It’s Saturday, November 7. We made it to the weekend…and what a week it was!
And OMG is Donald Trump spiraling.
It appears Trump’s defeat is fully sinking in, and he’s responding the only way he knows how… election denial, loyalty oaths, threats against Congress, and rebranding a war he can’t win. The guy is a mess.
Here’s what we’re tracking:
Democrats flip 500+ state legislative seats while Trump floats three contradictory excuses for losing
Trump’s DOJ throws in the towel in its “noncitizen voter” case against California days before a hearing
Stephen Miller is the new White House Chief of Staff, and House Republicans are already revolting
AG Todd Blanche says DOJ is Miller’s personal lawyer after Rep. Robert Garcia tells Miller to “lawyer up”
Trump orders DOJ to investigate Democrats for threatening oversight and impeachment
A Hegseth impeachment vote could come as soon as Wednesday, and GOP leadership thinks it could pass
The Washington Post reports Laura Loomer was paid thousands for political tweets
Trump says Iran is “not a war” as CENTCOM expands the blockade and posts a $20 million tip line, begging for help
Polling shows Iran is the most unpopular war in U.S. history
Trump promises a “very big settlement” on Ukraine while allies say the U.S. is delaying Patriot missiles
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Three Excuses, Zero Accountability
Let’s start with the numbers... According to the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC), Democrats have officially won a majority of state legislative seats nationwide, flipping more than 500 seats. That’s where voting maps, abortion rights, and election rules get decided. In some ways these wins are even more important than the national wins.
Trump’s response has gone in three directions at once, and of course there is zero intellectual consistency. On the tarmac Friday night, and again at the CPAC gala at Mar-a-Lago, he said it “wasn’t my election” because he wasn’t on the ballot, and bragged that his rallies were the biggest in midterm history. In the same gaggle, he said presidents always lose the midterms and that there have been “a lot bigger losses than this.” For the record, this was the biggest blowout since Watergate.
Then this morning he went back to claiming fraud anyway. Because that’s what losers do.
On Truth Social, Trump reposted a random account called @WardoftheStates complaining that Texas Governor-elect Gina Hinojosa got 1.7 million more votes than Beto O’Rourke in 2022, and more than Joe Biden got in 2020. The post called them “not normal midterm numbers,” then used a slur I won’t repeat here, and claimed “not a single opinion poll” came close to predicting her win.
The RealClearPolitics table in Trump’s own screenshot shows Atlas Intel and NYT/Siena both had Hinojosa up by 1, and most other polls had the race within the margin of error. Even better, the same post includes a chart from Lenny Bronner titled “The voters who stayed home were Republicans,” showing GOP votes collapsing compared to Trump’s 2024 numbers across Texas, Ohio, Virginia, Arkansas and West Virginia. Trump posted the explanation for his loss while alleging fraud.
He also reposted a chart claiming Democrats “materialized 20 million new votes.” The chart compares 2022 to 2026 and conveniently skips 2024. We saw presidential turnout numbers this year, and it’s because people hate you, Donald.
Trump’s DOJ Waves the White Flag in California
While Trump screams “rigged,” his own Justice Department just walked away from its flagship “noncitizen voter” case. It’s the latest in another string of humiliations for DOJ. DOJ moved to voluntarily dismiss its lawsuit seeking to block California from counting roughly 20,000 ballots it claimed went to noncitizens. A Nov. 13 hearing was set to actually scrutinize that list, which itself was proven to be fraudulent. After four court losses, including at the Supreme Court, they folded rather than show their work.
Stephen Miller Gets the Keys, and Republicans Revolt
Trump’s answer to voters rejecting his agenda was to promote the odious man who built it. Stephen Miller is now White House Chief of Staff, replacing Susie Wiles.
Even Fox News is running the backlash. Fox’s Elizabeth Elkind reported that several House Republicans told her Miller should be fired, blaming his hardline immigration policies for driving away voters who previously backed the GOP on the issue. Then Trump promoted him. One Republican said they were in “utter disbelief.” Rep. Marlin Stutzman called it a “horrible decision.” Rep. Don Bacon said Miller’s policies cost Republicans many seats on Tuesday. Another lawmaker called him a “megalomaniac.”
Miller’s response was to stand up at Mar-a-Lago and pledge his “absolute loyalty” and “total devotion” to Trump, in what looked like a MAGA cult wedding vow. Miller also told the crowd that the United States wouldn’t exist right now without Trump. Can we start calling them weird again? Oh wait, we never stopped.
How did Wiles get pushed out? The Daily Mail reported that Trump screamed at her and banished her from the Oval Office before bringing in Miller, which tracks with what our sources were telling us earlier this week. So emotional, Donald.
“Lawyer Up.”
Incoming Oversight Chairman Rep. Robert Garcia responded to the Miller news by calling him the architect of unconstitutional ICE raids, promising continued investigations, and closing with: “Stephen Miller should lawyer up.”
Attorney General Todd Blanche, who has replaced Pam Bondi, replied on X that the Chief of Staff already has a lawyer: the Attorney General and the Department of Justice. He repeated it on Fox’s Ingraham. George Conway pointed out the obvious, that government lawyers represent the UNITED STATES, not individuals. Garcia’s reply to Blanche: when are you coming in to testify under oath about covering up the Epstein files?
