Mother Jones

This story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

A new report paints a dark picture of the state of global wildlife—but also highlights flickers of light where some populations are on the upswing. 

Over the past half-century, populations of thousands of vertebrate species across the globe have decreased in size by 73 percent on average, according to the “Living Planet” report published this past Wednesday by the nonprofits World Wildlife Fund and the Zoological Society of London. A number of factors contributed to this precipitous decline, including habitat loss, overexploitation and climate change. 

However, a closer look at certain regions and biomes offers reasons for hope, the report’s authors say. Roughly half the populations they studied are stable or even increasing. Though these gains are outweighed by the greater magnitude of losses elsewhere, they show that concerted conservation efforts have made a difference for species such as green sea turtles and bluefin tuna, according to lead author Rebecca Shaw, the chief scientist at the World Wildlife Fund.

“The report focuses on hope because even though the headline statistic is really, really stark…what we see underlying the statistic is some real movement in some species,” Shaw said. 

Despite these successes, the report stressed the importance of tackling biodiversity loss at a global scale by changing the three major systems driving extinction: food, energy and finance.  

The “Living Planet” reports are released roughly every two years. The latest taps into data from tens of thousands of populations of 5,790 vertebrate species across the animal kingdom—from Laysan albatross to ring-tailed lemurs. 

Rather than tallying the total number of animals lost or gained, the researchers measured changes in relative abundance of populations. That means a small population of monkeys that has dropped from 200 to 100 would have experienced the same 50 percent loss as a large colony of 20,000 bats that has dipped to 10,000. 

This method allows researchers to compare data from different populations and better track overall trends, said Louise McRae, a research fellow at the Zoological Society of London who works on the Living Planet Index that informs the report.

“The reason we do that is so that we can get a good picture of what is happening across different species by giving them equal weight within this index,” she said. “We’re getting a better signal of the health of the environment.”

From 2010 to 2025, tiger populations increased by nearly 80 percent.Banu R / Getty

So while the new report does not mean there are 73 percent fewer wild vertebrate animals in total today than in 1970, it does show populations the report monitored are plummeting on average. However, diving deeper into the numbers reveals the varied stories playing out for wildlife around the world. 

By geography, monitored species populations have faced the most significant decline in Latin America and the Caribbean, with an average 95 percent decrease from 1970 to 2022. In that same timeframe, North America and the combined regions of Europe and Central Asia have seen around 25 percent declines, though the authors pointed out that development in those areas had already had large-scale impacts on nature prior to 1970. Declines in Africa and the Asia and the Pacific region were 80 percent and 49 percent, respectively. 

The researchers also broke the numbers down by biome. Freshwater species were the clear losers, seeing an overall decline of 85 percent—significantly more than terrestrial or marine species, though these vertebrates are also seeing major losses. 

The report attributed the nosedive in freshwater species to a number of factors, including pollution, overharvesting, and habitat loss caused by infrastructure such as hydropower dams. Impacted species included in the report range from migratory fish such as Chinook salmon in the Western United States to the Amazon pink river dolphin in Brazil, which plummeted by 65 percent between 1994 and 2016 alone in the Mamirauá Sustainable Development Reserve in the state of Amazonas. 

For terrestrial species, habitat loss and degradation drove much of the biodiversity decline, while marine life faced major threats from overfishing. 

Viorel Popescu, an associate research scientist at Columbia University who wasn’t involved in the report, said it’s valuable to bring these “huge amounts of data” that are largely invisible to most of the public “to the forefront.” But he added that the report may be an underestimate of total biodiversity losses, given that it only focuses on vertebrate species the authors analyzed. Other scientists have echoed this critique. 

Popescu pointed to the collapse of many populations of insects, which make up roughly three-quarters of all known animal species on Earth. In fact, beetles alone account for 25 percent of all animal species. 

“Those declines could be even more drastic,” Popescu said. 

The report also pointed to bright spots around the world. For example, in 2025, the green sea turtle became the first marine turtle to be downlisted by the nonprofit International Union for Conservation of Nature, which means populations increased enough around the world for the animal to no longer be considered endangered. 

But this recovery didn’t happen overnight. According to the report, a roughly five-decade coordinated conservation effort launched across more than 80 countries helped populations rebuild through protecting nesting females and eggs, beach management, lighting regulations, turtle excluder devices and other bycatch reduction measures to help reduce sea turtle entanglements in fishing gear. 

“Even though the headline statistic is really, really stark… what we see underlying the statistic is some real movement in some species”

Researchers have also documented population increases for species such as tigers, Southern African elephants and Atlantic and Pacific bluefin tuna following conservation initiatives and stricter industry regulations. 

However, efforts to help pull species from the brink are struggling to secure the necessary funding to meet the accelerating global extinction crisis, experts say. In the United States, the Trump administration has made deep cuts to conservation programs, both domestically and internationally.

“[D]evelopment aid budgets from national governments and international agencies have historically formed the majority of global conservation funding, with a focus on supporting the communities living alongside wildlife,” Andrew Terry, the chief conservation officer at the Zoological Society of London, said in an emailed statement to Inside Climate News. “Cuts to these aid budgets by governments across the northern hemisphere have had widespread impacts on people and nature alike.” 

Even if additional funding emerges, the new report argues that ensuring the long-term future of the world’s biodiversity requires fundamental shifts to society, particularly in the food, energy and finance sectors. Agriculture is the single largest cause of habitat loss and a major contributor of climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions alongside fossil fuels. 

Experts say accelerating clean energy uptake can help decrease emissions that fuel global warming, avoiding climate threats to biodiversity. koldo studio / Getty

According to the report, accelerating solar uptake around the world illustrates how systems can change to reduce their impact on biodiversity. However, financial systems are still pumping money into development that hurts biodiversity, with one estimate suggesting that $7.3 trillion flowed into activities that harm nature in 2023, more than 30 times the money spent on efforts to protect or restore it. 

Shaw said the new report shows countries must simultaneously increase conservation funding to restore wildlife populations, while reducing investments in the activities that undermine them. 

“Go after the root causes, don’t do this species by species,” she said. “Focus on the food system, the energy system and the finance system, and the connections between the three. That’s a recipe for really turning around the loss of wildlife and the loss of species that we’re seeing at a global scale.”

Federal officers raided Minnesota Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar’s home early Monday morning, reportedly related to an investigation into the lawmaker’s immigration paperwork, filed by a relative when Omar was a child. 

The search was conducted by Homeland Security Investigations, a branch of the Department of Homeland Security that manages criminal investigations, and, according to a Justice Department spokesperson, “executed a judicially authorized search warrant” the agency secured. An anonymous source reportedly “familiar with the situation” alleged to NBC News that the raid was part of a years-long investigation involving whistleblowers. CNN also reported that a federal judge approved the search warrant but did not name the judge. 

White House border czar Tom Homan, the acting head of ICE, stated on Fox News last month that Homeland Security was investigating Rep. Omar for alleged unspecified “criminal” conduct, but claimed he couldn’t “give the specifics of what’s happening.” 

“If someone committed an immigration violation, if someone committed marriage fraud or anything like that, regardless if they’re a congressman or not, no one’s above the law,” Homan said at the time. “So, I’ll leave it at that. We’ll let HSI, Homeland Security Investigations, continue the investigation.”

In a Monday morning Fox interview, Homan confirmed that the search had taken place.

Omar immigrated to the US from Somalia in 1995, when she was 12 years old, amid the ongoing civil war in the country. She became a naturalized US citizen in 2000. Donald Trump and his administration have regularly racially targeted Omar—a progressive Democrat and frequent critic of the administration’s policies—fueling further violent threats against her and other lawmakers of color, and people from Somalia living in Minnesota.

Trump and other White House officials have repeatedly cited the Feeding Our Future fraud scandal that involved members of the state’s Somali American community to justify the mass violence by immigration officers in the area as part of ICE’s Operation Metro Surge in late 2025. 

The timing of the raid on Rep. Omar’s Washington-area home—22 days before the November midterms, in which she is a heavy favorite for re-election—adds additional scrutiny, as Justice Department policy prohibits federal prosecutors and agents from timing investigations or charges to affect election outcomes. While not a binding rule, the Justice Department has historically complied by pausing all related actions in the 60 days before an election. (Trump and the wider MAGA movement have repeatedly targeted former FBI head James Comey, and that agency as a whole, in part over the timing and supposed political motivations of the FBI’s own investigations under Comey into both Trump and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.)

“Americans see this for what it is,” Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat who the Trump administration has also targeted, wrote on social media. “President ​Trump is abusing his power to go after political opponents weeks before an election.”

“I’m ok. Make no mistake: this is an attempt to target political enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement,” Rep. Omar posted on social media on Monday afternoon. “This is just the latest escalation in his campaign of political intimidation. I will not be silenced.”

I’m ok. Make no mistake: this is an attempt to target political enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement. For ten years, Trump has targeted me with baseless lies and smear campaigns. This is just the latest escalation in his campaign of political intimidation.I will not be silenced.

— Ilhan Omar (@ilhanmn.bsky.social) 2026-10-12T16:01:52.513Z

On Friday, I hosted a Reddit AMA, prompting the Internet to ask me anything about my coverage of anti-abortion activist Kristan Hawkins and the movement she represents. 

I spent months following and getting to know Kristan. I watched her debate students who were victims of sexual assault, order medication abortion pills online in a state where abortion is banned to show that it was still accessible, and discuss how to weaponize environmental laws against abortion. I also watched her fend off attacks from all sides—from abortion rights supporters to misogynists within her own movement. 

Redditors were particularly interested in the effectiveness of Kristan’s message, and curious about what the anti-abortion movement is planning next.

Here’s an excerpt of the Reddit discussion. Don’t forget to read my full story on Kristan Hawkins and watch our documentary.

Do you think Hawkins is successfully influencing college students at all? How is she perceived on campus?

AL: My colleagues and I watched Kristan in action on two very politically different college campuses—one in Texas and one in California.

What was striking to me in both these venues is that most students seemed to come to the “change my mind” debates that Kristan organized with their views pretty fully formed already. There were some conservative Christian students who strongly agreed with her and saw her as a hero…others who thought she was out of her damn mind.

We have a pretty epic clip in the documentary that shows one student shutting down her arguments, for example…and then some who were in between.

But the polling data shows that overall, young people on college campuses—and especially young women, which is the demographic Kristan cares about most—overwhelmingly support abortion rights. So while I think she’s been able to whip up a relatively small, loyal following, by and large, her message is failing to win over the majority of students.

“We spent enough time together that I did get to see her with her guard down.”

Assuming that you don’t share Hawkins’ views, what is the relationship like between you and your subject? Is the experience one that feels very performative so as to present a very particular image of her and her movement, or does the subject relax and become more genuine? 

Is there a component of trying to be persuasive towards you? Or does the interaction have an adversarial element, like she believes she’s working with the enemy to further her goals?

You are correct in thinking I do not share Kristan’s views, and she knew that going into it. But I have a record of accurately reporting on right-wing figures I disagree with. In fact, Kristan read my book, Killers of Roe: My Investigation Into the Mysterious Death of Abortion Rights, before our first interview. I think it sometimes helps with the source relationship when I can be open with my views, because Kristan wasn’t trying to guess where I stood.

While part of my time with her involved sifting through well-rehearsed talking points, some of which were pretty wild (i.e. her views about the dangers of abortion pills in the water supply, which most scientists think are bogus), we spent enough time together that I felt like I did get to see her with her guard down at times…like when she was exhausted, in a T-shirt, putting on makeup in an airport bathroom after we’d both spent the night in the Houston airport during the government shutdown.

This was the moment when she told me: “My brand consultant would probably say you shouldn’t be filming me.” But as a reporter, I was like…actually…I think this version of you is probably more genuine and likable than the version that’s out there posting ragebait on social media all the time.

How do you see the anti-abortion movement on college campuses and among college students evolving in our current political climate?

Young people, especially young women, are overwhelmingly pro-choice. About two-thirds of people under 30 want abortion legal. Among young women, it’s as high as 76 percent. So for conservatives like Hawkins and her followers, it’s really an uphill battle, and I think that leads to a sense of cultural embattlement that has actually been galvanizing for the minority of students who oppose abortion.

Kristan stokes this feeling with her constant stream of content showing pro-choicers angrily reacting to Students for Life displays. IMO, this kind of content shows their message is unpopular…but Kristan is a master of spin, so she’ll use it to suggest that abortion opponents are under attack by crazy pro-choicers.

To Kristan’s credit, though, there really isn’t a pro-choice parallel to Students for Life. No group on the abortion rights side has as much reach and presence on college campuses, even though that is the more popular point of view.

What is their next move? 

First, they’re coming after shield laws—the laws passed in blue states that allow clinicians in New York or Massachusetts or California, for example, to mail abortion pills into states where abortion is banned.

“She’s trying to stop something unstoppable: The mail and abortion pills.”

The Supreme Court lawsuit filed by three red states last week is the opening salvo in this major constitutional showdown. But their holy grail would actually take us back in time…to 1873.

Kristan Hawkins and her allies would like the Trump administration to revive the Comstock Act, an 1873 anti-vice law that they believe can act as a de facto abortion ban nationwide to shut down the mailing of pills, maybe even all abortion supplies, including in states where abortion is legal.

There’s also the ongoing review of mifepristone by Trump’s FDA, which will reportedly be out in March, and could disrupt access to one of two drugs used in the ideal medication abortion protocol. But no matter what happens, community suppliers say they will keep sending pills through the mail, and not even the most zealous postal inspectors can confiscate every package. 

Ultimately, one of the major reasons I think Kristan has lost is that she’s trying to stop something unstoppable: The mail and abortion pills.

Is the next plan removal of all birth control? 

Going after birth control was always, always part of the plan—it just happens to be less salient as a political talking point than going after abortion, so they tend to be more quiet about it!

Kristan Hawkins and many of her fellow abortion opponents oppose most birth control methods, because they believe (incorrectly) that they can cause abortions. What’s been fascinating lately is watching the intersection of old-school religious opposition to contraception with the MAHA movement and its crunchy online influencers who claim to eschew birth control for a whole host of other reasons.

Kristan is definitely taking advantage of this trend. I picked up a Students for Life postcard at a conference over the summer, for example, that touted getting off birth control as a way to “go green.”

“I don’t think she’ll quit the movement, but I do think she’ll increasingly have trouble navigating these divides.”

How does Hawkins deal with the attacks from the misogynists in her own movement? How does she move forward without being discouraged, and would there be a point where she quits the movement because of these attacks?

This question is a big part of why I wanted to follow Kristan Hawkins in this moment! She and other women in the anti-abortion movement are getting a wave of animosity right now from a hard-right faction of their own movement that blames women leaders like her for the fact that abortions have gone up, and that wants to punish people who have abortions with jail, maybe even the death penalty.

In fact, Kristan has said she’s more afraid of being shot by these folks than by pro-choicers. Kristan’s walking a pretty wild line here, because she is a brawler by nature whose inclination is to fight off the misogynists, but she can’t sound too feminist or she risks alienating her base of conservative supporters.

So her solution has been to try to have it all. She leans into feminist talking points sometimes as a way to hook in young women and shoot down the misogynists. But then, ultimately, she still embraces an extreme anti-abortion POV.

At least for now, she disagrees with the so-called abortion “abolitionists” who want people who have abortions to be charged with murder…although in her persistent effort to have it all, she told me that there might come a time when criminalizing women makes sense. I don’t think she’ll quit the movement, but I do think she’ll increasingly have trouble navigating these divides, and she’ll spend more and more of her time fighting internal battles.

President Donald Trump keeps pointing the finger at everyone for surging fuel prices but himself. Over the weekend, he once again blamed Ukraine, asserting that the country’s retaliatory airstrikes on Russia’s oil refineries were causing prices to spike. Now Trump is urging Ukraine to scrap its leader.

“I suggest they get a new leader who can make a deal because he could have made many deals and for some reason he never does,” Trump said on Saturday, suggesting that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has not done enough to broker a peace deal with Russia.

For weeks, Trump has called on Zelenskyy to stop striking Russia’s energy infrastructure, claiming that the attacks are “hurting the world,” while saying virtually nothing about Russia’s strikes against Ukraine.

Responding to Trump’s escalatory remarks, Zelenskyy on Sunday criticized Trump’s framing, telling ABC News that it is near universally understood that the closing of the Strait of Hormuz has led to higher prices—not Ukraine’s strikes against Russia. But according to Zelenskyy, it’s easier for Trump to blame Ukraine instead of acknowledging the United States’ overwhelming role in surging prices around the world.

“People have to hear reality,” the Ukrainian president said. “Don’t play games with people.” 

Zelenskyy: "Prices are rising because of the war in the Middle East, the blocking of Hormuz. Everyone understands it. If we want to speak with people fairly, if we want to be clear, if we want to speak with our nations openly, people have to hear reality. Don't play games with people."

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-10-11T13:49:23.365Z

Later on Sunday, Trump claimed on Truth Social that there is now an “ENERGY CEASEFIRE” in the war between Russia and Ukraine. But he gave little detail about what that entailed.

The head-spinning war of words follows Trump’s deal on Friday to allow Russia to supply diesel to other countries, an apparent bid to bring down prices ahead of the midterm elections. But just last month, Trump had signed a bill granting him power to impose up to 100 percent tariffs on top countries that buy Russian oil or gas, namely China and India. 

