Good morning. A taxpayer-funded ad declares, “So God made Trump.” Another intercuts lions hunting their prey with images of Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton. Every one of them ends the same way: “Paid for by the U.S. Government.” And according to the New York Times, Trump personally ordered his budget director to find the money, which came out of funds Congress set aside for border security and memorials for officers killed in the line of duty.
It’s part of a pattern. Weeks before the midterms, Trump is mailing $500 Obamacare checks that are flowing overwhelmingly to battleground states, announcing $90 payments to 20 million seniors, and promising $5,000 to every adult if Republicans keep Congress. And it’s happening because Republicans are panicking: House Republicans now privately believe they’re going to lose the majority, as Trump’s approval on the economy hits an all-time low of 26%.
That’s why I’m launching a major investigation into how Trump has used taxpayer money to benefit himself and his party, from the ad campaign to the payouts to the funds redirected away from what Congress intended. I want to lay out, clearly and with the receipts, exactly where the money came from, where it went, and what laws may have been broken, so that Congress and prosecutors have a clear roadmap they can ultimately use.
This kind of reporting takes time, documents and resources, and I can’t do it without you. I’m not funded by billionaires, corporations or the White House. I’m funded by readers who believe taxpayers deserve to know how their money is being spent. If you value this work, subscribe today and help make this investigation possible. And if you already have, thank you. You’re the reason I can keep digging.
Here’s the news:
House Republicans Privately Fear Losing the Majority as Trump’s Economic Approval Sinks to Record Lows
A growing number of House Republicans privately believe they’ll lose the majority and are shifting to limiting the size of a Democratic wave. More than a dozen people told CNN that Republicans have watched with alarm as Trump’s approval has sunk in their own internal polling over the past two weeks, including on traditionally red turf. The House GOP is entering “triage mode,” discussing pulling money from once-competitive races like Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks in Iowa, Rep. Tom Kean in New Jersey and an open seat in Nebraska. The goal now is keeping a potential Speaker Hakeem Jeffries’ margin under 10 seats, with one GOP strategist asking, “What the f**k are you going to get done over there?” Speaker Mike Johnson insists he’s “absolutely still convinced” Republicans can hold the House, and GOP strategists say their cash advantage and newly gerrymandered seats in Texas and Florida could still be “the lifesaver,” either minimizing losses or saving the majority.
Trump’s approval on the economy has hit all-time lows, with 65% of Americans blaming him for persistently high costs. An AP-NORC poll found just 26% approve of Trump’s handling of the economy and only 17% approve of his handling of the cost of living, while his overall approval sits at 31%. A Quinnipiac poll put his economic approval at 31%, the lowest of either term, with just 28% approving of his handling of Iran, and CNN found his overall approval at 33%, three points below where it was at this point in his first term. Even his base is slipping, with NBC News finding only 62% of self-identified MAGA Republicans support him, down from 71% in the spring. Democrats lead the generic congressional ballot by 11 to 12 points in Emerson and Marist polling, and a plurality of voters say Trump’s endorsement would make them less likely to back a candidate.
Florida GOP Rep. María Elvira Salazar’s ad telling Trump his immigration crackdown has “gone too far” has turned her once-safe Miami seat into a race to watch. Standing in front of the White House, Salazar said some Hispanics who voted for Trump now feel “betrayed,” as the administration deports a record number of Cubans, including some sent to Africa and older men sent to Mexico. The ad angered Trump, who promoted criticism of her on Truth Social, while her Democratic opponent, former CBS Miami anchor Eliott Rodriguez, said, “We raised a lot of money, thanks to my opponent!” Salazar won by 20 points in 2024 in a district Trump carried with 57%, but House Majority PAC has now reserved about $4.2 million to try to flip it. One former Republican Miami city commissioner said he plans to leave the party after voters told him to his face they wouldn’t support him because he’s a Republican, calling it “a rude awakening.”
Republicans are leaning on taxes, immigration and crime in their final ads, while a historic wave of departures reshapes Congress. About a third of GOP House ads in September focused on tax policy, touting the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act’s” tax cuts on tips, overtime and Social Security, with immigration, law enforcement and transgender issues also featuring prominently. Republicans are outspending Democrats in all 10 of the most expensive House races, including multimillion-dollar advantages in Democratic-held seats. Regardless of the outcome, the next Congress will look very different, with at least 83 incumbents not returning as of August, the most lawmakers not seeking reelection since 2000, according to TIME and Ballotpedia. That includes an unusually high 12 incumbents who lost primaries, from Trump critics like Thomas Massie and Bill Cassidy to Democrats ousted by progressive challengers.
