Rep. Thomas Massie is backing President Trump’s diesel supply arrangement with Russia, putting lower energy costs for Americans ahead of the sanctions fights that once divided them.
Kentucky Republican Rep. Thomas Massie came out in support of President Trump’s announced diesel deal with Russia in a Sunday post on X, aligning with the White House on a pocketbook issue even after months of public tension.
The Hill reported that Massie shared a screenshot of Trump’s Truth Social post and praised the shift toward keeping fuel prices in check for U.S. consumers.
Trump said Friday he had reached an agreement with Russian President Vladimir Putin for large diesel shipments into the American and global marketplace. The timing lands only a few weeks from the midterm elections, with diesel costs already punishing drivers and shippers.
AAA put the average U.S. diesel price at about $6.28 a gallon on Sunday afternoon, up from $3.67 at the same time last year. Energy prices have climbed amid the U.S. conflict with Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a key oil shipping lane.
Massie tied his support straight to a vote he cast years earlier. He reminded followers he opposed Russia sanctions in 2022 because higher prices would hit U.S. citizens first.
In the X post, Massie wrote:
“In 2022 I voted against Russia sanctions, pointing out that U.S. citizens would suffer from higher prices. Glad to see Trump came around to that reality this week. We should lift sanctions on all petroleum products, and on raw metals like copper and aluminum,”
That is a clear call to unwind energy and metals restrictions, not a narrow nod to one shipment. Massie framed the diesel arrangement as proof the old sanctions logic failed ordinary buyers.
Trump described the talks with Putin in direct terms on Truth Social. He said Russia would move diesel at scale and on a set timetable.
Trump wrote:
“I have just concluded a highly successful discussion with President Vladimir Putin, of Russia, wherein it was agreed that Russia will immediately supply over 300,000 Tons of Diesel Fuel to the American and Global Marketplace, another 500,000 Tons during the month of November, and 1,000,000 Tons immediately thereafter,”
Those figures, more than 300,000 tons right away, 500,000 tons in November, and 1,000,000 tons after that, are the concrete supply numbers the president put on the table. Massie’s post treated that pledge as the policy correction he had sought.
Massie has hammered the same theme when energy diplomacy meets farm-country budgets. In comments carried by Fox News, he said his constituents are hurting, with gas almost $5 a gallon, diesel almost $6, and Kentucky farmers unable to afford fertilizer for their fields.
He has warned that Republicans risk pushing away anti-war voters and fiscal conservatives who helped build Trump’s coalition. Price relief is the through-line he keeps returning to when he backs White House moves on energy.
House dynamics still show how hard party unity can be when members weigh local costs against Washington fights, including recent pressure on Republicans to lock arms behind major Trump priorities.
The diesel announcement lands in that same climate. Voters feel pump prices before they parse sanctions theory. Massie’s Sunday message put the price reality first.
The backing stands out because Massie and Trump have not been locked in step. Massie was among the lawmakers pushing the administration to release files on Jeffrey Epstein. He has criticized the GOP’s foreign-policy approach. He also declined to vote for Trump’s signature tax and spending legislation.
Those breaks turned a straightforward energy endorsement into news. A member who has gone his own way on process and spending is now publicly glad the president moved on petroleum supply.
Midterm politics reward clear association with results voters can see, even as some candidates recalibrate how tightly they brand that alliance, a pattern already visible on the campaign trail.
Massie did not hedge. He said Trump “came around” on the cost of sanctions and urged a wider rollback covering petroleum products plus copper and aluminum.
Loyalty and alignment still shape staffing and message discipline inside the administration, as shown in recent high-profile White House personnel moves.
Massie’s post fits a simpler test: when diesel jumps past $6, supply deals stop being abstract foreign policy and start being grocery bills, freight rates, and farm input costs.
Massie’s 2022 no vote is the anchor of his argument. He said then that Americans would pay more. Diesel at roughly $6.28, versus $3.67 a year earlier, is the yardstick he is using now.
Trump’s stated deal answers that complaint with volume. Immediate tons, November tons, and a further million tons afterward are meant to add product to the U.S. and world market while prices bite.
Not every Republican clash with Trump-world runs toward reconciliation; some break the other direction, including Senate fights over whether top defense officials should keep their posts.
Massie went the opposite way on diesel. He treated the Putin discussion Trump described as validation of the warning he issued four years ago.
He also widened the ask. Lifting sanctions on all petroleum products and on raw metals would reach beyond one diesel schedule and reset a larger slice of trade policy.
For a national audience watching midterms approach, the sequence is plain. Trump announced the supply arrangement. Prices remain elevated by recent standards. Massie, often a holdout, said the president got the economics right and should go further.
When fuel costs double in a year, voters judge foreign-policy tools by the receipt at the pump, and Massie just sided with the deal that aims to change that receipt.
Nancy Pelosi disclosed a new $500,000-to-$1 million stake in a San Francisco commercial office building, real estate this time, not stocks, as she exits Congress.
A recent congressional financial disclosure from the former House speaker shows an investment of between $500,000 and $1 million in REOF XXX LLC, a vehicle tied to a commercial office property at 225 Bush Street in San Francisco.
Benzinga reported the filing describes the holding as a real-estate play subject to House disclosure rules, marking another large Pelosi family position outside the stock market as her final term winds down.
The paperwork is plain about the purpose of the money.
"Investment in LLC which is acquiring and managing a commercial office property at 225 Bush Street in San Francisco,"
That language comes straight from the disclosure. The range sits at the high end of the reporting brackets members of Congress use for private holdings.
