GOOD MORNING, AND WELCOME TO OCTOBER; HERE’S WHAT’S HAPPENING: More fallout for ol’ "Hawkeye" Schmitt. MS NOW reported yesterday evening that the Missouri GOP senator who embarrassed himself at the Jack Smith hearing Tuesday got those text messages by Smith’s staff from Judiciary Committee staff with a warning that they weren’t vetted—and used them anyway. It’s quite a story. Schmitt showed no remorse Wednesday, apparently making fun of Smith for, you know, wanting to watch girls play sports: "I didn’t know he was a Caitlin Clark fan. Now we know."
WHAT’S A HUNDRED MILLION BETWEEN FRIENDS?: Donald Trump on Wednesday evening, speaking of the GOP midterm convention: "We had 107 million views. The NFL had 25 million views. So we had four times what the NFL did. It was the most watched thing on television. And that included the NFL, which is pretty amazing." Over the two nights of the convention, the NFL games broadcast those nights drew a combined 43 million; the convention, a combined seven million.
WE ARE THE 99.9 PERCENT?: New numbers from the Federal Reserve show that the gap between the merely rich and the really richer is widening. The top 0.1 percent of earners have seen their wealth more than double since 2019, reports The Wall Street Journal. That same top 0.1 percent, or roughly 137,000 households, now owns—wrap your brain around this—15 percent of the nation’s total wealth.
CO-PRESIDENT ZUCKERBERG: The "morally binding" agreement on AI signed by President Trump and tech execs at a White House lunch Tuesday was mostly written by Mark Zuckerberg, with an assist from Nvidia’s Jensen Huang. Other tech execs—Dario Amodei and Sam Altman, notably—have argued for more regulation, but for now, the industry will, uh, police itself. Donald Trump "truthed" his own view a couple weeks ago: "The only control or ‘guardrails’ that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the U.S.A. has that, in spades!"
OSSOFF ON O’DONNELL LAST NIGHT: Georgia Senator Jon Ossoff popped up on Lawrence O’Donnell’s show last night. Money quote: A "mighty wave is building. Because people’s lives have gotten worse. And all the while, they see the president sitting in the Oval Office, raking in billions of dollars for himself and the first family, adorning his walls in gold, and building monuments to himself. It is an obscenity and an outrage."
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Just how bad will Trump’s new labor secretary be? |
Senator Tim Kaine Finn Gomez/Getty
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On Wednesday, a party line vote of 47–41 confirmed Keith Sonderling as the head of the Department of Labor. To Democrats, it’s one step closer to advancing the Trump-era Labor Department’s anti-worker agenda.
Sonderling has served as acting secretary of labor since April, when President Donald Trump’s then–Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer resigned in disgrace amid allegations of—among other things—travel fraud and creating a toxic workplace environment. (In September, the Labor Department’s Office of Inspector General released a detailed report confirming the misconduct.)
Since Sonderling took over, he’s taken a number of actions that Democrats see as anti-worker. In May, the department rescinded an overtime rule adopted under former President Joe Biden. The department is currently trying to rescind a different Biden-era rule that addresses the classification of independent contractors. When Sonderling sat before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, or HELP, in July, Democratic senators grilled him on these issues and other controversies, such as Trump’s purge of federal workers and the firing of Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner Erika McEntarfer in August 2025 after a weak jobs report came out.
"You are not a bystander to this administration’s anti-worker policies and agenda," Senator Patty Murray of Washington told Sonderling at the time.
Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia, who also sits on HELP, told The New Republic on Wednesday that he wasn’t impressed with Sonderling and didn’t get the sense that he would steer the department away from its overall anti-worker bias under Trump. "I’ve been very disappointed with the first flameout of the first secretary," said Kaine. "I think the Trump administration’s Department of Labor is not really great for labor or for working people. I think it’s like a second secretary of commerce rather than a secretary of labor."
Senators are particularly concerned about how the potential secretary of labor would approach AI in the workplace in a moment of skyrocketing anxiety about AI and AI-related job replacement. "Part of what we want to see from them is understanding what the real impact of this is on job loss [and] job transitions," said Senator Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware, who served as her state’s secretary of labor in 1998. Data on how AI is affecting the workforce have been slim, and some lawmakers are trying to push the BLS to collect more. "How we do things at the Department of Labor needs to be modernized" to meet the AI moment, Blunt Rochester said. Meanwhile, Kaine told The New Republic on Wednesday that he wants to see the department focus on apprenticeship programs and workforce training for workers who could be affected by AI.
