Wednesday, August 19, 2026

TODAY'S TOP MADDOWBLOG POSTS

As another House Republican loses, Trump’s endorsement woes get even worse

For those keeping score, six Trump-backed Republicans have lost in primaries in just the last two weeks.

Latest polling shows Trump approval sinking despite his weird boasts

As one observer explained, “Historically, the single biggest factor shaping midterm elections has always been a president’s job-approval ratings.”

Speaker Johnson boasts about Congress’ productivity, despite its lack of productivity

For the House’s top Republican to keep pretending that Congress has been productive on a historic scale is to turn reality on its head.

Trump threatens to bomb a U.S. ally in the Middle East, contradicting Rubio

“The president is making U.S. policy friendlier to North Korea and Russia than Canada and Oman,” Hillary Clinton said. “Are you kidding me?”

OTHER STORIES ON OUR RADAR

"The Senate GOP campaign arm, in a private memo to top AI companies, warns that toxic views of U.S. data centers are killing the party's chances of holding a vital seat in Ohio."
(Axios)
"Slotkin told The Associated Press that Trump has been laying the groundwork to claim the midterms were stolen. She noted that Trump contemplated using the military to seize voting machines after his loss in 2020 and has deployed the National Guard to cities against the wishes of Democratic leaders. He also deployed active duty Marines to Los Angeles during his immigration crackdown in 2025.

“He’s very clearly laying the breadcrumbs to be able to say the day after the election that he didn’t really lose the House or he didn’t really lose the Senate,” Slotkin said."

Senator presses Hegseth, Caine for commitment to keep US military out of the midterm elections
(Associated Press)
"Republicans are struggling to reverse the damage President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda has done with voters.

With less than 90 days until the midterm election, the Trump administration has sought to keep Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials out of the headlines, pulling back on the high-profile, flashy raids in blue cities and minimizing public clashes with community members and protesters.

But new results from The POLITICO Poll show that half of Americans, including nearly a quarter of Trump’s 2024 voters, still say the president’s mass deportation campaign is too aggressive."
(Politico)
Exclusive: Trump admin reveals plans to hold 3,000 migrant children in massive new detention facility — Officials have outlined plans for ‘emergency influx facility’ campuses that can hold hundreds of unaccompanied minors
(The Independent)
Because rushing a Donald Trump vanity construction project never has a bad outcome...

Trump’s Ballroom Is Rising at Breakneck Speed: 20 Hours a Day, 7 Days a Week — Although the fate of the ballroom is tied up in court, the Trump administration argues that the project is too far along to be stopped now.
(New York Times)
Workers start latest repairs to Reflecting Pool liner, months after rehab began — The power washers, leaf blowers and brooms are back in use within the famed, drained basin.
(Washington Post)
"It’s time to familiarize yourselves with the names “Operation Puppet Master” and “Operation Keyhole.” If those nefarious phrases evoke to you the U.S. government’s domestic spying on leftist groups in the 1960s and 1970s, it’s for good reason. The terms are coinages of today’s Department of Homeland Security, and they’re associated with a massive covert surveillance effort that DHS unleashed earlier this year to track anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement protests in Minneapolis, where Donald Trump’s violent paramilitary invasion triggered months of intense civil conflict."
(The New Republic)
"The soldiers mostly responded to minor incidents in neighborhoods that are wealthier, whiter and less dangerous than the rest of the capital, Reuters found after comparing court records to the city’s demographics and crime information. Reuters could find no reference in court records to soldiers doing any kind of law enforcement in the neighborhoods where about 82% of the city’s 859 murders occurred over the past five years."

Trump put thousands of soldiers on Washington’s streets. They seldom stop crime
(Reuters)
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GOING BACK ON THE ROAD

We're taking a family trip to Texas!

Rachel and the gang are getting out of the studio heading to Arlington, Texas on Saturday, September 26th to hang out with the MS NOW audience.

This forthcoming Membership experience will bring MS NOW fans closer to our hosts and to each other, with real-time connections and exclusive content you can't get on-air.

Each ticket, with prices starting as low as $30, includes a special offer for one year of free access to MS NOW's new membership experience.

PRE-ORDER NOW!

Rachel has a new book!

"Department of Fate: The Promise, the Power, and the Collapse of America’s Most Consequential Institution"

comes out November 10 but you can pre-order now.

See MS.NOW/DepartmentOfFate for links and options to pre-order.