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Happy Tuesday! A new app, Endless Summer, uses AI to generate images of you vacationing in places you’ve never been. Finally: a way to show off on Instagram without the authenticity or pleasure of a real holiday.
Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories
- President Donald Trump met this morning with Japan’s new prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, signing a rare earth minerals deal with the country. Reuters reported that Takaichi is set to announce today new purchases of trucks, gas, and soybeans from the U.S., along with a new shipbuilding deal. This comes ahead of Trump’s meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in South Korea on Thursday, a discussion he hopes will yield a trade deal. The U.S. and China agreed to a framework for a deal on Sunday that addresses export curbs and tariffs, but the specific terms have yet to be finalized. Meanwhile, Chinese state-sanctioned media reported Monday that Chinese fighter jets conducted “confrontation drills” near Taiwan, but Taiwan’s defense ministry did not report any incidents and dismissed the news as a propaganda tactic. A Taiwanese general told Fox News that China’s military drills could be preparations for a blockade against the island.
- Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson warned on Monday that the government could not reallocate federal funds to temporarily sustain the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) during the ongoing shutdown, reiterating a Trump administration memo issued on Friday. SNAP benefits are currently set to run dry on November 1. Johnson explained that any plan to pool funding for SNAP would take dollars “away immediately from school meals and infant formula.” Meanwhile, Everett Kelley—national president of the country’s largest federal workers’ union, the American Federation of Government Employees—released a statement calling for an immediate end to the shutdown, asking “leaders to put aside partisan politics and embrace responsible government.” In another ripple effect from the shutdown, the Federal Aviation Administration issued a ground delay on Monday for flights departing Texas’s Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, citing insufficient air traffic management staffing levels.
- Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez, in a statement on Sunday, accused the country’s neighbor, Trinidad and Tobago, of engaging in a false-flag operation in conjunction with the CIA, stating the joint military drills between Trinidad and Tobago and the U.S. are an operation to “generate a full military confrontation with our country.” Rodriguez claimed that Venezuelan authorities captured mercenaries “with direct information of the American intelligence agency” and their alleged attack plans, though he provided no evidence to back this claim. The statement came one day after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth relocated an aircraft carrier to U.S. Southern Command, which oversees areas including Latin America. Trump confirmed earlier this month that he greenlit covert CIA operations within Venezuelan territory. On Monday, Venezuelan Attorney General Tarek William Saab told the BBC that he has “no doubt” that the U.S. is attempting to overthrow Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro’s regime and transform the country into a U.S. “colony.”
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told Axios on Monday that he spoke with Trump on the phone Sunday and urged him to supply Ukraine with long-range missiles to deter Putin toward peace. Ukraine’s military said on Monday that it was sending reinforcements to the eastern city of Pokrovsk, stating that roughly 200 Russian troops had entered the area. Meanwhile, North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui visited Putin in Moscow on Monday as Russia’s leader sent a message to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un that everything was “going to plan.” The same day, Putin officially withdrew from a U.S.-Russia joint plutonium disposal agreement meant to incentivize both countries against building up nuclear weapon capacity (Russia had suspended the deal in 2016).
- Hamas returned a casket on Monday to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), saying it contained the remains of one of the 13 remaining hostages still held in the Gaza Strip. However, Times of Israel reported this morning that Israeli authorities believe these remains belonged to a hostage whose body had already been returned to Israel for burial. If so, it will have been a week since Hamas last returned a hostage’s body. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will hold an emergency meeting today to discuss how to react to the delay, which the government sees as a violation of the first phase of the Gaza ceasefire agreement. Ultranationalist ministers Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich have called on Netanyahu to destroy the terror group over the violations. In recent days, Hamas claimed to have expanded its search for the hostage remains, while Israeli public broadcasting reported that Israeli intelligence has identified the locations for nine of the remaining 13 bodies.
Is it true the Pentagon is cracking down on free speech?
Journalists covering national security are pushing back on new Pentagon rules that could bar them from briefings if they publish “unauthorized” information. Major outlets, from The New York Times on the left to Fox News on the right, refused to sign the pledge. What started as a dispute over access has evolved into a fight over the truth itself. Freespoke helps you see every perspective regarding free speech concerns like this unprecedented clash between the press and the Pentagon.
Learn More.
Democrats Look to Regroup
Some states and local governments have key elections in odd-numbered years, and those that follow a presidential election are often a good temperature check for what the parties have learned since the last votes were tallied. Nearly a year after President Donald Trump and his Republican Party claimed a decisive victory in the 2024 election—holding the House of Representatives and regaining the Senate and White House—Democrats are a week away from finding out whether their soul-searching will yield any meaningful results.