Trump Ramps Up Pre-Election Cash Giveaways as Critics Accuse Him of Trying to Buy Votes
Trump announced yet another payout weeks before the midterms, a one-time $90 payment to more than 20 million seniors on Medicare. Trump said late Friday the money will come from the Medicare Improvement Fund, which Congress funded with $2 billion to improve the program, and the White House says most seniors will receive a direct deposit in early October, with checks mailed to the rest. It’s the latest in an escalating series of cash promises as Republicans face dismal polling over the cost of living, driven largely by the Iran war’s spike in oil and gas prices. The $90 announcement comes on top of $500 Obamacare checks already landing in mailboxes and Trump’s promise of $5,000 for every adult if Republicans keep Congress. Democrats have accused Trump of trying to bribe voters, arguing that Congress, not the president, controls how federal money is spent.
The $500 Obamacare checks are flowing overwhelmingly to the states that will decide the midterms. A Reuters analysis found 71% of the payments, $339 million in total, are going to residents of 13 states that host eight of the nine most competitive Senate races and 10 of the 12 most competitive governor’s races. Only 950,000 of the 19 million Obamacare enrollees qualify, because the checks only go to people in the 30 states using HealthCare.gov and only to those paying full price after Republicans let enhanced subsidies expire. KFF says premiums for that group could quadruple in some states to more than $2,200 a month, meaning the $500 “likely for the majority of them is not going to offset” their higher costs. “How many times has Trump tried to buy folks’ votes? It’s pretty damn obvious,” said Democratic strategist Eric Stern, while New Hampshire Senate nominee Chris Pappas said voters “just want him to understand that affordability isn’t a hoax.”
Trump doubled down on his $5,000 checks at an Oklahoma rally, insisting “I never fail people,” even as most voters say the offer is inappropriate. He acknowledged the payments would cost about $1 trillion but claimed it’s “really very little” because he’s secured $21 trillion in investment, nearly double the $11.2 trillion listed on the White House’s own website. A Strength in Numbers/Verasight poll found 66% of voters call the offer “inappropriate,” a Reuters/Ipsos poll found 63% disapprove, including four in 10 Republicans, and 61% of likely voters in an Economist/YouGov survey don’t believe he’ll actually deliver. NBC News found 46% of voters would be less likely to back a candidate who supports the checks, compared to 21% who’d be more likely, though a Harvard CAPS/Harris poll showed 57% support. Trump has pointed to his $1,776 “warrior dividend” for service members as proof he follows through.
Experts say the payments may not change the race, but could matter at the margins in close contests. Republican strategist Ryan Williams said they won’t alter the election’s fundamental dynamics, but “if you can curry favor with even a small group of undecided voters who might be happy with the check they got, it could make a difference.” Cornell professor Douglas Kriner, who has studied similar presidential efforts, said they could be “worth a percentage point or two,” mostly by shoring up Republican voters rather than winning over Democrats. Trump has also tried to cut off billions in federal aid to Democratic-run states like Minnesota and New York, efforts that have stalled in court. Past presidents have made explicit promises too, including Joe Biden’s pledge of $2,000 checks during Georgia’s 2021 Senate runoffs, but Trump’s string of direct payouts timed to land weeks before an election is unusual in its scale.
Trump Personally Ordered $20 Million in Taxpayer-Funded Ads Glorifying Himself, Including One Called “God Made Trump”
The Trump administration made a taxpayer-funded ad casting Trump as a messianic figure, titled “God Made Trump,” part of at least 13 spots promoting the president on the public’s dime. The three-minute ad, a riff on Paul Harvey’s “God Made a Farmer,” declares, “I need somebody with arms strong enough to rustle the deep state, and yet gentle enough to deliver his own grandchild. Somebody to ruffle the feathers. So God made Trump.” It was created by a pro-Trump meme group, aired at the GOP’s midterm convention in Dallas, and ends like every other spot in the campaign: “Paid for by the U.S. Government.” Other ads obtained by CNN include “King of the Jungle,” which intercuts lions hunting with images of Obama, Biden, Pelosi, Clinton and Newsom, “Resilience,” which features Trump’s Fulton County mugshot, and an ad promoting the UFC fight Trump hosted at the White House. In any other administration, using taxpayer money to produce ads worshipping the sitting president and attacking his political rivals would be treated as an impeachable abuse of power.
Trump personally ordered his budget director to find taxpayer money for the ads, according to the New York Times. Twelve people familiar with the matter said Trump was eager to see laudatory ads on TV and told OMB Director Russell Vought to come up with the money from within the government, while Trump and Chief of Staff Susie Wiles both spoke with Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin about them. In an August Oval Office meeting meant to discuss super PAC spending for struggling GOP candidates, the Times reports Trump was far more interested in having his assistant Natalie Harp show the group videos of himself. On Sept. 19, OMB shifted $20 million in Customs and Border Protection money into a “commemorative events” budget line, and the next day CBP awarded a $20 million contract to a Maryland PR firm. Asked about it, Trump said, “If somebody said that that’s wrong, I’ll gladly pay the money,” insisting, “I’m not promoting myself because I’m not running for office. I’m promoting the country.”
