This week, Trump asked a room that was full of his own supporters not to go to the bathroom. He was worried about photographs of empty seats.
Fifty-three days left before the midterms, and that’s what he’s worried about. Trump is done—we will prove it in less than eight weeks.
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Trump Will Never Give You $5,000
On Wednesday night in Dallas, Republicans held a desperate midterm convention, where Trump promised, if his party keeps Congress, “I will issue a dividend to every adult citizen in the United States of America for $5,000.” We’ve heard that one before.
There are around 250 million adult citizens in the US, which makes it a $1.25 trillion promise that he can’t send without Congress appropriating it. He never said where it would come from.
Last November, Trump floated a $2,000 check, and his own Treasury Secretary admitted it would take legislation to get done. It went nowhere. Before that it was the DOGE dividend—$5,000 a household from savings that never materialized.
That wasn’t the worst of it. You could see him throwing out different ploys to see if anything could stick, but nothing is quite the same as him throwing ketchup at the wall. He offered to rename the Strait of Hormuz after himself. He tried to get people to fantasize about him being on the ballot this fall.
Part of the way through his meandering rant to nowhere, he stopped to police the bladders of his own party, because he didn’t want pictures of empty seats.
“The fake news will go around and see that man up there? He’s leaving for the bathroom ... They’ll take a picture of his seat while he’s gone ... So please, if you don’t mind, don’t anybody go to the bathroom.”
What was even more telling was who didn’t show up—Republicans running in races that will decide who takes control of Congress.
Trump’s approval hovers around 35% now. He is out of ideas and his party’s majority is out of time. He knows it, and that’s why he’s been reduced to asking supporters not to go to the bathroom and pledging money to Americans that he will never give them.
MapQuest Didn’t Blink
On August 27, Trump ordered Lake Ontario to be renamed to “Lake America.” He directed the Interior Department to remove every reference to Lake Ontario. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said on Fox that Trump personally called Apple about making sure they changed the name.
Apple and Google changed it—both only for users inside the US. Nobody else seemed to go along with it.
Reuters/Ipsos polled Americans right after Trump made the move. Only 14% supported the renaming, 63% opposed it—with more than half opposing it strongly. Even Republicans are against it 43-33.
MapQuest—the site where we used to print off directions before phones had map apps on them—piled on. The company posted that it was “aware that Lake Ontario is being correctly labeled on our map.” Eric Trump mocked them.
Then 210,000 people downloaded MapQuest in a single day. Downloads were up a whopping 6,295%, and—according to MapQuest—usage up 50 times the normal rate. It hit number one among free apps in the App Store.
Just yesterday, MapQuest put a billboard up in Chicago with printed directions from the city to Lake Ontario, saying: “It’s still Lake Ontario. And we’re still here.”
Separately, the Associated Press said it won’t change the name—neither will Canada.
Trump can boss around his minions, but he can’t order a wire service, a foreign country, or a map company from the nineties to do his bidding. November is coming.
The Judge Read The Memo
In between New Jersey and New York sits Raritan Bay, a place where boats go out and people swim. There are surf clam beds on the bottom that families have worked for generations. Buried in that same mud is arsenic, mercury, PCBs, and DDT.
Now, a gas company wants to dig a six-mile trench through the bay. When the state of New Jersey responded in writing to public comments about the plan, it told people state marine scientists said the clam beds would recover in one to three years.
Somebody sued. On Tuesday, a federal appeals court went back and read what the scientists actually wrote. They never said that about these clams. What they said was that the project would damage productive surf clam beds, and that surf clams are especially vulnerable because they can’t close their shells against the sediment.
The one-to-three-year recovery line the state quoted was about a different species—hard clams.
Judge Jane Richards Roth threw out the permit. She also found the state required written sign-off before the company could hire a single dredging inspector, but nothing at all on a plan to protect the water.
Environmental groups and a neighborhood association from the township where the pipeline’s compressor station would go took the state to federal court and made it explain itself.
It couldn’t. And the clam beds are still there.
The Same Office, The Same Treasurer
Last week, political mail was sent out via a committee that didn’t exist two weeks ago. The disclaimer says it came from No Going Back PAC. Catchy name. Never heard of it? Neither had I.
This week, that same committee booked $47.4 million in TV ad reservations.
The committee filed papers to form with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) on September 1. Its own filings report mail distributed to voters beginning on September 4. Under federal disclosure rules, a committee formed on that date doesn’t have to name a single donor until October 15—even though Election Day is on November 3.
But the registration is publicly accessible, and the paperwork has an address on it.
No Going Back PAC gave the FEC an office address in Beverly, Massachusetts. It happens to be the address Trump’s $400 million super PAC MAGA Inc. listed on its August report. They both use the same compliance firm, which shares the same suite.
The treasurer who signed No Going Back’s registration, Charles Gantt, is the treasurer listed on MAGA Inc.’s filings as well. The New York Times, citing two people familiar with the arrangement, reported MAGA Inc. is behind the financing of the new group.
It’s all legal. A person can serve as treasurer of multiple committees, and the filing date is the deadline in federal law. The result is around $47 million being spent on the midterms without Trump’s name directly associated with it.
They have the money. What they don’t have is “MAGA” on the screen—and with Trump’s approval at 35%, you can guess why.
As we dive into the final sprint for the midterms, I just want you to remember one thing. Trump is beatable. We’ve done it before. And we are about to do it again.
We are all in on flipping Congress. Our investigations team will continue to uncover exclusive evidence of corruption that we will provide to House and Senate committees.
On top of our reporting, we are running our massive congressional pressure campaign which has landed letters from constituents to the House and Senate more than 843,000 times since November of 2024. And our social media operation generates billions of impressions per month, driving trends and constantly fighting MAGA propaganda.
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Onward!
Scott
A brand-new PAC is running $47.4 million in ads with no Trump on the disclaimer, out of the same suite and with the same treasurer as his $400 million super PAC. Is that proof he knows he’s toxic?
Republicans in the races that decide Congress skipped his convention. What does it tell you that they wouldn’t be seen with him?
🔥 3 letters you need to send today. It takes two minutes total to hit their inboxes on all fronts:
Ban AI we can't control:
https://actionnetwork.org/letters/tell-congress-pass-the-ban-on-ai-we-cant-control/
Stop the Yosemite sell-off:
https://actionnetwork.org/letters/tell-congress-stop-trumps-yosemite-giveaway
Protect mail-in voting:
https://actionnetwork.org/letters/tell-congress-protect-our-use-of-voting-by-mail-and-voting-machines/
MapQuest saying no and a million people remembering they have a choice—that’s the mood I want for November. Little refusals add up. Grateful this newsletter still bothers to look.