REOF entities are associated with real-estate investments linked to Greg Flynn. This is not a one-off. Past filings show 13 REOF investments since 2019, totaling between $2.51 million and $5.15 million.
In July, Pelosi disclosed another $500,000-to-$1 million REOF investment involving a luxury hotel property in San Francisco. The newest filing repeats the same dollar range and the same city, this time for office space instead of hospitality.
Together the two recent REOF moves show a steady pattern of large, private real-estate commitments while she still holds a House seat. Members must report these holdings. The public sees the ranges and the property descriptions. The full ownership structure and exact closing dates are not laid out in the same detail.
Pelosi is not seeking re-election this year and is set to leave Congress in January 2027. That exit will end the stream of periodic disclosure filings that have tracked her family’s market activity for years. Even as she campaigns for fellow Democrats, including a high-profile Rhode Island primary push, the personal finance paperwork keeps coming.
The timing matters. A long-serving Democratic power broker is still placing six- and seven-figure private bets in her home city while the clock runs out on her official tenure.
Earlier this year Pelosi disclosed large stock and options positions in Bloom Energy and Uber Technologies. Those filings are described as the last stock and options transactions she has reported.
In 2026 she continued to disclose new stock positions and the exercise of options purchased more than a year earlier. The pattern fits a longer record. Her husband, Paul Pelosi, has frequently used long-dated call options, often with expiration dates more than a year out and strike prices below the stock’s market price at the time of disclosure.
Market-watchers have tracked those trades for years because the returns often beat broad indexes. The newest paperwork shifts the emphasis. The headline number this time is real estate, not a tech ticker or an energy name.
That shift does not erase the earlier stock activity. It simply shows the family portfolio still moving money in size while Nancy Pelosi remains a sitting member of Congress. Voters who watched her decades of leadership, including moments when she pressed President Biden on cognitive testing, now see the financial side of the exit ramp in black and white.
Congressional disclosure forms require members to report investments in broad dollar bands. The $500,000-to-$1 million bracket for REOF XXX LLC meets that requirement. It does not tell taxpayers the precise purchase price, the exact ownership percentage, or how the LLC’s cash flows will be managed once the office property is under control.
The same limits apply to the earlier hotel filing and to the cumulative $2.51 million-to-$5.15 million REOF total since 2019. The public gets the outline. The fine print stays private.
San Francisco commercial real estate has faced well-known pressure from empty offices and changing work patterns. The disclosure does not address occupancy, rents, or projected returns. It simply records that the LLC is acquiring and managing the Bush Street property and that the Pelosi stake falls in the top reporting range.
Lawmakers of both parties file these forms. The political heat rises when the filer spent years setting tax, spending, and regulatory policy that can move markets and property values. Pelosi’s long tenure as speaker put her at the center of those decisions. The filings now show where some of the family’s capital has gone as she prepares to step away.
Democratic leaders are managing their own internal strains. House Democrats recently watched a push to keep an impeachment resolution alive collapse under party pressure, and caucus friction has flared in other votes as well.
Pelosi’s personal disclosures sit beside that institutional noise. She is still a high-profile Democrat until January 2027. She is still required to report large private investments. And she is still adding real-estate positions measured in the hundreds of thousands to more than a million dollars at a time.
The newest REOF filing does not accuse anyone of breaking the reporting law. It does document continued wealth deployment in private vehicles while the member still casts votes and still carries the title of representative. For readers who have followed years of stock-option headlines, the change in asset class is the story. The size of the checks is familiar.
Thirteen REOF investments across six-plus years add up. Two recent San Francisco properties in the same half-million-to-million band keep the pattern current. The stock-and-options chapter is described as largely closed. The real-estate chapter is not.
When powerful members of Congress keep placing large private bets until the final months of their careers, voters are right to demand clear rules, faster reporting, and less room for favorable timing. The latest Pelosi filing puts another seven-figure example on the public record.
Bill Maher drew groans on Real Time after joking that a failed execution survivor was only “showing off” like Mitch McConnell, a health jab that split the room.
The 70-year-old host opened the Friday, October 9 episode of HBO’s Real Time With Bill Maher by declaring executions the week’s big subject, then walked straight into lethal injections, firing squads, and a punchline aimed at the Kentucky Republican.
TV Insider reported the monologue mix of dark lines, audience groans, laughter, and applause as Maher moved from a failed lethal injection to a planned livestreamed firing-squad death and a Will Smith slap gag.
Maher framed the moment in blunt terms.
"What’s going on big this week? Executions."
He kept going.
"That’s what everybody’s talking about. Lethal injections. Firing squads. Lethal injection, that’s how we mostly do it in this country."
"It never works, but we keep doing it," he added, before turning to Christa Pike and the botched procedure he said left her alive.
Maher told viewers the system “saved her life so that we could have another shot at killing her.” Then came the line that landed on Sen. Mitch McConnell.
"So now, she’s conscious and talking, or what Mitch McConnell calls ‘showing off.’"
He labeled the bit “gentle good humor,” called Pike “one tough lady,” and joked she declared, “Wow, that is some good s***!” He quipped she would face a charge of “resisting cardiac arrest.” The room answered with the groans and laughs that defined the segment.
That choice matters. Late-night comedy went after a sitting senator’s public condition instead of his record on judges, spending, or the border. Voters already face enough spin without hosts turning medical struggle into applause lines, a pattern that also shadows coverage of McConnell’s extended time away from the Senate floor.
