Three things happened today that, on any other day in American history, would each be the only news story anyone talked about.

At the UN General Assembly, Trump addressed 130 nations with what sounded like a campaign rally, was met with silence where he expected applause, threatened to wipe Iran off the face of the earth for the sixth time during this war, and struggled visibly to read while threatening the most powerful weapon of destruction ever created. He also bragged about taking Venezuela's oil — which violates Section Two of the UN Charter, a document the United States wrote and signed — and threatened the International Criminal Court, likely because he's worried about being charged himself for the Iran war and the Caribbean fishing boat killings.

On the press ban: Trump banned CNN, MSNBC, and Politico from the White House with no written notice, no specific reason, and no time to respond — all three things required by law. The ban came after Natalie Harp showed Trump unflattering coverage from those outlets while the Vice President and Chief of Staff were both out of the building. By Monday all three outlets had joined a lawsuit. The entire White House press pool — including Fox News — boycotted in solidarity. The unveiling of the new White House helipad aired on Newsmax with no audio because there was no pool microphone within range of the President's mouth.

The judge assigned to the case is a Trump appointee who previously ruled against Trump when he tried to ban Jim Acosta from the White House during his first term.

Then the White House launched Trump TV: a 24/7 channel on the official White House website that opened with unlicensed clips from Breaking Bad, The Office, Seinfeld, Family Guy, The Dark Knight, SpongeBob, and The Simpsons — then cut to a replay of his Mount Rushmore speech. Grant explains what state media launching alongside a press ban actually means, even when the state media looks this stupid at first.

This episode is sponsored by Cozy Earth. Fall is almost here, but summer isn't done with us yet. Cozy Earth's bamboo sheets are temperature-regulating, so you're covered whether it's cozy sweater weather or 79 degrees at midnight for no reason. Use code MIMS25 at CozyEarth.com for 21% off and when you use that code, you're supporting the show.

Join the SaySo News App! SaySo is a brand new news app built for people who actually want to be informed, not just keep scrolling. No outrage-chasing algorithm, no AI slop, just vetted creators delivering fact-driven coverage you can get through in a few minutes a day. I'm one of the early creators on the platform, posting there alongside others I trust. Check it out and download SaySo

CHAPTERS:

0:00 The UN General Assembly begins. Trump addresses 130 nations. It was a doozy.

2:00 Context before the speech: the Iran war, the Strait blockade, Gaza genocide charges, Greenland, Xi meeting Thursday

4:00 "Our power is expanding," said in the room built after the last guy who said that started a world war

5:30 Trump brags about taking Venezuela's oil at the UN. That violates Section Two of the UN Charter.

7:00 The ICC threat: why Trump hates it, and why he's probably worried about being charged himself

8:30 Trump tries to rebrand AI as "Super Intelligence," after polling his followers and ignoring the results

10:00 The sixth nuclear threat: threatening to wipe Iran off the earth while struggling to read at the podium

12:00 Why Grant tracks these health moments: he's the man with the nuclear codes

13:30 The press ban: CNN, MSNBC, and Politico banned with no notice, no reason, no due process

15:00 Natalie Harp's role: showing Trump bad coverage while Vance and the chief of staff were out of the building

16:30 The legal problems: Sherill v. Knight, Karem v. Trump, and why he's already told people he expects to lose

18:00 The pool boycott: Fox News joined. The helipad unveiling aired on Newsmax with no audio.

19:30 How White House press credentials actually work: day passes, hard passes, and the First Amendment

24:00 Trump compares himself to China on press freedom. Reporters Without Borders ranks China 178th out of 180.

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Only 18 of 435 House seats are genuinely competitive in 2026. That means 95% of Americans go to the polls for their House race with functionally one real option. It's not because the country is that divided; it's because politicians have been drawing their own districts in a nuclear arms race of gerrymandering that has no natural end.

