💩 Trump 'Shits' on America
Mehdi launches Zeteo's new morning newsletter 'First Draft.' In today's inaugural edition: Trump's crazy video, 'No Kings' fallout, Gaza latest, and the return of George Santos.
🥬 On this day in 2022, British Prime Minister Liz Truss resigned after a whopping 49 days in office, and was famously outlasted by a head of lettuce.
Good morning! Mehdi here, writing to you in the very first edition of Zeteo’s brand-new newsletter, ‘First Draft.’
Forget those boring, ‘both sides,’ centrist newsletters from the legacy media outlets, because I can assure you that ‘First Draft’ will fast become your go-to morning source for American politics, especially from a progressive perspective. And if you’re not from the US, we’ve also got you covered here with a roundup of world news stories straight to your inbox, every weekday at around 7 am ET.
I’ll be authoring the newsletter every Monday morning, while my new colleague Peter Rothpletz, a rising-star writer, political commentator, and a fellow MSNBC alum, will write to you Tuesday through Friday.
In today’s inaugural ‘First Draft,’ you’ll hear from Donald Trump, Gavin Newsom, Eric Swalwell, Russ Vought, Robert Malley, and George Santos, among others.
Currently, anyone can read ‘First Draft’ without a paywall, but it won’t always be free. Subscribe today to ensure you always get ‘First Draft,’ unpaywalled, in your inbox. If you’re already a paid subscriber, you can always support our independent journalism even further with a donation.
Pooping on Democracy
Nearly 7 million attendees. More than 2,700 rallies. Across all 50 states.
The ‘No Kings’ protests were among the biggest in American history. And yet here - I kid you not! - is how the president of the United States responded over the weekend, posting this AI-generated video to his social media:
Can you imagine the reaction if Joe Biden had posted a video of himself in a crown, in a fighter jet marked ‘King Biden,’ dropping literal shit on, say, a March for Life rally? Congressional Republicans would have drawn up articles of impeachment by the next morning. Fox would have been baying for his blood. Even ‘liberal’ media outlets would have been questioning his mental competence and writing explainer pieces on the 25th Amendment.
Yet none of the Sunday shows aired, or even mentioned to their viewers, Trump’s insane AI slop. None of them asked any of their various Republican guests – including Senators Rand Paul and Katie Britt and House Speaker Mike Johnson – a single question about what I believe we should now be calling ‘Poopgate.’
Do we need any further evidence that much of our mainstream media is broken? Not fit for purpose? Unwilling to hold Trump to the standards we have held every previous president of our lifetimes to? Joe Biden mistakenly referred to President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt as “the president of Mexico,” and it dominated the headlines. Donald Trump posts a video of himself spraying human feces over American citizens and… crickets!
Despite parroting Republican bad-faith claims that the ‘No Kings’ rallies would be “hate rallies,” the truth is that “the only hate anyone saw on the day of the protest was our commander in chief posting an AI video depicting himself dropping shit on millions of Americans,” Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell told ‘First Draft.’ “Yet mainstream media said nothing on the Sunday shows about it. Thankfully, independent media is making sure Americans know how their president feels about them.”
Indeed, we are! And to clear up any media confusion about what happened this weekend – the New York Times cautiously described Trump dumping only “brown liquid” on protesters – one senior Trump administration official confirmed to my Zeteo colleague Swin Suebsaeng on Sunday: “It is shit. A lot of it … What else would that be?” (The White House press office, however, did not respond to Zeteo’s multiple requests for an on-the-record comment on ‘Poopgate’.)
None of this is normal. Not Trump putting out a video of him shitting on Americans. Not Trump also putting out a video of him being president of the United States forever. Not Trump telling reporters on Sunday that he “can always use the Insurrection Act” to get his way. We must not normalize any of this. Normalization of authoritarianism is complicity in authoritarianism.
This is why the ‘No Kings’ protests were so important, so crucial, so timely. Millions of Americans took to the streets, refusing to be complicit; refusing to normalize the abnormal. Our insecure president claimed to reporters over the weekend that the ‘No Kings’ rallies were “very small” and “a joke.” He wishes. They were ginormous. They were peaceful. They had a carnival-like atmosphere, with attendees of all ages, backgrounds, and demographics. I saw it for myself when I spoke at the big ‘No Kings’ rally in sunny Washington, DC, near the Capitol, alongside the likes of Senators Chris Murphy and Bernie Sanders, and ‘Science Guy’ Bill Nye. This section of my speech, on Trump’s immigrant wives, has since gone viral:
Where’s the lie? 😉
🗞️ What You Need to Know
Never-ending shutdown? The US has officially entered its 20th day of the government shutdown. It’s already the third-longest funding lapse in modern history.
Military dictatorship: Trump threatened to send the National Guard to San Francisco.
Super suspicious: The FBI is investigating the origins of a hunting stand near Palm Beach International Airport with a direct sight on where Trump exits Air Force One.
Shots fired: California Governor Gavin Newsom called JD Vance “reckless” after moving forward with a military display that sent fragments of an artillery shell over Interstate 5, hitting a California Highway Patrol vehicle and motorcycle that were part of the vice president’s detail (thankfully, no one was hurt).
When Is a Ceasefire Not a Ceasefire?