Maher then shifted to Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan and a firing-squad execution he said Pete Hegseth wants shown live. “He wants to do this. He wants it livestreamed so that people are able to watch,” Maher said. He followed with the influencer punchline: “So, be sure to smash that like and subscribe button.”
He cast the posture as hard-line theater. “Man, this administration, especially Pete, they always want you to know that we don’t show any mercy to people like this.” The closer recycled Hollywood’s most famous awards-show meltdown: “In fact, before they shoot him, they’re going to have Will Smith come out and slap him.” The jab nodded to Smith’s 2022 Academy Awards strike on Chris Rock after a joke about Jada Pinkett Smith.
On October 10, Maher posted a version of the Hasan line on X under @billmaher, writing that Hegseth says the firing-squad execution “will be livestreamed so that ‘people are able to watch it’” and telling followers to smash like and subscribe. The post treated the livestream claim as comedy fuel, not a verified government order laid out in primary documents.
None of the monologue settled the open basics the broadcast left hanging: the precise date and legal status of Pike’s failed injection, the schedule and authority for any Hasan execution, or a primary statement from Hegseth beyond Maher’s retelling. What it did settle was the target list, a condemned inmate, a terror shooter, a Cabinet name, an aging Republican senator, and a movie star’s old disgrace.
McConnell has long been a fair target on policy. Turning “conscious and talking” into a freeze gag is a different move. It fits a media habit of treating Republican frailty as open-mic material while larger fights over votes, nominees, and party direction get less oxygen than a one-liner.
That vacuum shows up whenever rumors outrun facts, including the strange episode in which Beshear claimed agencies told him McConnell had died and then declined to name them. Comedy that punches at capacity problems does not answer whether the senator can cast votes or lead a conference.
GOP colleagues have already framed the practical stakes around his return and the math on tight roll calls, the same pressure tracked when Tuberville pressed for McConnell’s return as absences squeezed Republican votes. A monologue cannot replace that ledger.
Age in power is a real voter issue. It is also one both parties handle unevenly, a point sharpened by how Democratic voters oust aging incumbents faster than Republicans do. Mocking a freeze is easier than arguing sentencing, terror punishment, or who shows up to legislate.
Maher’s Real Time slot still runs Fridays at 10/9c on HBO, a talk-comedy franchise dating to 2003. The October 9 show used that platform to sell executions as water-cooler banter and McConnell as the rim shot. Groans and applause both registered. Neither substituted for a clean accounting of the cases he name-checked.
When late-night treats a senator’s medical struggle as easy laugh track, it tells you the writers ran out of arguments and reached for the cheap shot instead.
GOP donor Eric Deters refused Kimberly Guilfoyle’s $100,000 wire plea, paid Trump’s sons $300,000 in fees, then blasted their crypto deals and Kushner’s Saudi cash as a “yuck-yuck world” he rejects.
Eric Deters, a Kentucky attorney and longtime MAGA donor, voiced raw frustration Thursday morning with the business side of President Trump’s family after The Wall Street Journal detailed payments tied to Kimberly Guilfoyle and the Trump sons.
Deters told MS NOW’s Peter Alexander he had “no issues” with the speaking fees he already paid, yet drew a hard line at the flash and the personal requests. He still backs the policies and said he will keep supporting the president and MAGA candidates.
The Hill reported Deters’ remarks the same day the Journal’s earlier account of the Guilfoyle request circulated.
The Journal first reported Wednesday that Guilfoyle, now U.S. ambassador to Greece and Donald Trump Jr.’s former fiancée, pressed Deters to wire $100,000 to her American Express account ahead of her July 9 Senate confirmation hearing. Deters did not send the money. He said it would have caused problems in his marriage.
Additional details from the New York Post show Guilfoyle texted Deters on July 3, 2025, days before the hearing. She wrote, “Honey please I need you to get this done for me today,” and added that a wire to American Express “won’t show up anywhere.”
Deters had earlier discussed helping with her legal and tax matters and had talked of larger support. He refused the urgent AmEx request. Guilfoyle was later confirmed 51-47. Her attorney has disputed the authenticity of the messages.
Deters did not soften his view of her conduct. He linked the episode to a pattern he claims continues in her current post, a claim that sits alongside earlier reporting on the same AmEx payoff pressure before her Greece posting.
"Kimberly Guilfoyle, I have no doubt, has done this to more than me."
He went further on the interview.
"She’s doing it right now in Greece. I know Corey Lewandowski did this stuff. I know Kristi Noem did this stuff."
He called her a “wicked, evil person” and a “grifter.” Those are his words, not proven findings. No charges or formal ethics rulings appear in the available accounts.
The same Journal report said Deters paid Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump a combined $300,000 in speaking fees. Deters confirmed he had no problem with those payments. His objection landed elsewhere.
"The only thing that bothers me about [Donald Trump Jr.] and Eric Trump is how they, along with their father, are getting rich out in the open with crypto and everything else."
He added a sharper note on the policy shift he perceives.
"President Trump said he hated crypto, his sons get in crypto, now he loves crypto."
That family business scrutiny echoes separate questions around the brothers’ overseas ventures, including a Kazakhstan tungsten investment that drew its own review. Deters framed his discomfort as cultural, not policy-based.
He put it in plain Midwest terms.
"I’m a Midwest farm boy. I’m a good dude. I don’t like their yuck-yuck world."
And he closed the door on the club scene.
"You couldn’t pay me to go back to Mar-a-Lago."
Deters also trained fire on Jared Kushner. He criticized the “controversial $2 billion” Kushner’s private equity firm received from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund after the first Trump administration. He offered no new documents, only the public figure and his own disapproval.