Michael McNulty is the Policy Director of Issue One, the nonpartisan organization working to fix money in politics and make elections more representative. This week, a bipartisan group called the Problem Solvers Caucus introduced a four-bill framework to address gerrymandering at the federal level. It's not a full ban, but it's the most comprehensive package Congress has put forward in years, and it's the only path forward because the courts have closed every other door.

The four bills: ban mid-decade redistricting so parties can only redraw maps once per decade after a census, not whenever they feel like it; set national standards for what a valid congressional map looks like, including contiguity, compactness, and protection of communities of interest; reform who draws the maps through independent commissions rather than state legislatures drawing their own districts; and create a judicial fast-track for challenges so disputes get resolved before elections rather than after.

Michael and Grant also talk about what the president could actually do to interfere with the November election, the national emergency scenarios, ICE at polling stations, the gutting of CISA, and how prepared election officials and legal organizations are to respond. Michael's honest assessment: people should vote with confidence. The legal roadblocks to what's being threatened are real, and nine states have already passed laws specifically banning armed federal agents from polling places.

Issue One Voter Toolkit

Vote.gov

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Today is National Voter Registration Day. Go to vote.gov right now. Check your registration — if you've moved, changed your name, or missed a few elections, your status may have changed without anyone telling you. Find out your state's deadline. Make a plan for November 3rd. Vote.gov. Do it before you forget.

Last night the Supreme Court handed the Trump administration its biggest election loss in a 7-2 ruling that blocks the USPS mail-in ballot rule from going forward. The two no votes were Alito and Thomas. Kavanaugh wrote a concurrence agreeing with the ruling but, for the third time in a major case since Trump returned to office, included a roadmap for how the administration could come back and win this argument a different way. Grant explains what that roadmap is and why it matters for 2028.

Trump responded by attacking the justices he nominated, calling them "shells of the people I interviewed." For most of American history, presidents have accepted Supreme Court rulings they disliked. They have not publicly declared that their nominees were supposed to do their bidding. That is not how the law works.

On AI: the CEO of Anthropic published an essay this weekend warning that AI companies can no longer control their own creations and need government regulation. OpenAI agents recently broke out of an experiment, formed a group chat, hacked into another company to complete the task, and covered their tracks. Some predictions now say these companies could be building humanity-ending technology by 2035.

Trump's response: the only AI regulation we need is his brain. He knows this because Nvidia — the chip maker whose CEO is one of Trump's largest donors and whose stock makes up a significant chunk of the trades Trump has been illegally making while in office — doesn't want regulations. And because Trump personally needs AI to generate flattering images of himself when reality won't cooperate.

Meanwhile 65% of Americans oppose data centers in their communities, 57% say Trump is handling AI poorly, and 27% of American workers are worried about being replaced by technology — a 12-point increase in a decade.

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Twenty-five years ago today, Grant was eight years old, watching the second plane hit the second tower before walking to school. He didn't know what he was seeing. He just felt the fear coming off every adult around him.

Steve Cash felt it too, but from the inside. He was Senator Dianne Feinstein's lead staffer on the cluster of legislation that followed 9/11: the Patriot Act, the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. He didn't just help pass those laws. He helped write them.

Twenty-five years later, Grant asked him one question: did we build the right thing?

The answer is honest and complicated. The ideas had been circulating before the attacks. The fear was real and justified; Steve describes the weeks after 9/11 as "picture the first weeks of COVID but with bombs and terrorists." The intelligence community was genuinely convinced more attacks were coming and worse. And the laws they wrote, rushed as they were, appear to have worked: there hasn't been another 9/11-scale attack.

But something happened to the institution they built. DHS was created to protect the American people from foreign terror. It is now the agency conducting mass deportations, building voter databases out of illegally obtained data, and threatening state election officials with prison. Steve and Grant sit with that for most of the conversation, not to assign blame, but to ask an honest question about whether what DHS has become is a betrayal of why it was created, and what the families and survivors of 9/11 deserve from us on this anniversary.

This episode is sponsored by Cozy Earth. Fall is almost here, but summer isn't done with us yet. Cozy Earth's bamboo sheets are temperature-regulating, so you're covered whether it's cozy sweater weather or 79 degrees at midnight for no reason. Use code MIMS25 at CozyEarth.com for 21% off and when you use that code, you're supporting the show.

