Just before 6:30 Central Time tonight, Donald Trump emerged from the parting curtains as “God Bless the USA” blasted from the speakers. In his hand, and up his entire arm, were red-and-white Make America Great Again hats that he stopped to throw at the audience on his way to the podium. Once there, he spoke for an hour and forty-five minutes, repeating the same stories he has been saying for weeks to distract us from the damning news stories that were just released.
He focused on important matters like telling the audience at the Lubbock Memorial Civic Center, in Texas, “I don’t like handsome young men.” When he heard a sound outside the building while he was talking, he stopped mid-word and asked, “Could that be Iran dropping something? Did you hear that? A lot of noise going on,” before telling the people in the audience that although everything is more expensive, we are in another never-ending war, and masked men are grabbing people off of our streets; he told them, “We are right now in the golden age of America. This is the golden age.”
But none of that could distract from the reality of what is happening around him. Over the past few days, we have learned even more horrifying details about what Donald Trump has spent the past decade trying to keep hidden from the American people and just how far he will go to protect himself from accountability and to keep unchecked power.
Yesterday, Jamie Raskin and the Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee released a very detailed investigative report about Donald Trump’s connection to his friend Jeffrey’s trafficking ring. They titled the report, “We Have Certain Things in Common, Jeffrey”: The Case Against Donald Trump Emerging in the Epstein Files and DOJ’s Desperate Efforts to Cover It Up. It includes interviews with survivors, FBI records, and documents released under the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
In the report, investigators examine evidence and accounts involving 11 women connected to Trump and Epstein’s abuse network, with 5 of them directly accusing Trump himself of horrific assaults while with Epstein. A former Miss Switzerland, Beatrice Keul, accused Trump of violently attacking her in 1993 at the Plaza Hotel in New York. Committee staff interviewed her about the alleged assault, and there are other women in the report who describe their own encounters that suggest that Epstein or Ghislaine Maxwell attempted to traffic them to Trump. It was very difficult to read through these accounts and imagine what these women must have experienced, and even more so to think about what it must be like for them to watch the man they have accused of these terrifying assaults be elected president of the United States.
The report also raises questions about whether Donald Trump and Paolo Zampolli, a former modeling agent, longtime Trump associate, and past U.S. special envoy who was just removed from that position earlier this month, worked with Epstein to traffic and abuse young women in the 90s.
It also alleges that the Department of Justice has been trying to cover up what happened by shutting down investigations and keeping evidence from the public. One of the most disturbing allegations is that Attorney General Todd Blanche personally stopped Ghislaine Maxwell from talking about a woman who connected Trump to Epstein’s abuse. If this is all true, it directly connects the very people who are supposed to investigate and prosecute these crimes with working to protect the president of the United States instead.
Every time we think we have seen the worst of what these files contain and what actually happened, the next thing we learn is even more disturbing. When this is all said and done, and the investigations actually happen, and all the pieces are put together, we may very well look back and see how everything that is happening today can be tied back to what happened all those years ago. This is what Trump and his enablers are trying to bury, and why the rallies have gotten louder and more absurd. It’s working too. Most legacy media outlets and journalists aren’t covering it because it can be dangerous to do so. Just look at what these brave survivors have been put through.
While Trump was on stage in Lubbock tonight throwing hats and cracking jokes about handsome men, Flavio Bolsonaro, the far-right son of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who lost Sunday’s presidential election, was, according to CNN, on his way to Florida. This was after Brazil’s Supreme Court had ordered him to surrender his passports within twenty-four hours as part of a money-laundering investigation. He didn’t comply, and his passports were canceled, yet he left the country anyway, seeking refuge in the US. The Trump administration confirmed that the United States would issue visas to Bolsonaro and his family.
The United States of America is now functioning as a safe house for authoritarians who lose elections and flee criminal investigations. This is who Donald Trump aligns himself with and where he wants this country to go.
Before Bolsonaro left, he had challenged the results and tried to have them annulled, and we also learned that Donald Trump may be planning the same thing if his party loses in the midterms. In a report published today by The New York Times, and confirmed by multiple other outlets, election officials across the country are preparing for possible federal interference in next week’s midterm elections. They are training poll workers on federal laws that restrict armed federal agents from appearing near voting locations. They are practicing responses to federal attempts to seize ballots or voting machines, including preparing legal documents and emergency court challenges that can be filed immediately. The Justice Department plans to deploy approximately one thousand election monitors, an unusually large federal monitoring operation, and states including California and Minnesota are preparing to observe those monitors. A group of approximately ten current and former national security officials has been privately advising officials in ten states on how to protect their own elections from their own federal government.
Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows told The New York Times, “This is the first time ever that we have had to engage in scenario planning to safeguard against potential federal interference in elections.” She added that the federal government now appeared adversarial toward the states.
A separate Associated Press report published yesterday says tens of thousands of volunteers have been trained to monitor polling places and report possible intimidation or disruptions. While this sounds alarming, and it is, it is also very encouraging. We should not be in a position in the United States of America where we have to go to such great lengths to make sure that our federal government doesn’t interfere with our elections, but the fact that all of these people are stepping up to protect our right to vote reminds us that there are far more people willing to protect our democracy than those trying to destroy it.
