Here’s what they did to her:

According to Figueroa, after getting arrested, she was transported to multiple undisclosed locations, and repeatedly denied contact with family or legal counsel.  “I was in shock and terrified. The video evidence is clear: Agents crashed into me. I was not involved in any protest or related activity, and I intend to seek justice for how I was treated,” Figueroa told the Tribune. 

For hours, her family couldn’t locate her. Only after coming across a video online did they realize that Figueroa had been taken by masked federal agents through video circulating the web. They were able to ping her through her iPhone location at the ICE processing center in Broadview. Her mother said she was shocked and “desperately worried.” Figueroa had kidney surgery in August, and the way agents pulled her out of the vehicle and threw her on the ground “deeply concerned me,” her mother, Teresita Figueroa, told the Tribune. 

But what stunned Teresita Figueroa the most was that despite her daughter being a U.S. citizen, the family couldn’t locate her. She said no authorities, including the Chicago police, were able to give them clarity on why her daughter was arrested. 

Teresita Figueroa said her daughter is a loving mother of a 5-year-old boy and an aspiring lawyer working as a paralegal. Her record shows nothing more than a few minor traffic violations, the Tribune found. “I was extremely worried because I know ICE agents are heartless and reckless. They had just killed a man in Franklin Park. I worried that they could hurt my daughter,” Teresita Figueroa said. “Those hours (looking for her) were agonizing.” 

[…]

Dayanne Figueroa was released from ICE custody that same day, at around 4 p.m., and returned home shaken. Teresita Figueroa said she picked up her daughter from an ambulance in a parking lot in Lombard, a suburb west of Chicago. Her daughter was  “very injured, in shock, and bleeding from her surgery,” she said. They had to rush Dayanne Figueroa to a nearby hospital to get checked. 

[…]

In a statement to the Tribune, Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin alleged that Figueroa “used her vehicle to block in agents, honking her horn,” and that she “stuck an unmarked government vehicle” as agents were departing. “In fear of public safety and of law enforcement, officers attempted to remove her from the vehicle. She violently resisted, kicking two agents and causing injuries. This agitator was arrested for assault on a federal agent,” McLaughlin said.

The Tribune saw the video. The “officers” were clearly not injured.

This is America in 2025.

Barack Obama is on the stump for Democrats this weekend, appearing at rallies in Virginia and New Jersey. He’s also cut the final ad for Prop 50. It’s a good thing. The party still doesn’t have any orators as good as he is, although there are some who are very good. And despite all the right wingers claiming that he’s nasty and divisive we all know who takes the trophy on that one and it isn’t him.

He said all the right things for someone in his position. He joked and he entertained. Like this:

Obama: When he was asked to give the trump administration a grade, he said they deserved an A. I know there's been great inflation, but really an A? This is the best we could do? I mean, these are the same folks who put secret war plans in a group chat. You don't think there's… pic.twitter.com/SmCZRJXVii

— Acyn (@Acyn) November 1, 2025

But he had a particular moment that I thought was just riveting and very important. It was inclusive and unifying in the way that I think a lot of people are yearning to hear. He spoke about values and our history without soft-soaping the past but still holding out some idealism and hope about the future. It’s always been his strong suit and I think it’s especially necessary right now.

Here’s the part I’m referring to:

At the end of the day, what this is about — what politics in a democracy is always about, is values. What do we care about. What do we believe, what do we prioritize, what are our core convictions.

A lot of people have asked me lately whether I’m surprised by the direction the country’s taken. And even though I am the hope and change guy I try to be honest with them. So I say yes, there are things I am worried about.

I am worried about how quickly basic democratic rules and norms have been weakened. I am worried about how willing Republican in Congress have been to surrender their roles as a co-equal branch of government, refusing to buck the president even when they know he’s out of line. Even though lot of them will privately admit that power is being abused in ways that will hurt their constituents and hurt the country.

I worry about a Supreme Court that, so far at least, has shown no willingness to check this administration’s excesses, even when those actions break legal precedents and seem to defy the bedrock principle that no one is above the law.

I worry about the growing concentration of economic power in this country, with just a handful of mega-billionaires and companies controlling what we see and what we hear. And I worry about how much that economic power distorts the political process. I worry about how readily not just business leaders but others with influence like law firms and universities have been willing to bend the knee to this president’s autocratic impulses to avoid retribution, protect profits, or simply to avoid controversy.

