… We are at the point in the midterms where the demented and addled president has added to his rally speech a comparison between the buttocks of Sen. Jon Husted (R-OH) and rapper Nicki Minaj. From his rally today in MI:
“I looked at his ass, and I've never done that with a man before. By the way, I looked at one hell of a beautiful ass before: Nicki Minaj. That's hard to miss.”
… Trump also claimed on Fox that Husted went up in the polls after he told people that Husted has a nice, muscular ass: “He went up 14 points or something. That was when I said the A-word. I looked at his body.”
… Trump at his rally in GA:
On gas prices: “We’re making money like we’ve never made before. They’ll say: ‘Trump is bragging about all the money they’re making while people are suffering at the pump.’ I don’t give a damn. We’re making a freaking fortune.”
… Who is ‘we’?
Comparing senate nominee Mike Collins to Sen. Jon Ossoff: “He’s a big, strong guy—that is what you want as opposed to a tiny person, but tiny in the sense of his arms, his legs.”
“Why do we always had take people from shit house countries? Why can’t we take people from Norway, Sweden, Denmark? By the way, they gave us Greenland. We got Venezuela and Greenland.”
… Barack Obama at a rally for Democratic candidates in MI:
“Whenever a movement builds to challenge that broken system, the people who benefit from the status quo will say and do anything to stop that train from coming. They will use lies and they will use fear and they will use division. And they may even use your name to suggest that you are dangerous and less than trustworthy and less patriotic and less American than they are.”
“We have seen this movie before. I starred in it. I've got a long form birth certificate to prove it. This stuff didn't work on me, not in MI. It's not going to work on Abdul. He is as MI as it gets. Abdul was born here. He was raised here.”
“Some people say, ‘Abdul didn’t like some of the things you did as president.’ So Abdul didn’t agree with some things. You know who else doesn’t agree with everything I do? Michelle Obama.”
“When I was president, all these Republicans are all, ‘deficits, deficits, debt, debt. You got to do something about it.’ And now—$40 trillion—crickets. Somehow deficits only matter when a Democratic president is in office.”
… Abdul El-Sayed: “Trump's bill gutted health care for millions. President Obama passed the legislation that expanded it.” Crowd member yells out: “Obama is not in the Epstein files either!” Crowd cheers.
… Democratic nominee for governor Jocelyn Benson:
“Who do you want leading the state when Trump tries to pressure the governor to overturn an election or to turn over your private voting info in the lead up to that election?
I will proudly stand up to anyone anytime anywhere who tries to stand in the way of your rights, your freedoms, your privacy, and our democracy. I have done that as your secretary of state, and I'm ready to do it as your governor.”
… Obama in OH:
“I don’t know if you noticed, but the guy in the WH seems very focused on home renovations. He should be on HGTV. He’s building a ballroom that’s bigger than the WH - paved over the Rose Garden. Put a helicopter pad on the south lawn. And he’s got gold everywhere. What’s up with the gold? He's got the WH looking like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory. It's gold everywhere!”
“He pulled out of the JCPOA, starts this war. 7 months later, 6 months after they declared victory, how's that war going? Our allies and our bases have been attacked. Americans have been killed. Hundreds of Americans have been wounded. We have run down our stock of missiles. And Iran now has veto power over the Strait of Hormuz.”
“This is the reason why the price of oil is up. Nobody disputes that. This is the reason the price of diesel is up. This is the reason why the price of just about everything is up. Meanwhile, you got the defense secretary who's squarely focused on important matters: the jawlines and testosterone levels of our troops.”
“How much time do you think this Defense Secretary spends looking at himself in the mirror in the morning? These are not serious people. And the problem is you end up having to pay the price for their lack of seriousness.”
“Iran didn't have nuclear weapons because I had put a deal in place and I didn't have to fire a missile to do it. I just had to engage in diplomacy.”
“This admin's actions are directly responsible for rising costs. The current president chose to make a series of bad decisions. Most importantly, he decided to start an unnecessary war that nobody asked for and nobody voted for
On Democratic nominee for senate Sherrod Brown: “This is not a guy who enriched himself cozying up to corporations. He's still wearing the same suit he was in when I met him 20 years ago.”
“Remember that whole thing about drain the swamp? The only thing that got drained. was the reflecting pool after some no-bid contract got it all messed up. And then they tried to blame a 3-time Olympian by claiming he vandalized it.”
… Trump responded on Truth Social: “Obama was a grossly incompetent President! He said that Crooked Hillary Clinton was going to WIN, he campaigned hard for her, and she lost in all directions and ways. He then campaigned full out for Kamala, and likewise, she lost. Now he’s campaigning for a Muslim Brotherhood Jihadist, who hates Jews and Blacks and AMERICANS and TRUMP, and he is going to lose, also.”
… Democratic nominee for governor Amy Acton:
“My opponent has chosen to exploit my childhood to save to save his struggling campaign, but it's not going to work.”
On Obama: “Our guest today knows a little something about hope. Hope is a very powerful thing. It's what got me through living in a cold, dark basement when I wasn't sure where my next meal was coming from. Hope is what got me through sexual abuse, living through cold nights where all I could think about was how to keep my brother safe and warm.”
Reminder that tomorrow is Ask the Editor where I choose 5 of your questions to answer on the podcast. Please leave your question or topic you would like me to talk about more on the show in the comments section of this Bulletin below.
We are now in an all-out sprint to these very crucial midterm elections, so the overwhelming focus of these Bulletins for the next couple of weeks will be on those. Knowing Trump, I suspect that there will be considerable drama in the immediate aftermath so buckle up. And get people out to vote!
If you missed yesterday’s Bulletin, you can find it here.
… NYT reporter Shane Goldmacher: “Just how much has the Vivek Ramaswamy ad broken through? His rival, Amy Acton, became today the first Dem candidate for governor since April to be the top fundraiser on ActBlue over the preceding week.
(The top spot had been entirely held by Senate candidates.)”
… OH reporter Karen Kasler: “Update: there is now a 30 second version of the Vivek Ramaswamy ad featuring Amy Acton’s estranged mother.”
… Community Note on X: “The 30-second version removes the mother’s specific claim from the longer original ad that Acton lied about living in a tent as a child, which is contradicted by court records and other evidence supporting her account of