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State of Play: All Smiles
For a while there it seemed like there might not be anything more Donald Trump could possibly do to drive his party’s ratings into the ground ahead of the midterms. But no. Not content merely to embrace AI acceleration at the very moment that American rage at the industry boiled over, Trump decided to invite the big players to the White House for a day-long hang, live on camera.
The official reasons for the gathering were the launch of America.gov [ [link removed] ], an AI chatbot that can answer questions for you about US government services, and the signing of an executive order directing federal agencies to start using the terms “super intelligence” and “SI.” (I asked the chatbot whether it was super intelligent, and it answered, “No. I am America, a government information assistant …”) The leaders also agreed to a kind of non-doom treaty. The “White House Accord on Super Intelligence” [ [link removed] ], appears to have been thought up [ [link removed] ] by Mark Zuckerberg at the state dinner for Xi Jinping the other night. It calls on AI companies to voluntarily “implement robust internal controls.” How comforting.
It seems like the real purpose of the event, though, was to let Trump solidify his image as the figurehead of the massively unpopular technological displacement now underway, and of course, to be rewarded for it in the form of public praise from the very rich men (they were nearly all men [ [link removed] ]) who stand to benefit most. The vibe was so jolly that when the group spoke to reporters on the North Lawn afterward, Trump let it rip with even less discipline than usual, serving up all kinds of new sound bites for Democratic ad-makers and influencers to use. “The data centers are incredible,” he said [ [link removed] ], in between whispered jokes to Zuckerberg and others. “And by the way, I’m very good at real estate. Some of those buildings are absolutely beautiful. They’re big, strong, powerful buildings, but they’re beautiful, and they add greatly to a community.”
I’ve been having some internal conflict these last few weeks about whether to hope that Congress would get off its ass and take action to protect us all, or whether it would be better for the issue to hang unresolved over the midterms as a proof point for why Trump needs a counterweight. Overtaken by events, as they say: yesterday, Senate Democrats voted to block [ [link removed] ] vulnerable Ohio Senator Jon Husted’s message bill on data centers, and both chambers are now out of session until after the election.
The proof point is operative. Trump, I’m sure, is thrilled.
What We’re Watching
Today we’re back to normal with Jon in the studio and Dan remote. Later today we’ll tape an interview with Rev. Adam Hamilton [ [link removed] ], the Democrat who’s giving Roger Marshall a serious run for his money in the Kansas Senate race. I’m often too busy with scripting to listen in on interviews that tape the same day as the show, but I’m going to make time for this one.
Here’s what we’re thinking for news blocks, in addition to the White House AI summit:
Main character energy. Trump appears to have decided to inject himself into midterm races around the country, though the campaign swing he’s launching today sticks to what’s supposed to be safe red territory. Trump will hold an event [ [link removed] ] at a truck plant in north Texas this afternoon, where he’s expected to be joined by struggling Senate candidate Ken Paxton, who was caught telling [ [link removed] ] donors behind closed doors that the GOP midterm convention in Dallas did more harm than good. Trump’s heading also heading to Oklahoma [ [link removed] ] and Alabama [ [link removed] ] before a stop in Ohio [ [link removed] ] on Saturday. Republican operatives wish [ [link removed] ] he’d stay home.
Congress gives up. Senators headed for the airport [ [link removed] ] last night after Democrats blocked the Husted bill, and the House is long gone, meaning Republicans won’t have any more accomplishments to run on in the final few weeks. Even a proposed ban [ [link removed] ] on stock-trading by members couldn’t get over the line. Instead, Republicans used one of their final days in session to grill one of Trump’s favorite enemies, former Special Counsel Jack Smith, but even that turned [ [link removed] ] into an inept farce. As you probably saw, Republican Sen. Eric Schmitt botched an attempted gotcha moment about prosecutorial collusion and secret basketball tickets, apparently because he mixed up the Atlanta Hawks and the Iowa Hawkeyes. Nothing but net!
Old wars, new wars. The last remaining American troops left [ [link removed] ] Iraq on Wednesday after more than two decades of nearly continuous presence there, and hundreds of thousands of lives lost [ [link removed] ]. Trump took credit [ [link removed] ] for the decision on Truth Social, writing: “I had a choice to stay or to leave, and felt, without question, that it was time for America to go home!” Meanwhile, Pete Hegseth delivered a campaign-style speech [ [link removed] ] at the Pentagon, strutting the stage as he promised, among other things, “no fatties, no trannies, no beardos, no weirdos, no wimps, no radicals,” in the force.
Open Tabs
This week’s open tabs: a look at the factions battling over Maine Senate candidate Troy Jackson, a searing essay about segregated education, and a disquisition on the gods of AI by our very own Jon Favreau.
New York Magazine [ [link removed] ]: The Accidental Candidate. I’m suddenly hearing a lot of buzz about this profile of Maine Senate candidate Troy Jackson, from the always-excellent Rebecca Traister, looking at the warring forces around and inside the outsider’s campaign. A political journalist characterized it to me yesterday as the beginnings of the blame game in the event that Jackson doesn’t pull it out against Susan Collins. A more positive frame would be this: what happens when a relative nobody gets thrust into a high-profile race with only months left to go?
The New York Times [ [link removed] ]: In Fighting for Every Black Child, Did I Betray My Own? In 2016, Nikole Hannah-Jones published an acclaimed essay about choosing to send her daughter to a high-poverty, highly segregated public school in Brooklyn. Last week, she published a ten-year follow-up, detailing in harrowing, personal terms what the decision had actually meant for her daughter, now a high schooler. This one is whipping around New York City parent communities, but it asks hard questions of all us as participants in a profoundly broken system. Don’t miss it.
Jon Favreau [ [link removed] ]: Bunkers Won’t Save the Billionaires. I try not to be a shill for the hosts, but when Jon feels strongly enough about something to nuke his schedule and go into writing mode, it’s always worth reading. Here he looks at the AI titans and their drive for self-enrichment and self-preservation at everyone else’s expense. I’m enjoying it so far, but I wonder what I’d say if I weren’t. Interesting thought experiment.
Question(s) of the Week
We got a bunch of fun questions from the subscriber Discord this week (reminder that submitting questions is just another perk of being a paid subscriber!) and I’m taking a few, starting with two on a similar topic: how we decide which stories to cover...

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