Trump Said Jump. Iowa, His Own Party, and Scott Pelley All Said No.

The resistance had a week. Trump had a disaster.

Look at what we did this week. Not them—us—the people who refuse to look away. The corrupt regime counted on us to give up. None of us did. We read, shared, called, and stayed in it. Ten years in, and our movement has more momentum behind it than ever.

Before you read on, hit the ❤️ like button and re-stack this edition—starting with the ballroom story, and the fifty billion Trump’s donors got back. Every share pulls the truth past the MAGA propaganda machine and drops it in front of someone who thinks nobody’s fighting back. You’re about to show them they’re very wrong.

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THE DONORS PAID. LOOK WHAT THEY GOT BACK.

Trump swore his new ballroom wouldn’t cost the public a penny—because it was to be paid for by a bunch of generous donors, giving from the heart. This week the watchdogs at Public Citizen caught what those hearts were really after, and put it on the record for all of us to see.

They laid the donor list and the federal contract books side by side. More than half the corporate donors who chipped in for the ballroom—including Amazon, Palantir, Lockheed Martin, and NextEra Energy—walked away with new or expanded government contracts in the six months that followed.

The total: more than fifty billion. Billion, with a B. Those are your tax dollars, steered to the very donors who bankrolled his ballroom. Sixteen of those same donors are tangled in federal enforcement actions that the regime has quietly suspended, dropped, or scaled back.

Jon Golinger, who co-wrote the report, said it plain—these companies didn’t write those checks “out of the goodness of their hearts.” They didn’t put money down for a ballroom. They bought access—and just got caught paying for it.

TRUMP SAID JUMP. IOWA DIDN’T.

Iowa’s Democratic candidate for governor Rob Sand

Trump still thinks his endorsement is like a magic wand. Iowa just proved the spell is breaking.

Last week he swept in and fully backed GOP Rep. Randy Feenstra for governor, expecting the party to fall behind him as usual. On Tuesday, Republican primary voters looked at Trump’s pick and chose someone else.

It came down to less than a single point, but the headline is ironclad: it’s the first time this whole midterm cycle that a candidate Trump fully backed for governor, House, or Senate has lost their primary.

Here’s what should keep the regime up at night. While Republicans spent months clawing at each other in a five-way brawl, Democrat Rob Sand ran unopposed. He’s well-funded and already focused on November. The GOP limped out bruised and divided, while Sand has the field to himself. The MAGA magic is wearing off—right when Trump needs it the most.

HIS OWN PARTY REVOLTED

For nearly a year, Dem Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York kept a single piece of paper moving quietly around the House. It was a discharge petition, the rare tool that lets rank-and-file members force a bill to the floor when their own leaders are blocking it. Meeks finally rounded up enough signatures, and on Thursday, the House passed his bill.

They voted 226 to 195 to send Ukraine real aid, and hammer Russia with new sanctions on its oil and banks. This is the first big pro-Ukraine legislation to pass in the House since Trump retook office. Eighteen Republicans joined Democrats to do it.

Trump wanted his party to stand down and give Putin room—he’d even just eased sanctions on Russian oil. Eighteen Republicans looked at him and said no. It doesn’t make them heroes; they’re not. They’re accomplices to everything else Trump has done. But Democrats kept the pressure on, and the wall Trump built around his party is starting to crack.

THEY TOLD HIM TO LIE. HE SAID NO.

Scott Pelley

For 58 seasons, 60 Minutes was an American institution—the number-one program in the country for decades. This week one of its giants proved exactly why.

New management at CBS ordered journalist Scott Pelley to do the unthinkable for a reporter: put lies into a story and dress up unverified claims as fact—in Pelley’s words, to please Trump. He said no. Every single time. So they forced him out—after 37 years at the network.

He could’ve gone along with it and kept taking the paycheck. Instead he walked, and on his way out he told the whole country why. “Good people were silenced for standing up for our audience,” he said.

The regime wanted a quiet newsroom that lies on command. What it got was one of the most trusted journalists in America telling the whole country what they tried to make him do.

That’s what it looks like when someone refuses to bend. Here, that’s our entire community. That’s what The Dworkin Report is. Not just a newsletter you subscribe to, it’s a movement you belong to.

This weekend we have a goal of 50 new paid subscribers, and we’re 40% of the way there. Your subscription doesn’t just fund our reporting—it fuels our organizing and the fight we’re leading to flip Congress in November. Journalism and action in the same hand, answerable to no one but the people funding it. Help us meet our goal by joining today:

And before you go, hit the ❤️ like button and re-stack this edition—especially Pelley’s stand. Every share is a hand pulling the truth into light where it belongs. We don’t win quietly. We win together, out loud. So let’s be loud.

Onward!

Scott

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Is Trump’s grip on his own party finally slipping—or is this week a fluke? Tell me what you’re seeing.

After the week Trump just had—Iowa, his own party, Scott Pelley, and the ballroom scandal—which story gives you the most hope?