America has always had competing stories about who we are and what the nation stands for. The first story says that “we the people” just means some of us. In order to qualify you have to be the right color, or come from the right family, or worship in the right way, or have enough money. It says that even though we got rid of a king, there is still a caste system in America, a pecking order of who makes decisions and who makes decisions and who gets opportunity and who is obliged to serve.

It’s a story that’s policed by fear and force. It tries to convince people that for their group to win another group has to lose. That is somebody doesn’t look like you or think like you or practice religions the same way you do, they must be a threat to you way of life and they need to be put in their place.

That is how Donald Trump thinks about America. Make America great again by putting the people like him back in charge even if they don’t know what the hell they’re doing.

And I worry sometimes how we’ve come to accept this as normal. But this is what I also tell people when they asked me about this, what I also try to remind them. That story is not new. That’s is the oldest story in the book.

It is not even uniquely American. For most of human history, that is the way society has worked. For somebody on top and somebody on the bottom. There were lords and there were peasants. And for a long time, that story of caste and privilege and concentrated power that was the law of the land here in America. If you look like me, you were likely treated as property. If you were a woman, or a white man who did not own property, you could not vote. Four a long time if you were an Irish or Italian immigrant, “we’re not hiring.” If you were Jewish or Asian, don’t bother applying to our school. If you were Native American you weren’t even treated as an American even though you were here!

But from the very start, there was another story, born of this nation’s true revolutionary spirit. A story that says, we the people means what it says, that all of us are included, that we are not subjects, we are citizens, defined not by race or religion or gender or sexual orientation, but by our commitment to a common creed and a willingness to accept not just the privileges, but the responsibilities that come with that citizenship.

That’s what made the American experiment unique. That’s what made us special.

And through generations of struggle and sacrifice. Through the faith of abolitionists and the struggle of suffragists, through civil war and civil rights protests, through union organizing drives and government reforms and investments in public education, we moved closer to those founding ideals. And in the process we inspired the world.

And that’s the story I believe in, Virginia. I believe in an America in which we all deserve equal protection under the law and nobody is above the law. I believe in an America where every child has a chance at a good education and anybody who’s willing to find a job or start a business can work to make a decent living, an America where equal opportunity isn’t just reserved for those who are born into privilege or happen to have the right connections.

I believe in an America where we don’t fear each other but look out for each other.

If we want that story to continue, if we believe in that better story, we need leaders who believe in it too. We need leaders who will tell the truth. And who will take responsibility and tackle hard problems and bring people together instead of tearing them apart. We need leaders who won’t serve bosses in Washington or big corporate donors but instead will serve the people who put them there.

I realize that he’s uniquely talented at this and has the ability to deliver these words in a way that is accessible. But Democrats need to really look at the message he’s conveying. I truly believe it’s what a majority of Americans would like to hear from their leadership.

It’s not that anything has ever been perfect. In fact, it’s because it hasn’t ever been perfect that most of us feel so desperate about going backwards now. There’s a lot wrong with our society in the best of circumstances but now instead of trying, however feebly at times, to progress and make things better we are actively going backwards. It’s terrifying, especially for people who have struggled and fought for the progress they’s managed to make.

People need to hear that their leaders understand this and can help us find the courage to resist what is happening by seeing it clearly and summoning up what’s left of our ideals to put it right.

Yes, people care about affordability and inflation and all the kitchen table issues and they are a motivating factor. But I refuse to believe that most Americans don’t, deep down, care as deeply about the country they live in and the world they are leaving to their children. They’re scared and don’t know where to turn and when the professional political resistance spends all its time navel gazing and talking about how much they hate themselves they feel adrift.

Democrats need some inspiration right now. That’s why they’re turning to people like Mamdani in New York and Newsom and Pritzker in California and Illinois. Now Obama has entered the arena and thank God for it. Maybe there is some hope for change after all.

The next time they have the opportunity, one of the right-wing influencers who now dominate the White House press corps should ask President Donald Trump if he happened to watch “House Full of Dynamite,” Academy Award-winning director Kathryn Bigelow’s latest film, when he was traveling this week. It’s a chilling movie about a nuclear strike on the United States, and since he seems to be suddenly concerned about America’s nuclear arsenal for no apparent reason, it would be fair to ask if the film was behind his startling announcement on his way back from Asia that he was ordering the immediate resumption of nuclear testing after a three decade moratorium. 