So far, the Department of Labor has done a handful of things to address AI. In his HELP committee hearing, Sonderling told Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri that the department had asked the BLS to examine data on AI and the workforce, but it appears that little has yet emerged from that effort. The department launched a "Make America AI-Ready" mini course, ostensibly to teach AI literacy to workers. Labor advocates were skeptical: "Does this [training] make workers’ jobs better or safer? Will it help people who want to find a job access high-quality, union jobs?" Lauren McFerran, executive director of AFL-CIO’s Tech Institute and a former chair of the National Labor Relations Board, said to NPR in April.
There are plenty of reasons why Senate Democrats weren’t eager to confirm Sonderling. His lukewarm response to current AI concerns appears to be just another drop in the bucket.
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Daniel Boguslaw asked every Democratic governor in the country a good question; the results weren’t encouraging … Brynn Tannehill argues that the American people may be down on Trump, but they’re still concerningly OK with his priorities … Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling on Pete Hegseth’s bonkers party favor for soldiers at his speech yesterday.
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The rush to enact statewide policies to lower fuel prices continues. A limited rundown of some of the happenings this week: In Indiana, Republican Governor Mike Braun on Wednesday extended a suspension on the state’s gas use and excise taxes through November 4, and suspended restrictions on what dyed diesel could be used for on farms. Only two days earlier, Democratic California Governor Gavin Newsom ended summer gas-blend requirements over a month ahead of schedule, while Republican Georgia Governor Brian Kemp temporarily suspended the state gas tax and Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott issued a 30-day disaster declaration in order to suspend various diesel restrictions on Texas roads. Ohio lawmakers voted Wednesday to suspend the state gas tax for 90 days, which both Democratic gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton and Republican Vivek Ramaswamy have said they support.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Wall Street banks’ estimates for gas prices in the coming months have risen, given the dwindling chances of a peace deal with Iran. Republicans are increasingly worried that voter frustration over gas prices could fuel the so-called "blue wave" in November.
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Amid a wave of optimistic analysis and polling for Dems nationwide, Chris Pappas’s Senate race against John Sununu in New Hampshire continues to look a bit dicey. Pappas tends to maintain a narrow lead in most polls but is being wildly outspent. AP reporters Steve Peoples, Holly Ramer, and Steven Sloan see it as a sign of broader issues: "For all the Democrats’ confidence, the party’s brand remains deeply unpopular and fundraising is lagging," they write. "The Republican advantage isn’t as egregious in New Hampshire as some other states, but it is significant. AdImpact finds that Republicans are outspending Democrats in New Hampshire $41.2 million to $35.4 million statewide." The TNR Blue Book’s Emma Janssen previously reported on the jitters surrounding this race back in early September.
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Reviewing the new personal consumption expenditure, or PCE, report from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, released Wednesday, Groundwork Collaborative chief economist Breyon Williams says in a statement on the organization’s website that "the bleak economic picture offers little hope for Americans desperate for relief." The report showed PCE inflation increasing 3.4 percent from August 2025 to August 2026, with the economy growing at a 2.4 percent rate so far this year.
The Natural Resources Defense Council released a statement on Wednesday coinciding with court day for the water utilities challenging the Biden EPA’s rule requiring the removal of lead pipes. "Water utilities fighting the lead rule are on the wrong side of history," says NRDC senior strategic director for health Erik D. Olson. Members of Earthjustice, the Newburgh Clean Water Project, and the Sierra Club chimed in, as well, with NCWP’s Gabrielle Burton-Hill calling the case "outrageous and disappointing" and others pointing out the vast number of households and children that the rule will help protect from lead poisoning if allowed to continue.
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Watch TNR’s Edie Olmsted dive into Senator Eric Schmitt’s bizarre faceplant in the Jack Smith hearing this week—all while Axios was reporting "buzz" that he might be JD Vance’s running mate in 2028.
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POLITICAL TRIVIA QUESTION OF THE DAY
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An actually smart Missouri senator, a Democrat, was known as a vocal foe of Joseph McCarthy; was the first secretary of the Air Force; and refused to speak to segregated audiences in the Southern U.S. during a brief presidential run in 1960. Who was he? |
Yesterday’s question and answer:
Q: On the subject of the Iraq War: One member of the George W. Bush administration and leading architect of the war was asked, while testifying before Congress in April 2004, how many U.S. soldiers had died in the war—and gave an answer that wasn’t even close. Who was it?
A: Paul Wolfowitz. He was off by more than 150. A disgraceful moment.
By Michael Tomasky
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