Today in Politics, Bulletin 228. 10/13/25

… The upcoming No Kings protests this Saturday continue to rattle Republicans who are stressing out that the size and scope of the events will step on their messaging about the shutdown. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy on Fox: “The No Kings protest is really frustrating. This is part of Antifa, paid protesters. It begs the question, who’s funding it?”

… Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent: “No Kings means no paychecks. No paychecks and no government.”

… This comes after Speaker Mike Johnson went on the Sunday shows and called them ‘marxist, hate America’ rallies.

… Sen. Bernie Sanders: “No, Speaker Johnson. The No Kings Rally on Oct. 18th is not a ‘hate America’ rally’. It’s a rally of millions of people all over this country who are not going to let you and Trump turn this country into an authoritarian society.”

… Former Rep. Tom Malinowski: “At the last No Kings ‘hate America’ rally I attended - in Morristown, NJ - I led the entire crowd in an oath to the U.S. Constitution. I know some House Republicans who could use a refresher.”

… It has been interesting to watch the Coordinated Republican Propaganda Machine continue to shift their messaging on No Kings. The first one they tried to ignore but the size of it caught them completely off guard. So they just lied about the turnout, but people have eyes. The second one they claimed was just a bunch of white boomer grandmothers. That didn’t stick either (although I saw a few of you out there!) so now they are claiming it is all paid Antifa operatives coordinating with Schumer and Jeffries, who have had nothing to do with any of it really.

… Meanwhile, the war zone in Portland continues to be completely out of control.

… Duffy then talked about the US spending a fortune on one of Elon Musk’s priorities to facilitate a mission to Mars - building a nuclear plant on the moon: “If we go to the south pole of the moon, we can set up a base. We want to put up fission power. We think we can have long term stays on the south pole of the moon.”

… People just want affordable health care, housing, electricity and groceries right now. And we are bailing out Argentina and talking about putting nukes on the moon.

… Despite that, Duffy still plans on making big budget cuts to his agency here on earth: “We’re going to make the necessary cuts - if there’s people that we employ that we can get rid of and do the same job with less people saving the govt money, that’s critically important. You can let people go that aren’t great employees.”

… Duffy also said we can expect airport delays to get much worse soon: “When you travel though, we will slow you down. We will cancel flights. We want to make sure that you when you travel, you travel safely. And so if we don’t have the controllers necessary to keep you safe, we slow it down. And that’s what you see with those delays.”

… Both the Seattle and Portland Airports announced they will not air Kristi Noem’s video, which clearly violates the Hatch Act by trashing Democrats to travelers and blaming them for flight delays. It is optional for each airport on whether they choose to play them, so I would suggested finding out if the one in your area is going along with this blatantly illegal and partisan scheme.

… Labor market analyst Amanda Goodall: “WTF! Hiring just hit the lowest level since 2009. Only 204,939 hires so far in 2025. That’s a 58% collapse year on year. Worse than anything since the financial crisis. The data’s out there... and no one’s ready to admit what it means. No data = no panic… right?”

… Mike Johnson held his daily shutdown press conference today: “We worked on repealing and replacing Obamacare in 2017. I still have PTSD from the experience. It’s a great frustration of mine. American healthcare needs dramatic reform. We have plans to do it. The Republican Party is the party that has plans to fix it.”

… He has still never presented a plan since 2017. Trump has never presented a plan. They claimed for a decade that they want to repeal and replace it, but they have nothing to replace it with.

… Johnson then said the quiet part out loud: “Can we completely repeal and replace Obamacare? Many of us are skeptical about that now, because the roots are so deep, it was really sinister, the way it was created. I believe Obamacare was created to implode upon itself, to collapse upon itself.”

… “Roots are so deep” = really freaking popular.

… “Really sinister, the way it was created” = A Black man did it.