Don’t laugh. It’s as plausible an explanation for his confusing order as anything else, because his stated reason — that other countries are testing their nuclear weapons — is simply not true. The only country to hold such tests in recent times is North Korea, where Kim Jong Un continued to evaluate his nuclear capability, despite all the happy talk and “love letters” between Trump and his good buddy. None of the nuclear powers have tested any weapons since the 1990s. 

It’s possible that he got a look at last week’s footage of Russian President Vladimir Putin, dressed in military uniform and sitting alone at a big table, while facing two big screens that showed Defense Minister Andrey Belousov and his deputy, Valery Gerasimov, directing drills of the country’s strategic nuclear forces. Did Trump think they were actually testing nuclear weapons? Or maybe he just misunderstood the Oct. 26 announcement from the Russians: That they were testing a nuclear powered cruise missile, and he thought it was a weapon. 

Who knows? What matters is that Trump is the only person in the United States who can order a nuclear strike — and it’s clear he’s just as clueless about that existential threat as he is about most everything else.

Like everything else, Trump believes he is an expert on the subject. By now, everyone is familiar with the fact that his uncle, Dr. John G. Trump, was a physicist and engineer who taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Trump has long contended that, because they share “good genes,” this familial connection proves his own brilliance. Any time a scientific subject comes up, he will mention his uncle as testament to his own expertise — particularly when it comes to the nuclear threat. As Trump explained on the campaign trail in July 2016, “Nuclear is so powerful, my uncle explained that to me many, many years ago.”

As with so many other issues, Trump’s beliefs were formed when he was a young man, and they appear to be based on a very shallow understanding of the subject. In November 1984, at the behest of his mentor Roy Cohn and just after Ronald Reagan’s reelection as president, Trump gave an interview to the Washington Post declaring his desire to negotiate an arms agreement with the Soviet Union. But importantly, he withheld specific plans because he didn’t want to tip his hand:

He could learn about missiles, quickly, [Trump] says. “It would take an hour-and-a-half to learn everything there is to learn about missiles . . . I think I know most of it anyway. You’re talking about just getting updated on a situation . . . You know who really wants me to do this? Roy . . . I’d do it in a second.”

A few years later during a Playboy interview, Trump said, “I’ve always thought about the issue of nuclear war; it’s a very important element in my thought process… I believe the greatest of all stupidities is people’s believing it will never happen because everybody knows how destructive it will be, so nobody uses weapons. What bulls**t.”

When he ran for president in 2016, the issue came up several times. MSNBC reported that he had repeatedly asked his foreign policy advisers why the U.S. couldn’t use nuclear weapons. He told host Chris Matthews that he would consider using them, and when pressed on his comments, Trump asked, “Then why are we making them? Why do we make them?” (The U.S. doesn’t make any new nuclear weapons.) In a primary debate, he was asked about the nuclear triad and clearly had no idea what they were talking about, which suggested that he never did get around to studying up on the subject. 

Most shockingly, during his first term it was reported that, when it was explained in a Pentagon briefing that the U.S. once had over 30,000 nuclear warheads and only had a tenth of that now, Trump apparently didn’t realize there had been successful arms control agreements going back 50 years. On more than one occasion he asked why he couldn’t have as many nuclear weapons as previous presidents had. It’s very sad that Uncle John Trump isn’t still alive so that he could give his nephew some more lessons in nuclear power, because he’s obviously forgotten his earlier ones. 

In the early days of his first term, Trump used to let threats of nuclear annihilation fly with some frequency. Before they became pals, he taunted North Korean president Kim Jong Un for his missile tests with tweets declaring that he would rain down “fire and fury the likes of which the world has never seen” and calling him “little rocket man” if he didn’t stop. (He didn’t stop.) 

Eight years later, the problem is that there’s no one around to school him anymore. Many of the people in Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s Pentagon are war-mongers who believe that nuclear weapons should be on the table. The current Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, Elbridge A. Colby, conceived a new strategic posture during Trump’s first term that recommended a much looser nuclear policy — including their use in response to a cyber attack. 

