Good morning. I’m Corinne Straight, and this is AlterNet America. Please take a moment to click the ❤️ and restack this post. The oligarchs’ platforms are trying to keep stories like the ones below from hitting your feeds, and this helps us break through.
Donald Trump went on Fox News and openly considered destroying an entire country. His proposed 250-foot arch will double as a military weapons facility with mounted guns. One of his officials called reporters who cover the war honestly “treasonous” after the White House banned three news outlets. And his nationwide gerrymandering campaign is on track to backfire so badly it may hand Democrats the House.
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Most 80-year-olds spend Sunday morning with coffee and the crossword, not deciding whether to annihilate a sovereign nation.
Fox News chief foreign correspondent Trey Yingst joined Fox & Friends Weekend Sunday after talking to Trump about the situation in Iran. He reported that the president told him he is in a “deciding mode” and that “very big things are going to be happening in the not-so-distant future.”
Trump reportedly said they have three options: wipe out Iran, let them rot economically, or make a deal. Yingst quoted the president as saying, “My question is, if and when do I blow the entire nation up? They better behave.”
The quotes have not been independently verified, but Trump also told Axios last week he had “a big decision coming up” about whether to “annihilate” the Iranian regime. He said that “anything could happen” with him.
As of September 3, the war has now cost $43.6 billion, according to a new estimate from U.S. Central Command provided to lawmakers this week. A report by the Congressional Budget Office released Tuesday said the conflict is running up costs of about $3 billion a month.
The man who cannot get a building permit has decided to get a weapons permit instead.
On Sunday, Trump announced on Truth Social that he is transforming his proposed 250-foot arch into what he dubbed “a top grade Military Complex/Triumphal Arch.” The monument will store large amounts of drones and ammo, and put snipers on the roof and in the plaza areas.
Trump said it was done “at the strong request of the United States Military,”citing supposed national security concerns. A Pentagon spokesperson told NBC News the department had no further comment beyond the president’s social media post.
A group of Vietnam War veterans and an architectural historian are already challenging the arch in court, claiming Trump lacks the legal authority to build it without approval from Congress. An attorney for the plaintiffs said the president’s effort to make this a national security issue doesn’t address the project’s legal issues.
The administration’s own National Park Service said this week that building the arch would mar the setting and views along the Potomac River. The NPS said those impacts “cannot be fully avoided,” because the location of the arch is central to the project.
Peter Navarro went to prison for contempt of Congress and came back with strong opinions about who deserves to be punished.
Trump on Friday barred reporters from CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from the White House for publishing “negative stories” about him. When the reporters showed up for work Saturday morning, their press badges didn’t work and they weren’t allowed through the security gate.
White House trade adviser Peter Navarro defended the ban Saturday by calling the outlets “treasonous” on Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast. He argued that media outlets providing negative coverage of the economy, Trump’s tariffs, or the war in Iran are deliberately seeking to sabotage the nation. He took particular issue with reporters saying the war is going badly.
Trump said the same when reporters asked why he banned the three outlets. He called them all “fake news” and said more organizations may join the list soon. He specifically warned that the New York Times and the Washington Post might be next.
The three outlets filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration early Monday morning, accusing officials of violating the First Amendment. Apparently "fake news" has real lawyers.
The gerrymander is working exactly as well as everything else this administration has tried.
A Decision Desk Headquarters forecast last week gave Democrats a 69% chance of winning the House. The forecast predicts Democrats winning an average of 229 seats to the Republicans’ 206, a 14 seat gain for Democrats over the current GOP majority.
Geoffrey Skelley, chief elections analyst at Decision Desk HQ, said redistricting doesn’t look like it will help House Republicans. Districts have been redrawn so thin, Democrats could even pick up seats in states that pushed through new maps.
Trump has been pushing the effort for more than a year. He told CNBC’s Squawk Box last year that Republicans deserved more seats in California and could pick up five seats in Texas because of its Republican governor.
Gov. Gavin Newsom warned Trump he was “playing with fire” and pushed a retaliatory ballot measure that voters approved in November 2025, targeting five GOP-held seats. Democrats are expected to gain four of them.
A federal judge then halted Texas from implementing its new map in 2026, and Missouri’s state Supreme Court rejected a Trump-backed map, saying voters would need to approve the changes first. Florida and Ohio are both expected to underperform Republican projections.
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** ‘He Is Kryptonite’: Republicans Start Breaking With Trump. **Republican candidates in competitive races around the country are trying to distance themselves from the president, whose approval rating is below 40 percent. Since August 1, only two Republican candidates in battleground states have run a TV ad mentioning Trump, out of hundreds of new ads from GOP candidates in competitive Senate, House and governor races. Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate Rep. Tom Tiffany, who Trump endorsed in January, has publicly broken with the president on naming Lake Ontario, easing tariffs on beef imports and data center policy. Iowa Republicans Zach Nunn and Mariannette Miller-Meeks last week voted to curtail Trump’s war powers and stop the Iran war, after repeatedly voting to support the war since March.
** South Dakota’s Republican Secretary of State Endorses Democrat to Succeed Her.** South Dakota Republican Secretary of State Monae Johnson broke ranks Saturday to endorse Democratic candidate Terrence Davis in the race to replace her. Johnson was defeated for the Republican nomination at the state party convention in June by Heather Baxter, a member of the state Freedom Caucus who first ran on a platform of hand-counting all ballots instead of using vote-counting machines. In a written statement, Johnson said she knew her decision would disappoint some in her party, but called on South Dakotans to look beyond the letter next to a candidate’s name.
Flock Safety Offers Employee Buyouts as Cities Drop Its Contracts. On Friday, Flock Safety, the surveillance company whose license plate readers are used by police departments across the country, offered voluntary buyouts to its roughly 1,500 employees after local governments began dropping the company at an unprecedented rate. One advocacy group counted 93 city and county governments that severed ties with Flock in August alone, and about three times as many local governments have ended contracts in 2026 as in the past five years combined. The Washington Post found 46 examples in August of police officers accused of using Flock’s technology to stalk their own spouses and partners. Sources close to the company told Wired that without the buyouts, layoffs would have been almost inevitable.
Wisconsin Inmates Are Raising Monarch Butterflies and Tracking Their Migration. Twenty inmates at Wisconsin’s Redgranite Correctional Institution are breeding monarch butterflies, tagging them with tracking devices and releasing them for their annual migration thousands of miles south. Recreation Leader Carrie Jahnke started the program in 2025 seeking activities that would work for inmates who may have mobility concerns or who aren’t interested in sports. In 2026, the institution received 100 monarch larvae from Monarch Watch, up from 60 the previous year, and received a grant from the Natural Resources Foundation of Wisconsin to build a permanent butterfly rearing structure. Nathan Lecker, who grew up in a family that raised monarchs, said he likes being part of the effort and being able to help the community from the inside.