Ann's Mega Dub: 2026

Wednesday, October 7, 2026

Chump's not digging into his own pockets

Chump is the grifter supreme. He robs from American tax payers on a regular basis. C.I. called it Tuesday morning in the snapshot:

In a new development, Shane Goldmacher, Theodore Schleifer and Maggie Haberman (NEW YORK TIMES) report:

President Trump reversed course on Monday and announced that his super PAC would now pay for the television ads promoting him that have been airing nationwide at taxpayer expense.

In a post on his social media platform, Mr. Trump wrote, “I have decided to do the Patriotic Ads, among others, and pay for them myself, and with money I raised for MAGA, Inc.”

More than $10 million in taxpayer-funded ads have run since September, according to AdImpact, the ad-tracking service. The ads, which are running on cable and network television, were paid for through a $20 million contract that used funds from the Department of Homeland Security.

Democrats -- and some Republicans -- have criticized the ads as a possible violation of federal laws for using taxpayer funds for “publicity or propaganda purposes.” The ads were broadcast in the heat of the campaign for the midterms, as Republicans are trying to hold control of Congress. At least one of the ads featured footage that originally had appeared in a 2024 Trump campaign video.

So the over ten million dollars he's spent on the ads so far, he'll be repaying the government on that? Putting it back? No. Nicholas Kerr (ABC NEWS) notes, "A White House official confirmed to ABC News Monday night that MAGA Inc. will pay for ads moving forward but defended them as something previous administrations have used." Moving forward.

Tuesday afternoon, Cheyanne M. Daniels (Politico) reported:

President Donald Trump will not reimburse the federal government for taxpayer-funded advertisements promoting him and his administration ahead of the November midterms — and even dropped a new ad on Tuesday.

Following bipartisan backlash to the more than $10 million spent on what the White House dubbed “Patriotic Ads,” Trump announced Monday on Truth Social that his super PAC would cover the cost of the ads. But White House officials clarified on Tuesday to POLITICO that the president’s post did not mean the PAC would pay for the spots that had already aired.

The latest ad highlights the American mission to remove Venezuela’s former leader Nicolás Maduro. The minute-long spot features Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth speaking from a podium about the operation.

In all, Trump has spent about $11.6 million on more than a dozen ads, according to an estimate from AdImpact, an analytics firm which tracks advertising. The advertisements were reportedly paid for with funds from a $20 million contract awarded by the Department of Homeland Security. One ad is titled “God made Trump.” Another is nearly identical to a 2024 presidential campaign ad Trump aired, though it ends with the message, “Paid for by the U.S. Government.”

Chump's not digging in his pockets to replace the $11 million US tax dollars that he stole. He's a grifter and a thief.

This is C.I.'s "The Snapshot:"

Wednesday, October 7, 2026. Chump's Desperation Tour continues and today finds him back in Texas for the third time since the start of September, Priss Pot Hegseth continues to garner attention as does ICE which was caught lying to the courts again, and much more.

Chump continues his Desperation Tour. Sophia Tesfaye (SALON) notes he's singing from his tired hymnal:

Donald Trump has spent his political life treating the press as a prop. Friendly outlets are the audience he performs for, while hostile ones are the villains he performs against. But the president has never had to confront a prop that has stopped cooperating. It’s why he has spent several days raging at nearly every corner of the media, including the one network he has long treated as his own. Increasingly obsessed with controlling the image of his political decline rather than reckoning with reality, Trump has set out on a campaign of intimidation as his usual spectacle starts to finally fizzle out following more than a decade of domination. But browbeating Fox News and continuing to sideline CNN and POLITICO cannot conceal what is there in plain sight: shrinking crowds and falling poll numbers.

Over a whirlwind weekend of rallies across Alabama, Ohio, Oklahoma and Texas, the cracks in the MAGA facade became impossible to ignore. Trump has always treated crowd size at his rallies as a proxy for legitimacy and domination. In his eyes, the image of an overflowing arena functions as proof that the country loves him, that the media lies about him and that his political project remains invincible. This is why the sight of empty seats in high school gymnasiums and muted cable coverage that tell a less flattering story cuts so deeply.

“In actuality, my Events for very good Republican Politicians are probably more crowded than ever. There are no empty seats, there haven’t been for years, and there never will be. The Rallies are ‘HOTTER’ than ever,” he wrote on Truth Social Monday, demanding that “The New York Times, and many other Artificial Media Outlets, should be arrested for their dishonesty.” The president was referencing a Times report that during an event on Friday, Trump’s venue on the campus of the University of South Alabama was not full and that Trump’s midterm campaign swing feels “more like a farewell tour.”

But the day before, Trump had turned his fire on a less obvious target.

“Sad to see that Fox & Friends (Sunday) is not covering our packed house and incredibly enthusiastic (beyond!) Rally that took place in Ohio last night, or the ones in Alabama, Texas, or Oklahoma over the past two days,” he posted on Truth Social Sunday morning. The rallies were “absolutely phenomenal, better than ever,” he insisted. “Our people want to see our Rallies, and reports on our Rallies, on FoxNews, or they will very quickly stop watching (like I am doing right now!).”

Tom Latchem (THE DAILY BEAST) notes the smaller audiences as well:

With his approval ratings in the dirt over the economy and failing war on Iran, Trump’s latest midterm blitz has seen him address high school gyms and venues dramatically smaller than those he packed during his first presidential campaign, drawing crowds up to 75 percent smaller.