The money came from funds Congress set aside for border security, anti-drug trafficking efforts and memorials for officers killed in the line of duty. According to the Washington Post, the law allowed the CBP money to be used only for things like port inspection equipment, border surveillance and screening unaccompanied children, while “commemorative events” was meant for “line-of-duty death memorials” and commendation ceremonies. At least $5.5 million has already been spent, with ads running on Fox, CNN, CBS, ABC, NBC, “Good Morning America,” “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” and NFL broadcasts, and the White House says the campaign will expand. Congress has banned spending federal money on “publicity or propaganda” since the 1950s, and while the GAO has found violations under Obama and Bush, those involved policy campaigns, not ads glorifying the president himself. There is no precedent for using government money to air political ads in an election season.
Democrats say the ads may be criminal, and even Republicans are refusing to defend them. Rep. Jamie Raskin called them potential “felony criminal theft and conversion of government property for political campaign purposes,” and with Rep. George Whitesides asked the GAO to investigate possible violations of the Hatch Act, the Antideficiency Act and laws against embezzling public funds, a probe he could pursue with subpoena power if Democrats win the House. Sens. Patty Murray and Chris Murphy called it “a shockingly corrupt misuse of taxpayer dollars.” Republican Sen. John Cornyn said the ads are not an appropriate use of taxpayer money, adding, “It’s not even a close question,” while Sen. Thom Tillis said Trump should pay for them from his super PAC instead. That super PAC, MAGA Inc., has more than $400 million, which Trump has described by saying, “This is my money that I control.”
Other news:
The University of Oregon received five sexual assault reports in the first week of classes, as the Cornell case sparks a national reckoning over campus safety. The university alerted students Wednesday, just two days after classes began, saying four of the assaults involved students and a fifth happened near a park next to campus, all within the past week. While the cases aren’t believed to be connected, the school said “several alleged perpetrators may have taken advantage of the fact that the victims were intoxicated at social events,” and one arrest has been made. The university said it issued the alert because it was “very concerned to see a pattern of assaults with similar characteristics,” stressing that its “first concern is for survivors.” Meanwhile, newly unsealed documents in the Cornell case show Jane Doe told a university disciplinary hearing, “I felt like bait. I felt like lions around me.” Cornell has defended its handling of the case, which ended in expulsions and suspensions, and said it welcomes the reopened investigation now led by Attorney General Letitia James.
Justice Samuel Alito says he thinks about retiring “every term,” but chose to stay because he can still “make a valuable contribution.” The 76-year-old told CBS News he resisted pressure from Republicans who wanted him to step down while the GOP still controls the Senate, which could block a Trump nominee if Democrats win it in November. His retirement wouldn’t change the court’s 6-3 conservative majority but would give Trump a fourth appointment. Trump said in April “it’d be nice to say now I have somebody for 40 years,” while praising Alito as “an unbelievable justice.” Alito said it’s “too hard to predict what the political situation will be and what any president might do with respect to a replacement.” The interview comes days before the release of his autobiography, “So Ordered: An Originalist’s View of the Constitution, the Court, and Our Country,” on Tuesday.
Trump said “maybe they’ll name the damn bridge after me” at a Mobile rally touting a $3.2 billion Alabama bridge partly funded by the Biden administration. Trump credited his administration with $3 billion in funding for the Mobile River Bridge and Bayway project, but Biden awarded a $550 million grant for it in July 2024, which Democratic Rep. Shomari Figures pointed out at the groundbreaking, saying “I would be remiss not to thank the Biden administration.” The bridge joins a growing list of things Trump wants named after him, including the Kennedy Center, where a federal judge ordered his name removed in May because “only Congress can change it,” and Palm Beach’s airport, now President Donald J. Trump International Airport. Trump has denied reports his officials circulated a list that included Ford’s Theatre, where Lincoln was assassinated, calling it “FAKE NEWS!” He told New York Magazine he’s remaking DC in his image because “nobody will do it once I’m gone.” At the rally, Trump also bragged that he got “the highest vote total of any candidate in Alabama history” and said he’ll be back next Saturday for the Georgia-Alabama football game.