The highest-profile race is the mayoral election in New York City. After democratic socialist and state Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani defeated disgraced former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primary, Democrats had to decide whether to embrace or shun their nominee. Progressives flocked to him. Moderates generally tried to distance themselves. House and Senate Minority Leaders Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer, both of whom represent New York, refused to say whether they would endorse Mamdani. Jeffries finally did so late last week, while Schumer has yet to endorse.
After losing the primary, Cuomo launched an independent campaign that has him trailing in the polls by double digits. If he were to defeat Mamdani, upsetting the long odds against him, it would be a rebuke to the Democratic Party’s left wing. But a Mamdani victory wouldn’t necessarily indicate that Democrats are embracing progressivism. Cuomo resigned as New York’s governor in 2021 after accusations of sexual misconduct, and critics still call attention to his handling of the COVID pandemic.
Additionally, Cuomo is the most viable non-Mamdani candidate in the race, but he is not the only one. Curtis Sliwa—who heads a crime prevention organization in New York City and mounted an unsuccessful campaign against Eric Adams in 2021—is the Republican candidate in the race, and current polling suggests Cuomo and Sliwa will split the city’s Republican and moderate Democratic vote.
Many have called on Sliwa to drop out, hoping his voters would then move to Cuomo. However, polls of a two-candidate race still show Mamdani having a lead over Cuomo.
Across the river in New Jersey, Democrats have nominated for governor a relative moderate in Rep. Mikie Sherrill, who is running against Jack Ciattarelli, a former member of the state’s general assembly who was also the GOP nominee in 2021.
Polls generally show Sherrill with a comfortable lead over Ciattarelli, but she’s not completely running away with the race, even in a blue state one year after Trump’s reelection. One could point to her struggles and make a broad pronouncement that voters are not too bothered by Trump or perhaps that Democrats need a progressive candidate to excite their base—but much of Sherrill’s struggles can be attributed to the realities of New Jersey politics.
Republicans and Democrats have long played ping-pong over the governor’s mansion. Only one time since 1947 has a single party controlled the governor’s office for more than two terms. Given that Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy—who beat Ciattarelli by only about 3 points in 2021—is finishing his second term, Sherrill being the favorite to win is quite impressive.
“Sherrill is trying to do something that is a little unusual, and she has had to convince voters that she is not just seeking a third term for Gov. Murphy or for the Democrats,” Micah Rasmussen, director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics at Rider University, told TMD.
What’s more, New Jersey has also become significantly redder in the Trump era. Whereas former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Joe Biden carried the state by double digits in 2016 and 2020, former Vice President Kamala Harris won it by only 6 points a year ago.
Still, Trump is not exactly popular in New Jersey. Sherrill, like other Democrats this cycle, has tried her best to both run against the president and tie her opponent to him. At a debate, she called Ciattarelli “100 percent MAGA,” and ads from a super PAC with ties to the Democratic Governors Association called him the “Trump of Trenton.”
In response, Ciattarelli has not run away from his support for Trump. The president has said he plans to campaign with Ciattarelli, though no plans have materialized, and Ciattarelli said at a debate he would give Trump an “A” grade for his performance in the White House.
“I certainly think that Mikie Sherrill has tried to make sure that New Jersey voters have President Trump on their minds when they go into the voting booth,” Rasmussen told TMD. “And I don’t think that Jack Ciattarelli has done anything to disavow New Jersey voters of that idea to focus on Trump.”
A ways south, another moderate Democrat is vying for her state’s governorship. Former Rep. Abigail Spanberger represented a swing district in eastern Virginia for three terms before opting not to run for reelection to Congress in 2024 while she mounted her statewide campaign. An effective campaigner and fundraiser while serving in the House, she’s considered a rising star in Democratic politics.
Recent polls have shown her with a lead of about 10 points over her Republican opponent, Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, who seems likely to fall victim to the so-called “Virginia curse,” under which the state almost always elects a governor from the party opposing the president.
Alex Keena, an associate professor of political science at Virginia Commonwealth University, told TMD that “what happens in Virginia is kind of viewed as a bellwether for what’s going to happen next year, and typically there’s kind of a swing against the party of the sitting president.”
This trend has benefited Spanberger this cycle, and her opponent’s attacks have consistently fallen flat. Earle-Sears rode culture war issues—such as pandemic-related school closures and transgender policies—to victory four years ago, in her campaign alongside Gov. Glenn Youngkin, but she has not been able to recapture that energy this time. She has repeatedly hit Spanberger for her stance on transgender issues—cutting an ad that says Spanberger is “for they/them, not for us,” alluding to a 2024 ad from the Trump campaign against Harris—but that strategy has not overcome Spanberger’s polling lead. Youngkin couldn’t run for reelection; Virginia does not allow governors to run for consecutive terms.
