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Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. accused Democrats of turning the federal government into a “child sex trafficking ring.” Even Fox News isn’t buying Trump’s promise to give every American $5,000 if Republicans win the midterms. Jimmy Kimmel says the FCC threatened him and his network to stop him from airing his interview with Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico. And the Supreme Court blocked Missouri from using a gerrymandered congressional map that would have handed Republicans an extra House seat.
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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. cares so much about trafficked children that he fired everyone who was looking for them
At the Republican midterm convention in Dallas Thursday night, the Health Secretary accused the Biden administration of making the federal government into what he called the biggest child trafficking operation in world history. His agency is now supposedly trying to find the 300,000 children he claims are missing.
The 300,000 figure comes from an HHS inspector general report, but Kennedy misrepresented what it says. The report found that about 300,000 migrant children either did not show up for immigration court hearings or never got their notices to appear. The report did not say those children were trafficked. It said they were at higher risk of trafficking or forced labor.
Trump has actually made it harder to combat the very crime Kennedy accused Democrats of committing. The Trump administration slashed the State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons by 71 percent, defunded the organization that assigns court-appointed advocates to children who have been sexually abused, and shut down a Justice Department unit that specialized in prosecuting traffickers.
According to a Reuters review of federal court records, federal prosecutions of sex trafficking dropped by 22 percent in the first half of 2026 to the lowest level since 2010. Former federal prosecutors told Reuters that the decrease was due to funding cuts and the redirection of law enforcement resources to immigration enforcement.
It’s not bribery if the check bounces.
At the first-ever Republican midterm convention in Dallas on Wednesday, Trump told the crowd he would send $5,000 to every adult citizen in the country if Republicans hold the House and Senate in November. He called it the “Trump dividend,” and offered no details about how it would be paid for.
The dividend would cost more than $1.2 trillion, as there are about 240 million adult citizens in the United States. The federal government is already running a $2.1 trillion deficit this year and has spent $1.27 trillion in interest payments on the national debt.
Trump has made similar promises before, and never followed through. Last year he backed a $5,000 “DOGE dividend” proposed by Elon Musk that never came to fruition. He also pledged $2,000 tariff refund checks on Truth Social in November 2025 and backed a plan to put $1,000 or more into health savings accounts in legislation that failed in the Senate.
Not even Fox News was buying it. Host Brett Baier challenged VP JD Vance on air soon after the speech, pointing out the administration’s prior cash promises never materialized. Vance claimed tariff revenue would cover the cost, but tariff receipts currently amount to less than $500 billion, less than half the cost of the plan.
The FCC has done more for James Talarico’s name recognition than his entire campaign.
Jimmy Kimmel announced during his Wednesday monologue that his interview with Democratic Texas Senate candidate James Talarico will not air on television, and will instead be posted exclusively on YouTube.
Kimmel said Trump’s FCC had threatened his show, ABC, the network’s affiliates, and local stations over what would usually be considered routine guest bookings. He pulled the interview from the broadcast specifically to protect ABC affiliates in Texas, who would be under the most direct pressure.
FCC Chair Brendan Carr has spent the year pushing late-night shows to comply with the agency’s “equal time” rule, which states that if a broadcaster gives free air time to one candidate, it must give the same to that candidate’s opponents. Previous FCC chairs did not enforce the rule on news programs or talk shows.
This is the second time a late-night host has stated Talarico was prevented from coming on broadcast TV. In February, former Late Show host Stephen Colbert claimed that CBS lawyers told his show that Talarico could not be on the broadcast due to threats from the FCC.
Even U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh looked at Missouri Republicans and said no means no, a phrase he is not historically associated with.
On Thursday, the Supreme Court barred Missouri from using a Republican-drawn congressional map for this year’s midterm elections. The order was issued without explanation and without noted dissent and means Missouri almost certainly will use the 2022 map, which has six Republican seats and two Democratic.
The new map was drawn in 2025, under Trump’s direction, to oust Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver. Republicans would have held a 7-1 advantage in the state’s congressional delegation.
A group called People Not Politicians collected more than 300,000 signatures to force a statewide referendum on the new districts, and the state Supreme Court last week ruled that Missouri must use the old map until voters weigh in. Justice Brett Kavanaugh declined an emergency appeal of that ruling, but in a separate case a federal district judge issued a restraining order on the state to use the 2025 map.
Secretary of State Denny Hoskins jumped on the conflicting orders and told local election officials to go with the gerrymandered version. The state Supreme Court found him in contempt on Thursday, but let him off with a warning after he reversed course and directed officials to use the 2022 map.
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Appeals Court Rejects Trump’s Mail-In Voting Restrictions. The First Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston on Thursday blocked the Trump administration from implementing a new U.S. Postal Service rule that would have placed tighter restrictions on mail-in voting ahead of the November midterms. A rule adopted at Trump’s urging would have required states to redesign mail-in ballot envelopes to include scannable barcodes, and would have allowed the Postal Service to refuse to deliver ballots that didn’t comply. A federal judge already blocked the rule last week, saying it risked disenfranchising millions of voters.
Bernie Sanders Convenes a Private Senate Briefing on AI Dangers. Sen. Bernie Sanders will hold a private, bipartisan briefing for senators on Sept. 16 on the dangers of artificial intelligence. Guests will include “godfather of AI” Geoffrey Hinton, co-founder of the Future of Life Institute Max Tegmark, and independent researcher Ajeya Cotra. There are no scheduled speakers from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google or Meta. Unlike the Senate’s 2023 AI Insight Forums, Sanders selected researchers who study AI risks, not executives who build and profit from the systems.
Florida Pays Hundreds of Thousands to State Workers Fired Over Charlie Kirk Posts. Florida taxpayers have paid out at least $615,000 in settlements to state workers who were fired for posting about the killing of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk on their personal social media accounts. One biologist with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission was awarded $485,000 after being fired for reposting a joke about Kirk’s death, and another employee was awarded $65,000. A third case is still in court. An administrative judge in Martin County has recommended reinstating a social studies teacher fired over similar posts, but the school board has refused, which will likely lead to another taxpayer-funded lawsuit.
** Raising Taxes on the Rich Did Not Drive Millionaires Out of New York. **The Groundwork Collaborative, a progressive think tank, released an analysis Thursday that found New York added 2,000 millionaire tax filers in 2023, the year after the state increased its top marginal tax rate. Filers making between $500,000 and $1 million also increased by more than 8,500. The data debunks warnings from hedge fund manager Bill Ackman and others who said last year that wealthy residents would leave if Mayor Zohran Mamdani raised taxes.