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There is no need for nuclear tests. The United States has a sophisticated testing system that doesn’t require setting off explosions, and when it comes to deterrence, nobody in the world assumes that America’s arsenal is full of duds. But as Tom Nichols writes in The Atlantic, the weapons do serve a purpose that may appeal to Trump and his allies:

Nuclear tests don’t make much sense for U.S. national security, but they’re a great way to raise international tensions. During the Cold War, the superpowers sometimes engaged in nuclear tests as a way of signaling nerve and resolve. Unfortunately, these tests served mostly to put both East and West on edge, pollute parts of the United States and the former Soviet Union, and make a lot of people sick.

If Trump really did get nervous about the nuclear arsenal after watching “House Full of Dynamite,” then he got the plot all wrong. It wasn’t a nuclear missile that failed to work, it was an interceptor. (The Pentagon has been furious at the film’s suggestions that such a situation could happen.) Considering how little he still knows about this subject, it wouldn’t be a surprise. 

More disturbing for the general audience watching it, the film features a group of experienced people who take their jobs seriously. They know what they’re doing in this moment of existential threat. It’s very tense, a viewing experience that’s even more nerve-wracking if you momentarily contemplate the collection of yes-men the Trump administration has installed in the same roles. As for the top job? Donald Trump being the one to make the ultimate decision is simply terrifying.

It was really something. One highlight:

O'DONNELL: Why did you pardon Changpeng Zhao?TRUMP: Are you ready? I don't know who he isO'DONNELL: His crypto exchange Binance helped facilitate a $2b purchase of World Liberty Financial's stablecoin. And they you pardoned him.TRUMP: Here's the thing — I know nothing about it

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2025-11-03T00:56:08.488Z

That’s bad enough. But it was even worse. They cleaned it up.

Only about a third of the Trump interview aired on "60 Minutes." CBS has published the transcript of the complete interview here —> www.cbsnews.com/news/read-fu…

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter.bsky.social) 2025-11-03T01:37:00.015Z

Here’s the part about the pardon:

NORAH O’DONNELL: This is a question about pardons. The Trump family is now perhaps more associated with cryptocurrency than real estate. You and your son– your sons, Don Jr. and Eric, have formed World Liberty Financial with the Witkoff family.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Right.

NORAH O’DONNELL: Helping to make your family millions of dollars. It’s in that context that I do wanna ask you about crypto’s richest man, a billionaire known as C.Z. He pled guilty in 2023 to violating anti-money laundering laws.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Right.

NORAH O’DONNELL: Looked at this, the government at the time said that C.Z. had caused “significant harm to U.S. national security”, essentially by allowing terrorist groups like Hamas to move millions of dollars around. Why did you pardon him?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Okay, are you ready? I don’t know who he is. I know he got a four-month sentence or something like that. And I heard it was a Biden witch hunt. And what I wanna do is see crypto, ’cause if we don’t do it it’s gonna go to China, it’s gonna go to– this is no different to me than AI.

My sons are involved in crypto much more than I– me. I– I know very little about it, other than one thing. It’s a huge industry. And if we’re not gonna be the head of it, China, Japan, or someplace else is. So I am behind it 100%. This man was, in my opinion, from what I was told, this is, you know, a four-month sentence.

But this man was treated really badly by the Biden administration. And he was given a jail term. He’s highly respected. He’s a very successful guy. They sent him to jail and they really set him up. That’s my opinion. I was told about it.

I said, “Eh, it may look bad if I do it. I have to do the right thing.” I don’t know the man at all. I don’t think I ever met him. Maybe I did. Or, you know, somebody shook my hand or something. But I don’t think I ever met him. I have no idea who he is. I was told that he was a victim, just like I was and just like many other people, of a vicious, horrible group of people in the Biden administration.

NORAH O’DONNELL: The government had accused him of “significant harm to U.S. national security”–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: That’s the Biden government.

NORAH O’DONNELL: Okay. Allowing U.S. terrorist groups to, you know, essentially move millions of dollars around. He pled guilty to anti-money laundering laws. That was in 2023. Then in 2025 his crypto exchange, Binance, helped facilitate a $2 billion purchase of World Liberty Financial’s stablecoin. And then you pardoned C.Z. How do you address the appearance of pay for play?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, here’s the thing, I know nothing about it because I’m too busy doing the other–

NORAH O’DONNELL: But he got a pardon–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I can only tell you that–

NORAH O’DONNELL: He got a pardon–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Norah, I can only tell you this. My sons are into it. I’m glad they are, because it’s probably a great industry, crypto. I think it’s good. You know, they’re running a business, they’re not in government. And they’re good– my one son is a number one bestseller now.