Even GOP lawmakers have voiced rare opposition to the deal. Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) wrote on X that he was “concerned the lifting of sanctions on Russian oil will only fund the Kremlin’s war machine—emboldening more violence and destruction, as we have seen in recent days.”

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said that Trump should use his new sanctioning authority against Russia instead of allowing the country to “rake in revenues, and continue its catastrophic war in Ukraine.”

On Saturday, Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) announced plans for a bipartisan bill that he said would prevent the president from lifting sanctions. “[Ukrainian] President Volodymyr Zelensky has the overwhelming support of the United States Congress, he has the overwhelming support of the American people, and he has the overwhelming support of the Ukrainian people,” Fitzpatrick wrote on social media.

Are Kimberly Guilfoyle’s days as the US ambassador to Greece numbered?

Amid multiple reports alleging outright corruption, on-the-record quotes from Greek officials who seem to detest her grifting behavior, and my personal favorite, the criminal use of “honey” in casual conversation, it appears that Guilfoyle’s ambassadorship could be in peril.

The increasingly precarious standing follows two explosive Wall Street Journal reports alleging Guilfoyle, whose personal finances seemed to be in the gutter even before her ambassadorship, repeatedly pleaded for money from Eric Deters, a Republican donor and failed congressional candidate, in return for political favors. Those favors reportedly included face time with various Trump administration officials, an introduction to Kid Rock, and help with some “personal tax and legal issues.” But according to Deters, Guilfoyle never delivered.

That’s when the apparent begging went off the rails.

“Honey please I need you to get this done for me today,” she allegedly texted Deters, referring to her request for him to wire $100,000 to settle some hefty credit card debt. Deters, who said that he had paid her $300,000 over the years, refused the entreaty because it would end his marriage.

All of which sounds like a far cry from Guilfoyle’s days as Donald Trump Jr.’s former fiancée and a prominent member of President Trump’s inner circle. But it gets even worse for Guilfoyle. According to a follow-up story, the ambassador couldn’t even manage an invite to a Greek House Davos dinner organized for Eric Trump. “You don’t have the f—ing US, you know, ambassador to Greece not come. She should be kissing my f—ing ass,” the Wall Street Journal reports Guilfoyle said of Greek House Davos’ organizer.

Guilfoyle ultimately strong-armed her way into an invite. But the incident apparently did not give her pause about bragging about her connections to wealthy Greek businessmen. A sample: “He loves me. Honey, I spent Christmas with him. New Years. OK? Gstaad. Like, everywhere.”

So what does the president have to say about all of this? “I just heard about it. Too bad,” he told reporters on Friday. “I don’t know too much, but she was always very nice.”

Ouch. Referring to your ambassador and almost-daughter-in-law in the past tense, like she’s already a goner? Seems pretty ice-cold to me, honey.

This story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Matthew Mayich stepped onto the field of Sun Angel Stadium in Tempe, Arizona, at about 7 a.m. on August 20. It was the standout hockey player’s first official practice with his new team, and temperatures were already in the mid-80s.

He and his Arizona State University teammates spent at least 45 minutes doing push-ups, planks, flutter kicks, bear crawls, squats, sprints, and buddy-carries, led by guest trainer and former Green Beret Tim Ziesel. Before leaving the field, Ziesel gave instructions for one final exercise: a medicine ball run. 

As temperatures approached 90 degrees Fahrenheit, the players set off in small groups, according to the university’s timeline of events. Mayich appeared to struggle, then stumbled, dropped the ball, and fell. He tried to rise and fell again. 

Athletic staff treated him with iced towels and cool water, then sprayed him with a garden hose. Initially responsive, his condition deteriorated, and the trainer called 911. Paramedics rushed him to the hospital, where he remains in critical condition after experiencing what his family’s lawyer, Robert Carey, called exertional heat stroke. Carey did not respond to requests for additional information about the diagnosis, which could not be independently corroborated. He has told journalists the family’s hope for a meaningful recovery hovers near a miracle. 

Surface temperatures at a recent Tennessee Titans game in Nashville hit 157 degrees. One player, ESPN reported, rolled his ankle after his cleats melted.

“We want accountability for what happened to our son,” Mayich’s parents, John and Christina, said in a written statement. “We want the truth.”

University officials declined to be interviewed, and Ziesel’s attorney, Larry Kazan, downplayed the intensity of the training session. “The workout was not difficult as some media outlets have attempted to color it,” he wrote in an email to Grist.

Head coach Greg Powers insisted during a September 23 press conference that he was still the “right guy’” to lead the team but did not address specifics of the workout. ASU put him on paid leave Wednesday, more than a month after the workout and two days after seven of Mayich’s teammates impugned the school’s report and response in an anonymous letter sent via an attorney. Among other things, they said the workout lasted 75 minutes, not 45, and alleged that the university did not follow its own guidelines.

“The precautions required by ASU’s heat policy were not in place: no immersion tub, no ice chests, no on-field heat measurement, no scheduled breaks in shade,” they wrote, noting that the session “continued after some of us showed signs of distress, including dropping to a knee, vomiting and, in Matthew’s case, visible disorientation well before the final task.” 

A St. Louis Blues prospect, Mayich, 21, had transferred to Arizona State to continue his college career. Instead, he is the latest in a long line of heat-related athletic tragedies that includes NFL player Korey Stringer, who died of heat stroke 25 years to the month before Mayich’s hospitalization. His death propelled heat safety into the national consciousness.

“We have made tremendous progress since then,” said Doug Casa, an exercise physiologist and certified athletic trainer. He is the CEO of the Korey Stringer Institute at the University of Connecticut, which was established in 2010 to focus on safety and injury prevention for athletes, laborers, and warfighters. But he said Mayich illustrates that more can be done to protect players. 

Exertional heat stroke is a life-threatening condition that occurs when the body overheats and cannot cool down. It’s a leading cause of preventable sports deaths, and the risk is rising as climate change has made extreme heat more frequent, intense, and prolonged. Between 1994 and 2026—the two times the United States hosted soccer’s World Cup—World Weather Attribution found that the chance of extreme temperatures “at least doubled” in multiple cities.

Grass fields have also increasingly given way to synthetic turf, which absorbs enormous amounts of heat. The surface temperatures at a recent Tennessee Titans football game in Nashville hit 157 degrees. One player rolled his ankle after the heat effectively melted his cleats, ESPN reported. “It was hot as s—,” said another. “I didn’t play a snap, and I had to get an IV.”

“If they had treated [Korey Stringer] properly, he probably would have had dinner with his teammates that night.”

Whether it’s an NFL star or a tee ball tot, athletes nationwide are facing this new reality. Some organizations have responded remarkably effectively—Georgia high schools instituted policies that moved them from the deadliest state for football players to among the safest. Others rely on vague recommendations and limited mandates that leave athletes at risk. And many policies don’t address nonathletes who are exposed to the same conditions. Just a week after Mayich’s hospitalization, University of Iowa band member Derek Phillips collapsed during a football game played in temperatures that topped 90 degrees. He later died.

The policy landscape is full of holes, Casa said. Although best practices for preventing and treating heat-related illnesses in athletes are now largely established, consistent adoption and implementation is another matter. “A lot of times they know the right thing to do, but then they don’t do it in the time of crisis,” he said. “Heat stroke can happen at any time.”

The Minnesota Vikings picked Korey Stringer in the first round of the 1995 draft and by 2000 he was selected to the Pro Bowl. The following summer he reported to training camp as one of the best offensive linemen in the NFL. By Minnesota standards, though, the temperatures were scorching and Stringer struggled. 

He vomited three times on the first day and left practice early to cool down in an air-conditioned trailer. The next day the heat index—a measure of temperature and humidity—hit nearly 100 degrees, but Stringer, despite vomiting again, completed the session. During a post-practice workout, he slipped, fell on his back, and was brought back to the air-conditioned trailer. He lost consciousness and was taken to the hospital, where doctors recorded an internal temperature of 108.8 degrees. He died of multiple organ failure 13 hours later. He was 27 years old.

“It was a catastrophic failure in treating Korey,” said Casa, who was an expert witness in the litigation that followed Stringer’s death, and in numerous other cases. “If they had treated him properly, he probably would have had dinner with his teammates that night, or at least been back to normal the next day. That’s how simple it is.”

“We had FIFA basically make a mockery of heat rules for commercial value. Heat rules should exist specifically to protect people.”

Research by Casa and others has found that cold-water immersion is the most effective treatment for heat stroke, and is faster at cooling than air conditioning, which the Vikings relied on. Casa said that reducing Stringer’s temperature enough to save his life would have taken well over an hour with AC, compared to about 25 minutes in an ice bath. “The cooling rates are astronomical,” said Casa. “We get their temps down so fast.”

The NFL would not provide a copy of its heat policy, but it did highlight the strengths of its protocol. Immersion tubs, for example, are required when hot weather is a possibility, as are rectal thermometers, which are necessary for diagnosing heat stroke. It also requires teams to adhere to best practices outlined by the Korey Stringer Institute, submit a plan for third-party review, and rehearse how they respond to emergencies. Exact interpretation is often left to each team or facility to allow flexibility, the league said, and clubs are encouraged to implement additional precautions whenever they feel there is a risk of heat issues.

“I don’t think we have ever had a case where a team didn’t comply,” said Allen Sillis, the league’s chief medical officer. “The NFL has really taken a leadership role since Korey Stringer’s death.”

Professional sports have largely standardized how they measure heat risk. Weather reports typically include temperature and heat index, which accounts for humidity. But the gold standard for measuring heat stress is wet bulb globe temperature, or WBGT, which also considers wind, sunlight, and radiant heat. “WBGT is a much better indicator,” explained Jordan Clark, the co-founder and chief climatologist at Klimo Insights, a heat safety and weather app. 

Leagues still differ on their use of the metric. The NFL, for instance, requires teams to use WBGT but doesn’t specify exactly how. On the other hand, the National Women’s Soccer League mandates hydration breaks starting at a wet bulb globe temperature of 82.3 degrees and game delays when it tops 91.1 degrees. Teams that don’t comply can be disciplined or sanctioned. The NFL doesn’t enforce strict WBGT thresholds, so teams have the flexibility to invoke heat precautions more often. 

Not everyone’s attempt to address heat has been well received. FIFA required water breaks during this summer’s World Cup, even in air-conditioned stadiums, prompting accusations that it was creating commercial breaks rather than protecting players. “We had FIFA basically make a mockery of heat rules for commercial value,” said Nicholas Watanabe, a professor of sport and entertainment management at the University of South Carolina. “Heat rules should exist specifically to protect people from heat.”

Policy differences aside, experts say professional leagues generally take heat seriously. The larger gaps emerge at lower levels. No federal regulations exist on heat safety in sports. Organizations like the National Federation of State High School Associations can and do provide guidance, for example, but states and even school districts can choose what to adopt. The Korey Stringer Institute has scored each state on its heat policies, awarding a maximum of 20 points for mandating things like requiring heat acclimatization, assessing wet bulb globe temperature, and making cold water immersion tubs available.

“There is a huge amount of disparity,” in the results, said Christianne Eason, the organization’s president of sport safety and education. Thirteen states and Washington, DC, scored 15 points or higher, while 17 came in at 5 points or below. Some of the strongest policies are in the Southeast, where heat and humidity can produce some of the nation’s most dangerous conditions. Georgia has led the way. 

Between 1994 and 2009, the state recorded six high school football deaths, which was among the highest in the country. After a string of high-profile incidents, officials examined what schools were doing in order to find ways to improve. “The policies for each school district were all over the map,” said Bud Cooper, a clinical professor emeritus of kinesiology at the University of Georgia who was involved in that work. One school, he remembered, wouldn’t suspend practice until the heat index hit 140. But the research showed a clear trend, he said: “As the temperatures got greater and practices got longer, the risk went up.”

By the time paramedics arrived, Mayich had been down for 17 minutes, during which “nothing effectively cooled him.”

In 2012, the Georgia High School Association implemented some of the most robust policies in the country. Schools are required to take wet bulb globe temperature measurements and adjust practice lengths accordingly. Football teams also must abide by an acclimatization period that limits practices during the first five days of training so players can grow accustomed to the heat. Researchers found that, within three years, heat-related illness had dropped dramatically.

The only heat-related death since the policies took effect, Cooper said, was Imani Bell, a 16-year-old basketball player who died after running stairs in extreme heat in 2019. Her family accused the school of violating the heat rules and settled with the district for $10 million; two coaches are awaiting trial on charges that include second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter. 

Georgia’s turnaround shows that strict heat policies can work. “You could say it was luck, for one year, two years, three years,” Cooper said, but it’s been about 15 seasons. “That goes beyond luck. That’s a result.” 

The analysis by the Korey Stringer Institute shows that, aside from Vermont and New Hampshire, where officials have adopted stringent heat policies, many of the states that still have the most work to do are along the nation’s northern border. Even athletes in cooler climates need to acclimatize to summer temperatures, said Cooper, especially as climate change makes extremes and spikes more common. Pushing athletes into tough practices in hot conditions too quickly is a recipe for harm. “Those student athletes aren’t ready for that,” he said. 

Some resistance to stronger heat policies centers on resources—school districts may worry about the cost of WBGT gauges, athletic trainers, or equipment like immersion tubs. But coaches also fear they won’t be competitive under new rules. 

“We had to reassure them that what they’re doing is the right thing,” Cooper said of his experience in Georgia. “But at the end of the day, the level of play in high school football in the state of Georgia is still just as high as it was 15 years ago.”

Protections are even more important in youth sports, because children are more vulnerable to extreme heat. But deficiencies can be even greater, with policy development often falling to individual leagues, teams, or coaches, many of them volunteers. “It’s truly the wild west,” said pediatrician and researcher Dr. Michele LaBotz, who wants heat taken as seriously as threats such as concussions or lightning. “There is not a mechanism yet for disseminating good information.”

College athletes are in many ways better positioned. Athletic trainers are more ubiquitous, and multimillion-dollar budgets make acquiring equipment less of an obstacle. But the NCAA has few heat-related mandates; most of its guidance is voluntary. “They have not been willing to make things required,” said Casa. “You don’t get credit if it’s a recommendation.”

The NCAA confirmed that it provides “recommendations and guidelines” but declined to answer follow-up questions on the record. The potential for confusion is evident in Arizona State’s heat policy, which runs three pages and uses the words “should,” “will,” “may,” “can,” “recommended,” and “guidelines.”

On Friday, ASU announced that former Arizona Supreme Court Chief Justice Scott Bales will lead an independent review of the university’s planning, policies, and response to outdoor athletic activities, including the use of outside consultants. The university has asked Bales to complete the review by early December.

In a statement that Carey released Friday afternoon, Mayich’s family welcomed Bales’ appointment but said the planned review does not go far enough. It wants an independent investigation of what happened on the field, who was responsible, and whether university, athletic conference, or NCAA rules were violated. Carey called on the university to expand Bales’ mandate to answer those questions or appoint a second independent investigator, and to make the findings public.

Whatever comes of the review, ASU already had heat-safety measures that experts say could have protected Mayich—if they were followed. 

Mayich’s teammates described his collapse in detail, writing in their letter that “Matthew was unintelligible and non-responsive. His lips were gray.” By the time paramedics arrived, he had been down for 17 minutes, during which “nothing effectively cooled him.” They accuse the university of a slew of policy violations in the minutes, hours, and days leading to that moment. 

The missteps, they wrote, started at least eight days before the workout, when ASU hockey staff submitted an official request to have Ziesel lead it. The university timeline says the team did not include the required written activity plan, and it provides no indication that the request was reviewed or approved before Ziesel met with athletes, as school policy dictates. His lawyer, Kazan, told Grist in an email that “as far as he was told, he was approved by the coaching staff and they were aware of his leadership training plan.” 

Mayich, who is from Ontario, Canada, arrived in Arizona eight days before the session. In theory, that was just enough time to complete the seven- to 14-day acclimatization period the university’s heat policy called for. But NCAA rules barred official practices until August 20. Voluntary workouts before then were held indoors with air conditioning and only short stints outdoors. That isn’t sufficient to induce acclimatization, Casa said. Research has shown that physiological adaptation takes repeated and gradually increasing exposure to heat. “Just being there,” he said, “does nothing to help with heat acclimatization.”

When the opening practice finally arrived, the university policy “recommended” that staff take wet bulb globe temperature readings. But the players wrote that “no WBGT instrument was on the field, and no measurement was taken at any point.” The university’s report says it used data from a Weather Underground sensor roughly one mile away, with WBGT estimates, not measurements. 

University officials did not respond to written questions seeking clarification, but a 2021 study by researchers at the school found that taking readings at the stadium is a far more accurate indicator of potential heat stress. “On-field WBGT observations were, on average, significantly higher than WBGT estimated from regional weather stations,” the authors wrote, noting a difference of more than four degrees. Practitioners, they said, “should not rely on regional weather station estimations without corrections.” 

Mayich’s teammates said the practice occurred in full sun, suggesting the wet bulb globe temperature may have been at the higher end of the university’s estimates, which reached well into the 80s. But even the off-site measurements put at least part of the work out in the “high” zone of the university’s heat-risk chart, under which only acclimatized athletes can participate.