There was another concerning news story today. Reuters reported that the Federal Election Commission’s (FEC) electronic filing system was taken offline following attempted hacking, just seven days before the midterms. The FEC confirmed the outage but did not publicly say what caused it. While the FEC doesn’t run elections or count votes, it tracks the money flowing into political campaigns. With new reports unable to be filed online, Americans could be left in the dark about who is spending money to influence the election and where that money is coming from.
I know this is a lot. We are being inundated with disturbing news at every turn. When we step back and look at these stories and how they are all connected, they all come back to Donald Trump and how he really is ruling through fear and intimidation, with very little concern for the law or the people he is supposed to serve. A president who shelters people who try to overturn elections also tries to overturn elections. A convicted felon who has also been found liable for a horrific assault now faces even more serious accusations. The only way he can survive is to keep spewing lies and distractions with absolutely no impulse control whatsoever.
Donald Trump is vulnerable, and we have to keep the pressure on him, especially after the midterms. I know that between the nonstop political ads on TV, the ugly attacks some candidates have launched against their opponents, and the constant lies and cruelty coming from MAGA Republicans, we are simply exhausted and starting to tune it all out. I understand that. Sitting here day after day, night after night, I sometimes question whether I will be able to keep going, and I know others who are doing this work are feeling that too. I know many of you care deeply, but every day feels like déjà vu, and we all could use an escape from the constant barrage of lies, threats, and cruelty.
When I feel that way, I remind myself why I write these posts, and maybe that’s why you are still in this fight too, and part of the resistance. I don’t think that any of us are going to change the minds of Donald Trump’s most devoted followers, at least not right now. But we are here because we care about our country and the people in it. We care about how this is impacting the entire planet, and we want better for future generations.
Sometimes, knowing we aren’t alone in feeling this way helps us find the strength to keep going. I write each night for the people who see what is happening and sometimes feel completely alone. For those of us who are exhausted and frustrated and angry, but who know in our bones that we cannot stay quiet in the face of what is being done to our country. I write because beneath all of the propaganda and the lies, the truth is still the truth, no matter what Donald Trump or his enablers say or do.
I write because I hope these nightly posts will become a lasting record of what happened and how close we came to losing our democracy. But maybe even more importantly, how we all looked at what was happening, stood up to the authoritarian in the White House, even while under great threat, and took back our country from this evil takeover. Maybe decades from now, these posts and all the comments will be seen, and someone will recognize the signs of another rise of authoritarianism and see them for what they are. Maybe people will rise up earlier and stop it before this same damage can be done.
Above all else, maybe it’s enough for us to be able to look our children and grandchildren in the eye, and know that we could have stayed quiet and instead we chose to speak out and take a stand.
Seven days from now, we have the chance to change the direction of this country, and thanks to thousands and thousands of people who are working around the clock right now to plan for whatever Trump throws at us, we will still be able to have our voices heard and our votes counted. History will remember how we faced this moment. It will remember that we never gave up on ourselves or our country. That is why I still have hope for America. And you should, too.
I’ll see you tomorrow,
Heather
PS. You can make a significant difference right now by subscribing to my Substack. Your support helps me cover more ground and keep telling the truth about the lies and destruction unfolding in this country.
This commentary represents my personal opinions and analysis of matters of public concern, informed by publicly available information. Any references to individuals constitute opinion and commentary protected under the First Amendment.
Picture of the day: We dropped our ballots off this afternoon. We had planned to do it a couple of days ago, but other things came up, which is a good reminder to vote as early as possible because life has a way of throwing unexpected things our way, and in this election, we can’t afford to miss the chance to have our voices heard. I realized after we left that I forgot to take a picture of us dropping off our ballots like I normally do, but I did take a picture of the view from the drop-off location, so at least we have that to remember this day.
Links to sources used in writing this article:
President Trump holds midterm rally in Lubbock, Texas: YouTube Video
https://democrats-judiciary.house.gov/media-center/press-releases
https://time.com/article/2026/10/26/house-democrats-unveil-new-details-from-trump-accuser/
https://www.yahoo.com/news/world/articles/brazil-wonders-where-earth-flavio-154803613.html
https://www.cnn.com/2026/10/27/americas/flavio-bolsonaro-brazil-passports-latam-intl
https://www.newsweek.com/federal-election-commission-offline-hacking-attempt-12626720
https://maristpoll.marist.edu/polls/u-s-midterm-elections-october-2026/
https://www.npr.org/2026/10/25/nx-s1-6016299/brazil-lula-bolsonaro-election
Thank You Heather.
My day always starts with reading your post which arrives earlier due to time difference in UK. You have done Sterling work over these past months keeping us all up to date and informed.
I shall never ever understand how Trump has got away with the violence and horror he has inflicted on USA without any pushback from his own party. Are they all villains?
Do they have families and children? Can they honestly ( I use the word advisedly) say they are proud and happy with what America is becoming under Trump ? Is it money that leads them or the power of office or are they like Elon Musk drunk on the heady gas of never looking below the parapet at the little people ?
Well here is my battle cry - rise up and vote people and get rid of these nasty vicious despicable money laundering criminals, so you can fill your jails with them and get rid of the concentration camps run by thugs.
REMEMBER THIS: TRUMP ONLY LIES. COMPULSORY