At the same time Deters kept his political bottom line clear. He contributed $125,000 to a PAC supporting Trump in 2022. He said he likes most of the president’s policies and will continue backing him and other MAGA candidates. He even voiced support for the White House ballroom project.
The personal critique ran alongside that support. Deters said he “cannot stand” what he called the president’s megalomania, egomania, and “Mount Rushmore talk and arch talk.” He claimed Trump “loves billionaires and any MAGA politician” and “doesn’t care about average rank-and-file people unless they’re for his votes.” Those remain Deters’ characterizations. The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
Separate legal friction around Donald Trump Jr. has surfaced in other settings, including claims the Secret Service blocked a subpoena in a large defamation case. Deters’ complaint stayed focused on the money and the lifestyle he rejects.
Inner-circle turbulence is not new. Recent moves such as staff shifts tied to the Vance-Carlson rift show the same ecosystem can produce public breaks even among allies.
The verified sequence is straightforward. Deters gave six figures to a Trump PAC in 2022. He paid the Trump sons $300,000 in speaking fees. Guilfoyle sought $100,000 for her AmEx bill days before her confirmation hearing. He refused. She was confirmed and now serves in Greece. He went on television, praised the policy agenda, and unloaded on the personal and financial style surrounding the family and certain associates.
No law-enforcement action, no ethics finding, and no White House reply appear in the reporting. Deters supplied his own motives: marriage concerns on the wire, cultural distaste for the “yuck-yuck world,” and continued political loyalty on the issues he cares about.
Donors who pen big checks still get to draw personal lines. When they do it out loud, the gap between policy wins and family-business optics becomes harder to ignore.
A Pierce County mother now faces four attempted murder charges after soldiers intervened when she allegedly chased her teenage daughter with a knife following a violent Interstate 5 crash.
Fox News reported that Janieka Amber Marie Ellington, 35, is accused of trying to kill her two daughters both by stabbing or cutting them and by crashing their vehicle. The case grew out of a Monday morning rollover wreck on southbound Interstate 5 near DuPont, Washington.
Prosecutors filed four counts of attempted first-degree murder, two counts of vehicular assault, and one count of felony harassment involving threats to kill, according to Pierce County Superior Court records. Two of the attempted-murder counts allege intent to kill by stabbing or cutting. The other two allege intent to kill through the vehicle crash.
Three bystanders, including two soldiers from Joint Base Lewis-McChord, disarmed Ellington and held her until Washington State Patrol troopers arrived. The 9-year-old girl suffered multiple broken bones and a stab wound. The 15-year-old was hospitalized without serious injuries.
Troopers responded shortly before 9 a.m. Monday to reports of an SUV driving erratically near mile marker 118. The vehicle struck a concrete barrier, veered toward the right shoulder, crossed back into traffic, hit a semi-truck, struck the barrier again, and rolled over near Center Drive at Exit 118.
Court records state Ellington told hospital staff and troopers she had been drinking whiskey the night before and was driving without sleep. One of her daughters told investigators that Ellington believed people were following them before the crash.
After the wreck, witnesses said Ellington chased her teenage daughter with a knife and threatened to kill her. That is when the bystanders moved in. Cases of parents charged in violence against their own children have drawn national attention before, including a Memphis mother charged after a fatal home confrontation.
Witness Nathan Wilkinson came upon the wreck while driving to work. He described what he saw and later called 911 as others subdued the woman.
Wilkinson told KING 5:
"There's people standing around, then all of a sudden there was a flash, and then the two soldiers jumped on a person.... I heard a scream at that time,"
He also said:
"I saw one of the soldiers had a knife in his hand that he had dislodged from the person they tackled."
Wilkinson praised the service members for refusing to leave the girls in danger.
"They didn't run away, they didn't pass, drive on by. They stopped and helped,"
Sgt. Ricardo A. Nunez of the 7th Infantry Division, stationed at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, was among those who intervened. He spoke afterward about the decision to act.
"I just did my part,"
Nunez added:
"I am glad I was there to help those girls and was just in the right place at the right time."
High-profile cases involving mothers and severe charges have also sparked political debate elsewhere, such as when Nancy Mace demanded harsh accountability in the Lindsay Clancy matter.
Charging documents say prosecutors also alleged domestic violence and aggravating circumstances. Those include that Ellington used a position of trust to facilitate the offenses and that the victims were particularly vulnerable or unable to resist.
A judge ordered a competency evaluation on Tuesday. A competency hearing is scheduled for Oct. 20 in Pierce County Superior Court. Fox News Digital reached out to the Washington State Patrol, the Pierce County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, and Joint Base Lewis-McChord for comment.
Separate legal fights over mothers facing extreme consequences have continued in other arenas, including when Trump declined a pardon request and called that case a state matter.
The younger daughter left the scene with multiple broken bones and a stab wound. The older daughter was hospitalized but avoided serious injuries. Both were inside the SUV during the sequence of barrier strikes, the semi impact, and the rollover before the alleged knife chase began on the roadside.
Wilkinson hoped the service members would be recognized for what they did. The soldiers and the third bystander kept Ellington restrained until troopers took over. No names were released for the second soldier or the additional bystander in the initial reporting.
Other recent cases have shown mothers swept into serious criminal process under very different facts, from an Iranian mother sentenced after protest-related charges to national-security detentions. The common thread here is simpler: two children needed protection on a Washington freeway, and people in uniform provided it.
