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The Trump administration has instructed the Pentagon to prepare military strikes against Iran before the midterm elections. Trump openly admitted at a Texas rally that he pardons people in return for favors. The FCC is considering letting political operatives flood your cellphone with AI-generated robocalls ahead of the midterms. And a Trump appointee at the U.S. Embassy in Israel has been suppressing reports about Israeli settlers killing American citizens.
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Nothing wins back suburban voters like another flag-draped coffin.
Trump is considering fresh military strikes against Iran before the November 3 midterm elections in an effort to win back wavering Republican voters, according to an explosive report from The Atlantic. Two administration officials told the magazine that military planners have been ordered to identify possible targets, a sign of a major escalation.
The Pentagon had already given Trump options for escalating the conflict after the election, including major attacks on Iranian energy facilities. The U.S. Central Command is drafting proposals for possible strikes before voters head to the polls, but the administration has not decided whether to move forward.
Some Trump allies think another show of force could give the president a political victory to celebrate before Election Day, even as the war drags down Republican candidates across the country. Americans now pay an average of $4.37 a gallon for gasoline, compared with less than $3 before the conflict started.
Another strike by the United States could also trigger Iranian retaliation against the 50,000 US military personnel stationed throughout the region. Military officials have warned that an escalation could place those forces in immediate danger.
Trump said the quiet part loud, then posted it on Truth Social for good measure.
Trump pardoned Texas Representative Henry Cuellar last year and swore it came with no strings attached. He then spent five minutes at a San Antonio rally Wednesday night calling Cuellar ungrateful for not switching parties.
“I made no deal,” Trump said. “I didn’t say, ‘Oh, I’ll give you the pardons if you turn Republican.’ I didn’t say that. No, I could have done that very easily but, where a crooked politician would have done that. … I guess I expected maybe he wouldn’t run, or maybe he’d run maybe as a Republican, I don’t know.”
Trump also brought up Cuellar’s daughters, who had made personal pleas to the president to pardon their father. He told the crowd he wished they had employed “the same level of charm to convince their mother and father to do the right thing.”
Trump endorsed Cuellar’s Republican opponent on Truth Social earlier in the day and called the Democrat “extremely ungrateful.” He also wrote that Cuellar should be serving a long prison term with his wife right now.
The FBI raided Cuellar’s home and office in 2022 over allegations that he and his wife took roughly $600,000 in bribes from Azerbaijan. The couple is facing a dozen charges of bribery, money laundering and conspiracy for allegedly using Cuellar’s position in Congress to advance the Azerbaijani government’s interests.
If you thought the robot calling about your car’s extended warranty was bad, wait until it has political opinions.
The Club for Growth, a conservative advocacy group, has filed an emergency petition with the Federal Communications Commission seeking a waiver to allow political groups to make AI-generated robocalls without the consent of the recipient. Under existing law, automated calls to cellphones require prior permission from the person being called.
The petition would permit callers to make up to three political calls to your cellphone generated by AI every 30 days without your consent, and to continue calling for 10 days after you ask them to stop. Each political action committee, campaign and nonprofit would have its own three-call limit, meaning a single voter could be called by dozens more organizations in a single month.
If the FCC grants the waiver, the number of political robocalls could increase as much as 40 times over previous midterm elections. One expert estimated that Americans could get as many as 15 billion robocalls before the November vote.
The FCC outlawed AI-generated robocalls in early 2024 after a political consultant used deepfake audio of President Biden’s voice to discourage voters from casting ballots in the New Hampshire primary. The Club for Growth’s petition would create an exception to that ban for political speech.
Traditionally, embassies work for the country that sent them.
David Milstein, a senior adviser of U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, has been suppressing and editing embassy reports documenting Israeli settler violence in the occupied West Bank, The New York Times reports. Some of the things he buried were reports of attacks on American citizens.
Milstein sent a cable to Washington commending Israel for cracking down on settler violence, even though embassy staff had drafted a report stating the Israeli government was not taking action. Milstein also quashed another embassy report that would have aided lawmakers’ investigations after Congress raised concerns about how Israeli authorities and settlers have killed nine American citizens.
Milstein also demanded that all messages from the Palestinian affairs section of the embassy be sent to him personally. This cut down the embassy’s output of cables from several a week to a few a month.
Canada, France, and the United Kingdom all announced sanctions on Israeli settlements in the West Bank last month. The United States has not followed suit, instead threatening tariffs against the U.K. in response to the sanctions.
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Trump’s Approval Rating Drops as Republican Allies Compare the Midterms to 2006. Trump’s approval rating has dipped below 35 percent, roughly where George W. Bush stood when Republicans lost both houses in 2006. New York Times polling showed the president underwater in five states with Senate races that he won by double digits in 2024, and the Republicans are freaking out. One GOP operative told Politico that the current course could generate losses worse than the 2006 wipeout, while Kyle Kondik, managing editor at Sabato’s Crystal Ball, said that Trump’s cratering approval is opening up the map for Democrats. He said it could give them up to 230 seats in the House.
** Trump-Appointed Judge Extends Block on Trump’s White House Media Ban.** U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly, an appointee of Trump, extended his order that blocks the administration from banning CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from the White House. Kelly issued a 14-day temporary restraining order on Sept. 24 after the three outlets sued, finding that the administration had revoked their press credentials without due process. That order was to expire today. The three outlets asked for a preliminary injunction after the White House started enforcing the ban inconsistently, at one point blocking CNN from performing its pool duties. Kelly found the outlets had crossed the legal threshold for continued access while the case proceeds.
Federal Judge Orders DHS to Return Ahmed Soliman to the United States. A federal judge has ordered the Department of Homeland Security to return Ahmed Soliman, a 30-year-old Egyptian man who was raised in Arizona, to the United States after ICE deported him to Equatorial Guinea earlier this year. Since his deportation, Soliman has been held under armed guard in a hotel in Malabo, beaten, threatened at gunpoint, and detained after speaking to the press about police abuse. In court filings, DHS acknowledged Soliman was never given a legally required fear screening before his removal, helping prompt the judge’s order. Amnesty International and Arizona Rep. Adelita Grijalva had both been pushing for his return.
** Colorado Woman Sues Flock Safety and Police After Mistaken Theft Charge.** Chrisanna Elser, a financial planning specialist in Colorado, has filed a federal lawsuit against Flock Safety, a police sergeant, and two towns after she was issued a criminal summons for a $25 package theft she didn’t commit. Columbine Valley Police Sergeant Jamie Milliman told Elser he had used Flock cameras to track her vehicle for a month and was “100% sure” she was the thief. Elser had offered to show Milliman video from a vehicle camera, as well as phone location data that would have shown she was at a tailor’s shop at the time of the theft, but Milliman refused to look at the evidence. The charge was voided two weeks later after Elser submitted her evidence, but the department didn’t discipline Milliman for his misuse of the surveillance system.
