With five days left in the fiscal year and the House gone until after the election, Trump announced he's cancelling nearly $1 billion Congress approved — mostly for refugees, unaccompanied children, migrant students and minority businesses. The GAO says this 'pocket rescission' is illegal. Even the Senate's top Republican appropriator called it a 'usurpation.'
Four days before a montage of Donald Trump set to a song called 'Love Me' started airing, the White House budget office sent Customs and Border Protection $20 million for 'OBBBA commemorative events.' The next day, CBP handed the same amount to an ad agency. Federal law bans spending public funds on propaganda.
On September 25, the Supreme Court's six Republican appointees let the Trump administration go back to using its rebuilt SAVE database to check voters' citizenship. In St. Louis County, at least 81% of the 'noncitizens' it flagged turned out to be wrong. The same day, Bloomberg reported a State Department proposal to open Americans' passport files for voter checks.
A review of more than 300 of Jeff Crank's KVOR radio shows found him claiming a Florida election official 'wants to steal' the 2018 midterms, saying Democrats planned to 'commit ballot fraud' in 2020, calling for votes to be thrown out over a debunked claim, and saying Democrats let migrants in because 'they'll all vote Democrat.'
Sarah Sanders's reelection ad shows a bearded adult man trying to join a women's college team and says she defied the Biden administration and 'won the fight' over women's sports. Biden's 2024 Title IX rule didn't address sports, and Arkansas's trans-athlete ban was signed by Asa Hutchinson in 2021.
The joint fundraising PAC behind Marsha Blackburn's campaign for governor sends donor emails with subjects like 'CORRECTION REQUIRED' and 'Notice of Rescindment,' warning of 'permanent' changes to a 'Voter Profile' and 'MAGA loyalty file.' The same week, the Senate passed an anti-scam bill she championed.
Byron Donalds's 'hurricane tax' ad says Jolly's homeowners insurance plan would cost $1,000 per family every year. PolitiFact found the study it relies on examined a different 2024 proposal, and the $1,000 a year was a temporary fee in one catastrophic-storm scenario — not a permanent yearly bill.
Greg Abbott is spending $12 million on an ad claiming his opponent 'voted to' raise property taxes 40 times. The Houston Chronicle found she never directly voted to raise property taxes — the 40 votes were votes on seven GOP bills limiting local governments and their amendments, and Abbott's own second ad says only local governments levy property taxes.
When a reporter said critics accuse Republicans of punishing 'the least of these,' Tommy Tuberville asked what that meant, said 'we're all getting punished,' and called the removal of 760,000 people from ACA coverage a 'good job' — while experts question how many were cut by mistake.