On Saturday, The Guardian reported that Israel had been accused by the Gaza Media Office of violating the ceasefire with Hamas “47 times since the truce came into effect in early October, killing 38 Palestinians and wounding another 143.” By Sunday, after 45 Palestinians were killed in multiple Israeli air strikes, a Palestinian government office was telling Middle East Eye that Israeli forces had “carried out 80 ceasefire violations since 10 October, killing 97 people and wounding 230 more.”
So what are we to make of the Associated Press reporting that “Gaza’s fragile ceasefire faced its first major test Sunday as Israeli forces launched a wave of deadly strikes, saying Hamas militants had killed two soldiers”? Or Reuters referring to Israeli strikes on Gaza “after two soldiers killed, in gravest test of truce so far”? What about major media outlets saying the “major” or “gravest” test of the ceasefire was two Israeli soldiers being killed on Sunday, not, say, seven Palestinian kids being killed on Friday? As ever, Palestinian lives don’t count; Palestinians are ‘unpeople’ for much of the mainstream media.
As for the Trump-orchestrated ceasefire now, apparently, holding again? Well, as the saying goes, in the Middle East, a ceasefire means the Palestinians cease and the Israelis fire.
🧠 Pop Quiz!
Organizers said nearly 7 million people turned out on Saturday for the ‘No Kings’ protest, an astonishing and super-impressive number. But which 1970 protest garnered nearly three times that turnout, making it the largest single-day protest in US history?
Keep your eyes out for the answer below!
🌏 Anywhere But America
🇬🇧🇮🇱 ⚽️ The entire British political and media class has spent the past few days up in arms over a ban on Maccabi Tel Aviv soccer fans attending a Europa League game at Aston Villa next month, after West Midlands police in the UK expressed concerns over the potential for violence. “Antisemitism,” they screamed in unison. And yet on Sunday, Tel Aviv’s football derby between Maccabi and Hapoel was canceled, after Israeli police said “violent riots” had erupted between supporters of the two teams. Are the Israeli police antisemitic, too?
🇨🇴 Colombian President Gustavo Petro accused the Trump administration of murder, saying a US strike on a boat in mid-September killed “lifelong fisherman” Alejandro Carranza. Trump, of course, responded with name-calling, baselessly labeling Petro an “illegal drug dealer” and announcing the US would cut aid payments to the South American country.
🇯🇵 Japan looks set to name Sanae Takaichi, a hard-right politician who idolizes Margaret Thatcher, as its next prime minister on Tuesday. Takaichi, a China hawk, will become the country’s first-ever female PM.
🇫🇷💎 The world’s most visited museum – the Louvre in Paris – was forced to temporarily shut its doors after four thieves armed with power tools made off with eight “priceless” jewels, including a tiara and brooch that belonged to Empress Eugénie, the wife of Napoleon III. The daylight robbery took just seven minutes. A real-life episode of ‘Lupin’!
🚨 Don’t Miss It!
I interviewed former Biden diplomat Robert Malley on the Democrats’ decades of dishonesty on the Middle East. In a remarkable conversation, Malley denounced the Biden administration’s approach to Gaza, telling me they were “working tirelessly for a ceasefire and kept providing the weapons that ensured that the fire would never cease.” He also debunked Bill Clinton’s lies about the Camp David summit in 2000 – Malley was there!
Keep an eye on your inbox for the full Zeteo video of that exclusive interview later today!
☕ What’s the Tea?
Trump kept trying to get his ‘Project 2025’ architect laid!
Over the weekend, Zeteo’s newest political reporter, Swin Suebsaeng, sent me the latest scoop he’s got from inside the weird Trump administration and, well, wait for it:
By mid-2024, Donald Trump and Project 2025 architect Russell Vought were talking on the phone fairly regularly. But it often wasn’t about policy. Trump – when he had downtime from campaigning and plotting his fascist presidency – appeared preoccupied with getting the recently divorced Vought laid, two knowledgeable sources tell me. Trump spoke to Vought, a self-described Christian nationalist who’s now one of the president’s most hardline enforcers, about the “gorgeous” and “beautiful ladies” who roam Trump’s club, Mar-a-Lago, so often that it “weirded out” some of his advisers, in one source’s words. Trump offered to be Vought’s wingman. And Trump spoke crudely of all the “pussy” that Vought would surely get as the president’s favorite “bachelor.”
OK, now I need to go take a shower. Ugh!
Fox Watch
“Congratulations on getting out.”
Yes, that’s how Fox – the “law and order” network – introduced none other than convicted criminal and disgraced former New York Rep. George Santos just hours after his release from prison, after Trump – the “law and order” president – shamelessly commuted his sentence and let Santos keep the nearly $400,000 he stole from his victims.
Trivia answer: The First Earth Day protest
📊 Chart of the Day
Only in America do politicians get to pick their voters, rather than voters picking their politicians. Above, The Argument breaks down how bad gerrymandering could get for the Democrats next year if the Supreme Court guts Section 2 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
🗓️ Mark Your Calendars
Tuesday, Oct. 21: An appeals court is set to weigh the Trump administration’s appeal of Mahmoud Khalil’s release
Wednesday, Oct. 22: The International Court of Justice will deliver its advisory opinion on Israel’s obligations regarding the UN’s presence in Palestine
Friday, Oct. 24: New York Attorney General Letitia James is scheduled to appear in court after her DOJ indictment
ICYMI From Zeteo
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Thank you! Now, my morning newsletters are complete: Zeteo, Heather Cox Richardson, and The Guardian.
So happy to wake up and listen to this over NYT’s both sides coverage of “no kings” and their pro occupation propaganda.