A White House budget office proposal would bar anyone from using federal grant money for voter registration drives, threatening programs that help disabled Americans vote. The rule from Russell Vought’s Office of Management and Budget would also ban vaguely defined “related activities,” and could force nonprofits that help people with disabilities, nursing home residents and others register to pause their work ahead of 2028, ProPublica reports. Congress has funded voter access for people with disabilities since the 2002 Help America Vote Act, signed by George W. Bush, and the gap in registration difficulties still affects about 740,000 disabled voters. A former OMB general counsel called it “a massive across-the-board power grab” that ignores Congress’ power of the purse. Vought previously condemned a Biden order expanding registration as a “power grab” that would boost turnout “especially among Democratic Party supporters.” The rule wouldn’t take effect until after the midterms, and legal experts expect it to face lawsuits arguing it contradicts laws Congress has repeatedly approved.
The Tennessee prison chief who oversaw Christa Pike’s failed execution has presided over five “botched” executions across two states, her lawyers say. Commissioner Frank Strada was a deputy prison director in Arizona in 2022 when three executions were classified as botched, including two in which executioners had to cut into prisoners’ groins to find a vein, and Tennessee also failed to execute Tony Carruthers in May after workers couldn’t find a vein for over an hour. Under Strada, Tennessee dropped a training requirement for execution teams to practice inserting IVs, and he admitted in a deposition he hadn’t followed key recommendations from a 2022 independent review. After he left Arizona, that state expanded its IV team and required more rigorous training, but Strada implemented a Tennessee protocol mirroring Arizona’s old two-person IV team. Asked what makes a successful execution, Strada said, “The condemned is put to death,” and when asked “Anything else?” replied, “No.” Pike remains unconscious and on a ventilator, Gov. Bill Lee has suspended executions through the end of the year, and candidates to replace Lee say they wouldn’t keep Strada.
Record diesel prices driven by the Iran war are hammering Midwest farmers just as harvest season begins. One Indiana farmer says he’ll burn about 9,000 gallons of diesel this harvest, with fuel now $3 a gallon more expensive than a year ago, and estimates suggest the war and supply disruptions could add $12,500 in fuel costs for every 1,000 acres harvested. Four of the five states with the biggest diesel price jumps in September were in the Midwest, worsened by a flooded ExxonMobil refinery in Illinois and a six-month labor dispute at a major BP refinery in Indiana. School districts are feeling it too, with nearly 40% of districts in a national survey consolidating bus routes and some cutting field trips. Experts warn the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is at its lowest level in 43 years, which could leave little cushion heading into high-demand winter months. Even if the war ended tomorrow, one expert said, refilling the reserve would slow any drop in prices, calling that “the best-case” scenario.
The FDA found cyclospora at the Mexican farm linked to the largest outbreak of the parasite in US history, which sickened nearly 13,000 people. Inspectors detected the parasite in a wastewater tank and a drainage ditch used for lettuce cultivation at the Taylor Farms site in Guanajuato, though it’s unclear how the lettuce was contaminated. The outbreak spread across 21 states, sending 570 people to the hospital and killing two. The FDA’s first visit to the farm in more than seven years came after a steep post-pandemic drop in international food safety inspections, and after the agency had to retract a faulty test result. Mexico’s own food safety authority had said it found no cyclospora in the lettuce or water at the facility. Taylor Farms blamed an independent grower “who is no longer part of our supplier program,” and said its facility remains closed.
Hawaii’s 550-year-old Hōlei sea arch has collapsed into the Pacific after a series of powerful storms. The roughly 90-foot landmark in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park was still standing on Sept. 23 but had fallen by Sept. 27, the National Park Service said, after Tropical Storm Nolo rapidly intensified into a hurricane. The cliffs around the arch had been unstable for years, damaged by earthquakes during the 2018 Kīlauea eruption and pounded by storm surf in 2020. Nolo was the third major storm to hit Hawaii in recent months, following hurricanes Lala and Lowell. Forecasters warn this “supercharged” El Niño could reach historic intensity, with its effects compounded by fossil fuel-driven warming. The US Geological Survey had predicted the collapse more than a decade ago, writing in 2014, “It will not be here for ever... One day, it will be gone.”
Country star Zach Bryan wore a “Free Palestine” shirt onstage at Gillette Stadium, weeks after owner Robert Kraft barred Macklemore from performing there. Bryan’s black shirt read “Free Palestine. An appeal to heaven,” a phrase dating back to the Revolutionary War that once appeared on Massachusetts’ maritime flag, while members of his band wore Palestinian soccer jerseys. In September, Kraft blocked Macklemore from opening for Ed Sheeran at the Foxborough venue after the rapper said “Free Palestine” and accused Israel of genocide at a New Jersey concert, calling the speech deeply offensive to the Jewish community. Bryan is scheduled to play Gillette again Saturday night. It’s unclear whether Kraft will take any action against Bryan, whose shirt echoed the same message that got Macklemore banned. The Kraft Group did not respond to a request for comment.
See you soon.
— Aaron
