Letters from an American - Radicalism

Episode Date: October 13, 2026

October 12, 2026Billionaire Elon Musk has put at least $366 million into trying to elect Republicans in the midterm elections, Republicans are publishing material accusing Democrats of being radicals, But it is the right that is radical, attempting to consolidate power in the hands of a few, The administration conducted a raid on the home of a sitting congressperson for a baseless reason, The raid occurred within the period before an election - when the Department of Justice normally does not take steps that might influence the outcome, The administration is attempting to intimidate Democratic representatives in a direct assault on democracy, Trump and his loyalists are trying to divide the country on old culture war lines, and becoming more extreme in their actions and their ads, They are distorting the truth, as with the claim that James Talarico had suffered a breakdown for which he was admitted into treatment in Ohio, a story that fell apart quickly, Trump’s promises are being revealed to be false, The administration has ignored a court order to stop running Trump's ads, just as it ignored a court order not to make irreversible changes to the East Potomac Golf Links course by cutting down more than 400 trees there, And Trump’s announcement that Russia and Ukraine had agreed to an “energy ceasefire” is a lie, The Pentagon quietly raised the number of US service members killed and injured in the Iran War, The US military is drawing up plans for another round of combat operations in Iran. To read this letter, click here:Listen on Apple PodcastsListen on SpotifyYou can also find Heather at:YouTubeBlueskyInstagramFacebookThreadsTikTok Get full access to Letters from an American at heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/subscribe

October 12, 26. Billionaire Elon Musk has already funneled at least $366 million into the midterms to try to make sure voters elect Republicans. Theodore Schleifer of the New York Times reported today that Musk has put more than $276 million of that money into groups and political action committees just since July. More than $76 million has gone into his own super PAC, which, is focused on seven Senate seats in battleground states and more than 30 House races. Shleifer notes that this is just the money that law requires must be disclosed. Sources told Schleifer that in both this election and in 2024, Musk has made seven-figured donations to candidates through so-called dark money groups, ones that aren't required to disclose their donors. Adam Wren, Meredith Lee Hill,

and Will Staken of Politico report that Trump's super PAC, MAGA, Inc., is coordinating with other super PACs to try to salvage the Republican's control of the Senate. The Republican Senate Leadership Fund has poured close to $100 million into Ohio alone to defeat former Senator Sharon Brown and is expecting to dump close to $200 million into Texas to defeat James Talarico. It's also throwing money. at Iowa to defeat Josh Turrick, at Alaska to defeat Mary Peltola, at Michigan to defeat Abdul al-Said, and even at Kansas to defeat Adam Hamilton. Among other projects, Musk's money is

producing literature accusing Democrats of being radicals. And yet, the real radicalism in American politics today comes from those like Musk, those on the right who are consolidating the power of the government and the money of the American people into their own hands. Musk's businesses depend on government contracts after all. Contracts, a Democratic-run Congress, would likely revisit. That right-wing radicalism was on full display this morning when agents from the Department of Homeland Security conducted a pre-dawn raid on the Washington, D.C. home of Representative Elon Omar, a Democrat of Minnesota.

According to the Fox News Channel, which appears to have been read into the raid ahead of time, the Justice Department claimed that the search stems from a criminal fraud investigation over immigration paperwork filled out by her late father in the 1990s when Omar was a child. Not only is it unlikely that evidence of a potential crime committed when the Congresswoman was a child would be in her Washington, D.C. residence decades later, but also, as legal analyst Joyce White Vance noted, to state what's obvious to prosecutors here, we are within the period before an election

where the Department of Justice doesn't take overt steps in an investigation that might influence its outcome. Another hard norm out the window. More to the point was the comment by Mark Jacob of Stop the Presses, noted, this search was conducted by the Homeland Security Department, where lying and harassment are routine. Indeed, this latest attack on Omar follows Trump's social media post of last Thursday when he urged the people of Minnesota to fight back against Minnesotans of Somali

heritage. Representative Tom Emmer of Minnesota, a MAGA Republican, promptly echoed Trump, referring to Somali Americans as enemy combatants and complaining that Democrats were not rounding them up and putting them in jail. This new attack on a Democratic representative is the second attempt of the administration to cow Democratic representatives. It has an ongoing case against New Jersey representative