Whether Mayich was eligible to practice or not, his teammates wrote that he never got water. There was a brief opportunity to hydrate, but only those who finished the bear crawl first had time to do so. Mayich wasn’t one of them, the players wrote, and went without. He was also showing signs of distress well before the final exercise mentioned in the university’s report. “Matthew crawled on hands and knees and appeared disoriented. When he stood, he nearly fell,” the teammates wrote in the letter. “In the buddy carry, one of us carried him, but he could not carry his partner back.”

Casa called all of that lead-up a “distraction” from arguably the biggest issue: There was no immersion tub, which ASU’s policy called for in multiple places. After he fell, Mayich’s teammates said he spent “several minutes” on the hot turf as people squirted him with water bottles and applied cold towels before he was moved to the shade. They briefly sprayed him with “warm water” from a garden hose before police and paramedics took over, according to their letter.

Mayich’s medical diagnosis may not be publicly revealed for some time. Based on what he’s read so far, Casa says that it’s “very likely a heat stroke” but can’t say for certain without more information, such as rectal temperatures. In the meantime, Mayich has remained on life support at Barrow Neurological Institute. Just 2 miles away, ASU held an event on Tuesday to launch its new Center for Heat Preparedness. 

Scott Barclay, the university’s interim vice president of research, opened the day-long symposium extolling the importance of combating heat-related illnesses and death. “Heat is a killer,” he said in his remarks, which didn’t mention Mayich. “In Phoenix, you don’t have to have that reminder.”

The ICE shooting of a 28-year-old in the Bronx Thursday has provoked an uproar among New Yorkers, who rushed to the streets in protest the night of the shooting, clashing with the New York Police Department. At least five protesters were arrested. And though members of the NYPD were not involved in the shooting, they were involved in arresting protesters and, some witnesses say, protecting ICE vehicles—despite a New York State law that prohibits local police departments from collaborating with the federal agency, as well as local “sanctuary city” laws.

Allies of Mayor Zohran Mamdani are now calling on his police commissioner, Jessica Tisch, to step down if ICE does not leave New York City.

Oscar Belgal, the man who was shot in his car while his five-year-old child sat in the backseat, is being hold in the MDC Brooklyn federal detention facility. He was shot at least seven times, according to police. Some ICE agents at the scene were dressed as construction workers; at least one carried a long gun. Belgal, according to his lawyers, was transported first to a local hospital, then to ICE custody in New Jersey and then to the federal prison in New York City in the hours following his shooting. He still has a bullet lodged in his body, one of his attorneys told a federal judge during a hearing Friday.

Though Mayor Zohran Mamdani called for the abolition of ICE shortly after the shooting, his New York Police Department seemed to coordinate with ICE agents, clearing the way for ICE vehicles to pass through a crowd of protesters at a hospital near the scene that evening.

“We cannot call ourselves a sanctuary city when the NYPD clears the path for ICE but goes after protesters like we saw last night,” Devashish Basnet of the New York Civil Liberties Union said at a rally Friday. “Our city can’t claim to stand up for us against the Trump regime when our police commissioner carries water for Homeland Security and smears the name of Oscar Belgal, like she did last night.”

That police commissioner, third-generation billionaire heiress Jessica Tisch, is a holdover from Eric Adams’ mayoral administration who has pushed to expand surveillance infrastructure in New York City. At a press conference Thursday, she highlighted Belgal’s two prior arrests.

Democratic Socialist allies of Mamdani called for Tisch to stop New York police officers from working with ICE either formally or informally—or, failing that, to step down in the aftermath of the shooting. The New York chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, which propelled Mamdani to his upset victory ten months ago, released a statement Friday saying that “ICE is a terrorist agency that must be expelled from New York City and abolished.”

“Jessica Tisch must get ICE out of New York and end NYPD complicity with these terrorists,” the group wrote. “If the commissioner can’t put a stop to these injustices, she must be fired.”

Congressional candidate Darializa Chevalier of the Bronx, who can be seen on video being shoved to the ground by NYPD officers at a protest the night of the shooting, also called for the police commissioner’s resignation on Friday morning, as did State Assemblymember Claire Valdez.

Yesterday, an ICE agent opened fire in Marble Hill. They shot a member of our community in the neck while he was in his car. His five-year-old kid was in a child seat in the back of the car when ICE agents fired at least 7 rounds into it. This was in the middle of the afternoon,…

— Darializa for Congress (@DarializaforNY) October 9, 2026

“The NYPD spent more time protecting a militia that just shot someone than protecting New Yorkers,” Chevalier wrote on social media. “Last night, the NYPD and Commissioner Tisch violated the spirit, if not the letter, of our sanctuary city policies and fueled the Trump Administration’s attempt to demonize our communities.”

Mamdani reportedly spent hours on the phone with President Donald Trump Friday attempting to negotiate Belgal’s release, but was unsuccessful.

Federal immigration officials, meanwhile, are defending the shooting—and arguing, as they often have in ICE shooting cases, that Belgal was only shot at because he “weaponized his vehicle.”

Marcos Charles, a top ICE official, said in a statement that Belgal “weaponized his vehicle and proceeded to accelerate toward other officers.” In the statement, Charles says that ICE agents transported Belgal to the hospital; NYPD body camera footage shows that police, not ICE agents, did so.

Markwayne Mullin, Secretary of Homeland Security, asserted that it was not ICE agents who put Belgal’s five-year-old son in danger by shooting into the car, but Belgal who put him in danger by putting him in the car in the first place.

“We weren’t aware the child was in the car,” Mullin said Friday, according to NBC News. “I can tell you that, but you know who was? Oscar.”

Flock Safety, the AI-powered traffic camera company that has everyone from Josh Hawley to Bernie Sanders angry, might be feeling the heat financially: Reuters reported Friday that the company is planning to cut roughly 18 percent of its staff, or 270 workers.

Flock, which operates a network of 120,000 cameras nationwide, is the largest maker of automated license plate readers (ALPRs) in the country. It’s also, as I previously reported, the target of a massive wave of backlash, in part because so many police officers have been found abusing the technology.

The Oakland-based advocacy group Secure Justice, which tracks automated license plate reader use on the municipal level, says that in the month of August more towns and cities cancelled their Flock contracts than ever before: of the 214 cities that have dropped Flock since 2021, 90 did so in August 2026.  (At least three towns have reported that Flock reinstalled or reactivated their cameras after local officials ended their contracts.) 

The first signs that Flock might be in money trouble came in September, when the company offered voluntary buyouts to employees. An internal email shared with Wired offered a “generous” severance package to Flock employees willing to quit. Flock, which is worth more than $8 billion, may not meet its revenue goals this year as towns and counties cancel its contracts left and right.

In addition to potential financial problems, Flock is now facing growing legal scrutiny: Earlier this week, a federal judge in Oklahoma ruled that its technology violated a woman’s Fourth Amendment rights, after a sheriff’s deputy used ALPRs to search a month’s worth of her location history. This marks one of the first times a judge has ruled on the constitutionality of ALPR searches, but does not create a binding precedent.

“By virtue of how ALPR technology works…officers using these systems have access to a continuously updated location history for all vehicles caught on ALPR cameras within the network,” Judge Sara E. Hill wrote in her ruling. “This is a type of indiscriminate mass surveillance.”

This story was originally published by Canada’s National Observer and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Elijah Washington pushes through wet ferns and branches left by logging, crossing the mossy forest floor on Haida Gwaii. He kneels beside a massive western red cedar stump.

The cedar was felled decades ago during the industrial logging boom that cleared swaths of old growth across the archipelago off British Columbia’s north coast, leaving a hollow, decaying stump.

Its top has since been trimmed with a chainsaw to fit a plywood sheet, capped with weather-resistant roofing material and covered with thick green moss collected from the surrounding woods. Near the base, an opening roughly the width of Washington’s safety helmet leads into a sheltered hollow lined with moss.

“You just want it to be small enough for a mother bear to move in,” said Washington, a stewardship technician with the Haida Nation. “So it’s got to be just right, just like the Goldilocks, [the entrance] can’t be too big, can’t be too wide.”

Haida Nation stewardship technician Elijah Washington explains how crews choose old cedar stumps to turn into bear dens. Video by: Sonal Gupta / Canada’s National Observer

The retrofitted stump is one of seven the Council of the Haida Nation had modified this summer to provide winter shelter for the coastal black bear, known in the Haida language as taan. Found nowhere else in the world, this subspecies of black bear is among the largest in North America. 

A bear’s winter den may bring to mind a rocky cave, but coastal black bears in BC rely heavily on large old-growth trees and the hollow logs and stumps they leave behind. Decades of logging have removed many of those shelters, however—and the younger trees growing in their place have yet to develop hollows large enough for bears, said Helen Davis, a wildlife biologist working with the Haida Nation to identify and restore bear dens.

Cubs are born weighing about a pound, with their eyes still closed. They need a dry, protected place where their mothers can nurse them through the winter, and they stay there for up to 100 days. “The only place where bears can have babies is in a den,” Davis said. “And so these dens are critical to population sustainability.”

The old trees bears need for shelter are also sought-after by the logging industry. BC has expanded protections and temporary logging pauses, but old-growth harvesting continues. In August, BC Forests Minister Ravi Parmar said stopping it altogether would shut down the sector.

Davis has heard that argument for years. People repeatedly suggested making shelters from melted tires or culverts instead of leaving old-growth trees for bears.

“People would just sort of throw that out somewhat frequently and since nobody seems to want to conserve old growth for them, I was like, ‘Well, fine, then let’s see if we can build them,’” Davis said.

Now, the first-of-its kind program could set a model for bear conservation worldwide. But in providing an alternative to simply protecting old-growth, some worry building dens gives an easy excuse for logging to continue without pause.

Washington stands in front of a natural bear den in a living cedar.Sonal Gupta / Canada’s National Observer

Lisa White, a councillor with the Old Massett Village Council, said the sight of plywood laid over old-growth stumps was difficult to bear. “I actually cried,” she said. The plywood roofs, she said, showed how deeply the land had been damaged: bears now needed people to help provide their shelter. 

White said Haida people had needed wood long before commercial logging. Thousands used it for homes, canoes, clothing and heat, yet the forests appeared virtually untouched to the first newcomers, she said. People selected individual trees, used them fully and left the surrounding forest standing, so animals could continue living there, including northern goshawks, which are at risk of disappearing from the islands. The Haida also were known to pull entire planks from trees without felling them, leaving the tree standing.

White worries about how well the second-growth forests surrounding the modified dens will hold up through winter. She has seen extensive blowdown in those stands and is concerned about placing shelters among trees vulnerable to the islands’ storms.

“It’s also the forest around them that needs to be strong,” she said. 

Old Massett councillor Lisa White reflects on the importance of bears to the Haida and what happens when their home is lost. Video by Sonal Gupta / Canada’s National Observer

Sometimes, loggers discover a bear den only after cutting into it.

Davis, who has been studying coastal black bear dens since the early 1990s, recalled stories from loggers: “They cut into trees and a bear popped out—or worse, they cut into a bear.” 

Those accounts led to a three-year provincial government study with forestry company Canfor to investigate whether black bears needed large trees for dens.

Davis tracked radio-collared bears to roughly 65 dens; her field research confirmed that bears were almost entirely dependent on large, hollow old-growth trees and that second-growth forests left them with virtually no options.

At the time, despite the rate of loss of old-growth forest in the province, the research didn’t set off alarm bells. “I don’t think they thought they’d run out of old growth,” she said.

But building a den meant manually crafting what a living cedar takes centuries to create. As a cedar grows, fungi can slowly rot the wood at its centre, creating a hollow large enough for a bear while the tree remains alive. Forests managed for timber are often logged again before those chambers develop, so the new trees do not replace the dens lost when old growth is cut.

Davis began working with Taan Forest, the Haida-owned forestry company in 2019, teaching staff to identify natural bear dens and convert suitable stumps into new ones. The company was already restoring streamside forests damaged by earlier logging and adding den restoration became a natural extension of that work, said Jeff Mosher, its chief forester.

“Protecting bears is a priority, even if it means a lower dividend,” Mosher said. 

Taan Forest has since created six dens across the Mamin River, Survey Creek and Ghost Creek watersheds on Graham Island, in northern Haida Gwaii, Mosher said.

Mosher said bears usually took about a year to start using the shelters, though they checked out one new den almost immediately. Signs of use at other modified stumps encouraged Taan to build more. Bears used one of the dens through the winter and spring of 2023 and have returned annually since. 

Bears have used and returned to one of Taan Forest’s modified dens each year since 2023. Footage courtesy of Taan Forest and compiled by Sonal Gupta/Canada’s National Observer

Those results also encouraged the nation to expand the effort, Washington said. His crew spent the summer searching previously logged forests for stumps with a hollow large enough for a bear and an entrance leading inside. Davis helped the council secure funding from the Habitat Conservation Trust Foundation and spent a week in July teaching the crew to scout stumps, assess their suitability and turn them into dens using chainsaws, plywood and moss.

The crew is also trying to make the new shelters smell familiar. When the Haida crew comes across a bear that has died, they respectfully collect some of its hair to place in some of the modified dens, a trick Davis has tested elsewhere in the field with encouraging results. 

By the end of October, the team plans to complete three more dens, bringing the total to 10 modified sites across Haida Gwaii ready for winter monitoring. The exact locations of the sites are being withheld to prevent exposing denning bears to hunters. 

Haida members remain concerned about black bears killed for their gallbladders, which contain bile sought for use in some traditional Asian medicines. BC bans possession of bear gallbladders or bile and prohibits their trade.

Washington said that while the nation’s presence on the land has helped protect bears from such hunting, the killings still occur. Haida members have reported seeing bears left dead on the side of the road with the paws cut off and gallbladder removed. 

Tracing his hand over a living western red cedar in a different part of the forest, Washington points to the distinct tool marks left by a traditional adze. Sometime in the early 1900s, he estimates, Haida ancestors cut into the tree to see if it could be used for a house pole. Finding rot at the core, they left it standing. Bears later widened the opening with their teeth and claws, turning the hollow into a natural den, its floor already lined with soft cedar bedding and green branches still growing above.

This den sits high in the tree, which is among the safest places for a female bear to raise cubs, Washington said. But his crew cannot recreate one at that height.

The modified dens also provide only temporary shelter. “They’re dead stumps and so they’re rotting and they won’t be there forever,” Davis said.

A bear den inside a living cedar tree culturally modified by the Haida in the 1900s. The tree has also been used as a den by bears. Video by Sonal Gupta/Canada’s National Observer

But shelter is only part of what a bear needs. Noel Bellis, an Old Massett member of the Haida Nation and a carver, grew up in a logging family and later worked in cedar forests. After visiting modified dens and attending workshops, he believes bears would move in but questions whether they would find enough food nearby. When bears come out in spring, they feed on green vegetation, including horsetail, fireweed shoots, salmonberry shoots, and grasses.

But in the second-growth forests he has visited, deer have eaten much of the low-growing vegetation, leaving little for bears to forage. “It’s a moss lawn between trees,” he said.

Nearby salmon streams provide a seasonal source of food, but Bellis worries about what bears will find once those runs end each year. He wants den-building accompanied by efforts to restore food plants, using cages to protect young growth from deer until it grows beyond their reach. “It will cost money, but that’s what the costs of clear-cutting are going to be,” he said.

Davis agrees bears need both shelter and feeding areas within their home ranges, where they generally remain to den. “They don’t just pick up and march off to some far-flung patch of remaining old growth and all den there together,” Davis said. 

Taan Forest is opening gaps in the canopy to encourage shrubs to grow, with at least two modified dens in or beside those restoration areas, Davis added. 

Wildlife biologist Helen Davis inside a stump’s hollow chamber in July 2026. Elijah Washington

When Barney Edgars worked along Haida Gwaii’s creeks as a fisheries guardian, his crew carried air horns and flares but rarely needed them. The Elders who raised him had taught him to respect bears and speak to them when their paths crossed: “You go your way, I’ll go my way.”

“We were taught that everything we grew up with had a spirit,” said Edgars, a Haida Elder.

He recalled an older woman fishing for sockeye salmon when a bear and its cub approached her net. She threw the bear a fish and told it to leave the net alone. It never returned, he said.

Earlier generations ate bears and used the whole animal. His grandmother asked him to hunt one for her, though he never did. Travellers also followed bear trails through northern Haida Gwaii, finding routes between waterways on the journey from Massett toward Naden Harbour.

Neither Edgars nor his grandparents had heard of a bear attack on the islands, he said. But he worries that losing forests and feeding grounds will push bears into communities to rummage through garbage, increasing the possibility of conflict. 

Fears about conflict with bears are new to the Haida. “They used to sleep under the trees and there was never any fear of that… I never learned any fear from my grandfather about bears,” White said.

Washington said Haida people want to know whether bears are healthy, have enough food and have places to live. Monitoring the new dens will help answer part of that question.

Cameras facing the den entrances will record activity year-round while their crew stay away from roughly October to April to avoid disturbing bears. After winter, the crew will review the footage to see which shelters bears explored and which they used as dens.

Hair naturally caught at den entrances can be tested for DNA to help show whether the same bears return year after year or others move in.

Even if bears take to the shelters, the crew does not plan to turn every suitable stump into a den. Once one is finished, workers move to another area, leaving space between shelters to limit competition for food and places to raise cubs.

“We don’t want to create a whole community out here,” he said. “We want to have like one bear that’s safe enough to come out here.”