… This is what I have been saying all year. Republicans know they can’t repeal the ACA because it has become so popular and helped many uninsured working Americans and people with preexisting conditions get healthcare. So their plan is to choke off funding for it and dismantle it piece by piece rather than in one big shot. That is what Democrats are fighting to stop in this shutdown.

… Rep. Hakeem Jeffries on MSNBC: “Well, there’s definitively no reason to ever trust the Republicans, particularly as it relates to the health care issue and the ACA. These are people who have now tried more than 70 different times over the last 15 years to repeal the ACA.”

… Jeffries was asked about Rep. Marge Greene’s recent break with Republicans on the ACA subsidies after hearing from her constituents: “It does seem to many of us that she’s had a surprisingly enlightened few weeks.”

… Q: “At the end of this week it will have been a month since the House has been out. Why are you keeping the House out if you have a lot of other work to do? Are you saying you can’t work on appropriations and other things while the govt is shut down? Johnson: House Republicans have been very busy, they’re doing some of their best work in their district.”

… Mike Johnson has convened the House for only 12 of the last 80 days. The Epstein Shutdown. 68 days off with full pay and benefits over 80 days is a pretty good gig for House Republicans.

… HuffPost: “Some Republican House members are questioning Johnson’s stay-away strategy as the possibility looms that they’ll spend another week back in their districts. Early polling suggests more people blame Republicans for the standoff. During a conference call on Thursday, several other Republican House members reportedly told the speaker he should bring them back to Washington.”

… Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-CA), who is in trouble if CA’s redistricting plan passes in a couple of weeks: “The Speaker shouldn’t even think about cancelling the session for a third straight week.”

… One House Republican, who spoke on condition of anonymity: “I think it makes sense for at least appropriators to be doing stuff.”

… Rep. Jay Obernolte (R-CA): “I think we’re gonna get to a point where it’s damaging to continue to keep the House out of session. I think we’ve gotten to that point.”

… Rep. Jen Kiggans (R-VA): “I’m urging the Speaker and our House leadership to immediately pass my bill to ensure our service members, many of whom live paycheck to paycheck while supporting their families, receive the pay they’ve earned.”

… “Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) has said he supports a standalone troops bill, while Speaker Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) oppose it.”

… Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI) on Fox: “I am someone that’s trying to keep relationships with people on all sides, because I think there’s a real problem on trust right now. But why are we out of session? We should be in session, having discussions, be at that table.”

… Jeffries was asked on MSNBC how negotiations are going with Mike Johnson: Q - “Have you met with Mike Johnson? Jeffries: No. Q - Why not? Jeffries: Because Donald Trump has not given them permission to meet.”

… Trump on AF1 flying to Israel: “Boy, she asks a lot of questions. Who are you with? Dasha Burns: Politico. I’m Dasha Burns, sir. Trump: Dasha, Politico, ugh. Politico has gone bad. They’ve been so wrong about everything. Let’s get somebody else to ask some questions. Politico is fake news. Burns: Sir, talk to Karoline. She will vouch for me.”

… Aaron Rupar: “Dasha Burns said she talked with Trump on the phone 4 days ago, but now he doesn’t know who she is.”

… Trump: “I don’t think there’s anything that’s gonna get me in heaven. I think I’m not heaven bound. I’m not sure I’m gonna be able to make heaven.”

… More proof about how bad the Epstein files are for Trump.

… Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX): “I agree (wow first MTG and now DJT) no pearly white gates for the Mean Manic Mad Mango Man! I wonder how and why anyone would buy those Trump Bibles, he’s definitely never read any portion of one. In the word it says, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ Welp - he’s definitely not done anything good for the ‘least, only those with the MOST get his help… the rest will get harmed.’ Matthew 25:40.”

… Trump on Ukraine: “They’d like to have Tomahawks. We talked about that. We’ll see. I might have to speak to Russia, to be honest with you, about Tomahawks. Do they want to have Tomahawks going in their direction? I don’t think so.”