La Monica McGiver, whom it accuses of assaulting immigration agents in a skirmish outside of Delaney Hall Detention Center, in which no one was hurt. If McGiver is convicted, she faces up to 17 years in prison. Both Omar and McGiver are women of color. The attempt of the president to arrest and imprison his political opponents in the legislative branch is a direct assault on our democracy. Indeed, the administration is trying to make their opponents live in a government. and fear. The latest target of their ire is Cassidy Hutchinson, the former aid to Trump's first-term

chief of staff, Mark Meadows. Hutchinson was working in the White House in the weeks when Trump was trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election, and she testified before Congress about Trump's behavior during that time. Federal prosecutors are trying to get a grand jury in Washington, D.C., to indict her for perjury. As the attack on Omar shows, in their attempt to grasp complete control of the country, Trump and his loyalists are working hard to divide the American people along the old culture war lines that worked in the past. But Americans are concerned primarily about the economy as the war on Iran drives prices upward, so Republicans are becoming more and more extreme in their actions and their ads.

As Morgan Trow of WEWS wrote in a piece reprinted by the Ohio Capital Journal, an ad paid for by the Senate Leadership Fund featuring a woman who accuses Ohio Senate candidate Sherrod Brown of pushing transgender surgeries on minors like her, and who in another ad claims she had surgery without my parents' consent as a kid, actually shows a woman from 10. Texas, who had gender-affirming surgery in that state as an adult. She has no connection to Ohio, where such surgery on minors is illegal. Brown's statement on health care was that he believes families and their doctors, not politicians, should make health care decisions. An even more extreme meltdown took place over the weekend, as MAGA tried to insist that Texas Democratic candidate James Talarico had suffered a mental breakdown. and had been admitted to a treatment facility in Ohio.

As Will Summer and Andrew Eger of the bulwark explained yesterday, MAGA influencers Nick Sorter and Rain Amacher claimed they had proof that Tala Rico had been at the Lindner Center of Hope in Mason, Ohio. They claimed they had a tape of a Lindner employee telling them over the phone that Tala RICO had just been released. With Musk pushing it, Sorter's social media post, alleging that proof garnered millions of views within hours. But, predictably, the story fell apart fast. Neither the logic. Why would Talariko go to Ohio for medical treatment rather than stay in Texas, nor the timeline. Talarika was out in public in Texas

during the time Sorter suggested he was in treatment? Made sense. then Summer and Egg got access to the full recording of the alleged proof. It showed a mocker lying to the Lindner employee to get her to expose private health information. It also showed her repeatedly denying that anyone named James Talariko was in the system. On Sunday night, the Lindner Center publicly announced that Talariko had never been treated there. Talariko himself posted a laughing emoji beside the information that he's never even been to Ohio. To a reporter, he added his own assessment of his opponent's health.

I've heard credible reports that Ken Paxton has a serious medical condition that causes clinical levels of cowardice and noted that Paxton has refused to debate Talariko about actual issues. Some are in Eager note that while HIPAA, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act says medical providers can't disclose patients' information. It also penalizes individuals who try to get that information improperly, imposing heavier penalties for those who commit that offense under false pretenses.

Those who access that information for commercial advantage, personal gain, or malicious harm can be fined up to $250,000 and be imprisoned for up to 10 years. A mocker later told Jesse Single that he did not do any after-the-fact fact-checking work and pointed to the fact that he's a political advocate, not a journalist, and is therefore held different standards. Trump's choice of Katie Zachariah on Friday to become the new White House Press Secretary illustrates that the administration is fully committed to pushing its dominance through disinformation. As Jud Legham explained yesterday in popular information, Zachariah is a conspiracy theorist who pushed the Pizza Gate conspiracy,