My wife just had a number one bestseller. I’m proud of them for doing that. I’m focused on this. I know nothing about the guy, other than I hear he was a victim of weaponization by government. When you say the government, you’re talking about the Biden government.

It’s a corrupt government. Biden was the most corrupt president and he was the worst president we’ve ever had. I only care about one thing. Will crypto be– will we be number one in crypto? Crypto has turned out, and in that sense I’ve been right.

Crypto’s turned out to be a massive industry, if you wanna call it that. And I’m very proud to say that we are far and away ahead of China and everybody else. Now, China is getting into it very big, right now. If you wanna go after people, you’re gonna kill that industry.

And it’ll be very bad. Tremendous number of jobs. I campaigned positively on crypto, very openly. I campaigned. Biden campaigned against it. When Biden found out that I was getting, like, 100% of the crypto vote, which was a lot, he switched totally and he went in favor of crypto.

They were totally in favor. They had many people under indictment. They let ’em all go. They let ’em all go. You know that. Many people were under indictment. Biden was a corrupt president. Biden went all in on crypto at the very end because he thought he could get some votes.

It didn’t work. They voted for me. I wanna make crypto great for America. That’s the only thing. I don’t wanna have somebody else have crypto and have China be number one in the world in crypto. Because in crypto it’s a kind of an industry where basically you’re going to have number one and you’re not gonna have a number two. And right now we’re number one by a long shot. I wanna keep it that way. The same way we’re number one with AI, we’re number one with crypto. And I wanna keep it that way.

NORAH O’DONNELL: So not concerned about the appearance of corruption with this?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I can’t say, because– I can’t say– I’m not concerned. I don’t– I’d rather not have you ask the question. But I let you ask it. You just came to me and you said, “Can I ask another question?” And I said, yeah. This is the question–

NORAH O’DONNELL: And you answered–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I don’t mind. Did I let you do it? I coulda walked away. I didn’t have to answer this question. I’m proud to answer the question. You know why? We’ve taken crypto–

NORAH O’DONNELL: But just generally speak– 

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Excuse me. We’re number one in crypto in the whole world. Other people wanna be. They’re fighting like hell to be. But we’re number one in crypto because I’m the president. Biden wanted to also, at the very end, you know, he totally switched his thing.

You know, Biden was totally in favor of crypto at the end. Do you know that many people that were indicted under Biden for crypto, at the very end before the election, were let go? You know why? He wanted the vote. We are number one in crypto and that’s the only thing I care about. I don’t want China or anybody else to take it away. It’s a massive industry.

In case you haven’t kept up on this:

The pardon of Zhao, widely known as CZ, came two months after The Wall Street Journal reported that the Trump family’s own crypto venture, which has generated about $4.5 billion since the 2024 election, has been helped by “a partnership with an under-the-radar trading platform quietly administered by Binance.”

[…]

NBC News, citing a public disclosure filing from Monday, reported that Binance in September had retained the services of the lobbyist Charles McDowell, who is a friend of the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr. McDowell’s lobbying firm, Checkmate Government Relations, disclosed that it was paid $450,000 for the prior month’s work, which included lobbying the White House and Treasury Department for “executive relief” and “financial services policy issues relating to digital assets and cryptocurrency.”

Zhao, in November 2023, pleaded guilty in Seattle federal court and agreed to step down as Binance CEO as part of a $4.3 billion settlement by the company with the Department of Justice. Zhao had been charged with violating the Bank Secrecy Act for failing to implement an effective anti-money-laundering program and for willfully violating U.S. economic sanction in an intentional effort to profit from the American market without implementing legally required controls, the DOJ said.

Binance had been charged with conducting an unlicensed money-transmitting business, violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and conspiracy. He was sentenced in April 2024 to just four months in jail. Federal prosecutors had asked a judge to sentence Zhao to three years in prison.

Then-Attorney General Merrick Garland blasted Binance when Zhao pleaded guilty. “Binance became the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange in part because of the crimes it committed – now it is paying one of the largest corporate penalties in U.S. history,” Garland said at the time.