The clearest comparison of his dwindling power came in Mobile, Alabama, where Trump held one of the defining rallies of his insurgent 2015 campaign, so popular it had to be moved to a bigger venue. Around 30,000 people descended on the 40,000-plus capacity Ladd-Peebles Stadium to see Trump that August, according to an estimate from city officials reported at the time.

When Trump returned to Mobile last Friday, however, the president appeared at the Mitchell Center, an arena with room for around 10,000 people. Local media reported that around 8,000 attended.

The venue was about 75 percent smaller than the stadium Trump used in 2015, while the estimated crowd had fallen by around 73 percent.

The Desperation Tour is about Chump going to states he once had huge popularity in and talking up GOP candidates who are in tight races. Instead, however, he's making every event on this pity tour about himself.

Tom Boggioni (RAW STORY) reports:

President Donald Trump’s glib comments about Iran attacking Los Angeles and San Diego were greeted with amusement by MS NOW host Catherine Rampell, who claimed the president is making life miserable for the Republican Party.

On Monday night, the president defended the costs of his war on Iran, insisting once again he prevented the country from developing nukes.

He then added, “They could take out a city. Let them take — Let them take out Los Angeles. Let them take out San Diego.”

On Tuesday morning, Rampell joked with MS NOW’s Peter Alexander that California's Republican candidates must be cringing —particularly the GOP nominee for governor.

The Desperation Tour is poorly planned, very poorly planned. For example, last week it was in Texas -- Denton, Texas. Then it went on to Ohio and other states. Today? It's back in Texas. San Antonio. Chump will be sharing the stage with? Not Texas Governor Greg Abbott. He has announced he has other events to attend.

In another sign of the Desperation Tour's diminishing appeal, Dan Gooding (NEWSWEEK) notes:

More Americans are identifying as Democratic than at any time since the first years of the Obama administration, less than a month before the midterm elections.

The latest quarterly poll from Gallup shows 50 percent of Americans asked either said they were a Democrat or leaned that way, compared to 39 percent for the Republican Party. The share of those on the left has been steadily rising since the end of 2024, while the number of those saying they were Republican or Republican-leaning has fallen.

Aaron Blake (CNN) offers an analysis which includes:

One of the most telling signs of broader GOP panic? Republicans feeling compelled to distance themselves from Trump even in these red areas — whether calling for an end to the Iran war, overhauling their websites to erase mentions of the president, or declining to campaign with Trump.

On Monday, the Houston Chronicle reported that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott won’t appear with Trump when the president visits San Antonio this week. Abbott’s campaign blamed scheduling conflicts, but these are the kinds of events GOP candidates would never have missed once upon a time, especially in a red state.

And indeed, many of the worst signs for the GOP are emanating from Texas.

There’s the awkward ad from Senate nominee Ken Paxton’s estranged wife (who has accused him of infidelity) in which she encourages people to vote Republican. There are the leaked audio clips in which Paxton is heard complaining about Trump and the national GOP hurting his campaign. And on Monday, GOP state Rep. Briscoe Cain posted on X: “If the election were held tomorrow, all state wide races go blue.”

Just to underscore how stunning that would be, Democrats haven’t won any statewide race in Texas since 1994. And this isn’t some moderate Republican spouting off; this is a MAGA lawmaker who tried to help overturn the results of the 2020 election for Trump.

None of this means the GOP is doomed. While there are enough signs in the polling to cause the party to worry, Democrats’ path to the Senate majority still goes through those double-digit Trump states. That’s a high bar to clear.

Turning to other Chuamp failures, let's note Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. Ellen Mitchell (THE HILL) notes:

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s ouster of top generals and admirals from the U.S. military are “damaging our readiness,” according to Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), a retired astronaut and Navy captain.

A member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Kelly said Hegseth’s intended 20 percent reduction of the top of the ranks — announced last week — would only hurt national security.

“When you hurt readiness, it means that all of us ... are less safe because we have the most unqualified secretary of Defense we've ever had in this country's history,” Kelly said Sunday on CBS News’s "Face the Nation."

He also accused Hegseth of often firing people “because of the color of their skin or because they’re women.”

Kelly is, of course, a Democrat. Republicans are complaining about Hegseth as well. Alexander Bolton (THE HILL) reports:

Key Republican senators say they were blindsided by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s announced 20 percent reduction of the U.S. military’s general and admirals, and they're voicing concerns about the lack of consultation with Congress and the possibility that qualified senior officers were sacked for political or ideological reasons.

Senior Republicans on Capitol Hill are questioning whether too many experienced and highly qualified generals and admirals are being pushed out because of politics and what impact it might have on military readiness in the future.

“I wouldn’t have made that a priority if I had been asked,” said Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), who said he was only informed of the 20 percent reduction shortly before it was announced.

“I didn’t get a long lead,” he said when asked if he got a heads up before Hegseth’s announcement Wednesday.

Wicker didn’t have many details about the significant reduction in senior ranks. “I think he’s probably interested in cutting out bureaucracy at the top level,” he speculated.

Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine), who is handling the Pentagon’s request for an emergency supplemental spending package as well as the annual defense spending bill, said the sudden and large reduction of generals and admirals raises questions and concerns.

Collins said she didn’t get advanced notice of the steep reduction in military leadership ranks.