Washington, center, with crew members at a stump den site in July 2026.Elijah Washington

When the FBI showed up at a warehouse in Fulton County, Georgia, to seize hundreds of boxes of 2020 election records this past January, County Commissioner Dana Barrett thought it looked less like a criminal investigation and more like political theater. 

jQuery(document).ready(function(){prx("https:\/\/play.prx.org\/e?ge=prx_149_c4fe5b88-0cbc-41e2-af26-7cf27170f1b7&uf=https%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.revealradio.org%2Frevealpodcast", "prx-1", "embed")});Subscribe to Mother Jones podcasts on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app.

It’s been more than five years since the election, the results already had been investigated multiple times, and the ballots had been counted, recounted, and recounted again.

The lie that the 2020 election was stolen has persisted. And the “Stop the Steal” movement’s most ardent believers now hold unprecedented positions of power, including on the once-sleepy State Election Board in the important swing state of Georgia. A lawyer known for his willingness to take on long-shot election cases went from a little-known private practice attorney to a role in the White House, overseeing the country’s election integrity effort—despite being sanctioned by a court for making “unequivocally false” assertions around voting. And everyday members of the movement are trying to change what they fervently believe is a broken system—at the risk of actually breaking it in the process.

This week on Reveal, Mother Jones reporter Abby Vesoulis and Reveal’s Najib Aminy examine how the long shadow of doubt over the 2020 elections is being weaponized and what it means ahead of the 2026 midterms.  

This is an update of an episode that originally aired in May 2026.

In June 2025, as the 2026 midterm elections were starting to heat up, a newly formed company named Arizona Land Reserve made a huge donation to the Nevada Republican Party. Its $50,000 contribution instantly made it one of the state GOP’s largest benefactors. Early the next year, the upstart company—which was seeking to build “fly-in luxury home ranches” on a remote tract in northwestern Arizona, part of an investment strategy that aimed to “provide our Investors with a constant 20% annual return for the next 20 years”—cut another $50,000 check, this one to the political action arm of Turning Point USA. In June, Arizona Land Reserve and one of its founders, Robert McDowell, each contributed $50,000 to a political committee for the House Freedom Caucus.

Last week, Arizona Land Reserve turned up again. It was listed as an asset on a hastily drafted and long overdue financial disclosure for Nevada Republican David Flippo, whose congressional campaign received coveted endorsements from both Turning Point Action and the Freedom Caucus Fund. Before winning the GOP primary, Flippo also seemed to benefit from an unusual level of support from Nevada GOP chair Michael McDonald, who recorded a message endorsing Flippo before Nevada voters went to the polls. A conservative blogger claimed McDonald had also lobbied Donald Trump on Flippo’s behalf. Trump’s crucial backing came through shortly before the primary, helping to seal Flippo’s victory. (Turning Point Action, the Freedom Caucus Fund, and the Nevada GOP did not respond to requests for comment.)

His relationship with Arizona Land Reserve and its political donations to groups that supported him raise new concerns about the personal and campaign finances of the Nevada Republican. The company has filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission to market $20 million in securities, and its promotion of consistent double-digit investment returns resembles the SEC’s depiction of investments that are “likely a scam,” according to an investing guide published by the agency. Moreover, McDowell, its co-founder, has a record of corporate bankruptcies, business failures, and bad debts. Court records show he has been accused of fraud on multiple occasions. In one case, he and his business partners were accused of operating a “pyramid promotional scheme,” according to Arizona court records. (Their company was found liable for breach of contract in this matter.)

Flippo and McDowell did not respond to detailed requests for comment.

The murky finances of Flippo’s campaign have already come under scrutiny. Mother Jones reported that Flippo, who previously ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 2024, had loaned or given his political campaigns more than $2 million, but the source of the money is unclear, since the retired career Air Force lieutenant colonel does not appear to have the financial means to bankroll his political operation to that extent. 

Flippo himself is a licensed financial adviser, who was fired from a previous job because he allegedly “violated numerous company policies and regulatory regulations related to electronic communications, books and records,” according to a disclosure published by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). His involvement with Arizona Land Reserve—which is not just an asset, but one of his biggest—could bring him under the scrutiny of financial regulators.

Flippo’s campaign has been bruised by multiple controversies, including reporting by The Washington Post and other news outlets that he misrepresented his military record by touting a Bronze Star for valor that he did not receive. (Flippo holds a Bronze Star, but not with added valor distinction. In military circles, that is no minor difference.) The Reno Gazette-Journal added to Flippo’s struggles this week, when it reported that Flippo was fired from his role as an Air Force squadron commander in 2008.

Flippo is locked in an unusually competitive race against Democrat Teresa Benitez-Thompson in a sprawling district encompassing Reno. Flippo’s hard-right candidacy and status as a recent transplant to Reno have divided Nevada Republicans. Mark Amodei, who is retiring from the seat Flippo hopes to win, called him a “fraud” in an article about the Bronze Star claims and refused to back him in both the primary and general election. Due to his vulnerabilities, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee recently added this deep red district to its “Red to Blue” program, identifying it as a possible flip opportunity.  

Last week, Flippo provided a handwritten financial disclosure to the Nevada Independent after Mother Jones reported that, dating back to 2023, Flippo had repeatedly failed to file the legally required document as a congressional candidate—even as he reported huge personal loans or contributions to his campaigns that do not fit the profile of a candidate who lacks a source of obvious wealth. After retiring from the Air Force, he did preventive maintenance work for BP in Alaska, then joined a company called First Command as a financial advisor. In late 2024, the company fired Flippo for an offense related to “bearer bonds,” according to FINRA. Such bonds are a type of debt security whose trade has been severely restricted in the United States because of their use in money laundering and other illicit activities. (“They found nothing to discipline me for,” Flippo told The Nevada Independent of his firing. “I wasn’t fined for anything. I didn’t lose any licenses.”)

Far from settling questions about Flippo’s finances, his disclosure raised a host of new ones.

Flippo reported retirement assets worth between about $65,000 and $500,000 and brokerage and bank accounts valued between about $315,000 and $1.1 million. He also reported having up to $1 million in debt through a line of credit, as well as up to $200,000 in additional liabilities related to personal and home improvement loans. These debts do not appear to include the more than $400,000 mortgage Flippo took out in 2020 to buy his home in Las Vegas, according to Clark County records. (Congressional candidates are not required to report debt on their home mortgages.) 

Those numbers are striking considering the more than $1.6 million that Flippo has loaned to his current campaign. Flippo has also told the Federal Election Commission that all of his loans come from personal funds and are not linked to other loans.

“There are a lot of questions about this filing at the outset,” said Brendan Fischer, the director of strategic investigations at the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center. “But even taking it at face value, it hardly answers the question of how Flippo came up with $1.6 million to loan to his campaign.” Fischer added that “there are serious questions about the valuation of some of his biggest assets, and the other numbers really don’t add up to somebody who has $1.6 million in extra cash to put into a congressional run.”

Flippo listed two other major assets on his disclosure, both valued at between $1 and $5 million, comprising much of his net worth. One is called America First Home Mortgage. The other Flippo reported as “AZ Land Reserve PPM Meadview AZ.” According to the form, neither of these investments produced any income.  

But a nationwide search of corporate registrations shows no record of an active company in the United States called America First Home Mortgage. The CEO of a similarly named Las Vegas company, America First Mortgage, told me his company has no affiliation with Flippo. He also knows of no business that goes by that name.

Arizona Land Reserve does exist, though it is peculiar for other reasons. It was formed in January 2025 by Robert McDowell and Stephen C. Tuminello, top Flippo fundraisers who co-hosted a Reno fundraiser attended by Rep. Jim Jordan, a co-founder of the House Freedom Caucus, in August and who also attended an event for Flippo’s 2024 campaign. The mailing address listed for McDowell is an 8-room motel owned by his company, Canyons End, in Meadview, Arizona. Court records show that McDowell has been accused in legal filings of fraud, promoting a pyramid scheme, and repeatedly failing to pay debts he and his companies have incurred. 

“[H]e takes money from investors and never paid [them] back,” the man who sold McDowell the Meadview motel alleged in court filings, calling McDowell a “con.” His comments came in connection with the 2021 bankruptcy of Canyons End, the McDowell LLC that owns the property. Federal court records show McDowell’s motel LLC ended up owing hundreds of thousands of dollars to numerous creditors, including federal and state tax authorities, which the company agreed to pay more than $250,000.

Flippo stands between Tuminello (left) and McDowell (right) at a 2024 campaign event.YouTube

Years earlier, another McDowell-connected enterprise, a gold mining venture named Rock Cabin Mining LLC, was successfully sued for breach of contract by a customer. “Defendants acted with an evil hand guided by an evil mind,” the plaintiff alleged in a fraud claim. Rock Cabin Mining promotional materials filed as part of the case showed that it claimed it could mine about $23 million of gold annually. The company filed for bankruptcy in August 2018.

Documents filed in federal court portray the mining venture as a total failure. In response to Rock Cabin Mining’s bankruptcy plan, a United States Trustee wrote, “There is simply no credible evidence that the Debtor will be able to mine any gold at all much less generate over $6 million in one year from what is currently just raw land.” Nor was it the first time that one of McDowell’s companies had failed in a gold mining venture, according to court documents. The bankruptcy case ended disastrously for creditors with the trustee only managing to collect 82 cents, according to court records.

An excerpt of a memorandum written by a United States Trustee as part of Rock Cabin Mining’s bankruptcy case.US Bankruptcy Court for the District of Arizona

Following the bankruptcies of Rock Cabin Mining and Canyons End, McDowell eventually took on a much more audacious project by forming Arizona Land Reserve with Tuminello. McDowell’s history of business failures did not prevent the partners from purchasing a large tract of land in an isolated section of northwestern Arizona.

David Shapiro, the Las Vegas businessman whose company sold Arizona Land Reserve the property and loaned it the $4.8 million to execute the transaction, told me McDowell has always paid him on time but that he hasn’t kept a close eye on his development efforts. Shapiro seemed unsure what to make of the venture when I described how McDowell’s company had raised money for Arizona Land Reserve and another project in Arizona.

According to the company’s website, “The purpose of Arizona Land Reserve is to acquire, develop and manage properties that provide our Investors with a constant 20% annual return for the next 20 years.” The company says that its next step is developing Valle Privado, a “1st class fly-in community catering to the desires of Luxury Home & Ranch Owners in Arizona that prefer to use private aviation to access their property.” In theory, Valle Privado residents will be able to land on a purpose-built mile-long runway.

That would be a major transformation in the section of Arizona where Arizona Land Reserve says it’s planning to build. A contractor who has worked on the project told me that the site is located in a notably poor section of Arizona with a number of “squatters” in the property’s general vicinity. He also said that, as of last year, the site required miles of offroad driving to access. 

“Promises of consistent double-digit returns are consistently frauds,” the SEC warns in a “Five Questions to Ask Before You Invest” guide on its website. But that’s not the only part of Arizona Land Reserve’s investment strategy that raises red flags. In a press release posted on Arizona Land Reserve’s Facebook page, the company said it planned to initially raise $20 million in exchange for a 20 percent equity stake in the company. That would value the venture at $100 million and require annual dividend payments of $4 million to investors.

An operating agreement for Arizona Land Reserve obtained by Mother Jones shows that Tuminello and McDowell took an 80 percent ownership stake, despite having contributed only $50,000 each, according to the document.

To generate revenue while the Arizona land was being developed, the company said it planned to “actively acquire, with $14,000,000 of capital, 3,000 Bank Owned (REO) multi-family apartments located in central and mid-western states.” That works out to a cost of less than $5,000 per unit, unless the company borrowed heavily. I asked Shapiro, whose company holds the debt on Arizona Land Reserve’s property, if he thought it was possible to obtain that many properties with that amount of capital. He provided a one-word response: “No.” 

One of the investors McDowell and Tuminello pitched, and who asked to remain anonymous, recalled being flown by helicopter over the proposed development site. He said that Flippo was present at several meetings with McDowell and Tuminello and appeared to be representing the interests of Arizona Land Reserve. The prospective investor said he grew wary of their company and ultimately declined to invest. (Tuminello did not respond to a request for comment.)

Arizona Land Reserve seems to have had better luck with other prospects. A document filed with the SEC earlier this year states that the company has sold more than $6.8 million of the $20 million in securities it hopes to place. On the form, the company also makes the improbable claim that it recently brought in between $25 and $100 million in revenue.

One person listed in FEC records as a major donor to Flippo’s campaigns told me they had not donated anything to Flippo, let along the thousands of dollars attributed to them. Fischer said that “suggests very serious campaign finance violations.” 

From the outset, Flippo and Arizona Land Reserve appear to have been closely intertwined. Prior to the formation of Arizona Land Reserve, Tuminello spoke at a May 2024 campaign event for Flippo during his first run for Congress, a video from the event shows. In May 2025, as Flippo mounted a new bid for Congress, McDowell and Tuminello became some of his first donors outside of the candidate’s family members. Soon after, Arizona Land Reserve sent its $50,000 to the Nevada Republican Party. The following year came its $50,000 donations to the Turning Point PAC and the Freedom Caucus Fund.

Flippo’s close involvement with the company raises the prospect that he may have used the venture as a vehicle to curry favor with influential Republicans. The congressional candidate may have also helped to provide Arizona Land Reserve with a sense of legitimacy. The company’s public Facebook page includes photos of Flippo at two events. It singles him out as a featured guest at a November 2025 watch party for a Las Vegas F1 race, where Flippo was photographed on a high-rise balcony with a cigar in hand. He also attended a 2025 business aviation conference in Las Vegas with Tuminello, the Facebook page shows.

Flippo at a 2025 F1 watch party promoted by Arizona Land Reserve.Facebook

Flippo has also benefitted from major donations from others in McDowell’s and Tuminello’s orbits, FEC records show. Those donations tended to arrive in the final days of the FEC’s quarterly reporting periods, when candidates are under pressure to demonstrate the viability of their campaigns. (Flippo’s six-figure loans to his campaign followed a similar pattern.) On September 30, 2025, at least five people with ties to McDowell or Tuminello were listed as donating the legal maximum of $7,000 to Flippo’s campaign. 

That included Brenda Lee McGarry, McDowell’s ex-wife. Another donor listed under the first and middle name of a woman who has posted about being McDowell’s current wife was reported as donating $3,500 that day. (Neither McGarry or McDowell’s partner responded to requests for comment.)

One person listed in FEC records as a major donor to Flippo’s campaigns told me they had not donated anything to Flippo, let alone the thousands of dollars attributed to them. Fischer said that “suggests very serious campaign finance violations.” 

“Making a donation in the name of another person is a clear violation of the law,” he explained. “It’s a violation of the straw donor ban, which is one of the most serious violations in campaign finance law, and one that can potentially result in criminal penalties.” 

Outside of Flippo’s own family, federal records show that McDowell’s and Tuminello’s circles have been Flippo’s most important source of fundraising. During key quarters in 2025, his outside fundraising would have been significantly diminished without the money of people they appear to know. 

Along with their business dealings, McDowell and Tuminello have also both been affiliated with the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA), which the Anti-Defamation League considers an “anti-government extremist group.” The group’s central (and unfounded) claim, according to the ADL, is that sheriffs are the ultimate legal authority in their jurisdictions. 

CSPOA placed particular emphasis on efforts to undermine the results of the 2020 election. In a September 2022 email obtained by CalMatters, Tuminello, who has acted as a spokesman for the group, emailed Chad Bianco, the sheriff of Riverside County, California, to say that CSPOA could help assist with “Election Integrity” efforts. “This is our Primary focus at the CSPOA!” he added. 

Flippo has staked out his own right-wing positions, including a pledge to introduce a bill banning Sharia law as his first piece of legislation if elected. This week, Flippo was invited to debate his Democratic opponent, where he would have likely faced questions about his policy stances and about the overlapping controversies that have dogged his campaign. But Flippo declined to attend. 

One question the debate moderator could have posed was whether Flippo had in fact filed the financial disclosure form he recently provided to the media. “All successfully filed records are posted on the Clerk’s website,” Ben Kelley, a spokesperson for the House Clerk’s office, said. No records for Flippo have been posted on that website.

Among the oddities in the Flippo disclosure document provided to the media, Fischer noted, was that a few pages were missing. That includes the page where the candidate must sign the document, under penalty of potential civil and criminal sanctions, and attest that its contents are “true, complete, and correct.”

In light of all the irregularities, Fischer said, “I don’t even know how to describe what this report is.”

Big money has long dominated American politics, with wealthy donors, corporations, and special interests dumping tons of cash into presidential and congressional elections. This year is no exception. But what’s different is that the quid pro quo of campaign money for preferential government treatment is more brazen than ever before and has become part of the cornucopia of corruption running through the Trump administration. 

In this new episode of Stress Test campaign finance reporter Russ Choma joins hosts David Corn and Garrison Hayes to analyze the $1.7 billion that has been poured into the election so far—including hundreds of millions from crypto and sports betting, industries that were barely on the political map in 2020. “There’s no sign of deceleration,” Russ says in the episode. “There’s no sign of slowing down, it’s only acceleration.”

So much of what’s happening is hidden from public scrutiny, because super PACs can obscure donors, and issue ads and targeted turnout operations can go unreported. It’s like “dark matter in the universe that you can’t see,” David observes. The threat to democracy is real, because donors get to cash in by having the administration align with their deregulatory goals, or, in the case of Elon Musk, can gain control of an agency or decimate whole sections of government. “They’re getting more than total access,” Russ explains. “They’re getting inclusion.”

