Trump Is Laughing At How Poor You Are

This is a free edition of Where Things Stand.

Take My Bribe, Poors

As frequent readers of Where Things Stand and therefore TPM you don’t really need another rundown from me on just how out of touch President Trump is when it comes to the everyday needs of Americans. We’ve known it for decades.

But his insistence on tone deaf obliviousness about these realities has struck a raw nerve this midterms cycle among both Republican and Democratic voters. Regardless of political affiliation, Americans simply cannot afford to meet their most basic needs — electric bills are skyrocketing, gas prices are insane, inflation has made trips to the grocery store riddled with heartburn. And some of his policies are to blame for the burgeoning affordability crisis. His war in Iran has sent the cost of gas soaring. His tariffs have only raised the cost of basic goods and services. He and Republicans’ Big Beautiful Bill passed last summer did little other than extend tax cuts for the wealthy, the cost of which was offset by sweeping cuts to Medicaid and federal nutrition programs for children.

He’s completely mismanaged swelling, bipartisan outrage over Big Tech, as Americans object to its oligarch overlords placing their tentacles in every lever of government and pushing through data centers in communities across the country as they shove accelerated AI expansion down our throats. Instead, Trump has chosen to insult voters who oppose these trends. Infamously, he labeled anyone who doesn’t embrace rampant data center development in their communities “backwards and poor.“

He’s now flailing in his attempts to grapple with the political backlash that is soon to hit Republicans at the ballot box, a response to all of this elite-maxxing from him. He’s been touring the country for the past week, throwing rallies for himself in states where Republicans are facing tough election prospects, largely due to his unpopularity. Many of these Republican candidates do not want him there and do not want him to do this. But that doesn’t translate with this guy, so he’s out there on the campaign trail making everything worse for himself and his party.

Last night, he was in Texas doing just that (making things worse for a candidate who, arguably, has done a really good job of doing that on his own (Ken Paxton)).

During the rally, he doubled down on his supposed plan to send $5,000 checks to all adult Americans if Republicans hold Congress next week. The one stipulation he’s placed on the imaginary checks that no one is going to get is that they must be spent in America.

“Go to Florida. Go to any one of our great places,” Trump said last night. “You could even come to Mar-a-Lago.”

“The problem is that for $5,000, the most you’ll be able to buy is a hamburger and maybe a small dessert,” he said, laughing. “I’m not even sure you could buy that. No, don’t go there. That’s not a good place if you’re price conscious.”

I’ll just leave it at that.

Ramaswamy Was Warned

New reporting from journalists Jacqueline Sweet and Asawin Suebsaeng out yesterday has found that Ohio Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy was warned by Republicans working for and close to his campaign that the disgustingly vile attack ad against his Democratic opponent Amy Acton featuring her estranged mother would not go over well with the public — and would likely backfire. More on that here.

And backfire it has. Axios reported this afternoon that Republicans are worried that ad has cost him the race due to new polling that shows he is even further behind Acton than he was before it was released. Per Axios:

The private poll, commissioned by a Republican group and obtained by Axios, found Acton leading Ramaswamy by eight points — up from a two-point lead in the same poll earlier this month, before the ad began circulating on Oct. 19.

The ad “is having a significant effect on the gubernatorial race,” a memo attached to the poll states.

Attacks on El-Sayed Increasingly Stupid

In its desperate bid to tie Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed to the Muslim Brotherhood — something he is not part of, has said he has never been part of and has denounced as extreme — simply because he is Muslim, Republicans are losing the plot a little bit. This week Trump and other Republicans have ramped up their blatantly Islamophobic rhetoric about El-Sayed by referring to him as a “jihadist.”

During a rally in Michigan Sunday night for El-Sayed’s Republican opponent, Mike Rogers, Trump repeatedly called the Democrat a “jihadist” and urged rally-goers to “fight” El-Sayed, drawing an analogy with passengers on board United Airlines Flight 93 on September 11, 2001, who died stopping terrorist hijackers from crashing the plane into the U.S. Capitol building.

It’s really gross and xenophobic stuff. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) took the gross and the racist and made it stupid on Wednesday.

“My nickname for the guy is the jihadist leprechaun,” Cruz said at a rally in Michigan today. “And if I am correct that he is a passionate supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood, there is a very real risk that Americans will die as a result.”

Read This From TPM Today

Josh Kovensky has the incredible details on right-wing influencer-activist-provocateur James O’Keefe’s latest stunt during which he and another influencer were ultimately charged with voter fraud, in an attempt to try to prove how … easy it was to commit voter fraud in Minneapolis. Must read story here: Election Fraud Stunt Backfires on Right-Wing Influencers, Results in Identity Theft Charges

Another One Not To Miss

Chuck Schumer Once Decried GOP ‘Silence’ on Trump’s Racist Attacks on Ilhan Omar. Now He’s the Silent One.

What I’m Reading

We Did the Math: Trump Really Is Talking More About Butts and Bodies

Massive Leak Exposes 41,000 Homeland Security Workers—Including Undercover ICE Agents

White House actions spur worry among FBI agents about being called to polling places, sources say