She noted she told Hegseth at a hearing earlier this year that his ouster of senior military officials was “deeply troubling” and risked “depriving us” of the “talent, dedication and patriotism” of women and people of color who were disproportionately pushed out.

Republican US House Rep Thomas Massie has introduced a call for Hegseth to be impeached. A Republican senator has declared he regrets his vote to confirm Hegseth. John Light (TALKING POINTS MEMO) reports:

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) has a book to promote. In it, he revealed this week, he delves into his greatest regret: voting to confirm Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

“The president referred to Pete Hegseth as right out of Central Casting — and I agree with that: He’s an actor. He’s not a manager,” Tillis told MS NOW’s Morning Joe.

This confession comes with a hint of déjà vu. An outgoing senator with a brand as a moderate — at least within the spectrum of today’s Republican Party — regrets a pivotal confirmation vote. Perhaps it brings to mind Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), the doctor-turned-legislator who, despite his reservations, confirmed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead Health and Human Services. Kennedy then immediately broke promises Cassidy said he had made to him, and began acting on his life’s work to undercut the vaccine regimen in America. Who could have seen it coming?

For any who may have forgotten, Hegseth was the most controversial nominee in Chump's cabinet and the vote was split 50 for and 50 against. JD Vance, as Vice President, is President of the Senate. To break the tie, JD Vance voted in favor of confirming him.

In other problems for Hegseth, Edith Olmsted (THE NEW REPUBLIC) notes:

The Associated Press spoke to a group of nine servicemembers who all claim that the U.S. military’s medical system failed them after they were injured in the deadly attack on March 1.

Army Lieutenant Colonel Arturo Lincón, a veteran of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, suffered extensive injuries from shrapnel, including to his left vertebral artery, which put him at risk for a stroke. However, his injuries were not considered serious enough to get him admitted to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany. Instead, he was dismissed to the Army barracks and instructed to schedule outpatient appointments.

“I was just kind of on my own, at least it felt like that,” Lincón told the AP. He underwent weeks of specialized outpatient care at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Washington. Months later, he is still struggling to receive Traumatic Injury benefits under the Servicemembers’ Group Life Insurance.

Meanwhile, Ryan J. Foley (AP) reports:

The shock gloves immigration agents could soon use to control detainees and protesters worked so powerfully during a military exercise that participants felt intense pain, stopped fighting immediately and feared additional exposures, according to a previously unreleased Army study.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement leaders were aware of the findings before signing a $16.7 million contract to purchase 6,000 pairs of shock gloves in August, according to records obtained by the watchdog group American Oversight and shared with The Associated Press.

The shocks had a profound impact on Army employees who played the role of combative prisoners during the exercise, which took place at the military prison at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas in October 2024. The participants, several of whom were large-statured men, stopped resisting seconds after officers applied shocks by touching gloves to their skin, and were left with “fatigue, soreness and excessive apprehensiveness to being shocked again,” the study found.

“After experiencing the effects of the GLOVE, ... participants stated just seeing the GLOVE was enough to make them want to comply,” the authors wrote.

ICE has called the gloves “distraction and de-escalation devices" that will be safer than other non-lethal options to subdue targets for arrest and deportation and protesters who create civil disturbances. The agency has argued the rapid compliance they cause will keep officers safer and prevent incidents from requiring potentially lethal force.

But critics have warned the gloves will give ICE another weapon to intimidate and brutalize people even as the agency is under fire for excessive force that has left a trail of deaths and injuries across the nation.

On the topic of ICE and abuse, Jill Keppeler (UPI) reports:

A Chicago teacher who was shot five times by an immigration agent last year is suing the federal government for damages.

The federal government had originally charged Marimar Martinez with assault after she was shot by Border Patrol agent Charles Exum in October, saying she was a "domestic terrorist" who "ambushed" law enforcement agents and rammed them with her vehicle.

However, federal prosecutors later dropped those charges with prejudice, meaning the case against Martinez is permanently closed. An Illinois Accountability Commission later found that Exum had no justification in shooting her.

Martinez said she wants to spread awareness through the charges against the federal government, which include negligence, battery, assault, false arrest, false imprisonment and malicious prosecution.

One of the pronouncements in Martinez's trial was that ICE agents and the government had lied to the court. Kathryn Wilkens (MEDIAITE) reports that this has happened again:

A federal judge appointed by President Donald Trump tore into Immigration and Customs Enforcement in a blistering ruling Monday, accusing agents of making illegal arrests and falsifying official records to cover up their actions.

U.S. District Judge Gary R. Brown issued the rebuke in the case of Angel Jesus Almonte, who was arrested during a May ICE operation in the Bronx despite not being one of the two men agents were seeking. ICE also wrongly arrested Jeury Concepcion, a U.S. citizen, during the same operation.

Brown rejected ICE’s explanation that agents had simply mistaken the men for their intended targets.

“The claims of misidentification here prove baseless, the arrests were procedurally deficient and legally invalid, and ICE agents falsified official records trying to conceal their illegal actions,” the judge wrote, noting Concepcion suffered significant injuries.

The judge pointed to stark discrepancies in ICE’s account. Almonte was six feet tall and weighed 180 pounds, while the man agents claimed to have confused him with was 5-foot-7 and 110 pounds. The ICE team leader acknowledged that photographs made it “very easy to see they’re two different people.”