“There have always been a lot of people who believe that the government was corrupt,” Russ says. “But the problem is that now they’re right.” And this cynicism isn’t just a side effect of all this money. It’s a goal. After all, the most effective thing a campaign can buy, Russ notes, is a negative ad, designed “to make you not vote.”

But there could be some hope. Voters are telling pollsters they see more corruption these days, and when that collides with a sour economy, apathy can curdle into anger. Just ask Viktor Orbán, voted out in Hungary after 16 years in power due to a combo of a poor economy and rampant corruption. Might such synergy be happening in the United States?

That’s all in today’s episode of Stress Test. Find it on our YouTube channel at youtube.com/MotherJones.

And want more on how money is warping American politics? Russ Choma covers Trump’s crypto fortune, his financial conflicts, and the cash behind the midterms. Check out his latest.

This transcript was generated with automated tools and may contain errors.

David Corn: This is Stress Test from Mother Jones. I’m David Corn.

Garrison Hayes: And I’m Garrison Hayes. Welcome to the third episode of the show, David. Oh, no, no, to our audience. Welcome to you. And also welcome to you, David. How are you doing today?

DC: Well, welcome to you, Garrison. It’s great to be back with you. And I hear that when I was gone, you did a great show with Tim Murphy about the backlash to data centers and how that’s become a bipartisan issue during this campaign.

GH: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We had a great conversation about how this is a rare bipartisan issue where you’re seeing backlash and pushback and real anger from both Democrats and Republicans and really everyone in between and beyond, especially in the state of Texas. Our colleague Tim Murphy has been out in Texas a few times, and he has another trip upcoming, where he’s been reporting from the ground on the way that these data centers and the backlash to them are really shaping the political atmosphere there. In fact, he told me about how the governor, Greg Abbott, has made this huge 180 kind of turn from being a champion of data centers to being against them.

DC: Wow, I wonder why. It couldn’t be principle, could it?

GH: You know, he actually invited, you know, Google. They had this big press conference where Google’s spending $40 billion on multiple campuses across the state. It will be their largest data center kind of AI footprint in the country, maybe even in the world. There are other huge projects out there, and none of those projects are actually coming to an end, even though the governor is talking about a pause or a moratorium on data centers going forward.

So there’s a lot to dig in there. If you missed that episode, I really encourage you to go back and watch it. It’s such an important issue during these midterms. You can catch it on our YouTube channel. That’s the Mother Jones YouTube channel. Make sure you subscribe to our channel so you don’t miss any of the episodes coming up.

Okay, listen, today’s gonna be a good show. We’re talking about money in politics, specifically campaign money—in other words, what you can and cannot buy in American politics. And we’re gonna talk about some of the big spenders, some of the big receivers of that money, who wishes they had more money, perhaps, who has more money than they need.

DC: Yeah, everybody.

GH: Everyone. Okay, so that’s an inclusive list. But we’re also gonna talk about Trump and how he and the vice president, JD Vance, are hitting the campaign trail. David, you’ve covered many, many, many, many—

DC: Don’t remind me.

GH: You’ve covered many elections, my friend. So talk to me about what you’ve seen and whether what you’re seeing from the Trump administration—so President Trump and Vice President JD Vance—is this stuff normal, the way they’re hitting the campaign trail?

DC: Well, in a way, yes, but also no. You can tell a lot about a campaign and how things are going politics by looking at a politician’s travel itinerary, right? Because right now we see JD Vance and Donald Trump hitting the campaign trail, but they’re going to places where they shouldn’t be—where they shouldn’t have to be going. Oklahoma, for instance. They’re going to states and districts where usually the Republicans would have a lock on that election by this point. So it shows that they see what everybody else is seeing: a possible gigantic blue tsunami heading right toward the White House.

There are races across the country that, quite frankly, are amazing political experts because they’re competitive: Senate race in Iowa, Senate race in Kansas, in Texas, and even the governor’s race in Texas might be within a few points. So Republicans are in, I think, the technical term, freaking out, and they’re worrying about races. And that means—you know, listen, the president, who’s not quite an asset for the Republican Party at this point in time, when he’s at 31 percent approval rating, according to the AP, still has limited amount of time and places he can go in the five weeks left in the election here, or less than that maybe. And so it makes a big—it’s a big deal where you decide to deploy him and JD Vance.

The same with money. We see Republicans taking their money out of certain states, like North Carolina, where they thought they were competitive in the Senate race there, and shoveling it into South Carolina, where they shouldn’t be competitive, and also to Texas. So that’s how you can tell what they’re thinking, by looking where the money and the president is going.

But I have to say this: When he’s at such a low approval rating, the Trump brand ain’t so strong, and you have to wonder to what degree his campaigning helps people. Now, it may help people in deep—candidates in deep-red states if you can gin up Republican turnout there. But at the same time, a lot of Republicans are running away from the president, and they don’t want their voters in their states to be thinking about Trump.

And listen, he’s out there, and I have some notes here to the side. You know, in one campaign stop recently, he said he knows more about inflation than anyone else, and he knows more about everything than anyone else. When people already are not thinking highly of you, talking about how well you know inflation when inflation is a concern to them is really not smart.

But I think this topped it for me, at least. At one rally, he said you need to be a student at the top of your class at MIT to turn on a lawnmower nowadays, you know? But I got rid of all that stuff. Now you can have a lawnmower. What the heck is he talking about? I have yet to see one focus group where people are complaining about lawnmowers. But don’t take it from me. Let’s hear directly from the president of the United States.

[Clip plays.]

GH: Inspiring. Inspiring stuff.

DC: Garrison, these are not what you call ringing endorsements, right? And it’s always about him. Pretend I’m on a ballot. Most Republicans running right now would rather he not be on the ballot, would rather he be put in exile in Mar-a-Lago.

GH: Yeah, it’s hard to kind of—it’s almost distills down so well the fear that I heard from so many Republicans in the 2024 cycle that Trump was really tanking the party, that he was more or less a dead end for the Republican Party. That, yes, he’s very popular; yes, he has this magic way with the American people to get them to vote for him. He has all this charisma, but really there is no viable succession plan. There is no real plan for after Trump.

And we have, as you see on the screen, Vice President JD Vance. But even with Vance, you know, so many voters have said online, and I’ve heard them myself, that he just doesn’t quite have the it factor. And I think it really does present a real problem for Republicans going forward. And we will see. I mean, talk about stress test. This midterm will actually be a real stress test for the Republican Party to see how they chart a path forward after Trump.

DC: Let’s talk about one of the big issues in any campaign, and it only keeps getting bigger, and that is big money. I talked a moment ago about how Republicans are shifting and, you know, where they’re putting their dollars, but we’re talking about tens of millions and hundreds of millions of dollars. I mean, campaigns keep getting more and more expensive, and that just gives more power to the people who can provide those dollars. So fortunately, we have with us today Russ Choma, a reporter from—for Mother Jones, who’s one of the experts on campaign finances. He’s been covering this almost as long as I have. So let’s bring on Russ.

Russ Choma: Well, thanks for having me, guys. There’s obviously a lot to talk about this year. The money gets bigger every year, and we’re here again, and it’s even bigger.

GH: It’s even bigger. One thing that’s really stood out to me is just how much AI and crypto and Polymarket and these betting markets and all of that—how much of that money is actually going into this election. We saw in New York there was a big kind of AI race there. And some of these things are kind of constantly popping up in the conversation. It feels like these industries are funneling a ton of money into politics. And I’m curious if that sense is true and what you’re seeing as you’re reporting on this.

RC: Yeah, no, I mean, it’s more than a feeling. It’s what’s actually happening. And it’s interesting because for years and years there were always sort of the same set of special interest groups. And, you know, sometimes with new technology, some, you know, new interest groups would be added, but it’s amazing how instantly both prediction, sports betting, crypto, AI have all sort of—and they all sort of merge into one industry in a lot of ways—have sort of popped onto the scene.

I think the last good count that I saw, about a $1.7 billion has been put into this election. And about a quarter billion of that is just from crypto and sports betting. That’s just the money we know about. It’s a huge, huge, huge sum. But for them to go from two—2020 basically not being on the map to that much money in a midterm, it’s not even a presidential election, is really, really stunning. So yeah, it’s more than a feeling. It’s really happening.

DC: And what strikes me, Russ, is that in the past some big donors have been more—well, sometimes they have wider interests, like, say, the Koch brothers. They want deregulation, they don’t like environmental controls, they want low taxes. It’s basically the conservative libertarian agenda, like, straight through. And we’ve seen that with other major guys who run hedge funds and people like that. The way that George Soros on the Democratic side has a wide liberal, progressive agenda.

But with these guys, it’s highly, highly specific. This is about as quid pro quo–ish as you can get. And I just want to give props to Andreessen Horowitz, the big venture capital fund with Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. They’ve given over $115 million together to both an AI super PAC and a crypto super PAC.

And these two guys are just bringing this technology, this Big Tech money in in a very direct, very brazen, blatant—I would call it institutional corruption that is undeniable. They tell you what they want. They want to run free with AI and crypto, and they are putting in a lot of money to do this. I mean, to me, that seems almost a little bit different than some of the big money we’ve seen in the past.

RC: Yeah, I think that, like, the Koch brothers wanted to change America broadly, and these crypto guys and AI guys, they’ve got very specific wants. But at the same time, I mean—and I think we’ve seen this through the Trump administration—like, they’re trying to change regulation in general. And they’re trying to just have a broad, open—you know, while she always was lobbying for the carried interest loophole, they want everything, these guys. But yeah, you’re right. It does seem very transactional. They are after very specific things. And the amount of money they’re putting in is—I mean, there’s no subtlety to it.

GH: You know, there’s this sense that whoever raises more money—it’s kind of like the money race. Like, whoever just raises the most money will win. We saw that challenged a little bit in 2024, if I’m remembering correctly, Russ, that Kamala raised—Kamala Harris raised close to $1 billion, while Donald Trump raised, I think, a bit less than that, if I’m remembering correctly. And so is it really that simple, that whoever raises the most money just kind of wins? Or how should we be thinking about that?

RC: Yeah, so, I mean, for decades that was absolutely correct. And both if you were an incumbent and if you raised more money, it was, like, something like 90 percent of the time or more, you won reelection. That has been scrambled, and that does have something to do with Citizens United. It has—I mean, Trump scrambled it in a really big way in 2016. He didn’t raise more money than Hillary, and he won. And so it was scrambled. Part of it is his, as you were referring to before, his personal charisma, as what it is—for what it is.

But, you know, there’s a lot of other things going on as well. And part of it is it’s hard to track the money. So Kamala’s campaign raised a lot of money, but there were also a lot of outside actors who were on Trump’s side who didn’t necessarily get counted in with the Trump campaign money. And that’s sort of the unknown.

And that’s sort of—again, and I think, you know, with Elon Musk, like, the money he put in last time, he put it into specific places, and he put it into Pennsylvania get-out-the-vote. It was a big question mark: Would that work? Seems to have worked in some degree. And so that’s part of the problem with this one is that, you know, I just said $1.7 billion, but there’s also money that we don’t know about that could be coming in.

DC: Yeah, I want to ask you about that. I want to get to some of the most expensive races, but just to put a fine point on this, there’s something called dark money. We’re talking the money—the figures that we just talked about is money that goes to super PACs that have to declare where they’re getting money from and where they’re spending, and to campaigns, and to the Republican and Democratic outfits, the national campaigns, the Senate campaigns run by the Democrats. But there’s something else going on there. It’s like dark matter in the universe that you can’t see, right? There’s a whole possible flow of money that we may never know about.

RC: Yeah. And so one thing is the super PACs have to say that they got money, but they don’t—they can be fairly vague about who they got money from. They can get money from an LLC, and you don’t know who put that money in the LLC. So some of that money, even though it’s technically not dark money, it’s disclosed, we don’t know where it came from.

But then there’s this other class of money, and, you know, there are all these sort of arcane rules that were written for a different era, which have been applied to this one, which have allowed sort of, like, loopholes. And it’s allowed groups who maybe don’t get out and actually give money straight to the campaign but start spending money in other ways.

You know those ads, they’re called issue ads, where it’s like, call Congress and tell them that you don’t want them to, you know, and then it has some absolutely outlandish thing. And it’s not really trying to get anyone to call Congress, but it’s just trying to send, like, a scary message. And there’s—those, for instance, don’t get counted in that $1.7 billion. The things like the get-out-the-vote operation, which is just broadly get out the vote, but if Elon Musk is only targeting it at certain types of people, that doesn’t get reported. There’s all this money, and we don’t know what we don’t know.

And it’s been true every election since Citizens United. But I think the thing is—to what we were referring to before about this big influx of money from crypto and AI—is the money’s coming in on a different scale. So if it’s been there the whole time, we have to assume it’s coming in on a different scale than it’s ever come in on before.

I guess the one sort of counter to that, and this is something as a campaign finance reporter has always sort of, like, tweaked me, is that a lot of the apparent public feelings or shame about putting money into politics has gone away. And this is true on both sides. So it is possible that people are just—I mean, this thing where we have billionaires just opening their checkbooks and writing hundreds of millions of dollars. There was a time, even after Citizens United, where that wouldn’t happen because it was so unseemly. And now it just sort of seems to be the way we do politics. So, I mean, I guess that would be the one possible counter, is that everyone is just so brazen now.

But I do think that it’s very likely that there is quite a bit of money, if only because some of the ways they’re spending money are unsavory. You know, they’re sort of on dirty tricks, they’re on negative—which they might not be ashamed of spending the money, but they don’t want to give away the trick.

DC: So we may never know, really, all the deep money influences that are affecting this election or future elections. Let’s talk about some of the most expensive races that are happening now. We have Texas, we Ohio. Where have you seen the biggest influxes of money?

RC: I mean, the Ohio race is huge, and Texas race is huge. And Texas is always huge. But again, I think that this year in particular—and I think Ohio especially is seen as, like, such—I don’t wanna say bellwether ’cause that’s the cliché about it, but I mean, there’s a lot riding on this, and there’s a lot of big donors who feel very strongly about it, and they’re just spending. And—

DC: And we should say that the marquee race there, as you see on the picture here, on the video here, is James Talarico, the Democrat, running against Ken Paxton, the Republican, for a Senate seat, which once upon a time it would be almost inconceivable to think that a Democrat would be competitive for this seat.

RC: Yeah, no, and I mean, that’s, like you were mentioning before, I mean, we’re seeing money shifting. We’re seeing Republicans pulling out of some states, some of the big spenders, and we’re seeing Democrats going in. But I think there’s also—and there are competing factions as well. I mean, there are donors who don’t care what the GOP thinks, and they’re gonna send money in, and they’re gonna send money in for a certain type of candidate.

And I think that that was what we saw in the Texas primary, in the Republican primary, is we saw sort of different factions within the GOP fighting over that. The president happened to be one of the factions, and his faction won, but the money is not always universal. And—but again, like, that’s where it’s become this thing where very openly we’re using money to sort of settle these things, where I feel like before we—

DC: We should also say that there’s a competitive governor’s race in Texas too, where the Democrat’s been outspent, I think last I saw, 10-to-1, and yet Gina Hinojosa, running against the incumbent, Greg Abbott, is only a few points behind. So to your point earlier, Garrison, this is a place where even though she’s being tremendously outspent, she still has a—you know, she’s still in the fight, although that money differential might be too much for her to overcome.

GH: Yeah, it’ll certainly be challenging, as I understand it. To the point that both you and Russ are making, it’s been, what, 32, 33, 30-something years since a Democrat has won statewide there. And I guess, you know, to the point of our show, which is this idea of stress test, I’m curious, Russ, what we should be stressed about. Yes, you, you have to tell us what we should be stressed about. But, you know, as we think about money in politics, where should, you know, we be placing our attention, and what do you think should really be stressing the American people out?

RC: Yeah, I mean, I find the whole thing extremely stressful, but I think—

GH: Well, there it is.

DC: Well, you have to cover it, Russ.

RC: Yeah, yeah. I think that the—some of the specific things, actually—so here’s the thing that I find stressful, was that, you know, for years after Citizens United, and people would ask me and other campaign finance reporters, well, when are we gonna have some reform? When are we gonna have some change? And I was always very sort of cynical or skeptical about it, and I said, well, the next time we have a big scandal, the next time we have a Watergate, because most of the modern campaign finance rules are derived from Watergate.

Watergate was a campaign finance scandal, and it was one that was so bad that even people in the president’s party agreed we have to do something. And so a whole raft of changes came in, not just campaign finance, but all the big campaign finance rules came from that era. And so I always told people, well, you know, I think we’re going to need a big event, you know, something that really shocks people to get to the point where we want to have some reform and have some new serious rules and some serious thinking. And I think one thing that stresses me out is I don’t think we’re approaching that point.

I think that there are a lot of people who are outraged about this. I think that the numbers are shocking. You know, we’re seeing money come in in unprecedented ways. And I don’t have a feeling that anyone is getting that much closer to saying, all right, after this election, we’ve gotta do something about this. Like, there’s no sign of deceleration, there’s no sign of slowing down, it’s only acceleration. And it’s sort of like everything AI says, you know, it’s sort of accelerant has been put on it, and it’s taken off on a crazy level.