Ellington remains the sole defendant named in the Pierce County filings. The court will next address the ordered competency evaluation before the scheduled Oct. 20 hearing. The daughters’ full medical updates and any toxicology results beyond Ellington’s own statement about whiskey and lack of sleep were not detailed in the initial court records summarized by reporters.
When a parent is accused of turning a family car into a weapon and then a knife on her own children, the public expects clear charges, a full airing of the evidence, and no excuses that erase the harm. The soldiers who stopped this roadside attack showed the standard ordinary Americans still meet when it counts.
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito called the MAGA activist label “offensive” and said he decides every case on the merits, pushing back on critics who cast conservative justices as partisan players.
In recent remarks to The Associated Press, Alito rejected the political branding aimed at him and other originalist members of the Court. He framed his work in plain terms: the identity of the president does not decide the outcome.
“It’s offensive,” Alito told the AP. He added that he tries to judge each matter the same way no matter who sits in the White House.
"I honestly try to decide every single case on the merits, every single application on the merit. And that’s true whether the president is Donald Trump or Joe Biden or Barack Obama or anybody else."
That statement lands in a season of hard-fought emergency fights and high-stakes political pressure on the Court. Last month the justices denied President Donald Trump’s emergency request tied to mail-in voting restrictions. Alito dissented.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh indicated the challenged restrictions were likely to fail. Alito broke the other way and recorded his disagreement with the denial. The case name and full vote tally were not detailed in the reporting.
President Trump answered on Truth Social. He praised Alito and Justice Thomas, called the result highly political, and said the Court had been pushed off course by left-wing pressure.
"Justices Alito and Thomas, legends both, strongly disagreed with this horrible, highly political, ruling."
Trump went further, arguing the Court is being “bullied and cajoled by the Radical Left” into rulings that set the country back, and that some justices are no longer the people he once interviewed for the bench.
"This Supreme Court is bullied and cajoled by the Radical Left into making decisions that have set America back at least a hundred years."
Those comments fit a broader pattern of administration fights that keep landing on the justices’ emergency docket, including the Court’s emergency docket activity during recess periods when major disputes do not wait for the regular calendar.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, an outspoken White House critic, has used the same MAGA label Alito rejects. Schumer is pushing for Democratic control of the Senate so fewer justices he calls “MAGA” join the Court.
That is the political project in the open: redefine conservative jurisprudence as a partisan brand, then organize the next confirmation fights around the brand. Alito’s answer was that the work is merits-based, not team-based.
Reporting also notes Alito has backed Trump’s position in a number of cases and has, at times, broken with other conservatives to do so. The specific case list was not provided. What was provided is Alito’s own standard for how he says he approaches each filing.
Separate disputes keep testing how far the justices will go when lower courts block administration moves. One recent track involves Trump’s effort to take a White House ballroom fight to the Supreme Court after an appeals panel demanded congressional approval.
Alito is widely described as one of the Court’s most conservative members. Critics treat that record as proof of activism. He treats it as judging. The gap between those two frames is the real fight.
When Senate leaders campaign against “MAGA” justices, they are not arguing a statute line by line. They are preloading the next vacancy with a loyalty test. Alito’s AP comments cut against that pressure by restating a basic claim of judicial duty: the president’s name does not revise the law.
The same Court has also declined intervention in other high-profile election-map fights, including when the Supreme Court refused a second time to restore Missouri’s GOP-drawn map, another reminder that emergency relief is not automatic for either side.
Trump’s Truth Social broadside made clear he believes left-wing intimidation is shaping outcomes. Alito’s public answer did not litigate that charge. It restated his method: merits first, for Trump, Biden, Obama, or anyone else.
Other administration petitions still sit in the pipeline, from personnel rules to structural fights in Washington. The White House has also petitioned the Court on the Pentagon’s transgender troop policy, keeping the justices at the center of contested executive power questions.
A related lower-court clash over the ballroom project produced a block and a vowed appeal after the D.C. Circuit halted White House ballroom construction, underscoring how quickly these disputes climb.
The core record from the AP exchange is short and direct. Alito called the MAGA activist tag offensive. He said he decides every case and every application on the merits. He tied that pledge to presidents of both parties by name.
He dissented when the Court refused Trump’s emergency mail-in voting request last month. Trump publicly sided with that dissent and attacked the majority result as political. Schumer, meanwhile, sells Democratic Senate power as a way to stop more justices he brands “MAGA.”
Absolute dates, the full case caption, the complete vote lineup, and Schumer’s exact wording were not included in the available report. The statements that were included still draw a clean line: one justice rejecting a partisan label, a president defending the dissenters, and a Senate leader campaigning against the next conservative confirmation.
Voters can weigh those incentives for themselves. Judges who say they follow the law should be measured by opinions and votes, not by campaign nicknames invented to scare the public.
President Trump signed a surprise executive order at a Nebraska rally allowing anyone to buy tax-free red-dyed diesel, delivering direct relief on record fuel prices for farmers and truckers ahead of the midterms.
Trump signed the order onstage Monday during a campaign stop in Grand Island, Nebraska, waiving the long-standing off-road-only rule for tax-exempt red-dyed diesel. The move lets drivers purchase the fuel for any use and defers related federal excise taxes, aiming to ease costs that have hammered agriculture and trucking during harvest season.
Newsmax reported the president is promoting the package of executive actions after weeks of pressure over diesel prices that remain far above year-ago levels. National averages stood at $6.32 per gallon Monday according to AAA data cited in coverage, down 13 cents from the prior week yet still $2.63 higher than the same period last year.
