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Republican Senator Eric Schmitt of Missouri was apparently warned that the texts he used to accuse Jack Smith of secretly meeting with Fani Willis were “unvetted,” and a new report shows he got the bogus intel directly from Donald Trump’s Justice Department. Outgoing Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina has a memoir coming out, which reveals profane text messages directed at the president. Trump is also now admitting it’s possible his war with Iran could end up Republicans control of one or both chambers of Congress in November. And several progressive leaders just introduced a bill taking aim at AI-powered Flock cameras.
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During a Monday hearing in the House Judiciary Committee with former special counsel Jack Smith, Republican Senator Eric Schmitt of Missouri used his time to accuse Smith of secretly meeting with Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis at an Atlanta Hawks game. Both Smith and Willis spearheaded criminal investigations into Donald Trump over his attempts to overturn the 2020 election. This means that if the two did meet in secret, it would’ve confirmed the GOP narrative that the cases were a politically motivated witch hunt.
Of course, Smith didn’t attend an Atlanta Hawks game, but an Iowa Hawkeyes women’s basketball game at the University of Maryland. And MS NOW is now reporting that Schmitt was warned ahead of time that the information he had on Smith was “unvetted.” The network’s sources confided that Schmitt sought Justice Department documents that could connect the two investigations, and he eventually obtained the text messages in question. However, Judiciary Committee staff reportedly told Schmitt’s team that they couldn’t verify the accuracy of the information in the texts.
Schmitt ended up publicly faceplanting over the debacle. After he accused Smith of committing perjury, he called the former special counsel a “villain” and a “total dirtbag” who, according to the senator, weaponized the Justice Department against his political enemies. But Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota made sure to state for the record that Schmitt clearly didn’t know the difference between the Iowa Hawkeyes and the Atlanta Hawks, adding that people “should have their facts straight before they accuse someone of being a dirtbag and not get the teams wrong.”
Schmitt doubled down after the incident, insisting Smith “has lied before to Congress.” Smith’s two federal cases against Trump were both dismissed after he was reelected in 2024 election. Willis’ case in Georgia case stalled once an appeals court removed Willis from the case in December of 2024. A separate prosecutor declined to pursue it.
In 1950, Wisconsin Republican Senator Joe McCarthy stood up in Wheeling, West Virginia, waving a sheet of paper he alleged contained the names of 205 communists in the State Department, though he never actually produced that list. When an elected official can pull unvetted files out of the DOJ and use it to baselessly label a prosecutor as a criminal on national television, that's the exact same weaponization of government Republicans say they're fighting.
Retiring Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina is about to release his new memoir, which he called “How to Lose Friends and Antagonize Presidents.” Politico got an early look at the contents, which include text messages Tillis sent directly to the president.
In late May of this year, Tillis told Trump that while he still wanted to help him, he didn’t “take this bulls**t from anyone, including you Mr. President.” He then told the president to save his words for “the cowards who don’t care if you fail.” He went on to say that “right now we are failing,” and that he was one of the few who actually cared about results.
By this past June, Tillis and Trump’s relationship had grown even more fractious. He reminded the president that Trump never actually threatened to endorse a Republican primary challenger against him, and that Trump must have him confused with other Republicans he cowed into submission. Tillis then told Trump that had he made such a threat, the senator “would have immediately told you to f**k yourself, and I would have announced my retirement immediately.” He added that Trump should save his intimidation tactics for “cowards and fools.”
Politico didn’t elaborate on whether Trump replied to Tillis or include the details of what led to the confrontation between the two-term GOP senator and the president. However, Tillis was one of the few Republicans publicly opposed to Trump’s so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act. In of June 2025, just before the bill was passed, the North Carolina Republican announced he wouldn’t be seeking a third term in the Senate. Trump insulted him on social media as “a talker and complainer, NOT A DOER!”
After officially announced his retirement, Tillis warned that lawmakers who were actually willing to act independently of the White House and work across the aisle were becoming “an endangered species.” He also said there are far too many people on Capitol Hill who “really don’t give a damn about the people they promised to represent on the campaign trail.”
Tillis has become a more independent voice since his announcement that he was leaving Congress. Both he and outgoing Republican Senator John Cornyn of Texas — who was ousted in the GOP primary by Trump-endorsed Ken Paxton — initially refused to back then-acting Attorney General Todd Blanche for the permanent job. Tillis called on Blanche to meet with the survivors of convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and demanded the administration scrap its proposed $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization” slush fund meant to compensate Trump loyalists, including people who stormed the Capitol on January 6. The next day, the fund was officially rescinded and both senators voted to confirm Blanche.