DC: So let’s talk about—you know, we’re talking about the quid here. Let’s talk about the quo. What examples do we see here of money coming into politics, particularly campaigns, and what people are actually getting for that? You know, Elon Musk, he has, you know, multiple, you know, billions of dollars’ worth of contracts with many government agencies, correct? You know, with NASA, obviously, but defense, and he has ideas for building a tunnel across from Alaska to Russia, all this stuff.

So the money he puts in, $100 million is nothing. Andreessen Horowitz has $100 billion in assets that they manage. If they put in $100 million into this campaign, and they’re doing more already, that’s one-tenth of 1 percent, if I did the math right. So what other examples do we see, Russ, of why this is a good investment, why people get good ROI?

RC: Well, I think it’s more than just the contracts. I mean, Elon Musk got an office, you know, and he got basically to control an agency that took apart other agencies. And I think that you’re seeing a lot of these big donors—and this is why I talk about, like, changing the whole landscape, the regulatory landscape—is they’re getting spots on seats of important commissions and rulemaking things. So it’s, you know, it’s not just I’m giving you some money and I’ll get this gift back. They’re getting more than total access. They’re getting inclusion, which is wild.

And again, I think that it seems a little weird to me as a reporter that, you know, both Elon Musk and Andreessen and a few other people, they’re surpassing what, say, George Soros has given. And George Soros has always been—for the right has been a big bogeyman, and the Kochs have been a bogeyman for the left. But I mean, those guys are being left behind by the amount of money that’s being put in. And we’re not quite seeing, like, the outrage over it, but yet they’re also getting so much more than I think that the Kochs or Soros ever imagined they would get.

DC: You just made me think of something, so I’m gonna go off the script we have for a second here. And that is, we’ve seen the Trump years just brazen corruption from Trump himself, right? And from his family. We’ve talked about that. We’ll be talking about that more as Stress Test goes on into the season. And it’s all corrupt, it’s brazen, it’s blatant. Republicans don’t say a word about it. There’s no Justice Department investigation. We know why.

And so compared to Trump making 7 billion, Andreessen Horowitz putting in a mere 100 million, it seems like chump change. I mean, he has sort of enhanced the whole culture of corruption, and maybe that’s why, Russ, we don’t see that type of reaction that you just said was absent.

RC: Yeah, no, and I think that a big thing—and this is not specifically about these midterms, although you’re seeing it play out in the midterms—is that Trump has changed the—what’s acceptable to do. And I think that also the constant headlines about his own corruption and all that, it changes the bar. But that’s a—you know, we are seeing sort of in polls people’s belief that the government is corrupt at an all-time high. And there have always been a lot of people who believe that the government was corrupt, but the problem is that now they’re right.

There’s a lot of corrupt things going on that haven’t—actually, they were the kind of things that people imagined were going on before but weren’t. And now we’re seeing them go on. And, you know, but that in itself is something that can affect the election, because it’s the kind of thing that depresses voters, and it depresses voter turnout when you don’t believe that there’s any point in voting because things aren’t gonna work out for you.

And I’ll say that a big part of campaign finance that I don’t think it’s talked about enough is that the most effective tools that a campaign can spend money on are negative ads. And the negative ads aren’t supposed to make you vote for someone, they’re supposed to make you not vote. And that’s the thing that has been proven. Positive ads don’t have very successful, if any, benefit to a campaign. A negative ad—other than name identification, I suppose. But a negative ad cannot—won’t make anyone switch to your side, but will make people stay home. And that’s, again, the more money there is, the less they’re trying to get people to participate.

GH: That’s the thing that stresses me out, Russ. Russ Choma, thank you so much for being here, joining us today. And listen, if you’re watching this, I hope you learned something. To our viewers and to our listeners, you can follow along for more of Russ’s reporting on MotherJones.com. He’s phenomenal. Thanks, Russ.

RC: Thanks, guys.

GH: All right, David. How are you feeling after listening to our colleague? More stressed or less stressed?

DC: Well, you know, I’ve been covering campaign finance for a long time myself, and it’s just always been frustrating that there’s not much more public revulsion against, you know, basically paying—you know, paying the ump, paying the referee. I mean, if there was one MLB baseball game and you found out that the pitcher was paying the ump, it would be in the news, and it would be a gigantic national scandal. But for decades, we’ve had big-money interests, you know, a lot on the right and some on the left, paying legislators who are supposed to do work for us, serve the public interest. And so it’s been a pretty corrupt, rotten system, and as Russ pointed out, it’s gotten worse.

But I’ll say this, and I’ll take issue with my colleague Russ on this one point. People do see—people are now telling pollsters that they see more corruption, and they don’t like that. And he says that depresses voting, and I think it has in the past. At the same time, though, I think it is adding a bit to voter anger. When you have corruption on one side and a bad economic status on the other side, people start making the connection.

And we just have to look to Hungary, where Viktor Orbán was voted out of office not too long ago after 16 years there and ruling as an authoritarian. And one of the major driving forces was the rampant corruption going on there. His son was driving around a car worth $100,000 or something, and the economy was not doing well, and people kind of melded those issues together.

So I think there is a sense now that Trump, you know, the crypto, the Russian guy, you know, financing Donald Trump Jr.’s wedding, and all this other stuff going on is beginning to register a bit. So I’m still stressed out about campaign financing, but I also think that maybe there’s a ray of light here, that other people out there will start paying a little more attention to the corrupt side of it.

GH: I think you’re spot-on. You know, we’ve been living in the kind of anti-incumbent kind of era in America for at least the last 10 years, maybe a little bit longer, depending upon when you start the count. But people are not enjoying the way things are, the status quo. And I think for the last decade, it’s been very much a, well, it’s the Republicans, and then when the Republicans fail, it’s the Democrats, and then when the Democrats fail, we’ll go back and choose Republicans again.

And I think sooner or later the American people will start to put the pieces together. I’d argue that they are already starting to put the pieces together, that there are these big-money spenders behind the scenes who are often influencing in ways that go beyond the ballot. And I think people will become increasingly sick of that kind of America. And so, you know, there’s always—there are always calls to end Citizens United and all of that. And maybe one day that will happen. But I do think you’re right, David, that we’re seeing a real frustration, a real anger, and people are starting to put those pieces together.

DC: That’s all we have for you on this episode. If you missed the first two episodes of Stress Test, you can go see them at our YouTube channel—that’s youtube.com/MotherJones—or wherever you get your podcasts.

GH: Remember that our great journalism, like the incredible work that Russ leads and does his reporting, and this show is made possible by your support. Yes, you. Your views and your subscriptions keep us going. So don’t forget to like this video or this podcast wherever you get it. Share it with a friend. Subscribe on our YouTube channel. That’s youtube.com/MotherJones. And if you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to leave a comment down below. We’re reading them, even the bad ones—even the bad ones. Or at least our producers are. We will be right back here in your feed again in just a few days with another edition of Stress Test. Thanks for watching.

On Thursday, the woman Rep. Max Miller (R-Ohio) has been dating for nearly two years was indicted by a grand jury on three criminal counts:
grand theft, telecommunications fraud, and misuse of a credit card.

The charges against Jaclyn Alatrash, first reported by Mother Jones, are in connection to allegations from her ex-husband that Alatrash used his personal credit card to purchase more than $9,000 worth of items on Instacart after they legally separated. The ex-husband, Matthew Kampert, told Mother Jones that Alatrash was never an authorized user on his credit card, even when they were married.

The Rooster, a progressive blog in Ohio, first reported on these allegedly fraudulent Instacart charges in May. Instacart records obtained by Mother Jones show that many of the deliveries went to Miller’s Northeast Ohio residence. These charges included $50.99 from Spirit Halloween, $107.31 from Ulta Beauty, $152.08 from the Vitamin Shoppe, and $207.81 from Costco, among many others.

A police report from the incident charges that Miller’s girlfriend had used Kampert’s credit card from September 2025 to January 2026. Kampert told Shaker Heights police that the dissolution of their marriage was finalized in February 2025—seven months before Alatrash allegedly started using his credit card.

Miller’s bid for a third term has already been rocked by allegations from his ex-wife, Emily Moreno, who accused him of throwing hot water at her, shoving her, and pointing a gun at her. After these accusations were reported by Mother Jones and other outlets, Moreno’s father and fellow Ohio Republican, US Sen Bernie Moreno, said Miller “should not serve in the House of Representatives” and needed “serious psychological help.” Miller has repeatedly denied ever being violent towards women.

During a sworn deposition related to Miller’s ongoing child custody dispute with Moreno, he testified that he has been dating Alatrash since December 2024. In an interview that was included as a court exhibit in their custody case, Miller previously called Alatrash a “very nice lady.” Miller and his lawyer Larry Zukerman—who has also represented Alatrash in a separate matter—did not immediately responded to questions about the indictment from Mother Jones.

Alatrash, a Cleveland-area anesthesia assistant and body builder, is scheduled to be arraigned in Cuyahoga County, Ohio on October 23.

This is a developing story.

On Friday, President Donald Trump announced the creation of a new committee to investigate Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook over allegations of mortgage fraud, even after those claims were shown to be incorrect, and after the US Supreme Court in June rejected his previous attempts to fire her.

In a written memo, Trump announced that this new committee will hold a hearing at the White House two days after the midterm elections in November and demanded that Cook show up to testify. Trump’s ongoing effort to oust Cook represents the first time the president has tried to fire a member of the Fed’s board in more than a century, since the central bank was established as an independent entity that sets monetary policy free of political influence.

“To assist me in carrying out that responsibility, the Committee shall investigate the allegations against Governor Cook and report to me whether there is ’cause’ for Governor Cook’s removal.”

“As President, it is my job to ensure the laws are faithfully executed, including by firing subordinates who cannot be trusted to tell the truth and follow the law,” Trump wrote in the memo. “To assist me in carrying out that responsibility, the Committee shall investigate the allegations against Governor Cook and report to me whether there is ’cause’ for Governor Cook’s removal.”

This is the latest development in a saga that began more than a year ago, when Trump loyalist Bill Pulte—the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA)—leveled thin accusations of mortgage fraud against Cook and other prominent Democrats who have clashed with Trump.

Since the beginning of his second term, Trump has fumed that the Fed won’t lower interest rates, a move that would ease the costs of borrowing money for homes and businesses—and make some voters happy ahead of the midterms.

Then, in August 2025, Pulte—a vigorous defender of the president that some have called a “mini-Trump”—claimed in a social media post that Cook had designated two homes as her primary residence simultaneously in order to get a better mortgage rate. Pulte posted screenshots of Cook’s mortgage applications on social media when making these claims, raising questions of whether he was using his position atop the FHFA—which oversees mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—to access private housing loan information on Trump’s political foes.

Pulte referred Cook for criminal prosecution by the Justice Department and Trump piled on, saying the allegation was enough to fire her. But no criminal case ever materialized. Additional loan documents showed that the alleged mortgage fraud was instead probably a clerical error. What’s more, Pulte’s efforts to weaponize mortgage information against Trump’s political foes led to formal scrutiny: The Government Accountability office said it is investigating whether Pulte misused his position to access mortgage data, and the FHFA’s inspector general is also reportedly looking into his conduct.

Reporters also found that Trump himself and others in his cabinet appear to have made similar errors to Cook in their own mortgage applications. Cook sued over the attempt to fire her, and two separate courts blocked her removal. Trump appealed to the Supreme Court, which also said the way he’d tried to fire her was not allowed.

But that Supreme Court ruling did not bar Trump from trying to fire Cook again. Trump has every reason to attempt a redo: American dissatisfaction with the US economy and historic inflation is at an all-time high ahead of November’s elections, and Trump’s appointee to run the Fed, Kevin Warsh, recently raised rates instead of lowering them. Trump’s announcement on Friday appears to be his latest effort to exert some control over the central bank by ousting Cook, which would enable him to appoint a loyalist in her place.

Donald Trump promised to stop using taxpayer money to run campaign-style ads celebrating himself and his administration in the run-up to the midterm elections. But the ads tagged “Paid for by the U.S. Government” have continued blanketing national airwaves, despite shifting explanations and promises of changes from the White House.

So, this week, the Democratic National Committee filed suit against the Trump administration. The suit asks a judge to stop Trump’s ads, calling them propaganda that marshals government resources in support of the President’s
party—as it seeks to keep control of Congress.

“This use of Congressional appropriations for partisan purposes violates the clear command of federal law,” the DNC lawsuit claims. “Fundamentally, the ads undermine free and fair elections.”

Despite Trump’s claims they are simply public service ads, the ads offer red meat to the base Trump’s trying to mobilize: promises that he will protect us from communism. Shots of the border wall. Trump, looking steely-eyed into the camera, asking viewers to help him “liberate America from these villains once and for all” and “expel the warmongers from our government.” It’s not just ironic that Trump would make that claim about warmongers; it’s also a rehash of a campaign ad he ran while running for president in 2024.

When the ads began running—with airings focused on weekend sports games—they immediately provoked a reaction from both sides of the aisle, with the obvious campaign message making even some Republicans uncomfortable.

The lawsuit joins one filed by watchdog group Common Cause last week, which asks a judge to intervene because the law pretty clearly says federal tax dollars can’t be used to pay for propaganda. That’s the actual language of the law—this year’s appropriation’s bill, pushed through by Trump’s own party and signed by him, clearly states: “No part of any appropriation contained in this or any other Act shall be used directly or indirectly, including by private contractor, for publicity or propaganda purposes within the United States not heretofore authorized by Congress.”

The ads were funded by a $20 million appropriation to the Department of Homeland Security. While it’s notoriously difficult to determine exactly how much has been spent on ad-buys, some recent estimates top $12 million.

Common Cause’s lawsuit, filed jointly with a Democratic House candidate from Alabama, argues that it doesn’t matter what Trump says about the ads being public service: It’s clear what’s he’s up to.

“What’s more, although the ads don’t specifically name Democratic candidates, they disparage issues and positions that Trump and Republican candidates have tried time and again to tie to Democratic candidates,” the suit claims. “So despite the White House’s insistence to the contrary, common sense demands what
any viewer understands: These ads are not public-service announcements—they are personal publicity and political propaganda through and through.”

Trump himself has wavered on the ads—first defiantly saying they were public service, amid reports he had demanded them himself, and later saying that his super-PAC, MAGA Inc., would pay for the ads. But as a new ad about the capture of Nicolas Maduro began running, Trump said that his super-PAC would fund future ads, but that would not count the ads that have already run.

“The U.S. government is not supposed to be in the business of putting out ads that have political propaganda,” says Cynthia Brown, senior ethics counsel at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

At the end of the day, Brown says, the oversight responsibility for ensuring tax dollars aren’t used for propaganda comes down to Congress, which controls the appropriations and writes the appropriations law that Trump’s ads seem to violate. Federal agencies have inspector generals offices to police their spending, but this is coming from Trump directly—”So we don’t have as many oversight mechanisms, except for Congress,” Brown says. “Congress needs to exercise it’s power of the purse and find out and demand answers.”

The New York Times reported over the weekend that the ads came at the behest of Trump personally, who okayed the federal spending on the ads, while simultaneously considering whether his super PAC, MAGA Inc., which appears to be sitting on as much as $415 million, should pay. According to the Times, Trump has spoken possessively of the super PAC money, saying, “This is my money that I control.”

And Trump has, over the years, repeatedly seemed to conflate his political cash with his own pocketbook, and the ads seem to be repeating another pattern Trump has engaged in before—mixing and matching money to solve his problems.

Famously, Trump used his charity’s money to settle lawsuits, and used his foundation as a political tool throughout the 2016 election—activities that led to his having to personally pay $2 million in damages to settle a lawsuit over the misuse of funds.

This week, Donald Trump approved the military’s first execution by firing squad since 1945. The Pentagon, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced, will livestream it.

The execution of Nidal Malik Hasan, who opened fire on dozens of people at the Soldier Readiness Processing Center in Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009, is now scheduled for December 3. Hasan, at the time an active-duty major in the Army, was shot in the back by police during the massacre and now, paralyzed from the waist down, uses a wheelchair. When Hegseth spoke about the execution livestream with far-right streamer Jack Posobiec on Thursday, he hardly seemed able to contain his excitement.

“They like it because it’s the same kind of video game brutality that they like in every other context.”

“He’s going to get a firing squad of soldiers, as it should be,” Hegseth said. The execution, as Hegseth envisions it, would be first and foremost a mass spectacle. “We’re going to make sure people are able to watch it, that it’s public,” he said.

That is to say, Pete Hegseth wants to make a snuff film.

Jim Craig, a veteran Mississippi death penalty lawyer, spoke with me in April, after Trump announced his plan to bring back the federal firing squad. The obscenity of the violence, Craig said, is the whole idea.

This proposal by the Trump Justice Department is characterized by their attraction to brutality. It’s characterized by their affection for causing visible harm to people. You see it in their foreign policy. You see it in their policing. The firing squad is very physical and visceral in the damage that it does to the person being executed. That’s why they like it. We should not mince words about this. It has nothing to do with the Eighth Amendment. It has nothing to do with the supply of drugs, or anything else. They like it because it’s the same kind of video game brutality that they like in every other context of this administration’s barbarism.

A firing squad execution, when the executioners aim well, “essentially vaporizes” a person’s heart, Craig explained. When they don’t, the victim bleeds out and dies slowly.