The order comes after Trump ruled out an outright ban on diesel exports Friday. He had repeatedly floated that idea in recent weeks as agriculture-state lawmakers, including GOP Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, pressed for stronger steps to boost domestic supply. Energy Secretary Chris Wright and White House energy advisers examined alternatives while the president weighed options.
European countries’ agreement to tap their diesel reserves helped close the door on the export ban. Trump told reporters Friday, “We were never going to do it. I don’t think we were.”
Breitbart detailed how Trump called for the order to be brought out mid-rally and signed it live, framing the step as immediate action on costs. The measure temporarily allows tax-free red-dyed off-road diesel on highways and defers the 24.4 cents per gallon federal diesel tax without penalties through the end of 2026.
Red-dyed diesel is chemically similar to regular diesel but marked with dye because it is normally reserved for off-road uses such as farm equipment and is exempt from certain federal and state fuel taxes. Expanding access removes that restriction so anyone can buy it tax-free.
"So tonight, I’m going to sign a historic executive order to officially waive the off-road requirement and allow anyone to purchase tax-free, red-dye diesel for any reason."
Trump announced the step that way from the stage, according to the reporting. He also tied the relief directly to Republican candidates, telling Sen. Pete Ricketts and Gov. Jim Pillen the move “should absolutely ensure your election, I guarantee you that.”
White House officials and cabinet members praised the rapid response. The administration has blamed part of the price spike on disruptions to global energy markets from the Iran war and Ukrainian attacks on Russian oil refineries. Diesel remains critical for planting, harvesting, and trucking, and elevated prices have frustrated farmers and ranchers at the peak of harvest.
Several Republican governors had already moved on their own. By Friday, ten states representing one-third of U.S. diesel sales had taken steps to expand dyed-diesel use, per ClearView Energy Partners. States including Ohio, Georgia, Kentucky, Alabama, and Texas acted earlier, and some waived taxes on diesel used by agricultural vehicles.
The New York Post reported Trump claimed the average trucker will save more than $100 per fill-up and that lower diesel costs would drive down grocery prices. He presented the order as an unprecedented step to cut costs for truckers and households while boosting GOP prospects in the November elections.
The Treasury Department is also set to review certain diesel-related taxes under the broader package. The executive order directs states to expand access to the tax-exempt fuel, encourages waivers of certain fuel taxes, and steers federal agencies toward nonenforcement of some dyed-diesel restrictions.
Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, posted that expanding access to dyed diesel “could save on-road users ~60c/gal. But farmers already use dyed diesel and are still paying record prices. Taxes aren’t the problem, supply is.”
Denton Cinquegrana, chief oil analyst at Dow Jones Energy, flagged the longer-term trade-off on road funding: “when you’re not collecting taxes, you’re just kicking the can down the road, because you have to fix roads and stuff like that.”
Those cautions sit alongside the political reality. High diesel has become a growing problem for Republicans trying to protect congressional majorities. Agriculture-state voters feel the pinch first, and the White House moved after weeks of shifting signals on how far to go.
Democrats have spent the midterm season pitching their own affordability message, yet the onstage signing left little room for a prepared counter. Similar dynamics have played out when Schumer pitches affordability while Republicans force the cost debate onto their preferred ground.
Grassley and other farm-state voices had pushed for the export ban as the cleaner supply fix. Trump’s Friday reversal followed the European reserve releases and kept the focus on taxes and dyed-diesel availability instead. The Monday order still lands as concrete relief during the harvest window.
Trump has kept Democrats off-balance with rapid moves that force them to react. That pattern showed up when the House killed Al Green’s impeachment push and again whenever the president seizes a kitchen-table issue before the other side can frame it.
The Washington Examiner noted the order also directs the Transportation Department to work with states on waiving road diesel taxes. That coordination builds on the steps governors already took and aims to spread the savings beyond the red-dye expansion alone.
Record prices earlier touched $6.52 per gallon in some tracking. Even with the recent 13-cent weekly drop, the year-over-year gap remains wide enough to squeeze margins for truckers hauling goods and farmers running equipment through long harvest days.
The White House has treated fuel costs as a core accountability issue. When Democrats cry foul over other administration messaging, the same contrast appears, voters see action on prices while the opposition stays focused on process fights, as with the patriotic TV spots that drew Democratic complaints.
Trump also used the Nebraska stop to underline political stakes for local Republicans. The guarantee he offered Ricketts and Pillen underscored how directly the White House links pocketbook relief to holding seats in farm country.
Supply remains the deeper constraint analysts keep citing. De Haan’s point that farmers already run dyed diesel yet still face record prices lands as a reminder that tax changes help at the pump but do not create new barrels. The administration’s earlier export-ban debate showed it was willing to consider heavier supply tools before settling on the tax-and-access route once Europe moved on reserves.
For truckers and ranchers watching every gallon, the order’s immediate effect is simpler: lower tax burden and legal access to the cheaper dyed product. Whether states fully match the federal waiver will decide how widely the savings spread. Ten states already moved; the executive order is designed to pull more along.
Senate Democrats have faced their own pressure to engage Trump initiatives rather than block them outright, a dynamic visible when they were pushed on the anti-fraud division after the House vote. Cost-of-living fights leave less room for delay.
The package keeps the focus where voters feel it, fuel bills that roll into food prices and freight rates. Trump’s decision to sign in front of a Nebraska crowd rather than issue a quiet paper release made the politics unmistakable: Republicans intend to own the cost-cutting lane through Election Day.
Farmers and truckers needed the relief. Washington finally delivered it without waiting for another round of hearings.