… Q - “Has Qatar changed their behavior from 2017 when you accused them of funding terrorism? Trump: In 2017, I didn’t really know them very well. As I got to know them, I got to understand them.”

… Trump suddenly changed his mind about them after a free jet and a $5.5 billion Trump resort in Qatar.

… CNN’s Daniel Dale: “Trump told an imaginary story minutes ago about how the first time he met Egypt’s Sisi: He said Sisi was supposed to meet Hillary Clinton too but ‘liked me so much he never even got to see Hillary’ or saw her for ‘about two seconds.’ Sisi actually met with Clinton before he met Trump that day, and spoke with Clinton for more than 70 minutes, 2016 news reports and tweets show.”

… Trump also suggested big changes at CBS after the merger: “Who is going to be the head anchor as CBS? Not Norah O’Donnell. Larry Ellison is great and his son is great. They’re friends of mine. They’re big supporters of mine and they’ll do the right thing.”

… When he arrived in Egypt, Trump touted that country’s criminal justice system as a model for the US: “They have very little crime. Because they don’t play games. That’s why. They don’t play games like we do in the US with governors that have no idea what they’re doing.”

… New slogan: Make America Egypt.

… Trump then greeted the delegate from UAE, which put $2 billion into Trump’s crypto company, with this comment to the press while shaking his hand: “They got a lot of cash. Unlimited cash.”

… CBS: “At least 153 unvaccinated students exposed to measles in South Carolina schools are quarantining. Officials confirmed these students were exposed contacts without immunity, leaving them to be excluded from school until the period of potential disease transmission has ended.”

… “Earlier this year, the US recorded the most measles cases in more than 30 years, CDC data showed. A large share of the infections were connected to an outbreak in West Texas that led to the deaths of two children. CDC data shows about 93% of kindergarteners in the US were vaccinated against measles during the 2021-2022 school year and only 92.7% in the 2023-2024 school year. This is down from 95.2% during the 2019-2020 school year - a critical threshold to keep people safe.”

… CDC: “When more than 95% of people in a community are vaccinated, most people are protected through community immunity (herd immunity).” According to the latest South Carolina briefing, the upstate region has only about 90% immunity, leaving the community vulnerable to the virus spreading.”

… Rep. Marge Greene (R-GA): “Parents should not be required to force vaccinate their children to attend school, play sports and activities, attend camps, and participate in life. Vaccines cause irreparable harm to many children.”

My news feed today was 99% Israel/Gaza, and while that is a very important story in the world, the point of this Bulletin is to cover American politics. I included a couple of things Trump said over there that are relevant to US politics, but as far as the details of the quagmire we seem to be getting into in the Middle East - I will leave that to the rest of the media to report on all day as if it is the only thing happening in the world.

As far as that goes, all I will say is that with all things Trump - the devil is in the details. Witkoff met with Hamas leaders and after that meeting they agreed to free the hostages. That is giving me Trump/Taliban deal vibes - what exactly did we promise Hamas in that closed-door meeting? What did Arab countries promise Trump personally? What are we getting ourselves into over the next several months/years? How long before Kushner starts building condos in Gaza and how will Hamas respond to that?

I expect I will have more to say about all that on Uncovered on Wednesday. If you missed yesterday’s Bulletin, you can find it here.

… WaPo, NY Times, The Atlantic, CNN, Guardian, Breaking Defense, and even Newsmax (!) among others issued statements today that they will refuse to comply with Pete Hegseth’s new rules mandating that their reporting on the Pentagon and military issues be submitted for screening and approval by DOD. So far the only media company I am aware of who has signed it is right-wing OAN.”

… Newsmax: “Newsmax has no plans to sign the letter. We are working in conjunction with other media outlets to resolve the situation. We believe the requirements are unnecessary and onerous and hope that the Pentagon with review the matter further.”

… Crybaby snowflake Pete Hegseth posted a hand wave goodbye to each of their