The last time the US military executed a man by firing squad was in 1945—it was called “musketry” at the time.

“Well, I kind of like the mentality we had in World War II, which was win,” Hegseth said. “Which was, understand when the enemy attacks you, you stand your ground.”

Hasan’s killing would be the United States’ first livestreamed execution. The closest equivalent in recent memory, by anything approaching a state, is the graphic series of public execution tapes that galvanized the world against ISIS in 2014; before that, Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya telecast an execution at a basketball stadium in 1984.

But it would hardly be Hegseth’s first encounter with disseminating death on video. Over the past year, the military has released at least 46 different clips of US attacks on noncombatant vessels—the extrajudicial slaughter of people on alleged “drug boats,” including at least one “double-tap” strike on clinging survivors—in the Caribbean Sea. Sometimes, the clips are posted on their own, in grainy gray and green. Other times, the official White House X account posts footage of human death interspersed with video-game and Hollywood action film footage.

In their interview, Posobiec asked Hegseth whether Hasan had any final requests.

“Don’t care,” Hegseth said. “See him on December 3.”

Last year, Rep. Mike Collins, a second-term Georgia Republican who is challenging Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff this fall, posted a meme that appears to have gone largely unnoticed.

On the left was a photo of Donald Trump in the Oval Office, pointing to someone just out of the frame. The photo was accompanied by a quote from the president: “Can you turn the lights down? I want to show you something.” Next to it Collins had attached an image and a snippet of dialogue from the 2006 film Blood Diamond. It comes just after Leonardo DiCaprio’s grizzled mercenary tells an American journalist, played by Jennifer Connelly, he’s from “Rhodesia.” 

“We say Zimbabwe now, don’t we?” Connelly says.

“Do we?” DiCaprio responds.

The reference—a one-off post with no accompanying context or follow-up—might have gone over the heads of most of Collins’ constituents. But the implications were obvious to plenty on the online right. A poster with the handle “X Wigger” responded: “We are all Rhodesia now.” Another user replied to Collins with a faded photo of three shirtless Rhodesian soldiers, and the words, “PATRIOTS IN CONTROL.” 

“[W]e’ve got a sitting congressman rhodesia-posting now boys,” wrote a staffer at the right-wing outlet The Blaze. “[I]ncredible things are happening.”

Collins, who did not respond to a request for comment, has been dogged by his close associations with white nationalists, including a Nazi-posting son-in-law who lives next door. But he is far from alone in expressing his affinity for Rhodesia. The now-defunct white supremacist state in southern Africa is having a moment on the right. Bo French, the Republican nominee for a seat on the Texas Railroad Commission, wrote last year that “We need to be Rhodesia.” The Washington Post reported in September that a now-former campaign staffer for Ohio Republican Sen. Jon Husted created a Spotify playlist devoted to songs about the country. Donald Trump Jr. is peddling Rhodesian lifestyle apparel. Some of Silicon Valley’s leading lights are Rhodesia-posting, too.

There was a time not so long ago when public support for Rhodesia was “morally untenable,” as the New York Times put it in a 2018 story about a resurgence in interest among “white supremacists.” Although their governments differed in their particulars, Rhodesia was, then and now, closely linked in the popular imagination with apartheid South Africa—two white-minority nations that violently resisted Black self-determination on the continent. But the former British colony had found “new life” on the far right, the Times reported. Before murdering nine Black parishioners at a church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015, Dylann Roof posted his manifesto at a website called “The Last Rhodesian.” In a photo he posted on the site, he wore a jacket with the apartheid-era South African flag over his right breast; the Rhodesian flag—green and white, with two antelopes in the middle—was right below it. (Roof was himself following in the footsteps of an earlier white supremacist gunman. James Earl Ray attempted to flee to Rhodesia after assassinating Martin Luther Luther King Jr.)

“[W]e’ve got a sitting congressman rhodesia-posting now boys,” wrote a staffer at the right-wing outlet The Blaze. “[I]ncredible things are happening.”

You don’t have to spelunk in the darker recesses of the web to find Rhodesia-posting today. Collins isn’t even the only battleground candidate who’s dabbled in it. Brandon Herrera, the Republican nominee in a competitive House district in West Texas, filmed himself doing what he called “Rhodesian LARP” in a 2023 episode of his YouTube firearms show, as part of a series in which he fires off historical weapons. (Herrera has previously been criticized for goose-stepping to a prominent Nazi song during an episode on German guns, which he has defended as satirical and “funny as hell.”) For his Rhodesia video, previously reported on by the Texas Observer during his unsuccessful 2024 campaign, Herrera dressed in Rhodesian camouflage and shot a “based” Rhodesian light automatic rifle while reciting dialogue from Blood Diamond with his buddies. Later, he appeared back at his studio in front of a large Rhodesian flag—an emblem that the Anti-Defamation League has classified as a “hate symbol.” 

A white South African, joined the Rhodesian Army voluntarily patrols a ‘protected village’ at Camp Seven, located six miles south of Mount Darwin in Northern Rhodesia. Keystone Press Agency/Zuma

Herrera, who did not respond to a request for comment, told his viewers he didn’t want to get into politics, but went on to describe the Rhodesian Bush War—the bloody, decade-and-a-half long conflict between the white government’s soldiers and Black guerilla forces—as “basically a civil war between the Dutch people of that area and the locals and/or communists.” (He acknowledged in the YouTube comments that they were, in fact, British, not Dutch.) 

“Pretty much no matter what kind of take you have on that, someone will hate you for it,” he said of the conflict. “But, long story short: The side that was sympathetic with communism won, and now Zimbabwe doesn’t have food. Shocker.”

Cade Lamb, the son of Arizona Republican congressional candidate Mark Lamb and himself the founder of a border vigilante organization called the Sonoran Asset Group, promoted his father’s 2024 campaign for US Senate on Instagram by sharing a T-shirt design that featured the slogan, “BE A MAN AMONG MEN” in big red letters. It bore an uncanny resemblance to a recruiting poster for the Rhodesian army—one the ADL has said is used by “[w]hite supremacists, as well as some others, generally on the far right.” The Lamb campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

“BE A MAN AMONG MEN” is a frequent reference point for Rhodesia fans. For $12 you can even buy a version of the poster that features Kyle Rittenhouse in the place of a Rhodesian soldier. The Department of Homeland Security, which has mined extremely niche far-right iconography frequently during Trump’s second term, appeared to get in on the act last year, posting a recruiting announcement for Immigration and Customs Enforcement featuring the tagline, “BE A PATRIOT AMONG PATRIOTS.”

DHS did not deny the connection when I reached out for comment on the provenance of the slogan.

“Western men have always been asked to stand between their homes and the forces that would overrun them,” an anonymous “DHS SPOX” responded in an email. “The people who find that sentence unforgivable are usually not the people standing the post. DHS will not outsource its vocabulary to communist activists who cannot distinguish a sovereign people from a hotel. We will not pretend that ‘Western civilization’ is a slur.”

“Comparing recruitment efforts aimed at filling critical public safety roles to extremist rhetoric is not only absurd, but it also dangerously undermines the mission and sacrifices of federal officers,” the spokesperson continued. They suggested that “[t]hese types of smears are contributing to our officers facing coordinated campaigns of violence against them.”

A Rhodesian soldier questioning villagers near the border of Botswana in September 1977. This image was one in a set of three photos that were awarded the 1978 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography.J. Ross Baughman/AP/Wikimedia

Footage from Rhodesia slots comfortably into the ambience of the contemporary right—slightly faded and surprisingly emo, eliciting feelings of nostalgia in an audience too young to have experienced the thing they’re reminiscing about. Seeing the writing on the wall, Rhodesia briefly rejoined Britain before holding open elections and re-emerging as the independent nation of Zimbabwe in 1980. But the Rhodesia-pilled speak of a country that spent most of its 15-year existence slowly losing a war as a sort of lost Eden, whose fall presaged the ongoing twilight of the West—a cautionary tale, to put a finer point on it, about the suicidal danger of choosing equality over merit. According to the Post, the 25-year-old Husted staffer who made the Rhodesian playlist described himself as “homesick for a place that no longer exists.” 

The pro-Trump website American Greatness published an essay this year titled “We Are All Rhodesians Now,” arguing that “as the nations of Europe and the Anglosphere grapple with their own crises of identity, demographic replacement, and institutional decay, the Rhodesian experience has moved from the periphery to the center of conservative analysis.” Conservative commentator Jack Posobiec included a chapter on Rhodesia in his 2024 book, Unhumans: The Secret History of Communist Revolutions (and How to Crush Them). “[W]hen the unhumans come, they leave their victims without property, liberty, and life,” Posobiec wrote of the progression from Rhodesia to Zimbabwe. The book was praised by JD Vance.

That American conservatives would see themselves in the Rhodesian cause is fitting, says Elizabeth Schmidt, an emerita professor of history at Loyola University Maryland, because white governments in southern Africa drew inspiration from American conservatives. “Rhodesian whites modeled their discriminatory segregationist policies on those of apartheid South Africa. South Africa was modeling itself on us. And now we’ve come full circle,” she said.

The conservative style of the 1970s and ‘80s is popular among the sorts of twentysomething right-wingers most actively sharing this stuff online. DHS’ propaganda arm has deliberately echoed the 1978 white-supremacist book, Which Way Western Man? Another recent recruiting post—“Want to deport illegals with your absolute boys?”—was accompanied by a vintage advertisement for a 1982 Ford Club Van. Rhodesia-core photos feature young white men in short shorts and headbands, often shirtless, toting long guns while holding the line against the enemy lurking in the bush. The vibe is half frat house, half Rambo.

Eland armored car and Polish-built T-55LD tank of the Rhodesian Armored Corps parked at Inkomo Barracks in 1979.Image courtesy of former 1RAR 2nd Lieutenant John Wynne Hopkins/Wikimedia

It’s aesthetic. But it’s also literally an aesthetic. As Herrera’s YouTube video demonstrated, the Rhodesian army’s distinctive brushstroke-patterned camouflage attire is easy enough to get these days. For $149.99 you can even buy “Rhodie camo” flip-flops from Field Ethos, the outdoorsman lifestyle magazine and brand c0-founded and published by Donald Trump Jr. The president’s son himself has promoted the company’s Rhodesian-style “gin” shirt, which Field Ethos calls “our toast to this legendary pattern and the men of the RLI,” or Rhodesian Light Infantry—an all-white unit. Field Ethos published an essay on the clothing’s namesake, observing that “The white European farmers of Rhodesia were of a rare stock.” 

After a writer at Slate drew attention to the company’s interest in Rhodesia, the company addressed the subject in a 2023 note titled “Racist…camouflage?”

“We’ve printed exactly one article on Rhodesian homestead defense, but we do sell several apparel items in Rhodesian Brushstroke camo. Our company is neither fixated nor ‘right wing,’” CEO and co-founder, Jason Vincent, wrote. Far from “a sign of racist ideology,” the camo was “a very cool retro pattern that is so basic in design that it looks simple and vintage from a mile away. The colors are warm. The brushstrokes are haphazard. The vibe is casual.” In fact, he wrote, Rhodesia was an unlikely story of racial harmony, because—notwithstanding Black Africans’ lack of power and agency in the government itself, and their conspicuous absence from nostalgic memes—half its soldiers were Black.

But the current Rhodesian moment may be best encapsulated by the owner of the forum on which so much of the frenzy of Rhodesia-posting happens. As Elon Musk’s criticism of the current South African government intensified in recent years, you could find users speculating about when the defense contractor, Republican megadonor, and world’s richest man would finally start talking about its former neighbor to the north. One Rhodesia-centric account even posted a poll asking followers if it would happen; 91 percent of respondents said “yes.” 

They didn’t have to wait very long. Musk has shared or discussed posts about Rhodesia at least four times this year. His comments—like most of his posts—have generally come in the form of short replies to other people’s thoughts about the country. But more so than Collins’ meme or Don Jr.’s shirts, his posts lay bare the significance of the southern African nation to the modern right.

One 2026 post—which Musk replied to with a simple “yes”—included a photo of shirtless white Rhodesian soldiers and warned that the “anarchotyranny, expropriation, and race communism that destroyed Rhodesia and South Africa are the same things they are bringing to America and the rest of the Occident to turn us into the Global Favela.”

Musk responded to another post last January, which credited colonialism with bringing “normal clothes” to Africa and framed Rhodesia as a “litmus test”—a choice between a society “that discriminates on the basis of human capability” and a society built on “the doctrine of equality.” False morality had destroyed a “paradise,” according to the original poster. Below it was a photo of the Rhodesian prime minister, Ian Smith, staring off into the distance, and the words, “I tried to save you.”

“Envy drives so much of human behavior,” Musk wrote.

Two days later, in January, he responded to yet another piece of Rhodesia-core. “High civilization existed for a brief flicker of a moment in Rhodesia, a few decades where the primordial darkness of the Stone Age was vanquished,” the original poster wrote. “But then it returned, in the name of equality, and Zimbabwe is once again a ruin.” It included a meme—a series of before-and-after images of Rhodesia and South Africa—with a watermark for the website, “NoWhiteGuilt.org.”

“We can take things back the right direction here,” the Palantir co-founder and Trump-allied podcaster Joe Lonsdale responded. About six hours after that, Musk shared the original post to his 246 million followers with a warning for the present from the Rhodesian past.

“Unfortunately, this is where America is headed,” he said.

“Russia,” Steven Seagal declared, not long ago, “is not interested in conquering the world. We’re not interested in conquering anybody. We’re just interested in protecting our borders and our people.” 

Seagal, the American-born actor and ardent supporter of Russian president Vladimir Putin, often appears at Russian political events, like a parade with an ultranationalist biker gang last year celebrating Putin’s reelection. In this case, though, he wasn’t exactly speaking to the home team; instead, he’d taken the stage at the International Festival of Youth, a lavish event that organizers claimed brought 10,000 young people aged 14-35 from 190 countries to Yekaterinburg, the country’s fourth largest city. Attendees at this September’s event, many of whom were given free round-trip tickets by organizers, were greeted with elaborate museum-style displays, a music-conducting robot, dance performances, workshops, musical numbers by people in traditional cultural dress, panels, lectures, competitions, and free conference swag. 

“Here, borders are blurred,” the event’s website declares, “and cultures and professional communities come together to work towards a common goal—to make the world a better place.” The political element isn’t subtle: the event was sponsored by some of Russia’s biggest state-owned companies, including nuclear energy giant Rosatom and the financial institution Sberbank; the festival’s “information partners” include state news agency TASS and state TV channel RT.  Nor is there any question where the most prominent speakers stand politically: In his speech, Seagal declared that Putin is his “biggest hero,” drawing applause. This year’s talks included an appearance by Sergey Lavrov, Putin’s foreign affairs minister, who then headed to the United Nations to defend Russia’s ongoing war on Ukraine, which he characterized as “our struggle for truth and justice.” 

Youth festivals in Russia and the former Soviet Union have a long geopolitical history and a clear purview: to persuade the outside world, especially young people therein, that the country is modern, forward-thinking, and peace-loving—a center for global cooperation, and innovation. The 1957 World Youth Festival of Youth and Students, for instance, took place during a Khrushchev-era thaw in the Cold War, as the Soviet Union hoped to present a more welcoming face to the world. There was also, as author and historian Rustam Alexander wrote recently, a heavy element of image management at work, and a hope that the festival would salvage the USSR’s international reputation the year after it had deployed military force to crush an attempted uprising in Budapest. 

“Apparently, there are plenty of young people who do not care.”

“To make sure that foreign guests did not encounter aspects of Soviet life they were not supposed to,” Alexander wrote, “the government tried to keep them within their national delegations, bused them from one event to another and filled their days with official activities.” This, he adds, did not work: “Foreign visitors began moving around Moscow more freely, visiting stores and restaurants, wandering into courtyards and private homes, and striking up conversations with people they met along the way.” Soviet and international visitors also evidently found time to canoodle romantically, Alexander writes; a subsequent festival in 1985 was much more restrictive.

But presenting Russia as the world’s meeting ground has become increasingly difficult as the country has become more isolated globally given its ongoing invasion of Ukraine, its state-sanctioned murder of dissidents and other regime opponents at home and abroad, the kidnapping of American citizens to use as bargaining chips in prisoner swaps, documented electoral interference in the U.S. and other countries like Armenia, and the repressive domestic control of its citizens.

At this year’s IFY, of course, none of that was discussed—although the event did feature a panel about finding “truth online” in an age of “viral content.” While a video of the panel hasn’t yet been put online, the keynote presenter is revealing enough: it was Artem Zhoga, a military officer who participated in the invasion of Ukraine and is increasingly part of the country’s power structure, including working as a co-chair during Putin’s reelection campaign. Zhoga focused on two “typical manipulation techniques—deepfakes and quoting words out of context,” according to a post on the festival’s website, “and recommended always seeking the full recording of a speech.”

Zhoga is also quoted in the post as saying that the festival itself “is a tool against fakes,” claiming that “interaction among around 10,000 participants from different parts of Russia and the world creates a natural fact-checking mechanism.”

“When you see information about some region—you’ll ask your friend: did this really happen? You have more friends, more sources,” Zhoga is quoted.