In March of this year, Kristi Noem was fired as Secretary of Homeland Security. Markwayne Mullin became the new Secretary of Homeland Security that same month. And though they got a new secretary, they continue to lie to the courts. Not a good look. Not a look that instills faith in their actions.

The Department of the Interior is headed by a lunatic (Doug Burgum) who sees our national lands as something to sell off. He's having his own problems in his department. Jimmy Tobias (GUARDIAN) reports:

An 18-year veteran of the US Department of the Interior has resigned in protest from the sprawling federal agency, denouncing “a deeply troubling assault on the rule of the law” that took place at the department under Donald Trump.

John Murdock, an attorney and self-described conservative Christian, began working for the agency’s legal office in 2002. In his resignation letter, first sent to his supervisor earlier this year and obtained exclusively by the Guardian and Public Domain, Murdock cites “glaring legal flaws” he witnessed within the agency during the course of the Trump administration, as well as concerns over offshore oil and gas drilling, the aggressive push to expand fossil fuels and the flouting of environmental regulation.

“We are headed in the wrong direction,” wrote Murdock, who officially stepped down on 30 September.

Murdock’s resignation and public comments come amid an exodus of longtime government workers and scientists within federal agencies, including at the interior department, which has lost thousands of employees ever since Elon Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) began its controversial efforts to slash government employment last year.

Let's wind down with this from Senator Elizabeth Warren's office:

Senators concerned that “the President has in fact accepted the ring as part of a quid pro quo agreement to reduce diamond tariffs.”

Text of Letter (PDF)

Washington, D.C. — U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) questioned the White House, the General Services Administration (GSA), and the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) about the location and ownership of the watch-sized 18-karat gold ring encrusted with 321 diamonds and 75 gemstones gifted to President Trump by Antwerp World Diamond Centre (AWDC), noting the “unseemly appearance of this transaction.”

In June, AWDC gifted this ring to Trump just weeks before the President exempted European natural diamonds from Section 301 tariffs, making Belgium’s diamond industry the only major player with zero-percent tariff access to the U.S. market. In August, Senators Warren and Blumenthal wrote to AWDC and David Gotlib Luxury Cufflinks, probing them on what seemed to be a “cartoonish bribery attempt” that raised fresh concerns about the President’s record of distributing special treatment to giant corporations and wealthy insiders who come bearing gifts.

The disposition of the ring is currently unknown.

“In June 2026, AWDC presented the ring to U.S. Ambassador to Belgium Bill White…[who] posted that he could not ‘wait to present this ring to President Trump and have it on display in the Oval Office.’ As of July 2, 2026, the White House confirmed that the ring had not yet been presented to President Trump. To date, we are not aware of any public reporting indicating the current location of the ring,” wrote the senators.

The gift may have been processed through one of two different channels. Gifts given by anyone other than a foreign government to the President, the White House, or the U.S. government are first screened, categorized, and evaluated by the White House Gift Office. If a gift is made to the President personally, it may be retained by the President, while those made out to the government of the United States are cataloged and distributed to the appropriate government agency.

As a public-private partnership, AWDC may have acted on behalf of a foreign government, in which case the ring is subject to the Foreign Emoluments Clause and therefore should have been processed through different channels.

“The circumstances in which AWDC gifted this ring, and the lack of clarity about its disposition, raise significant questions about whether the President has in fact accepted the ring as part of a quid pro quo agreement to reduce diamond tariffs,” wrote the senators.

The senators demanded that the White House, GSA, and NARA release information about the ring and its whereabouts by October 19, 2026.

Senator Warren has long conducted oversight on the Trump family’s apparent attempts to profit from their government roles:

In August 2026, Senators Warren and Blumenthal pressed Antwerp World Diamond Centre (AWDC) and David Gotlib Luxury Cufflinks over the decision to gift an 18-karat gold, diamond-encrusted ring to President Trump right before the Trump administration announced tariff exemptions on European diamonds.
In August 2026, Senators Warren, Blumenthal, and Kim probed Korean company Base Group’s mysterious $2 million payment to President Trump while under a trade-related investigation by the Trump administration, raising concerns about pay-to-play politics and bribery. In a new letter to Base Group Chairman Kim Sung-jip, the lawmakers pressed the company for answers on the suspiciously timed payment.
In July 2026, Senators Warren and Blumenthal, along with Representative Stansbury, opened an investigation into reports that Softbank Group (Softbank) recently donated $50 million to the Trump Presidential Library — the largest publicly disclosed contribution to the Library and a possible attempt to curry political favor.
In March 2026, Senator Warren released a new response from the Department of Defense (DoD) indicating that there are no effective processes in place to prevent possible conflicts of interest and corruption involving President Donald Trump’s family and the Department’s awarding of defense contracts. In a new letter, she and Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) pressed Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on this failure and pushed for answers regarding Trump’s sons’ latest investment in Powerus, a drone company.
In September 2025, Senator Warren pressed the CEO of Rolex on why the company invited President Trump to be Rolex’s guest at the finals of the U.S. Open Tennis Championship earlier this month — just weeks after President Trump announced 39 percent tariffs on Swiss imports.
In July 2025, Senator Warren pushed the CEOs of Amazon, Meta, Tesla, Apple, and Alphabet, on their attempts to secure billion-dollar tax handouts paid for by ripping away health care coverage, food assistance, and other services from millions of American families.
In May 2025, Senator Warren wrote to Pilgrim’s Pride and JBS USA (the parent company of Pilgrim’s Pride), pushing them to explain Pilgrim’s Pride’s $5 million donation to the Trump-Vance Inaugural Committee, the single largest donation — bigger than Amazon, Meta, and Google’s donations combined.
In April 2025, Senator Warren pressed Tim Cook about reports that spoke with Trump administration officials to win an exemption to Trump’s China tariffs, worth billions of dollars for Apple.
In April 2025, on the 100th day of the second Trump administration, Senator Warren read 100 reports of corruption from President Trump’s term into the Congressional record, pointing to all the ways President Trump and his family have used the presidency to enrich themselves, give favors to donors, and make it more difficult to hold him accountable for corruption.