the lie popular in 2016 that leading Democrats and Hollywood figures were sexually trafficking children and engaging in cannibalism in an organization run out of a Washington, D.C. restaurant. As Legham notes, Zachariah was relatively obscure before Trump tapped her. Her major qualification is that she posts a lot on Trump's social media site and has worked as a senior communications advisor for the site. On Saturday, Trump told the crowd in Clarksville, Tennessee, there's such love, like, I mean, it's amazing. When you stand up here, it's just like the love. I could say the stupidest things and you'd clap me. He claimed that, in fact, what he does say is things of common sense

and called for renaming the Atlantic or the Pacific Ocean, either Trump Ocean or Ocean of the Americas. Media figures are increasingly showing that Trump's promises are false. Although Trump suggested after public outcry about $20 million in tax dollars going to his ads promoting himself, that he would pay for them. The ads were apparently paid for with money Republicans in Congress allocated to the Department of Homeland Security. When asked on CBS's Face the Nation Sunday about a reimbursement for taxpayers, Department of Homeland Security

Mark Wayne Mullen answered, Anytime we can do a public service announcement and brag about America, I'm all about it. I think 99% of the coverage from President Trump is negative. I commend the opportunity of President Trump to give us the opportunity to brag about America. So, no reimbursement, host Margaret Brennan concluded. Last night, U.S. District Judge Jennifer Rocheon ordered the administration to immediately stop running the ads, which have been running on national media for two weeks, saying they likely exceed the purposes authorized by Congress and violate restrictions on publicity and propaganda.

Kyle Cheney of Politico explained that the administration tried to avoid a ruling on the legality of the ad campaign by saying it was going to stop after Sunday. Scott Nover, Aaron Schaefer, and Eva Walsh of the Washington Post reported that the administration ignored the order and continued to run the ads today. The administration also appears to have ignored the law on Saturday when it felled more than 400 trees on the East Potomac Golf Links course that Trump wants to turn into another of his projects. U.S. District Judge Anna C. Rays had previously warned the administration not to make any irreversible changes to the landscape, but she did not forbid it from doing maintenance work.

The administration maintains the Saturday cutting was routine management. maintenance. Reyes was furious telling the administration's lawyers she didn't know how she could have made it any clearer that she was trying to stop it from doing precisely what it did. She warned that the government had lost all credibility with her. The administration's lawyer said they still planned to cut several hundred more trees. Trump's announcement on Sunday that both Russia and Ukraine had agreed to an energy ceasefire has also been exposed as a devastating lie. At the time, Ukraine said it had heard nothing about any such plan until it appeared on social media, and Russia promptly attacked Ukrainian power plants. Foreign Affairs journalist Anne Applebaum wrote today in the Atlantic

that Trump's dropping of sanctions against Russian oil looks like an abrupt, hail-marry attempt to force Ukraine to surrender and to save the Russian economy. Perhaps in order to finally complete the multiple business deals that the Russians are known to have discussed with American negotiators and others in Trump's orbit. Meanwhile, Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels have attacked Saudi Arabia's main airport, killing at least 20 people, including a U.S. national. Oil prices are rising again, and Trump is said to be considering joining the Saudi fight against the Houthis. On Friday evening, before the long weekend, the Pentagon quietly raised the number of U.S. service members killed in the Iran War from 18 to 21 and the number of wounded from 767 to 865,

updating the numbers that had been on the Defense Casualty Analysis System website since August. As John Ismay of the New York Times noted, when the Washington Post reported in September that the Pentagon was hiding the true numbers of those killed in the Iran War, Defense Secretary Pete Hegzith posted on social media, this is disgusting and fake. A complete lie. On Wednesday, Barack Ravid of Axios reported that the U.S. military is drawing up plans for another round of major combat operations in Iraq. Iran. Hegesith has named Elon Musk, who is pouring money into the midterms to Project Meridian, a group charged with plotting out the future of the American military. Identifying where the actual radicalism in American politics lies at this moment is important. Letters from an American was written and read by Heather Cox Richardson. It was produced at

Soundcape Productions, dead of Massachusetts, recorded with music composed by Michael Moss. Letters from an American was written by Heather Cox Richardson. It was produced at Soundscape Productions, Dead of Massachusetts. Recorded with music composed by Michael Moss.