- Rep. George Santos (D-NY), corruption expert.

The Republican Party is locked in a prison of its own making. 
 

• The GOP frontrunner for 2024 is a four-times indicted criminal, his party’s draconian abortion policies are hemorrhaging votes, and its elected representatives in the House are racing the country towards a government shutdown. Disgraced former president Donald Trump went so far as to explicitly call for a shutdown today. In lieu of embracing reforms that might make their party more functional, Republican strategists are hoping a bunch of lying, particularly about abortion, win back voters.
   

• Republicans in Virginia took the lead in lying about abortion with a campaign of straight-up falsehoods. A 30-second ad entitled “No Limits” parrots a talking point we’ve now heard repeatedly from GOP politicians in the wake of their Dobbs-related losses: that Democrats are seeking legislation to legalize abortion “up until the moment of birth.” It’s the natural evolution of the “late-term abortions” talking point that Republicans have used as a misleading “gotcha” for decades. But now, the GOP has taken such an extreme position on abortion that the only way they could dream up an equal and opposite extreme position is to create something entirely fictitious. Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) and other Republican politicians have even started using the nonsense phrase “post-birth abortion.” What they’re describing is infanticide, which obviously is (can you believe it?) already illegal. 
   

• Speaking of GOP lies, universities and government agencies across the country are overhauling or completely gutting research programs designed to counter the spread of online misinformation after a conservative legal campaign calling it an effort to “censor right-wing views” has proven infuriatingly successful. Led by absolute nightmare Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), Republicans have smeared programs that study and correct everything from  political lies to medical information online. It’s the disinformation version of right-wing attacks on campaigns against hate speech. Republicans moved forcefully against both because they are the main purveyors of both.

Where are Democrats in all this?
 

• Well, even with the Republican Party totally combusting, Democrats still have an uphill battle ahead of them. The need to get voters to see president Joe Biden as anything other than “old” is urgent. A major group called ProgressNow has concocted a $70 million dollar plan to make Joe Biden seem cool and help down-ballot Dems win the war for digital attention, using many tactics already employed by the right. At its core, it’s a big test of “Can we successfully divert voter attention from how old our guy is?” He has a shocking amount of substantive wins under his belt with just over two years in office, so we certainly hope so.
   

• The American Political Science Review will soon release a peer-reviewed, large-scale study of political advertising that could disabuse Democratic strategists of some of their commonly-held beliefs. The study found that “popularism” (the idea that political rhetoric around policy issues that poll well is crucial to political success) doesn’t help persuade voters as much as one would expect, nor does catering to identity politics. The study also found that “voters of all backgrounds were comparably persuadable” and responded similarly to the same messaging. The moral of the story seems to be that Dem campaign strategists need to experiment with as many advertising strategies as they can, because there is no consistent rule book to win voters. 
   

Everything’s going great! See you in 2024, which will undoubtedly be very normal and chill.

The second GOP presidential debate is coming up this Wednesday, September 27th, which means it’s time for another Friends of the Pod exclusive Group Thread! Join us on Discord for live reactions and commentary during the debate. Your favorite Crooked hosts and staff, including Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett, Tommy Vietor, Dan Pfeiffer, will be watching with you as this magical night unfolds. Will Vivek Ramaswamy incite another pile on? Will Ron DeSantis finally master the human smile? Will Tommy get drunk and start posting gifs? We’re on the edge of our seats. Don’t miss out. Subscribe to Friends of the Pod to join our Group Thread at Crooked.com/friends.

After 146 days, the Writers Guild of America, which represents almost 12,000 film and television writers, reached a preliminary labor agreement with the major studios on Sunday. The deal is expected to end the WGA strike, but the Screen Actors Guild strike remains ongoing. The three-year WGA contract still has to be approved by leadership as well as rank-and-file union members before it can take effect, but the negotiating committee seems enthusiastic. A statement on the contract from the WGA committee read, “We can say, with great pride, that this deal is exceptional — with meaningful gains and protections for writers in every section of the membership.” The studios, however, only released a statement saying “The WGA and AMPTP have reached a tentative agreement,” so you know they aren’t happy about it! Details of the agreement have yet to be made publicly available, but the union walking away feeling like winners and the corporations walking away seemingly kind of mad? That’s pretty nice.

Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) held an angry, defiant press conference on Monday and insisted he will not resign despite, you know, all the corruption and gold bars.

After being highly critical of the app—going so far as to call it “digital fentanyl”—longshot and Extremely Annoying GOP presidential-primary candidate Vivek Ramaswamy joined TikTok. 

Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) will debate Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) on Fox News on November 30. Let’s goooooooo! (Where are we going? It’s hard to say. But we’re excited to get there.)

The financial services firm Moody’s declared on Monday that a government shutdown would be “credit-negative” for the United States. Yeah, you think?

British police are investigating comedian Russell Brand following sexual assault allegations.

China is reportedly in a major economic decline, but the country’s authoritarian government makes getting accurate information regarding its economy very difficult. We do know that economic growth in China is slowing. On Monday, the European Union agreed to resume talks and create dispute settlement resolutions to remain a part of China’s “success story,” despite ongoing economic concerns. For more in-depth analysis, I spoke to Crooked Media’s foreign affairs contributor Max Fisher, who had this to say:
 

The EU trade commissioner's visit is meant as a warning that economic relations are seriously deteriorating. China's political climate is becoming very difficult for foreign businesses, more of which have had to leave. Its support for Russia's invasion of Ukraine is eroding European interest in working with Beijing. And its economic policies, geared toward exports over domestic consumption, are both depressing Chinese consumer demand for European goods and simultaneously threatening European firms, such as automakers, globally. Now that China's economy is in trouble, the upsides for Europe are even slimmer. It's hard to say whether Chinese leaders will listen, given their preoccupation with forestalling the more immediate economic crises they're facing right now. But the era when European leaders aggressively courted Beijing on trade looks to be over, at least for now.

If you want to hear more foreign policy hot takes, Max is a regular contributor to Pod Save The World.

The shredded lettuce in a double-double -- and the fruit filling in a donut are awesome! But they don't count against 5 servings of fruits and vegetables a day. I won’t nag you about your diet... But I will share that the Mayo Clinic says if you want to help prevent heart disease, lower blood pressure, and cholesterol...eat five servings of fruits and vegetables every day. That's why I take Field of Greens. Flu season is here and I trust Field of Greens to help me stay healthy. Field of Greens works fast. 

If you don't always eat right and exercise, join me and take Field of Greens. Let me get you started with15% off your first order. Visit www.fieldofgreens.com and use promo code CROOKED. 

Sens. John Fetterman (D-PA), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), and Peter Welch (D-VT) have called on Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) to resign over reports of corruption. To the rest of the Democrats in the upper chamber: what’s the hold-up???

The Biden administration announced a $1.4 billion influx of funding to improve rail safety and boost train capacity in 35 U.S. states.