AEW wrestler Pac was found dead in a rental car outside an Illinois restaurant with medication inside and saliva on his shirt, police reported, while the cause of death remains pending.
Benjamin Satterley, the 40-year-old All Elite Wrestling star known as Pac, was discovered deceased around 4 p.m. on Sept. 27 in a rental car outside a CAVA restaurant in Des Plaines, Illinois, according to a Des Plaines Police incident report obtained by the New York Post.
The report noted saliva on the front of his shirt and medication in the vehicle. The type of medication was redacted in the documents. Officers wrote that a search of his pockets and backpack turned up nothing notable.
There were not “any obviously suspicious marks upon Satterley nor circumstances within the vehicle,” the incident report stated.
The Cook County Medical Examiner’s office has said the cause of death is pending additional testing after an initial autopsy. Des Plaines police have said the death is not considered suspicious.
An officer at the scene recorded a detail that fixed Satterley’s final plans in plain view.
The officer wrote in the report:
“I noticed that Google Maps was still open on his cellphone and it was routing him to O’Hare Airport,”
His phone had been buzzing. When it was answered, a woman who knew him filled in the hours before he was found.
She told the officer she last spoke to him around 1320 hours and that he said he was heading to CAVA for lunch. She added that he had been traveling for his work as a professional wrestler for the past three weeks across the United States and had been in the Chicago area since Thursday, Sept. 24, or Friday, Sept. 25. His flight back to the United Kingdom had been delayed. He was scheduled out at approximately 1530 hours.
The report captured her account this way:
“she last spoke to Benjamin on the phone around 1320 hours and he related he was going to CAVA for lunch,”
And:
“He had been traveling for his occupation as a professional wrestler for the past three weeks around the United States and had been in the Chicago-area since Thursday (09/24/2026) or Friday (09/25/2026). She related his flight had been delayed and Benjamin was scheduled on his flight back to the UK at approximately 1530 hours.”
He never made that flight. Authorities found him in the parking lot roughly half an hour after the scheduled departure time.
Satterley had wrestled the night before against Andrade at an AEW event at the NOW Arena in Chicago. He was still on the road after weeks of travel when he stopped for lunch in Des Plaines.
Fox News reported that he was found dead in Illinois shortly after competing at All Out, and that police stated no foul play was indicated. Customers had called 911 after he was found passed out in the vehicle. He was pronounced dead on arrival.
An earlier New York Post account put the pronouncement of death at 4:08 p.m. that Sunday and quoted a Des Plaines Police Department representative saying there were “no indications of foul play and the circumstances surrounding the death are not considered suspicious.”
AEW released a statement mourning Satterley. Company head Tony Khan called him a beloved husband and friend and said he defined excellence. The tributes matched the sudden shock that hit the wrestling world after a card the night before.
Sudden deaths of athletes keep landing with the same unfinished questions, much like the loss detailed when AEW wrestler Pac dies at 40 a day after All Out bout first drew national notice.
Satterley, also known earlier in his career as Adrian Neville during a WWE run, had built a reputation as a high-level performer on both sides of the Atlantic before his AEW chapter. At 40, he was still active on the road.
The medical examiner’s office completed an initial autopsy. A spokesperson later told reporters the cause remains pending “additional testing.” No final determination has been released publicly in the reporting so far.
Police documented what they could see at the car: the open maps route to O’Hare, the saliva on the shirt, the redacted medication, the empty pockets and backpack of note, and the absence of obvious trauma or suspicious conditions inside the vehicle. They did not claim a cause. They left that to the medical examiner.
That gap is familiar in other sudden athletic losses, including cases such as a Massachusetts high school football star who died after a sudden brain hemorrhage, where families and fans wait on lab work before anyone can speak with certainty.
As of the latest police and medical examiner statements, no arrests have been described, no foul play has been alleged, and no toxicology or final cause has been made public. The incident report and the pending tests are what the public has.
When a working wrestler dies hours after a match and minutes from a flight home, the public is owed a clear cause, not redactions and open-ended testing with no end date attached.
President Trump has brought 24-year-old reporter Beni Rae Harmony onto his White House communications team after Karoline Leavitt left the press secretary post to spend more time with her young children.
Harmony is joining as Assistant Press Secretary and White House spokesperson, filling a communications role as the administration continues to staff up after Leavitt’s exit. She confirmed the move herself after reports that she had been pulled from Real America’s Voice, where she served as Senior White House Correspondent.
The Daily Mail reported the hire as part of a broader effort to beef up the president’s communications staff. No full replacement for Press Secretary has been named since Leavitt stepped away.
White House spokesperson Anna Kelly welcomed the addition in clear terms.
Kelly said:
"Beni Rae Harmony has been a trusted voice for the MAGA movement as a White House correspondent,"
She added:
"She will be an outstanding addition to President Trump's communications team as an Assistant Press Secretary -- we look forward to having her on board!"
Real America’s Voice Vice President Parker Sigg also marked the move with a public congratulations that Harmony reposted while celebrating the news on her X feed.
Sigg wrote:
"A huge congratulations to Beni Rae Harmony on her new role as Assistant Press Secretary and White House Spokesperson! As Senior White House Correspondent for Real America's Voice, Beni brought something extraordinary to our team every single day: relentless work ethic, sharp reporting, incredible energy, and a unique ability to connect with our audience from the front lines of the White House."
Karoline Leavitt, the youngest press secretary in American history, announced on August 12 that she would leave the White House to focus on family. She departed August 27. Her children are two-year-old Nico and four-month-old Viviana.