We’ll just leave this here…
Garcia told Ben in our exclusive interview that Democrats are ready to begin investigations the day they get the gavels, and that the Trump family is at the top of the list. That’s the energy we need!!! Ruthless, robust oversight, subpoenas flying.
Trump Orders DOJ to Investigate Democrats for Doing Their Jobs
And now Trump has escalated as his panic increases. This morning, days after losing both chambers, he posted on Truth Social that Democrats are “threatening” people, including the Attorney General, with impeachment and “many other forms of punishment,” and called it “extortion at the highest level.” He claimed Democrats are threatening his donors with imprisonment just for being Republicans, and asserted that Sen. Elissa Slotkin is going after young people with Republican values. He said “the imprisonment should be against these EXTORTIONISTS,” complained about “threatening letters” from Democratic leaders, and then announced: “By copy of this statement, I am ordering the Department of Justice to look into this criminal act, immediately!”
Let’s be clear about what’s happening. Congressional oversight and impeachment are powers written directly into the Constitution. Trump is now directing federal prosecutors, run by the same AG who just declared himself Stephen Miller’s lawyer, to treat a coequal branch of government as a criminal enterprise for planning to use those powers. Using the Justice Department to intimidate Congress out of holding him accountable belongs on the list of impeachable offenses. It also tells you exactly how scared they are of what’s coming in January.
The Cracks Are Spreading
Politico’s Meredith Lee Hill reports that senior Republicans are privately urging Trump officials to dump Pete Hegseth before a House impeachment vote expected as soon as Wednesday. The White House is standing by him, but GOP leadership thinks it could pass. That’s the current Republican House. When lame-duck members get back to Capitol Hill next week, a lot of Republicans who just lost their jobs are preparing for a world without Trump, and I expect the knives to come out.
Even Sen. Ron Johnson told Fox News that corruption exists “within the Trump administration.” What an interesting change of tone, Ron…
Meanwhile, the departures list keeps growing. Let’s look at the list… Susie Wiles, Katie Zacharia, Kimberly Guilfoyle, Kristi Noem, Pam Bondi, Tulsi Gabbard, Karoline Leavitt, Lori Chavez-DeRemer, Harmeet Dillon and Alina Habba. Notice a theme here, by the way? All the women are being pushed out. Guilfoyle, by the way, resurfaced at the Mar-a-Lago CPAC gala holding up bizarre MAGA paintings.
Laura Loomer’s Pay-to-Post Operation
The Washington Post reports that Laura Loomer received more than $60,000 for political posts on X without disclosing it, with sources saying she charged $3,000 to $5,000 per tweet, sometimes more. Some clients allegedly wanted to influence Trump through her. Former Trump campaign adviser Alex Bruesewitz confirmed paying her. Loomer denies being paid to tweet and says her work was research and consulting. This is the same person who has met Trump privately in the Oval Office and publicly targeted national security officials who were later fired.
Trump Keeps Spiraling On Iran
Trump told the CPAC crowd that Iran “is not a war” but a “minor military operation.” How Putin-esque.
On the tarmac he said World War I and Russia-Ukraine are wars, “we’re not fighting,” and then added that the U.S. is “maybe an occupier.” He also claimed nobody had been wounded in six months, which is false. That’s a disgrace to the service members who have been hurt.
The same day, CENTCOM launched Task Force Iron Gate, described as an operation to isolate Iran by land. Per CENTCOM’s own release, it’s a roughly 20-person staff in Tampa coordinating efforts to block weapons and revenue across Iran’s land borders and the Caspian Sea. Adm. Brad Cooper, who recently launched a podcast where he talks about French fries, touted the “ironclad blockade.” CENTCOM also posted a Rewards for Justice offer of up to $20 million for information on Iran’s nuclear program, complete with Signal tip lines. Weren’t we told that program was obliterated last year? Iran had no path to a nuke under the Obama-era deal with IAEA inspections, until Trump pulled out of it in his first term.
Iran, meanwhile, opened its IRGC Aerospace Park to the public to show off its missiles, and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi contacted 12 countries in 48 hours, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and the UAE. Mohsen Rezaee, a top adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader, taunted Washington that the U.S. lost “the war and the election” and mocked Cooper as a podcaster. Humiliating.
Mike Huckabee, Trump’s ambassador to Israel, said opposition to the war is “spiritual darkness” and that Satan has blinded those minds. The American people disagree. Per a chart from Stephen Semler using YouGov/Economist data, Iran is the only war on record that started with negative support, and it’s now at negative 32, below Vietnam’s low point.
That’s where we stand. If you haven’t yet, grab a copy of WTF America?!, the book I wrote with my brothers about how we got into this hell and how we get out. I appreciate every one of you.
One final note: look at this disgraceful reporting from The Free Press. One of their top reporters posted a video erroneously reporting that Dr. Abdul El-Sayed gave his victory speech almost entirely in Arabic. That wasn’t even remotely true. He said his full name, and used the word “habibi” once. After being called out for it, they quietly issued this weak correction.
Now here’s the thing. The Free Press is one of the top Substack pages. That means they are reaching A LOT of people with this propagandistic drivel. That’s exactly why we need your support. We need to grow this Substack to be bigger than theirs. We need to drown out their lies with the truth. So if you’re able to help us in that mission, remember to convert and become a paid subscriber today.
Have a great day, and we’ll see you soon!
