The Narativ | Know Sooner
Wednesday, October 28, 2026
Benjamin Netanyahu lost the first exit polls and took the stage at 3:23 a.m. to say the right had a majority "among the Zionist public." By noon his party said the election was "stolen by Arab parties" and demanded a police and Shin Bet investigation. In between, the polls changed, not the voters. The night's first exit polls put Likud at 24 seats and Gadi Eisenkot's Yashar at 22, Netanyahu's bloc at 50, Eisenkot's at 52 or 53, the Arab lists at 17 or 18. Eisenkot, the former army chief, took the stage after midnight and said, "We made history." He told Netanyahu, "do not dare use the security of Israel for your needs." By 2:17 a.m. all three channels had revised. Channel 12 put Likud at 27 and Netanyahu's bloc at 52; Kan and Channel 13 called it 51 to 51. Nobody had voted since the polls closed.
A federal grand jury in Washington refused Tuesday to indict Cassidy Hutchinson for lying to Congress. The rest of Todd Blanche's cases against Trump's enemies this month never saw a jury, because he stopped asking. Hutchinson was the Jan. 6 committee's witness, the Mark Meadows aide 13 million people watched describe Trump urging a crowd he knew might be armed toward the Capitol. Trump targeted her for it. Career prosecutors doubted they could win it, and the case went to the civil rights division, where Harmeet Dhillon normally handles police violence and voting cases.
Benjamin Netanyahu walked into Likud headquarters at 3:23 a.m. Wednesday short of a majority on every exit poll and turned his speech to Iran. "Iran is weaker than ever, Israel is stronger than ever," he told the room. Israel and Donald Trump, he said, will end the Iranian threat once and for all. The White House would not discuss "sensitive military plans that may or may not exist."
Melania Trump holds no office. Her one channel to Moscow before this was a letter to Putin last year about children displaced by the war. The White House says she got Russia and Ukraine to stop shooting at one town, and Russia's ombudsman agrees. Everywhere else, Russia kept shooting.
Flávio Bolsonaro crossed a bridge into Argentina at 10:50 Tuesday night, 11 hours after the deadline Brazil's Supreme Court set for him to hand in his passports. By 9:30 Wednesday morning he was in Miami.
Netanyahu, Bolsonaro and Trump are one movement, and this week it lost at the ballot box and won everywhere else: a visa, a Patriot battery, a 3 a.m. speech, a grand jury it could not bend.
Netanyahu prepared for the loss by borrowing a note from Donald Trump. Read Monday's piece, then watch him use it.