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The following sites updated:

Tuesday, October 6, 2026

The grifter Debra Messing

Some grifters try to be less obvious. Debra Messing has come out of the grifting closet. She's endorsed Bruce Blakeman for governor of New York. She claims it's about affordability. Really? I think it's because he's intensely pro-Israel. Debra's endorsing a Republican and, more than that, a Republican endorsed by Donald Chump.

During the Will & Grace reboot, Debra got on everyone's nerves by making every day about Chump. What he'd done that day, what he did the day before. She was obsessed with Chump. And it grated on a ton of nerves. These other people weren't pro-Trump. But they were tired of her obsessive fixation on Chump, about her inability to talk about anything else.

Sometimes when a person rages like she did, it's a sign that they're wanting to go over to the side they're raging against. They're raging to prevent themselves from going over.

Debra's now endorsing a Chump endorsed Republican for governor of New York. She's gone to the other side. Me? Never was a Cornflake Girl.

This is C.I.'s "The Snapshot:"

Tuesday, October 6, 2026. Chumps Desperation Tour continues, in Nebraska he jokes or 'jokes' about L.A. and San Diego being hit by nukes from Iran, he tries to talk up Iran and does so by ignoring War Crimes and the abandonment of US service members, and much more.

28 days. That's how far we are from the midterms. 28 days. And Chump's popularity remains in the toilet. Cecilia Nowell (GUARDIAN) reports:

A new Reuters/Ipsos poll shows Trump’s approval rating at a record-low 32%. That polling included the president losing support among independent voters and Latinos, who had backed him in 2024. The dip could prove dire for the Republican party a month ahead of the midterm elections that will determine control of Congress.

Before boarding a flight to Nebraska on Monday, Trump shrugged off questions about his approval ratings.

“I’m doing great,” Trump told a reporter, who’d asked about recent polls showing the president losing support among Latino voters, before blaming CNN and the media.

But according to a NBC News/Telemundo poll release Sunday, 59% of Latino voters prefer a Democratic-controlled Congress, double the number that supported the party two years ago. According to that poll, just 24% of Hispanic Americans approve of Trump’s performance.

These low approval ratings are bad everywhere. But take Kansas. LBJ was the last Democrat who carried Kansas in a presidential race and he did that in 1964. So Chump carried Kansas in 2016 and in 2020 and in 2024. And right now? Malcolm Ferguson (THE NEW REPUBLIC) notes:

President Trump has the lowest approval rating in Kansas of any president since Herbert Hoover -- who was widely blamed for causing the Great Depression. This is yet another ominous sign for Republicans ahead of what has become a midterm battleground for the Senate.

This comes in the midst of a neck-and-neck campaign between Democrat Reverend Adam Hamilton and incumbent Republican Senator Roger Marshall, with most polls showing them locked at 45 percent. This is the closest Kansas has been to flipping blue in nearly 100 years, making Trump’s historic unpopularity there a clear cause for alarm.

“President Trump is historically unpopular for a Republican president in the great state of Kansas.... I absolutely buy the idea that this [Senate] race is close because just take a look at these,” CNN’s Harry Enten said on Monday morning. “In his first time … Donald Trump had +5 points. Look at how much less popular Donald Trump is than he was in term number one at this point. He’s way down in the basement, 15 points underwater—that’s a 20-point shift away ... 16 less points popular than any other Republican president at this point in the term.”

Republicans are worried that Trump’s unpopularity will spill into the race between Hamilton and Rogers.

Chump is on his Desperation Tour where he visits states he carried by large margins back in the fall of 2024. But two years later, he struggles to fill much smaller venues in these visits. For example, he was back in Mobile, Alabama where, in better years for him, he once filled a 30,seat auditorium. But this go round? Shawn McCreesh (NEW YORK TIMES) explains, "These days, Mr. Trump is in political trouble, even with members of his famously loyal base. The indoor arena that he spoke at on Friday was a fraction of the size of the football stadium he once spoke in — security concerns are such that he rarely speaks in outdoor venues anymore — and still the place was not full. Some upper sections were almost completely empty." Low turn out is what he's seeing over and over. Katie Rogers (NEW YORK TIMES) notes the sameness to the stops on The Desperation Tour, "If President Trump's earlier political rallies felt like standing-room-only rock concerts, the latest ones are starting to feel like the first stops of a farewell tour. The events are a ritual. He will attack Democrats. His words will probably stop making actual, logical sense for a moment, or for many moments. (It’s 'the weave,' you see.) He will accuse Democrats of rigging the 2020 election (they didn't). He will attack the news media. Then he will dance to a Village People song." AP notes, "Across the country, voters are frustrated with Trump’s handling of the economy, including persistently high costs for fuel and groceries. It’s a major issue for rural voters who have backed the president and his party in recent elections. But so far on the campaign trail, Trump has dismissed those economic concerns." His Desperation Tour has run side-by-side with his campaign advertisements -- advertisements whose cost he's farmed out to US taxpayers.