Earle-Sears’ campaign has had one glimmer of hope. News broke at the beginning of the month that Democratic attorney general candidate Jay Jones, in text conversations from 2022, once fantasized about shooting a political opponent and said he hoped the opponent’s children would die so he would be more in favor of gun control.
Earle-Sears used the story to hit Spanberger, who condemned the text messages from Jones but stopped short of calling on him to drop out of the race. Despite the negative news cycle, polls still show Spanberger ahead by a comfortable margin.
Democrats will get some indication next week where they stand a year after the Republican sweep. Polls indicate the night of November 4 will be a good one for the party as it attempts to find its way out of the electoral wilderness. And regardless of the results, the 2026 midterm season will be in full swing.
Today’s Must-Read
From President Donald Trump’s aggressive tariffs and acquisition of government stakes in industrial and tech businesses to Zohran Mamdani’s avowedly socialist New York mayoral campaign, politicians in 2025 are not shy about central economic planning. That makes the work of the acclaimed economist F.A. Hayek, including the “knowledge problem” he exposed as a fundamental flaw in such enterprises, as relevant as ever. Hayek’s insights were formed as world governments made their great foray into central planning in the 1930s. His entire career was framed by World War I, the Great Depression, World War II, and the Cold War. Totalitarian threats from the left and right were ever present and served as the historical background against which he made his contributions to social science.
Toeing the Company Line
In Other News
Today in America:
- Trump would not rule out seeking a third term on Monday, but noted that Vice President J.D. Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio would form an “unstoppable” ticket.
- Washington, D.C., police confirmed on Monday that the district’s non-voting delegate in the House of Representatives, 88-year-old Eleanor Holmes Norton, was scammed out of more than $4,000 via false credit card charges.
- Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said on Monday that Trump agreed to extend a 90-day trade deadline “a few more weeks,” delaying a prospective U.S. tariff hike on Mexican goods.
- Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced that Trump has narrowed his list of candidates to succeed Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, whose term expires at the end of January 2026, to five people.
- Republican Gov. Mike Braun of Indiana on Monday called a special legislative session to draft congressional redistricting proposals.
- The campaign manager for Maine’s populist Democratic U.S. Senate candidate, Graham Platner, has resigned after starting in the position only last week.
Around the World:
- Cameroon’s Constitutional Council declared that the country’s president, 92-year-old Paul Biya, had secured an eighth consecutive term during this month’s elections. However, his opponent challenged the official tally’s validity and also claimed victory.
- Trump said that he would not meet with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney in Asia, or elsewhere—for a “long time”—in response to an ad from Ontario aired during the World Series that featured audio of former President Ronald Reagan criticizing tariffs.
- Hurricane Melissa strengthened to a Category 5 storm on Monday and is expected to hit Jamaica later today. The National Hurricane Center in Miami warned people on the island to seek shelter.
- A lawyer for former Malian Prime Minister Moussa Mara said on Monday that his client was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment for a social media post criticizing Malian military leaders for curtailing democratic processes.
- The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays on Monday night in 18 innings to take a 2-1 lead in the World Series. The game lasted more than six-and-a-half hours, ending with Freddie Freeman’s walk-off home run and tying the record for longest postseason game in MLB history.
On the Money:
- OpenAI published a report estimating that 0.07 percent of ChatGPT users showed “possible signs of mental health emergencies related to psychosis or mania” and another 0.15 percent displayed “explicit indicators of potential suicidal planning or intent.”
- Shares in the software and chipmaking company Qualcomm rose more than 20 percent on Monday, following its announcement of a new advanced AI chip.
- Tesla Chair Robyn Denholm wrote a letter to shareholders on Monday warning that CEO Elon Musk may step down from the company if his pay package, worth up to $1 trillion, is not approved.
- A South Carolina jury on Monday ordered the NCAA to pay more than $18 million to Robert Geathers, a former South Carolina State University football player, and his wife, for negligence in failing to disclose concussion risks related to the sport.
- The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that Amazon plans to lay off 30,000 total employees from its corporate workforce.
Worth Your Time:
- Anne Applebaum on “The Pentagon’s Preferred Propaganda Model.” (The Atlantic)
- Kyla Scanlon on how the American economy is coming to resemble a casino. (New York Times)
- Matthew Hennessey argues “It’s the worst time to be a jewel thief.” (Wall Street Journal)
- John Cassidy writes that Trump’s pardon of Binance’s founder shows presidential power going unchecked. (The New Yorker)
- Austin Vernon explores the feasibility of returning to a “nuclear fission regulatory blank slate.” (Substack)
BBC: Trump Says He Had ‘Perfect’ MRI at Walter Reed Hospital
8NewsNow: Director of Las Vegas Committee Tackling DUI Issues Faces DUI Charge
Rudaw: Iraqi Husband Uses Own Picture on Wife’s Campaign Posters
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