The book’s cover features White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. According to publisher HarperCollins, the book focuses on the sycophants in Trump’s inner circle, “spineless Republican yes-men (and -women),” and what it refers to as the “weirdos of the MAGA world.”
This week, Donald Trump admitted it’s “possible” the conflict could result in Republicans losing their majorities in either the House or Senate, if not both. The president argued the war “should help” him because it meant Iran wouldn’t obtain a nuclear weapon. He then acknowledged that while that framing helps somewhat contain political damage, “if you don’t say that, it could hurt.”
That question came after his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, said in a YouTube interview that the Iran war could cost the president the midterms and even potentially his presidential legacy. She still struck an optimistic tone, insisting her father-in-law would go down as one of the greatest presidents ever. She also argued that the Iranian regime is “absolutely” holding out on making a deal until after the election. This is despite Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian saying he wants to strike a deal to end the war before November.
Meanwhile, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps recently called on Americans who oppose Trump to vote in the midterms to extract a political price, saying a Republican defeat could lead to peace.
Of course, Trump has continued to threaten Iran with annihilation, saying it “won’t exist any longer” unless it agrees to what he called “a very fair deal.” That’s just the latest example of him threatening the country of 93 million residents. Democratic lawmakers warned earlier this year that those kinds of remarks from a sitting president could lead to war crimes if Trump follows through on his threats.
Americans have been acutely feeling the cost of the Iran war at the pump, as the average cost of a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline remains above $4 and diesel fuel continues to hit new highs, approaching $7 a gallon nationally. Trump has already admitted he doesn’t “think about” Americans’ financial situation when deciding what to do about the Iran war and has downplayed concerns over high gas prices as a “very inexpensive price to pay.”
Voters don’t seem to agree with him. A recent AP-NORC poll found that 65 percent of Americans say Trump’s policies are to blame for high prices more than any other factor. A whopping 73 percent of respondents also disapprove of Trump’s handling of the economy, while 69 percent said his economic agenda is worse than they expected. Election forecaster Decision Desk HQ now gives Democrats a 75 percent chance of taking back the House of Representatives and a 54 percent chance of retaking the U.S. Senate.
Also today, independent Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York introduced a bill to crack down on Flock Safety’s automatic license plate reader cameras.
Their legislation would prevent federal agencies from using the AI-powered cameras or accessing the data they collect. It would also stop federal grants from being awarded to state and local governments that don’t adopt similar bans on Flock cameras. Additionally, it gives individuals and state attorneys general the power to sue over any violations.
Sanders said the cameras popping up on thousands of street corners is akin to making every American wear an ankle monitor. He also warned that America is rapidly becoming a surveillance state in which giant corporations profit by selling governments “the power to track our every move.”
The bill comes after at least 50 law enforcement officers have been charged with or accused of abusing Flock cameras, including to stalk women and spy on wives, girlfriends and exes who weren’t the target of any actual investigation. Flock Safety, which runs more than 120,000 cameras across the country, has promised to impose policy changes. Last week, prosecutors in Indianapolis charged five local police officers with misusing Flock cameras.
The backlash stretches across party lines. Republican Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri called the cameras “a surveillance network unlike any we’ve ever seen in this country” in a recent hearing, and is reportedly planning to roll out a bill of his own to regulate them. Sanders maintains that mere regulation won’t stop Flock camera abuses.
At a town hall in Ithaca, New York, Ocasio-Cortez said the cameras’ very existence was “unconscionable” and congratulated city officials for ending their Flock Safety contract. She also said a crackdown on the cameras would be tough “because Washington, by and large, is bought and paid for.” She’s not wrong: Flock Safety spent $430,000 on lobbying the federal government in the first half of the year and hired two more lobbying firms in August. Flock’s competitors, like Axon, Motorola and Verkada also have lobbyists working for them in Washington.
Flock insists it supports efforts to regulate the cameras, but law enforcement professionals remian skeptical of the cameras altogether. Pinal County, Arizona Sheriff Ross Teeple testified before Congress last week that using a massive network of private cameras to conduct warrantless surveillance is “paving the way to an AI-driven surveillance state.”
The bill is not likely to go anywhere as long as Republicans control Congress. However, Sanders expects AI regulation to be a core plank of Democrats’ agenda should they retake the Senate in November. He added that fighting crime can’t come at the cost of “giving away our very basic freedoms.”
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