ABC's THIS WEEK's addressed this issue at the start of Sunday's show:

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Good morning and welcome to "THIS WEEK."

I have experienced political waves from the inside. Thirty-two years ago this week, I was working in the White House when a red wave was building. The economy was growing, but voters were not feeling it. After the collapse of his health care plan, President Clinton's approval ratings were stuck in the low 40s. So, he was advised to stay off the campaign trail, where he might hurt more than help.

That did not quite happen. And the red wave crested on Election Day in a big way. The GOP won 54 House seats, eight Senate seats, gaining control of Congress for the first time in 40 years.

Flash forward to today. With voters unhappy about the economy and his approval ratings stuck in the 30s, the president is also being warned against making the midterms a referendum on himself. And like Clinton, Trump is resisting that advice, barnstorming in deep red states and taking his campaigning to another level, personally commissioning ads, paid for by taxpayers, that put the president front and center. One even titled "God made Trump."

Four weeks from the final midterm votes, that's where we begin this week. Here's Jay O'Brien.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JAY O'BRIEN, ABC NEWS CAPITOL HILL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): You're watching an ad you paid for. Part of a series airing across the country praising President Trump that this week set off a political firestorm less than a month out from the midterms. One championing the war in Iran.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: To the great, proud people of Iran.

O'BRIEN (voice over): Another decrying socialism and communism. And one featuring President Trump speaking at Mount Rushmore. At the bottom of each, this disclaimer, paid for by the U.S. government.

"The New York Times" reporting President Trump personally directed the Office of Management and Budget to find government funds for the ads. At least $3.5 million of taxpayer money spent so far according to one estimate.

The funds coming from the Department of Homeland Security, which last month awarded a $20 million contract to a Maryland ad agency days before the TV spots rolled out. Federal records show it came via a section of the Customs and Border Protection budget for commemorative events typically used to pay for things like memorials for officers killed in the line of duty, or commendation ceremonies, according to a congressional report. Democrats and even some Republicans charging the ads could violate federal law, which prohibits public funds from being used to campaign.

SEN. THOM TILLIS, (R) NORTH CAROLINA: That's not how we should be spending taxpayer dollars.

SEN. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, (D) CONNECTICUT: They are absolutely illegal.

TRUMP: We are the freest people on earth.

O'BRIEN (voice over): The White House has repeatedly called these ads public service announcements to justify using taxpayer funds.

TRUMP: This is the final battle.

O'BRIEN (voice over): But decide for yourself. One of the ads, titled "the final battle," features a long, continuous shot of Trump. It was used in 2024 as a campaign ad. President Trump defending the spots, arguing he's not on the ballot.

TRUMP: I'm not promoting myself because I'm not running for office. I'm promoting the country.

O'BRIEN (voice over): The president had a different message, though, at the midterm convention.

TRUMP: To pretend that I'm on the ballot.

O'BRIEN (voice over): And again Friday night.

TRUMP: Close your eyes and pretend I'm on the ballot.

O'BRIEN (voice over): Some Republicans we pressed insisted they hadn't seen the ads.

SEN. ERIC SCHMITT, (R) MISSOURI: I have not see it.

O'BRIEN: But they appear to be political ads using taxpayer money. Wouldn't that be illegal to do that?

SCHMITT: I don't know that they're taxpayer dollars. I don't know that.

O'BRIEN: They are.

SCHMITT: I don't know.

O'BRIEN: The White House has said that.

O'BRIEN (voice over): Several GOP lawmakers claiming both the Bush and Obama administrations took out similar ads, but those were for specific issues, like Medicare and the Affordable Care Act. And this week, Senate Majority Leader John Thune voicing their disapproval, too, saying of the president's ads, "I like the message, but it shouldn't be paid for with taxpayer dollars."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN (on camera): Democrats on Capitol Hill have sent a number of letters demanding answers from the administration, and they've also asked a government watchdog agency to investigate. But bottom line here, George, the White House shows no signs of backing down. So, unless something changes, these ads are likely to continue to run at least until Election Day.

George.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Sure seems that way. Thanks, Jay.

In a new development, Shane Goldmacher, Theodore Schleifer and Maggie Haberman (NEW YORK TIMES) report:

President Trump reversed course on Monday and announced that his super PAC would now pay for the television ads promoting him that have been airing nationwide at taxpayer expense.

In a post on his social media platform, Mr. Trump wrote, “I have decided to do the Patriotic Ads, among others, and pay for them myself, and with money I raised for MAGA, Inc.”

Michael Luciano (MEDIAITE) reports on Chump's Desperation Tour stop last night in Grand Island, Nebraska:

Trump has repeatedly insisted – despite his own intelligence agencies’ findings to the contrary – that Iran was going to imminently obtain a nuclear weapon when he launched the war in February. Thus, Trump says, the higher gas prices resulting from the war are worth it.

