- Hunter Walker @ Talking Points Memo: New Evidence Shows Just How Badly One Republican Senator Beclowned Himself in the Jack Smith Hearing
TPM has found fairly definitive evidence proving Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO) misread text messages when he attempted to corner former special counsel Jack Smith during a congressional hearing on Tuesday.
- Lisa Mascaro and Ali Swenson @ The Associated Press: Homeland Security taps $20M in taxpayer funds for pro-Trump ads
The Department of Homeland Security has tapped $20 million to pay for the campaign-style ads glorifying President Donald Trump that have drawn widespread criticism from Republicans and Democrats as a blatant misuse of taxpayer dollars that likely runs afoul of anti-propaganda law.
- Theodore Schleifer @ The New York Times: G.O.P. Nominee in Texas Privately Said Trump’s Convention Hurt Him
Ken Paxton, one of the party’s top Senate candidates and a Trump loyalist, said that “everybody’s numbers dropped” after the event, according to audio obtained by The Times.
- Edith Olmstead @ The New Republic: Trump Reprograms Government AI Chatbot to Stop Fact-Checking His Lies
Trump officials seem to have realized their AI chatbot was correcting the president’s biggest lies.
- Federica Cocco and Naema Ahmed @ The Washington Post: The Kennedy Center was solvent when Trump took over. Then its finances collapsed.
The Post examined 15 years of the institution’s financial records to see why it went south after the president took over.
- Steve Benen @ The Maddow Blog: Patel boasts about success rate on FBI’s Most Wanted list, but there’s a catch
The more the FBI director talks about the bureau’s recent track record, the more allegations arise that he’s padding the statistics.
- Matt Gertz @ Media Matters: Fox News is running its midterms migrant caravan playbook again
President Donald Trump’s extreme unpopularity has the Republican Party seemingly on course for a midterm elections drubbing — which means it’s once again time for Fox News to try to scare its viewers to the polls with frantic coverage of a “caravan” of migrants in Central America headed toward the U.S.-Mexico border.