The event’s international attendees—people who do appear to be in their teens, 20s, and 30s, and who came from countries including Nigeria, India, the United Kingdom, South Africa, Egypt, Brazil, Senegal, and China—have made endless social media content proclaiming how open and welcoming Russia is. “I met a different Russia than the media talks about,” declared a Nigerian attendee named John Ogba in a rhapsodic essay on his personal website about the event. “To me, Russia is an experience that stays with you and never leaves. I suspect that it is that way by design.” Other attendees made videos showing off the merch they’d gotten from the festival—T-shirts, lanyards, key chains, stickers, and stuffed animals of Cheburashka, a beloved Soviet-era bear-like creature. There were also a remarkable number of dance videos, with people like a Colombian students’ association showing themselves shuffling across the expo floor. 

This mountain of content has been reshared on an Instagram fan page, even though Instagram is officially banned in Russia under a law declaring Meta, its parent company, an extremist organization. According to the Russian independent news site Meduza, international attendees were able to get online because they were granted unrestricted internet access, while domestic attendees were not. Meduza quoted a statement from Sergey Kiriyenko, a senior Putin administration official, explaining that “foreign guests received unrestricted internet access so they could promote the festival to audiences in other countries.” 

“It’s good when Russians talk about Russia,” Kiriyenko added. “But there’s much more trust when people in those countries hear about Russia from their own peers. That changes the attitudes of the friends they share it with and their followers.”

According to Olena Nikolayenko, a Fordham professor of political science who has studied youth political participation in Eastern Europe, Putin is keeping up “the Soviet-era tradition of using this youth festival as a tool for state propaganda.” She pointed out that crowds were filmed singing and dancing to the song “Matushka Zemlya,” which was dubbed the “unofficial anthem” of the festival. The song, first released eight years ago, has became immensely popular in Russia over the last few years as a patriotic anthem among supporters of the Ukrainian invasion. (“For me it’s Holy Russia,” the refrain goes, “for others just a thorn.”)

“Foreigners who voluntarily visit contemporary Russia and participate in state-sponsored events de facto condone Russian foreign policy,” Nikolayenko added. “Apparently, there are plenty of young people who do not care about Russia’s aggression against Ukraine and the war crimes committed by Russians.” 

When I began the publicity push for How Russia Won: Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, and the Fight for America, a friend who until recently worked for a major national news outlet offered me advice: Try to get on Fox News or Joe Rogan’s podcast. You’re not likely to change the mind of anyone in their audiences, she said, but you might gin up controversy that would draw attention to the book. And don’t you think, she added, they would welcome the chance to take the Trump–Russia story head-on?

She was wrong. The publicist at the publishing house contacted Fox and Rogan’s show. I sent a note to a Fox host with whom I’ve had a cordial relationship. I also sent Rogan an email—and I did the same with Theo Von, a podcaster who draws an audience similar to Rogan’s. No one responded.

The guy who turned on Trump and called him a racist, liar, and sleazebag is now back in the fold, chatting with his old boss and hosting a radio show that is part of a pro-Trump lineup on WABC-AM in New York City.

That was no surprise. Fox is not interested in good debates or deep dives. Its business strategy is to sling red meat to its viewers, and that includes disinformation, hyped-up falsehoods, conspiracy theories, and other nonsense. Examining—let alone challenging—the audience’s fervently held beliefs, such as the view that the Trump–Russia scandal is nothing but a Deep State scheme (hoax! witch hunt!), doesn’t fit into the model. And Rogan, who has hosted and embraced purveyors of this hogwash, including Kash Patel and Tulsi Gabbard, was unlikely to book a guest who would show he had been duped (as I once explained in an article).

The one path I found to perhaps reach a conservative audience was Michael Cohen. The onetime Trump fixer who became a fierce Trump critic and who recently returned to being a Trump chum was game.

Cohen’s dramatic 180 has generated much scorn among Trump detractors. The guy who turned on Trump and called him a racist, liar, and sleazebag is now back in the fold, chatting with his old boss and hosting a radio show that is part of a pro-Trump lineup on WABC-AM in New York City. I asked if he wanted to interview me about the book. He invited me on his podcast.

It was a bizarre experience. I don’t know why Cohen reversed himself on Trump. Some have cited this as evidence that he’s just a grifter. I wonder if he was afraid that Trump’s Justice Department, seeking revenge for Cohen’s testimony against Trump in the porn star/hush money case that ended with Trump being convicted on 34 felony counts, might investigate him. But as an author desperate for attention for his book (see here), I steered clear of that topic so we could focus on How Russia Won.

During the podcast, Cohen was in full defense-of-Trump mode. He opened by declaring it was good Trump was buddy-buddy with Putin. “Trump’s whole pitch is pragmatic realism,” he said. “You talk to people like Putin at the G20. You host meetings in Alaska, so you keep a dialogue open so that you don’t end up in World War III. I mean, if keeping lines of communication open prevents direct military conflict and paves the way for a deal with Ukraine, why paint that as appeasement, rather than basic hard-headed diplomacy?”

That might be a decent take if Trump’s cozying up to Putin resulted in progress toward ending the war the Russian tyrant launched against Ukraine. But it hasn’t. And, as I noted, my book shows that Putin has for a decade been waging a shadow war against the United States with influence and disinformation operations that benefit Trump—and Trump has been aiding Putin by denying any of this has been occurring. Worse, he’s been in cahoots with the Russians. I pointed out that when Rudy Giuliani was Trump’s personal attorney in 2019 and 2020, Giuliani colluded with a Russian intelligence agent to smear Joe Biden.

Now hewing to the party line, Cohen insisted the Trump–Russia scandal was a “hoax,” even as he referred to me as a “very prestigious journalist, somebody who knows a lot.”

Cohen replied: “You’re 100 percent correct…I’m not going to argue with you about that. Rudy Giuliani is not Donald Trump. Let’s be clear.” But, I countered, Giuliani was Trump’s lawyer at that time. “That doesn’t mean Trump was involved,” Cohen replied.

That was a strange defense of Trump. I shot back: “US intelligence told Donald Trump that Rudy Giuliani was a target of Russian intelligence and Donald Trump did nothing. He never told him to stop…Donald Trump even ended up tweeting some of the Russian disinformation [about Biden] that Rudy Giuliani was putting out there. He was part of this.” Cohen’s answer: “I don’t know if [Trump] was part of this. Maybe he was just trying to support Rudy.”

Trump merely trying to support his lawyer who was collaborating with a foreign intelligence operation to tarnish Trump’s political rival? Gee, what a guy. (Remember, Trump and Giuliani also together pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to manufacture dirt on Biden.)

Now hewing to the party line, Cohen insisted the Trump–Russia scandal was a “hoax,” even as he referred to me as a “very prestigious journalist, somebody who knows a lot.” He maintained Trump had “nothing to do with Russia in 2016, to the best of my knowledge.” But Cohen knows that in June 2016, Donald Trump Jr., Paul Manafort, and Jared Kushner met with a Russian emissary who was supposed to pass them derogatory information on Hillary Clinton after being told this go-between was part of a secret Kremlin effort to help Trump’s campaign. And Cohen knows that during the 2016 campaign, Trump was pursuing a big deal to develop a Trump Tower in Moscow. Cohen was the point man for this endeavor, which involved negotiations with Russian businessmen with possible ties to Russian intelligence (according to a bipartisan 2020 Senate Intelligence  Committee report).

When I mentioned that over the past year and a half, the Trump administration has shuttered units within the FBI, State Department, and  intelligence community that track and try to thwart Russian disinformation aimed at the United States (as well as disinformation operations mounted by other foreign governments), Cohen countered that conservatives “look at these same intelligence agencies…and they see bloated, partisan operations that spent years, years chasing rumors…Isn’t it fair to say that cutting those units down to size is just good governance and draining the swamp than leaving our doors unlocked to Moscow?”

Uh, no. Trump seems to be purposefully leaving the door wide open for Russian interference in the current elections.

His position was that it’s fine for Trump to let Putin attack a US election. That’s not very America First-ish.

I described the disinformation and influence operations Putin directed at the United States in the 2020 and 2024 elections. Cohen contended that there’s no evidence Trump was personally involved. “He denies Russia has done anything,” I responded, “even though his own intelligence community and Treasury Department in his first term identified Russian operations aimed at the 2020 election to hurt Joe Biden.”

“Fair point,” Cohen said. Now he was agreeing with me?

After I again criticized Trump for dismantling the anti-disinformation offices, he said: “That’s one way to look at it. Another [for Trump] is that ‘They were helping me, so I don’t personally give a shit. Let them do whatever they want. I’m not going to interfere if someone wants to help me.’” His position was that it’s fine for Trump to let Putin attack a US election. That’s not very America First-ish.

Then Cohen derided the recent news reports that Moscow is meddling in the midterms, noting it’s “just the same political playbook” every election. I explained these reports come up each campaign season “because it keeps happening again and again. And Donald Trump refuses to recognize this because it’s happening often to his benefit…He’s been denying it all this time, which is why it keeps happening.”

We went back and forth on Trump’s actions regarding Ukraine, with Cohen maintaining that his former employer was not soft on Putin. He asked why voters ought to care about the fuss over Trump and Russia. I contended that a foreign adversary subverting a US election was a prominent national security concern. And he stupefied me with this comment: “The premise of your book is accurate. I’m not going to argue with the premise of the book. Now do I think, again, that Trump is allowing Putin to win? No more than Obama wanted to play into the hands of the Iranians when he sent over $9 billion in an airplane in cash.”

Why was he hailing a book that depicts Trump as a useful idiot for Putin who has betrayed the United States? It seemed Cohen was having trouble sticking to his new Trump-friendly stance when confronted with facts.

You cannot say my book is accurate and Trump has done no wrong—though that’s what Cohen did. And his attempted deflection referring to Iran made no sense. (It was $1.7 billion that the Treasury Department paid Tehran to settle a long-standing breach-of-contract claim pending before the Iran–US Claims Tribunal at The Hague, an arrangement that coincided with the multilateral Iran nuclear agreement.)

We argued over whether Trump’s refusal to acknowledge Putin’s assaults on the United States was an important matter. “One hundred percent and it is,” Cohen eventually said. But he quickly added, “It is one person’s opinion.” Presumably mine. He then remarked: “I applaud you. I applaud the writing of this book. I agree with the premise: Russia, bad; America, good.”

That’s not the premise of the book. But why was he hailing a book that depicts Trump as a useful idiot for Putin who has betrayed the United States? It seemed Cohen was having trouble sticking to his new Trump-friendly stance when confronted with facts.

Toward the end, Cohen said: “The beauty of having you, David, come on is the fact that you and I can have a respectful and an open conversation about differences of opinions…That’s what I believe is needed today in America in order for us to actually start to become Americans again.”

I replied, “I wish that sentiment was held by your friend the president.” I stated that Trump routinely “denigrates people he doesn’t like as communists, radicals, enemies of the state…He’s a demagogue, and he uses the bully pulpit actually to divide America…I hope now that you’re pals, he will listen to you and that you will spend all your energy and your great strength to convince him to drop the bullshit and try to unite the country so we can have these conversations.”

Cohen didn’t take the bait. He said: “I appreciate you. I respect you. I wish you the best of luck with your book. I recommend people read it.” I couldn’t argue with that.

Cohen had wiggled his way back into Trump’s good graces, but here he was telling his listeners to read a book that shows that Trump has been complicit in Putin’s twilight war against the United States. I was confused, but I concluded that Cohen’s recent reversal had caused him some whiplash and he, too, was confused about how to be pro-Trump, appear fair-minded, and not go full MAGA. Good luck with that.

At one point, I kiddingly remarked that I hoped Trump reads How Russia Won. “Send me the book,” Cohen said. “I’m going to go see him, and I’ll hand it to him.” I asked my publisher to mail Cohen a copy. What are the odds he keeps that promise?

The so-called lame duck session of Congress after November’s midterm elections could be momentous for clean energy, as lawmakers are set to consider a long-sought bipartisan deal to speed permitting of large energy and infrastructure projects.

Clean energy advocates and policy experts view the bill as a rare opportunity to deal with a major clean energy roadblock—long queues for interconnection to the grid. But division emerged immediately among environmental advocates, with some arguing the measure would weaken state and tribal government authority and allow pipelines and other fossil fuel projects to take advantage of a streamlined process.

This tension is not unusual. A version of it happened during debate over what would become the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022 under President Joe Biden.

“This bill is a compromise. We believe it is a compromise that will result in a brighter, cleaner, more affordable future.”

“These policy bills have to get 60 Senate votes, so they have to be bipartisan, and so necessarily you’re going to be in a situation [in which there are] things that members like and things they don’t like,” said Rob Gramlich, president of Grid Strategies, a consulting firm that specializes in federal energy issues. The 60-vote threshold in the Senate is the number needed to overcome either party’s ability to block legislation with a filibuster.

Gramlich considers the bill a big step forward for renewable energy because of technology-neutral provisions that would “enable many tens of gigawatts of clean energy to be connected that otherwise are unable to develop,” he said.

Also supporting the bill is Pete Wyckoff, vice president of policy for Evergreen Action, an environmental advocacy group. He also played a key role in developing the Inflation Reduction Act when he worked for Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn).

“America can’t confront the climate crisis and meet growing energy demand unless we can build clean energy faster—and that means fixing how we permit it,” Wyckoff said in a statement.

An Evergreen spokeswoman specified that Wyckoff and the organization support the parts of the bill that would ease construction of interstate power lines and clean energy projects, but are still reviewing the bill as a whole.

Some of the Senate’s most vocal members on climate change co-wrote the measure. “If we can pass this bill, we will flood the grid with clean, affordable energy and make data centers start paying their fair share,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), ranking member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said in a statement. “Like all major pieces of bipartisan legislation, this bill is a compromise. We believe it is a compromise that will result in a brighter, cleaner, more affordable future.”

Whitehouse and the bill’s other co-authors are calling it the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act of 2026.

Committee Chair Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), maintained that the bill would continue to protect land, water and wildlife while transforming the nation’s ability to fuel future growth. “For far too long, our broken and outdated federal environmental review and permitting processes have stood in the way of energy reliability, secure jobs, modern infrastructure, and economic growth,” Capito said in a statement. 

After months of working to hammer out their permitting compromise, Capito, Whitehouse and their partners on the deal—Senate Energy Committee leaders Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.)—made clear they had run out of time to get the package to a vote before the midterm election.

That kicks the legislation to the final weeks of the 119th Congress, and possibly—depending on the November results—the last session of unified Republican control.

This creates some political peril for the package, clean energy lobbyist Chris Moyer, founder of Echo Communications Advisors, pointed out in a newsletter to his clients. “The question for the lame duck, especially with House Democrats, is whether we experience a repeat of the familiar cycle,” Moyer wrote. “The party on the verge of taking power holds out until the new Congress to get a ‘better’ bill.”

Moyer noted that Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.), ranking Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, expressed exactly this sentiment in a post on X. “We can’t throw states, tribes, impacted communities, and threatened and endangered wildlife under the bus,” said Huffman, who pledged to work for a better bill in the next Congress.

But history has shown lame-duck sessions can forge compromises that wouldn’t be possible in regular sessions of Congress, in part because departing members will not face repercussions from voters. Among the historic environmental measures that passed Congress during lame-duck sessions were the Superfund toxic waste clean-up bill in 1980 and the establishment of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration in 1970.

The most significant challenge the legislation faces may be securing enough Democratic votes in the Senate in the face of opposition from some environmentalists. Even before the text of the legislation was released, the Western Environmental Law Center released a statement labeling the deal a “five-alarm fire” that would allow artificial intelligence data centers and energy infrastructure to proliferate.

“We think if you can reform that process, if you can provide a level playing field, the economics of clean energy will win out”

Among the changes the legislation would make is limiting state and tribal officials from using their authority under the Clean Water Act to address issues unrelated to direct water pollution; the Trump administration proposed a similar regulatory change earlier this year. 

“The permitting deal is a betrayal of public lands, water and wildlife, and environmental justice values that Westerners depend on for clean air and water, places to hike, hunt, and fish, and the inestimable sense of freedom the West provides us all,” said Erik Schlenker-Goodrich, executive director of the center.

At the unveiling of the legislation, Heinrich pointed to a provision in the bill that would require AI data centers to fully pay for grid upgrades made to serve them, even as they continue to bear their share of the costs of the rest of the power grid. If passed, it would be the first act of Congress to protect consumers from paying an unfair burden of the energy costs of data center proliferation.

By far, the most consequential provisions in the legislation for clean energy and climate change are those to speed up the process of siting transmission projects and getting clean energy on the grid. The 550-mile SunZia Wind and Transmission project, which came online this year between New Mexico and Arizona, took nearly 18 years to make its way through the permitting process. At that pace, clean energy advocates argue it will be nearly impossible for solar and wind power, as well as emerging low-carbon technologies like enhanced geothermal, to significantly reduce the nation’s dependence on fossil fuels.

New modeling by the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, or C2ES, and Greenline Insights indicated that the bill’s reforms would produce enough new clean energy to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 9 percent in the four regional power grids they studied. The analysis showed that nationwide, the reforms could also reduce cumulative grid costs by $125 billion and residential electricity bills by $19 billion between 2026 and 2040.

“We think if you can reform that process, if you can provide a level playing field, the economics of clean energy will win out,” said Nat Keohane, president of C2ES. “We’re on the cusp of a moment I think that we and many others have been working toward for years.”