“And again, remember, with the war, it’s just artificial,” he told rally-goers. “It’s a little bit high. It’s a small price to pay for keeping the world safe, keeping our country safe. They could take out a city. Let them take out Los Angeles. Let them take out San Diego. This is a very small price to pay, and it’s gonna be over with very soon. It’s essentially almost over with. And they might keep going a little long. You know, they always say, ‘They have a big threshold for pain.’ They need it, let me tell you. But it’s gonna end very soon. And it’ll end one way or the other. And your gas and your gasoline and all the other things.”

As Trump said, “Let them take out Los Angeles or San Diego,” the crowd applauded and cheered. It is unclear if the president was imagining a scenario in which the two cities had been obliterated or was suggesting they should be.

Spreading hate where ever he goes, that's Chump.

Laura Chung (NEW YORK TIMES) reports:

California leaders condemned President Trump on Monday night after he appeared to suggest that Iran could “take out” Los Angeles and San Diego if it develops a nuclear weapon.

Speaking at a Republican political rally in Nebraska, the president sought to justify the Iran war as necessary for “keeping the world safe.” He then suggested there could be strikes on the United States, including the Democratic-led Californian cities.

“They could take out a city,” he said. “Let them take — Let them take out Los Angeles. Let them take out San Diego.”

It was not immediately clear what Mr. Trump meant, but his comments were met with anger from officials in California, including Gov. Gavin Newsom, who called the president “deranged and dangerous.”

“After sending the National Guard and Marines to occupy California, Donald Trump is now saying our foreign enemies should ‘take out’ Los Angeles and San Diego,” Mr. Newsom posted on social media.

Mayor Todd Gloria of San Diego wrote on social media that his city was not “collateral damage” and not “expendable.”

“Keep our city out of your reckless war talk,” he added.

In Los Angeles, Mayor Karen Bass said that the president’s comments were “dangerous” and could “potentially compromise” the city’s safety.

“The role of a president is to protect the country, not to actively threaten it and encourage attacks on American lives,” she said in a social media statement.

Chump's so proud of his war of choice. But he tends to avoid moments like the one covered on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED (NPR) yesterday:

SACHA PFEIFFER, HOST:

Of the hundreds of U.S. or Israeli airstrikes that launched the war with Iran on the last day of February, at least two of them directly hit a school in session. That school was in a city in southern Iran called Minab. At least 156 people were killed. One hundred and twenty of them were children. Twenty-six were teachers. That's according to extensive news reporting from the investigative news outlet Drop Site News. Its reporters spoke with many people who were there, including teachers...

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED TEACHER: (Non-English language spoken).

PFEIFFER: ...Parents...

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED PARENT: (Non-English language spoken).

PFEIFFER: ...And first responders.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED FIRST RESPONDER: (Non-English language spoken).

PFEIFFER: Drop Site's Jeremy Scahill was one person piecing together these accounts, which we will warn include graphic detail of child casualties.

JEREMY SCAHILL: Witnesses describe just a massive series of whoosh, boom, and explosions that take place. The first one hits, and all of the glass of the windows in the preschool just shatter onto the floor. And the preschool teacher starts telling her children get - you know, get under the desk. And then in quick succession, another strike happens and concrete starts to fall. And then silence. So then they rush outside. And when they step outside, this teacher, with all of her little 5- and 6-year-olds, says that she turns her neck back and sees that the school is in flames and there's a huge cloud of smoke just erupting from what used to be the school building.

And she's telling the kids, don't look back. And she's ushering them out into the street, the road near the school. And at that point, she starts to see first responders. And then what we heard from those first responders - we spoke to the first firemen that arrived there - was a scene of doomsday, they said. Total apocalypse. Body parts everywhere. Shredded children. Kids who were basically pulverized against concrete. Body parts in trees. None of them were - say that they've ever been able to shake the images they saw in that first moment because what they witnessed was the shredding of children.

PFEIFFER: Your reporting is extremely unsparing in the gore of what happened that day. And that's the facts. Can you also talk about why you decided to go into that detail about the aftermath?

SCAHILL: I started to talk to Iranians whose lives were impacted by this bombing. I realized this story needs to be told the way that we would tell the story of what happened in the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing or the school shooting in Florida; that we have an obligation - especially because we're Americans, and this is being done by our leaders, and as journalists, we have to hold our own government accountable above all else - that the American people must understand the human cost of this; that these were families just like American families, and their stories deserve to be told, especially because the bombs were launched on orders from our country, from the United States, at the top levels of the leadership.

PFEIFFER: On the question of responsibility, the United States initially denied striking the area. In fact, President Trump at one point said, without evidence, that Iran had done it. Since then, NPR has confirmed that a preliminary internal investigation by the Pentagon did determine U.S. responsibility. Has the U.S. announced anything since then about what it plans to do about that? Compensation for families? Anything?

SCAHILL: No. In fact, Trump recently at the G7 got very angry when a reporter asked him about it and said, what? This happened, you know, long ago. Why are you asking about this? If I needed to, I could put out a report about it tomorrow. But the fact is, all we have right now are leaks from informed sources, but also their narrative. Why is the president of the United States, who has all access, highly classified intelligence, running around saying that the Iranians have Tomahawk cruise missiles? It's not true. Only five countries in the world have them, and Iran is not one of them.