MAKE IT MAKE SENSE SUBSTACK

CHAPTERS:

0:00 Grant at eight years old watching 9/11: what he saw and what he felt

1:18 Why this conversation: 25 years later, was what we built the right response?

4:15 Meet Steve Cash again: the man who helped write the Patriot Act, DHS, and ODNI

5:46 What it was like on Capitol Hill in the weeks after 9/11: "Picture COVID but with bombs and terrorists"

7:33 Why fear is a bad way to write legislation, and why it was unavoidable

9:36 The ideas were already there: what had been circulating before the attacks and why that matters

12:00 The big three: Patriot Act, DHS, and ODNI — what each was actually trying to solve

16:00 The intelligence failure that made 9/11 possible: information that existed and wasn't shared

20:00 Did it work? There hasn't been another 9/11. That's a data point you can't ignore.

24:00 What DHS has become: from protecting Americans from foreign terror to threatening state election officials

28:00 The monster question: was DHS flawed from the start or has it been deliberately turned into something else?

32:00 Trump, democracy, and what happens when a system built on fear gets handed to someone who feeds on it

36:00 What the families and survivors of 9/11 deserve from the institutions built in their name

40:00 If there's an after: what accountability looks like and what we should learn from this, the way we didn't learn from 9/11

42:03 Steve's wedding ring says 9/11. He and his wife don't celebrate on this date. A note on what today means.

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Night one of the first-ever Republican midterm national convention in Dallas is in the books. Grant was watching so you didn't have to.

The arena was half full for most of the night and about 75% full during Trump's speech. Trump posted that it was sold out and beat the NFL season opener in ratings. The NFL numbers haven't been released yet.

Tim Scott delivered one of the most bizarre speeches in recent political memory, shaking, tearing at his jacket, on the verge of speaking in tongues while accusing Democrats of ripping out hearts like the villain from an Indiana Jones movie. Congressman Tom Emmer delivered a speech built around Islamophobia, connecting Ilhan Omar, Abdul El-Sayed, and Hasan Piker into a "communist Muslim" boogeyman, then played a 40-foot tall nearly-naked image of Piker on the jumbotron to demonstrate the threat. Democratic Senator Jon Fetterman (D-PA) appeared by video to attack members of his own party. A cabinet member attempted to physically shove a female speaker off the stage. That last one has barely made news.

Then Trump closed. He spoke for an hour and 45 minutes. He said, "Pretend I'm on the ballot again, please." Then he promised $5,000 to every American adult who votes Republican, which is to say a bribe of between $1.2 and $1.4 trillion that has no funding source. He has now promised $12,000 in various checks, dividends, and savings to every American since taking office. Not a single dime has been sent.

Grant's honest read: this might actually work. Labor Day is when low-information voters start tuning in for the first time in two years. What they'll hear sounds a lot like 2024. And new polling shows people who are least likely to vote are also least likely to approve of Trump, meaning the ceiling may be lower than it looks.

This episode is sponsored by Cozy Earth. Fall is almost here, but summer isn't done with us yet. Cozy Earth's bamboo sheets are temperature-regulating, so you're covered whether it's cozy sweater weather or 79 degrees at midnight for no reason. Use code MIMS25 at CozyEarth.com for 21% off, and when you use that code, you're supporting the show.

CHAPTERS:

0:00 Night one of the Republican midterm convention: Grant was watching so you didn't have to

2:00 The arena was half full. Trump said it was sold out and beat the NFL. The NFL numbers aren't out yet.

4:00 The two kinds of speakers: fawning over Trump and outlandish bigotry to fire up the crowd

5:30 Tim Scott on the verge of speaking in tongues: what happened and why it was unnerving

7:30 Tom Emmer's Islamophobia playbook: Omar, El-Sayed, Piker, and a 40-foot jumbotron image

10:00 Jon Fetterman addresses the Republican convention to attack his own party: what that means for the Senate

12:00 A cabinet member tried to physically shove a female speaker off the stage. It barely made news.

13:30

Sponsor: Cozy Earth

15:30 Trump closes: an hour and 45 minutes, his greatest hits, and "pretend I'm on the ballot again please"

17:30 The $5,000 bribe: where the money would come from, why the math doesn't work, and why it doesn't matter

19:30 $12,000 in total promises since taking office. Not a single dime sent.

21:00 Why this might actually work: Labor Day voters, the 2024 frame, and the exhaustion problem

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Something that has never happened in American history is underway in Dallas right now: the first-ever midterm Republican National Convention. Past midterm conventions have been about righting the ship, the party coming together, figuring out its message, getting organized. This one is about Trump. He is the keynote speaker both nights. The topics on the schedule are his policies, his accomplishments, his agenda. Senate Majority Leader John Thune is not attending. At least 70 congressional Republicans told Politico they weren't planning to go. Swing state candidates in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Iowa are staying home to campaign.

The ones who did go paid for the privilege. A single ticket for a member of Congress: $25,000. A roundtable with JD Vance: $75,000, plus $35,000 more for a photo with him. A photo with Trump: $89,000. A roundtable with Trump: $250,000. A leadership breakfast with Mike Johnson: $100,000.

There are now serious questions about where this money is going, specifically whether some of it is being funneled into Trump's MAGA Inc machine, which has been spending the bulk of its campaign cash on national ads about Trump rather than helping vulnerable Republican candidates in close races.

Before Dallas: the mail-in ballot rule got blocked again, the DOJ ran to the Supreme Court the same hour, the USPS Inspector General officially opened an investigation into the whistleblower's disclosure, and an appeals court blocked DHS from using a voter database a federal judge already said was built from illegal data. Canada's retaliatory tariffs went into effect targeting steel, aluminum, milk, cheese, and more — hitting Michigan hardest. And Trump posted AI images of himself as a Warhammer 40K emperor, a Space Force uniform based on Nazi SS costumes, and admitted on social media to trading stocks while in office.

Join the SaySo News App! SaySo is a brand new news app built for people who actually want to be informed, not just keep scrolling. No outrage-chasing algorithm, no AI slop, just vetted creators delivering fact-driven coverage you can get through in a few minutes a day. I'm one of the early creators on the platform, posting there alongside others I trust. Check it out and download SaySo.

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EDITOR NOTE: This episode was recorded before a federal judge in Massachusetts issued her ruling blocking the mail-in ballot rule.

North Carolina and Delaware started sending out mail-in ballots today. Two weeks from now, most other states will follow. And the USPS mail-in ballot rule that a whistleblower says was built to "catastrophically fail" is still being fought over in federal court, with the Trump administration asking the Supreme Court's shadow docket to let it go forward.

David Kligerman is the senior vice president and special counsel at WhistleblowerAid.org. He is the lawyer for the USPS whistleblower. This is his first extended on-record conversation about the case, how his client came forward, what they disclosed to Congress, and what happens next.

Among the details that have not been widely reported: the whistleblower found their way to Whistleblower Aid through a kind of underground railroad process, listening to a show like this one, reaching out, being passed along through trusted civil society contacts until they arrived at a law firm that could protect them. David says this raises a serious question: how many other people inside the federal government have something to disclose and simply haven't found a safe way out yet.

The episode also covers the broader landscape of whistleblowing under this administration: inspector generals gutted and weaponized against the people they're supposed to protect, the Office of Special Counsel neutered, the Merit Systems Protection Board dismembered, federal employment rules being rewritten to put protected positions into at-will categories. And what David thinks changes if Democrats win the House: subpoena authority, the ability to hold hearings, and what he expects will be a far more robust environment for disclosures.

If you work inside the federal government and have something to share: WhistleblowerAid.org. Conversations with attorneys are free, anonymous, and fully protected by attorney-client privilege.

USPS Whistleblower Disclosure

Make It Make Sense Substack: DHS Citizenship List

CHAPTERS:

0:00 Ballots go out in North Carolina and Delaware today. Here's why that matters right now.

2:46 Meet David Kligerman: SVP and special counsel at WhistleblowerAid.org, lawyer for the USPS whistleblower

2:58 How the USPS whistleblower found their way to Whistleblower Aid: an underground railroad through civil society

5:00 The bigger question: how many other people inside the government have something to disclose and can't find a safe way out

5:18 Nine months of Whistleblower Aid cases: ICE, Social Security, HUD, and what's still in the pipeline

7:30 The landscape for federal whistleblowers right now: inspector generals weaponized, Special Counsel neutered, MSPB dismembered

9:21 How the USPS whistleblower came forward and what they disclosed to Congress

14:00 What the disclosure actually says: haphazard development, zero failure protocol, court order violated

18:00 Congress is now asking for an investigation: what subpoena authority changes and why it matters

22:00 What David thinks a Democratic House means for whistleblower disclosures: a game changer

24:44 The "cavalry" effect: how the prospect of Congressional oversight is already encouraging more people to come forward

27:10 What you can do right now if you work inside the federal government and have something to share

29:32 WhistleblowerAid.org: free, anonymous, fully protected by attorney-client privilege

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The 2026 midterms are on track to be the most expensive in American history, $12 billion in ad spending alone, before counting what's sitting in PACs and super PACs. 100 billionaire families are contributing over 20% of total election spending. Most of it is dark money: you don't get to know who donated, why, or what they're asking for in return.

Tiffany Muller is the head of End Citizens United, the organization fighting to get corporate money out of elections. She's back on the show for the second time this cycle to break down where things actually stand with 60 days to go.

The most surprising finding from this primary season: candidates who pledged to reject corporate PAC money are outperforming candidates who took it. El-Sayed won in Michigan without PAC money. Angela Nixon won in Florida without PAC money, outspent 16 to 1. The data is suggesting that in 2026, the corporate money pledge may actually be a political asset rather than a liability.

Then there's the AI ads problem. AI is set to spend $150 million in this election cycle producing political content. In the final stretch before November, voters are already seeing a deepfake of Governor Kathy Hochul doing a walk-and-talk saying things she never said, a James Telerico ad placing him in a dress, and an LBJ-style Daisy ad remake. Minnesota banned AI in political ads. An outside group used an AI likeness of the Democratic candidate there anyway. Only three states have any law on the books at all.

And the Supreme Court just issued a new ruling, NRSC versus FEC, that opened even more floodgates for big money.

End Citizens United

Make It Make Sense Substack

CHAPTERS:

0:00 The most expensive midterm in history: $12 billion, dark money, and why Grant sat on this interview

2:05 Tiffany Muller: President of End Citizens United, back for her second appearance this cycle

2:42 Where things actually stand: still on track to shatter every spending record, and then the Supreme Court opened more floodgates

4:10 Michigan at $60 million, North Carolina and Ohio Senate races potentially hitting $1 billion each

5:09 Dark money explained: the shell company chain that makes sure you never find out who's actually paying

6:35 100 billionaire families contribute over 20% of all election spending: what that actually means for your vote

7:40 The corporate money pledge: why candidates rejecting PAC money are winning anyway

10:00 El-Sayed in Michigan, Nixon in Florida: the data from this primary cycle on no-PAC candidates

14:00 The NRSC versus FEC ruling: what the Supreme Court just opened up for big donors

18:00 Can you fix this system? What actual reform looks like and why it's harder than it sounds

22:00 The bipartisan case: this broken system hurts voters on both sides of the aisle

26:00 AI ads in the 2026 midterms: $150 million, deepfakes of real candidates, and only three states with any law

29:00 Kathy Hochul walking and talking. James Telerico in a dress. The LBJ Daisy ad. All AI. All real.

31:25 Minnesota banned AI ads. An outside group used an AI likeness of their candidate anyway.

33:46 What has to happen before November and what Grant will be tracking in 2027

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