She later rejoined Trump Super PAC MAGA Inc, where she had worked as a spokeswoman before the 2024 campaign. The timing put her exit less than three months before crucial November midterms, with the top press secretary seat still open.
Leavitt told Fox her children are "just at a critical time in their life where they need their mom home a little bit more." On Morning in America she kept replacement talk quiet, saying the choice "is a decision that is entirely up to him" and that "there is definitely a list, and there's a lot of good people." She would not name names.
An unnamed insider told the Daily Mail the job collided hard with new motherhood. The source described "a constant stream of messages from him [during maternity leave] and it was overwhelming," adding that Leavitt "never got any sleep" and "didn't want her performance to slip either," so she stayed as long as she could. The same insider said the president "did everything he could to keep her."
Leavitt has been blunt about the trust Trump placed in her when others doubted her age.
She said:
"So many people told him when he was considering me for this job that I was too young,"
And:
"He ignored all the doubters and he gave me a chance. I am forever grateful to him for that. He is not only the best president our nation has ever had, but he is the best boss."
Harmony’s résumé tracks a fast climb through conservative media and local news. LinkedIn records show she worked as a producer and administrator for Turning Point USA from August 2021 to February 2022. She later worked at WICS-ABC20 in Springfield before joining Real America’s Voice in September 2025.
She said she resigned from the Springfield station after a suspension tied to a tear-stained on-air tribute to Charlie Kirk following his assassination. That episode pushed her deeper into the conservative media lane that put her outside the White House briefing room as a correspondent.
Trump’s interest was already visible before the hire became public. TMZ reported that on September 13 the president was seen aboard Air Force One reading a file on the reporter. The White House has not named a permanent Press Secretary successor even as it adds Harmony in the assistant role.
Female aides around Trump often draw instant partisan heat, much like when the White House answered a personal attack on aide Natalie Harp. Harmony now steps into that same high-visibility lane.
Leavitt’s exit fits a wider pattern of Trump-orbit figures weighing public duty against home life. Similar balancing acts show up when Usha Vance puts family first while keeping political options open. The communications shop still has to deliver every day, with or without a named Press Secretary.
Harmony arrives with on-camera experience, White House beat familiarity, and a record of working the MAGA audience from the front lines. At 24 she is young for the title, just as Leavitt was when Trump elevated her over the doubters. The difference is the open chair: Leavitt’s full press secretary job remains unfilled while Harmony takes the assistant and spokesperson lane.
Culture-war fights keep producing sharp public stands from people willing to take heat, as when Sophie Cunningham refused to back down on girls’ sports. Trump’s press operation is stocking people who already speak that language.
For now the White House has confirmed the hire, Harmony has accepted it, and the podium’s top seat is still waiting on the president’s call. The midterms are close. The briefing room does not run on autopilot. Trump is loading the communications bench with people who already know the movement’s voice, and he is doing it on his own timetable.
Police divers recovered the body of missing mother Catalina Hernandez from the Pacific after a medical helicopter crashed off Catalina Island, leaving three dead and two hurt.
Officials said Friday that rescuers had pulled the 45-year-old patient from ocean waters off Catalina Island, ending a long hunt for the last person still missing from the wreck.
The medical helicopter went down right after takeoff on Wednesday for reasons that remain unknown. Five people were aboard. Three died. Two were left recovering in a hospital.
The California Post reported that Hernandez was the final victim located after the crash. Police divers brought her body up from the Pacific.
Hernandez was being flown for care after an allergic reaction. Her family said she had eaten something that set it off. Her 20-year-old son rode along to help translate.
He survived. A medic also survived. Both were recovering in the hospital. The male pilot and a female nurse did not.
Sudden losses in the air have hit families hard in other cases too, including when a young passenger died after a medical emergency on a flight bound for Los Angeles.
REACH Air Medical Services operated the flight. The company later confirmed that two of its crew members were among the dead.
Finding Hernandez took a massive effort on the water. The Coast Guard said in a statement that authorities had to search more than 156 square miles over 23 hours before her body was recovered.
That kind of grind is familiar to crews who answer emergency calls and then face the worst possible outcome, much like the toll seen when two helicopter pilots were killed fighting a Utah wildfire.
On Thursday, REACH Air Medical Services shared a mourning statement with The California Post as the search continued and the human cost came into focus.
The company said:
"Today, the entire REACH family is grieving. This has been an incredibly difficult and emotional time for our organization, and our hearts are with everyone affected by this tragedy."
REACH also said its crews “dedicate themselves to helping people on what are often the worst days of their lives,” answer calls “at all hours,” and provide critical care “in moments of crisis,” while adding that “many questions remain” and speaking of “our commitment.”
A memorial service was held on Catalina Island for those lost in the crash. No cause had been publicly pinned down beyond the simple fact that the aircraft crashed right after takeoff.
Air ambulance work already carries serious risk, a point driven home again in coverage of a fatal New Mexico air ambulance crash that left families and investigators searching for answers.
Just weeks before the Catalina Island wreck, a news helicopter went down in Chatsworth while covering a bus collision. That separate crash killed three people, a bystander, a reporter, and a pilot.
Multi-victim crash scenes leave the same hard aftermath for first responders and relatives, whether the call starts on a runway or a highway, as in the case of a Sacramento County crash that killed five passengers.
Here, the known toll stayed stark and limited to what officials and the company put on the record: five people went up, three died, two reached a hospital, and a mother whose family sought emergency help became the last victim pulled from the sea.
When a medevac flight ends in open water, the families who trusted that crew should not be left with silence. The body has been found. The cause still has not.