Then-Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, the same day, said, “Binance turned a blind eye to its legal obligations in the pursuit of profit. Its willful failures allowed money to flow to terrorists, cybercriminals, and child abusers through its platform.”

The president of the United States is in bed with a money launderer for terrorists and sex traffickers to the tune of multiple billions of dollars. And he gave him a pardon which he says he doesn’t know anything about.

And there isn’t a thing anyone is ever going to do about it.

And, by the way, it isn’t just because he is a tyrant, although he is. It’s because a vast number of our fellow Americans to whom we are required to show respect and generosity because they are so misunderstood, love this criminal maniac. If they didn’t, he wouldn’t get away with all this

The navel gazing has become tiresome

A couple of friends last night asked if I was ready to give up on the U.S. Has the country degenerated so much that there is no recovering? Will my view change if things go badly for our democratic republic in 2026?

I admitted that I’ve thought far enough ahead to ask that if the country collapsed if other countries would honor my U.S. passport when I attempt to leave. Then again, I reminded them, I’ve got Irish on both sides of the family. I recently changed the headers in my social media accounts to the old Irish joke: Is this a private fight, or can anyone join?

Let’s take stock. This from CNN:

Washington is bracing for a pivotal week, with key elections across the country set to gauge how Americans feel about President Donald Trump and his second term. This comes as a new CNN poll shows Trump’s approval rating stands at 37%. It’s the worst of his second term in CNN polling and roughly equivalent to his 36% approval rating at this point in his first term. Americans are also broadly unhappy with the state of the country, with 68% saying things are going badly. Dissatisfaction is even higher with the economy, with 72% rating it in poor shape — and 47% naming the economy and the cost of living as the top issues facing the US.

Poll results above suggest that Democrats are well positioned for 2026. But should Zohran Mamdani win tomorrow in New York City, and Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill win governorships in Virginia and New Jersey, doubts will predictably arise, especially in the “liberal” press.

Brian Buetler asks why it is that good news for Democrats is always an opportunity for navel-gazing, and bad news for Democrats:

• Is Mamdani the future of the Democratic Party, or are Spanberger and Sherrill?
• Does the Democratic Party have a socialism problem?
• Isn’t Mamdani’s rise yet another indication that Democrats have Decided Not To Win nationally?

This narrative has become tiresome.

Let’s go bullet point by bullet point:

• The answer to the first question is simply, “yes.” For as long as the American right is in thrall to fascism, the Democratic Party must span the left and center, and even a bit beyond.
• The answer to the second question is simply to scoff and observe that the Trump regime is strong-arming major industries into giving or selling the U.S. government ownership stakes in the means of production.
• The answer to the third question is to ask why political elites are so fixated on left-of-center infighting, or the ideological perception of Democrats, given that the right is currently embroiled in a civil war over whether the GOP should be one- or zero-degrees removed from Nazis.

Despite the GOP’s willingness to “ride the tiger of MAGA and all of its bigotries for a decade,” soome in the party “really do seem draw the line at remorseless Nazism.” On the one hand, sounds like a personal problem. On the other hand, their problem is ours.

The problem is that the Trump-cowed press will by reflex debate whether Democrats’ use of “trans” and “climate change” are a liability that puts them in peril again in 2026 and beyond, etc. But that also reflects why navel-gazing on the left keeps the topic alive.

These warped discourse priorities are symptoms of the broad left’s biggest liability, which is a deformed information environment. Nearly all media channels blare reminders, in one form or another, that the Democratic Party is weak, lame, and out of touch. Meanwhile, it requires specialized knowledge and curiosity to learn that the Republican Party is in the process of affirming that its mantra “no enemies to the right” includes Hitler admirers.

Democrats always seeming to be playing defense while Republicans play offense is one reason the press portrays them that way and why even Democrats and left-leaning independents feel undefended and unrepresented.

But are party pooh-bahs capable of grabbing the national narrative by the throat? Anat Shenker-Osorio observes that Democrats use polls to chase public opinion while Republicans use their polling to shape it. That’s why Republicans can pull obscurities like critical race theory out of a hat, build them into national issues, and make Democrats play defense. Democrats need to learn that trick.

* * * * *

Is this a private fight, or can anyone join?