Why is he saying Iran may have bombed their own people when we can see the wreckage of Raytheon cruise missiles in the photos that we obtained that were taken from under the rubble? There were two direct hits on a school filled with children and teachers. It's not that there hasn't been reporting on this. It's that that reporting has not been translated into a very robust, aggressive investigation of what I would say is one of the worst single war crimes committed by the United States since Vietnam.

PFEIFFER: Jeremy, you have spent a lot of your career covering the consequences of U.S. military operations around the world, including consequences for civilians. And you've - you just referenced some past cases of this where there are similarities. Is there anything about this case that seems different to you than tragedies like this that you've reported on in the past?

SCAHILL: Most Iranians that we've spoken to - at different levels, whether they're government or ordinary people - believe that this was intentional because the United States wanted to kill the supreme leader in the opening moments of the war and then send a message to the Iranian people that no place, including your school, is going to be safe as long as this regime remains in power. So most military experts I talked to say they don't believe that that's the case - that they believe that this was a rush to war, an emphasis on lethality over everything else. They wanted to break records with the number of targets they struck very early on.

And they streamlined everything. They kicked aside concerns about civilian deaths. They used outdated satellite photos and didn't bother to have a human being vet it to make sure it wasn't a school full of children. You know, there's no evidence at all in the public right now to suggest that they understood that there were children inside of that school and decided to bomb it to send a message to Iran. But unfortunately, because of the characters that we have running the Pentagon and the statements of the president himself, that unfortunately should be a line of inquiry by the U.S. Congress to understand, did they intentionally attack this school because they believed they were the children of the IRGC that were attending it? Unfortunately, that's a question that needs to be asked.

In other news of the Iranian War, Jack Brook, Konstantin Toropin, Julie Watson and Russ Bynum (AP) report:

On a sunny, cloudless morning on March 1, the day after President Donald Trump started the war against Iran, Chief Warrant Officer 3 Robert Marzan was coordinating critical Army supplies out of Port Shuaiba in Kuwait.

In an instant, a drone crashed through the ceiling and exploded, killing Marzan, who had served in the military for 36 years. The force flung soldiers into the air, fragments of sheet metal and glass shards impaling them. The tin roof was peeled back “like opening up a sardine can,” one soldier recalled.

Six soldiers were killed and dozens were injured in the deadliest known strike on U.S. troops since Operation Epic Fury commenced on Feb. 28.

[. . .]

In the aftermath, many of the wounded — some with decades of service and combat experience — told The Associated Press that commanders had been warned that the facility, a rectangular building with wooden sides at a working seaport and industrial area south of Kuwait City, was particularly vulnerable to a drone strike.

That warning went unheeded, the soldiers say. Some also said higher-ranking officers pushed for an all-clear to be called, but it’s not certain from their accounts who ultimately made the decision to move soldiers out of a safer space in nearby bunkers. The wounded also would later say their serious injuries were not treated promptly or adequately in the weeks following the attack.

“We have the right to know what really happened,” Marzan’s widow, Tina Marzan, told the AP. “If somebody messed up, those people need to be held responsible.”

Battlefield conditions are inherently chaotic and assessments drawn by those involved are often in tension. The AP’s account of the attack is based on interviews with 13 soldiers, primarily officers, serving in key positions of responsibility there or familiar with high-level briefings leading up to the strike.

Along with several Gold Star families — the military’s designation for relatives of a soldier killed while on active duty — many are raising their concerns publicly for the first time and calling for the Army to reconcile what they say are failures of preparedness.

The DNC notes:

New reporting this weekend revealed that in the final hours of former Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem’s tenure, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) approved spending hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on marked-up luxury planes that went to a firm led by one of Noem’s political donors.

DHS paid $108 million in taxpayer funds for a luxury private jet to Daedalus Aviation Corporation. Daedalus’s chair, William Walters, donated $10,000 to Noem’s PAC in 2024 and contributed to pro-Trump groups. The donor’s firm previously purchased the plane for nearly $20 million less than what DHS paid. Noem also directed the agency to spend $106 million on two smaller luxury jets, and an additional $90 million for a pair of 17-year-old planes. Donald Trump’s Chief of Staff Susie Wiles directed current DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin to allow the sale to go through. During Noem’s tenure, DHS used taxpayer funds to purchase 10 airplanes worth more than $460 million — most of which were left unused.

After Noem took office, the agency awarded more than $900 million in contracts to companies led by Walters.

In response, DNC Deputy Communications Director Kendall Witmer released the following statement:

“Donald Trump promised to ‘drain the swamp,’ yet his administration is crawling with corruption. Kristi Noem already wasted hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on luxury planes, tricked-out trucks, and a starring role in an advertising campaign — and now there’s even more proof that those dollars were also benefiting her political donors. Americans are fed up with Trump and his inner circle and their elite donors getting rich while they are stuck with high prices on gas and groceries — and in less than 30 days, Americans will hold Trump and Republicans accountable.”

Noem had a well-established tenure of wasteful spending of taxpayer dollars. She directed at least $375 million in taxpayer money toward vanity projects, including $172 million for two private jets, $2.4 million for gold-detailed ICE vehicles, $120,000 for Mustangs for ICE, and $700,000 for tricked-out ICE trucks. Noem regularly used her position for her personal gain, including by providing over $200 million in taxpayer money to fund an ad campaign she starred in, some of which went to a private firm with which Noem has longstanding personal and business ties.

The following sites updated: