Desperate for Distraction

October 13th, 2026. This afternoon, the President of the United States posted two videos of lions and tigers attacking humans. Either, he has entirely lost it or he is desperate for a distraction or both. It turns out the attacks on Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Taloriko were probably an attempt to get ahead of yet another damaging story about Trump's hand-picked Republican Texas Senate candidate Ken Paxton. Yesterday, Elizabeth Findell, Mark Marimont, and Josh Dawsey of the Wall Street Journal reported that Paxton spent New Year's Eve in 2024 in Dubai, partying with a woman who was not his wife, along with two fugitives from U.S. justice. Although Vice President JD Vance and other members of the administration have vowed to remove more than 760,000 enrollees from the Affordable Care Act, citing widespread fraud, the fugitives with whom Paxton was hanging out were wanted on federal health care fraud charges. They allegedly embezzled $15 million from a Chicago hospital, and one of them was charged with receiving at least $195 million from the U.S. government for fraudulent COVID-19 tests. One of the men donated $190,000 to Paxton, 25,000 of it, after he was indicted. On Philip Kowski of Midas News posted, "JD Vance running around the country saying he's fighting health care fraud, while his nominee for the Senate in Texas, who he completely supports, is partying in Dubai with a guy who stole over 300 million in health care fraud and gave Paxton $190,000. This is the Republican Party." Meanwhile, although the administration has boasted that it is cracking down on fraud in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program by cutting benefits, ProPublica reported today that the real fraud comes from criminal syndicates, often from Romania, who last year walked away with $470 million stolen electronically from more than $990,000 households. The theft could be stopped with digital microchips, but Congress has refused to add them to the benefit cards. Now, the Trump administration has stripped funds allocated to address the theft. Diesel prices jumped today, as traders appeared to doubt Trump's abandonment of Russian sanctions will do much for prices in the U.S. Steve Copack of NBC News noted that U.S. diesel futures were up about 5 percent by mid-day. Generally, a jump in futures prices means higher consumer prices are forthcoming. The price of diesel is up 70 percent since the war on Iran began on February 28. Golf oil advisor Tom Closa posted, "Absolutely stunning price spikes in wholesale diesel today. Market clearly not believing that Russian oil is on the way." He added, "U.S. retail diesel price record of $6.53 a gallon could be topped by the midterms." As Barbara Sprunk reported at NPR, a bipartisan group of senators is pushing back on Trump's lifting of sanctions, calling it a betrayal of the people of Ukraine. Democratic Senators Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Chris Coons of Delaware, Dick Durbin of Illinois, Jack Reed of Rhode Island, Jean Shaheen of New Hampshire, and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island. Joined Republicans, Alan Armstrong of Oklahoma, Susan Collins of Maine, John Kornin of Texas, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Tom Tillis of North Carolina in asking Trump to rescind the deal. The deal you struck with President Vladimir Putin on October 9th will not achieve just ends, nor will it benefit Americans, they wrote. It only provides Putin with more fuel to finance his war machine and enables Russia to continue its brutal attacks on Ukrainian civilians. During Moscow, the ability to sell Russian diesel freely in global markets damages American security interests, and as a betrayal of the people of Ukraine, who continue to defend themselves from Putin's murderous illegal war. This deal is a gift to our adversary and a betrayal of our allies. It should be rescinded. The senators emphasized that with last month's Lindsey O. Graham sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026, Congress had tasked Trump with applying economic pressure on Russia, not with easing that pressure. When asked about the letter, Trump told reporters, "Nobody's telling me anything, that's a diesel deal, not for us, that's being released into the world, that's not being released to us, it's a diesel deal that's going to be released into the world for the world market, because the world market suffered with high prices." Ukraine President Vladimir Zelensky said Ukraine got no warning from its western partners about Russia's overnight strikes on the capital, raising concerns that Trump is making good on his threat to stop sharing intelligence with Ukraine unless it stops striking Russian oil refineries. Trump today told reporters that the U.S. is still sharing intelligence. Trump's new White House press secretary held her first press conference today. Observers called it "brutally bad" and compared it to a Saturday night live cold open. Katie Zachariah revealed that she is fiercely loyal to Trump and that she is neither a competent reader nor comfortable answering questions. She's broke today that Trump overrode his chief of staff, Susie Wiles, to give the position to Zachariah, a leak that Jen Rubin of the Contrarian speculated had come from either Wiles or an ally, to prove she was right. Ouch. Judd Legham of popular information who uncovered Zachariah's history of pushing conspiracy theories. Today noted that while Trump calls her an attorney and she describes herself that way, there is no record that she ever passed a bar exam or has been admitted to practice law in any state. When reporters asked her about where she had passed the bar exam, she answered, "I moved to China." Zachariah did say in today's press conference that we have asked Ambassador Gilfoyle to resign. Kimberly Gilfoyle has been embroiled in a story about shaking down a donor to pay off $100,000 of her credit card debt, and she did, in fact, resign her post as the U.S. Ambassador to Greece today. In a social media post, she defended her tenure in Greece and promised to vigorously defend my name, my reputation, and my integrity. While my time as Ambassador may be coming to an end, my commitment to President Trump, the America First Movement and the country I love, will never end, she posted. Trump later told reporters that Gilfoyle, who dated his son Don Jr. for six years and was engaged to him for four, wasn't a member of my family. She, I guess, dated my son a long time ago. A new poll conducted by the Associated Press Nork Center for Public Affairs Research found that almost six in ten Americans say they believe Trump is either illegally profiting from the presidency or doing something unethical but not illegal. Jordane Karney and Mia McCarthy of Politico reported today that Republicans are worried not only about how much work Congress needs to get through after the midterms, but also about whether Republicans will even bother to come back to vote after the election. Attendance is an issue right now, representative Austin Scott, a Republican of Georgia, told Karney and McCarthy. Letters from an American was written and read by Heather Cox Richardson. It was produced at Soundscape Productions, "Death of Massachusetts," recorded with Music Composed by Michael Moss.