No King’s One Million Rising movement 
50501 
May Day Strong
Freedom Over Fascism Toolkit
The Resistance Lab
Choose Democracy
Indivisible: A Guide to Democracy on the Brink 
You Have Power
Chop Wood, Carry Water
Thirty lonely but beautiful actions
Attending a Protest Surveillance Self-Defense

It was a train wreck

CBS edited Donald Trump’s Sunday night interview with “60 Minutes” anchor Norah O’Donnell from 73 minutes to 28 for time and clarity. That’s the very thing Trump sued CBS for over a Kamala Harris interview last year. CBS caved and settled for $16 million.

Brett Meiselas zeroes in on Trump’s brag about that. It did not air. (Digby will be along shortly with her focus on the interview.)

What’s clear from the full transcript is how much (for those of a certain age) Trump sounds like a broken record when he talks about those he hates most. He knows whom he hates and whom he blames.

No question from O’Donnell about the Epstein files.

After near-incoherent remarks about rare earth minerals, Trump mentions Joe Biden’s administration 42 times. All it took was for Biden to beat him at the polls once. Biden is to blame for every problem Trump claims to be solving. Except for those associated with Barack Obama: “who was a lousy president, not nearly as bad as Biden.”

Immigrants are criminals (12 times). Immigrants are murderers (8 times). Biden let in 11,888 of them(?).

Venezuela is terrible. Obama was terrible (but not as terrible as Biden who beat him in 2020). Obamacare is terrible. New York AG Letitia James is terrible (and dishonest). Journalists are terrible. California Gov. Gavin Newsom is terrible.

People who investigated him are corrupt. Biden was corrupt: “the most corrupt president and he was the worst president we’ve ever had.” His government was corrupt. But not Donald’s despite his pardoning a crypto currency money launderer Trump claims not to know but who, O’Donnell suggests, “helped facilitate a $2 billion purchase of World Liberty Financial’s stablecoin,” owned by Trump’s sons.

So it goes. It’s why retired Marine Corps General John Kelly, Trump’s former White House Chief of Staff, said Trump would rule like a dictator in a second term and was “the most flawed person I have ever met in my life.” Damaged. Seventy-seven million Americans one year ago gave Trump permission to damage the rest of us.

Mehdi Hasan provides a fact check.

* * * * *

Is this a private fight, or can anyone join?

No King’s One Million Rising movement 
50501 
May Day Strong
Freedom Over Fascism Toolkit
The Resistance Lab
Choose Democracy
Indivisible: A Guide to Democracy on the Brink 
You Have Power
Chop Wood, Carry Water
Thirty lonely but beautiful actions
Attending a Protest Surveillance Self-Defense

Q: Americans have been watching videos of ICE tackling a young mother, tear gas being used in a Chicago residential neighborhood, and the smashing of car windows. Have some of these raids gone too far?"

Trump: "No. I think they haven't gone far enough”
pic.twitter.com/NrRy7TKfdU

— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) November 2, 2025

How are those egg prices doing? Is everybody getting enough quiche these days?

Update — It’s escalating. From the L.A Times:

Leaving his home in Ontario to work at a food bank Thursday morning, Carlos Jimenez pulled over to warn a group of federal agents that they should wrap up their stop of a car quickly because school-age children would soon gather there to take the bus, his lawyers said Sunday. In the following moments, the attorneys said an ICE officer shot Jimenez, a U.S. citizen and father of three, from behind.

Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, said at the time that Jimenez had “attempted to run officers over by reversing directly at them without stopping” and that the shots were “defensive.”

Jimenez, 25, was charged in federal court with assault on a federal officer. A judge released him on bond Friday. Lawyers for Jimenez offered a counter narrative. They said that Jimenez reversed because he was afraid, then was unnecessarily shot in the back of his right shoulder, where a bullet remains lodged. The agents’ actions were “unreasonably aggressive” and a violation of their own policies, said attorney Robert Simon.

Jimenez, who lives in the mobile home park along the same road, approached the officers to “tell them that there’s kids that are coming out to wait for the bus,” according to his lawyers.

“He was telling them, ‘Excuse me. Can you guys please, you know, please wrap this up.’ And immediately, the masked agent pulls out a gun and exchanges some words,” said lawyer Cynthia Santiago. “[The agent is] also shaking his pepper spray.”

“He’s in fear, and he’s trying to get out of the situation,” she said. The agents and their cars had blocked one southern lane on Vineyard Avenue and jutted into a second.

“He had to reverse to get away,” said Simon. “Then there was a shot from the side, back passenger window, to the car,” Santiago said. “Use of deadly force is to be used as a last resort. Coming out to communities with guns drawn is the opposite.”

[…]

Federal authorities have painted a different picture of what happened. According to the complaint filed in the Central District of California on Friday, Jimenez pulled up to three immigration officers, two from Border Patrol and another form ICE and “engaged in a verbal altercation,” it states.

An ICE agent, identified as E.O., approached Jimenez in his Lexus and told him to leave. Then the agent “holstered” his fire arm and pulled out his pepper spray, according to the complaint. Jimenez pulled his car forward to the left.

“The Lexus then stopped, turned its wheels, and then rapidly accelerated in reverse back toward” a Border Patrol agent named in the complaint as “Officer N.J.” and the Honda the agents had stopped, which had three people inside.

You tell me which scenario sound more believable.

The shooting is the second in a little more than a week in Southern California. Last week, ICE officers fired at a man in South Los Angeles after agents boxed his car in. Carlitos Ricardo Parias was shot in the elbow, and a deputy marshal was hit by what authorities said was a ricocheted bullet. They accused Parias of trying to ram the agents’ cars.

In September and October, there were two shootings, by ICE and Border Patrol, into vehicles in Chicago, one fatal. And in August, federal agents shot into a car in San Bernardino during an immigration stop.

As I wrote earlier about the vaccine denialism, you’d think shooting people would be a wake-up call. But if half the country didn’t care about the 1.2 million dead from COVID, there’s no reason to think they’ll care about this.

Apparently, Arizona and Utah have a major measles outbreak and it appears it’s headed to Salt Lake City. And that’s going to be a problem:

Salt Lake County likely has a new one, too—the first for the county this year—as well as possible exposures. But, they can’t confirm it.

County health officials said that a health care provider in the area contacted them late on Monday to tell them about a patient who very likely has measles. The officials then spent a day reaching out to the person, who refused to answer questions or cooperate in any way. That included refusing to share location information so that other people could be notified that they were potentially exposed to one of the most infectious viruses known.

“The patient has declined to be tested, or to fully participate in our disease investigation, so we will not be able to technically confirm the illness or properly do contact tracing to warn anyone with whom the patient may have had contact,” Dorothy Adams, executive director of Salt Lake County Health Department, said in a statement. “But based on the specific symptoms reported by the healthcare provider and the limited conversation our investigators have had with the patient, this is very likely a case of measles in someone living in Salt Lake County.”

Measles is extremely infectious. It is spread through the air and can linger in the airspace of a room for up to two hours after an infectious person has left. Among unvaccinated people, 90 percent will become infected if exposed. Two doses of measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine (MMR) are 97 percent effective at preventing the infection, and that protection is considered lifelong.

I had measles and I don’t remember it being “fun” like these right wingers are saying. Neither was chicken pox which is probably what RFK Jr is remembering. Not that it was fun but it wasn’t as miserable as measles. (And the shingles virus, which lingers in the body once you have chicken pox, definitely isn’t fun.)

But sure. Let’s go back to the dark ages and refuse to vaccinate your children but then refuse to cooperate with public health officials as they try to trace it and warn people who’ve been exposed. Great.

And it’s getting worse:

Support among US adults for the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine has dropped from 90% to 82% in just a few short months, while confusion reigns over whether Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—the top US official spearheading prevention efforts—recommends that children be vaccinated against measles, according to the latest poll from the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) at the University of Pennsylvania.

The poll also found that most Americans correctly believe that the MMR vaccine does not cause autism, though that number has slipped, while over half of those surveyed weren’t sure whether a mercury-based preservative in some vaccines increases the risk of autism, despite studies showing no link.

The results come as US measles cases surpass 1,600 and outbreaks across the country grow.

The poll was conducted August 5 through 18 among 1,699 adults, 28 of whom took the survey in Spanish. It has a margin of error for the entire sample of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

In a normal world I would say that once a few kids die people will have to wake up. But then I remember that 1.2 million Americans died during COVID and these throwbacks have all doubled down. They are impervious to reality. And apparently, they just don’t care.