Washington Examiner
· collected 2026-10-02 · by Chris Irvine and Rob Crilly
analysis
Welcome to Friday’s edition of Washington Secrets, with your guide to who is up and who is down this week.
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who → welcome → guide
Your usual scribe, Rob Crilly, is traversing the plains of Kansas today, so this is Chris Irvine pinch-hitting.
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this → traverse → Kansas
If a friend sent you this and you’d like to sign up, CLICK HERE.
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you → send → this
As usual, we run the rule over the president’s week.
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we → run → week
Is President Donald Trump’s ramped-up travel schedule a sign the White House is in damage limitation mode with a month to go until the midterm elections?
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House → ramp → elections
For weeks, Republicans have grumbled that Trump has been unhelpful on the campaign trail, but now the president has decided to take matters into his own hands and tell the American public they simply don’t understand how good a job he’s done.
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he → grumble → job
“We’ve done a great job, and the thing I haven’t done a good job with is explaining it to people,” he told reporters Thursday on the South Lawn, before grumbling that the press isn’t covering his administration’s achievements.
“We have the best economic numbers of any president in the history of our country, and yet people don’t know about it because the press won’t talk about it.”
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press → do → it
On Monday, Trump announced a $15 billion steel plant project in Iowa.
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Trump → announce → Iowa
The Hawkeye State (not the Hawk state, Sen. Eric Schmitt), which has voted for Trump three times, appears to be wobbling in its support for Republicans, as it’s been hit hard by rising fuel costs and beef imports, while struggling with one of the worst cancer rates in the country.
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it → vote → country
Similarly, Trump hit up a truck factory in Denton, Texas, on Thursday, before holding a rally in Durant, Oklahoma, Thursday night.
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Trump → hit → Durant
In a sign of frustration with how the campaign has been going, Trump acknowledged that scheduling the Republican National Committee’s midterm convention on the same night as the NFL’s opening game was a “very stupid thing to do,” although he insisted in the interview with Time Magazine that the convention “had 107 million views” compared to the NFL’s 25 million (surely an apples to apples comparison?).
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convention → go → apples
Related, Trump said he hadn’t heard Texas Republican Senate Candidate Ken Paxton’s criticism of the convention.
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he → say → convention
Paxton, who is struggling to halt the momentum of Democrat James Talarico, was heard telling donors that “everybody’s numbers are down” after the Dallas convention in a leaked audio memo.
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numbers → struggle → memo
“I can tell you that the convention was amazing, as you probably know,” Trump said in response.
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Trump → tell → response
Elsewhere, Trump hosted the great and the good of the tech world at the White House on Tuesday, where he and CEOs signed a “morally binding” agreement to self-regulate artificial intelligence (although let’s quietly ignore the document said “Unites States”).
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document → host → intelligence
In a rather extraordinary scene, he held an impromptu press conference with the likes of Anthropic’s Dario Amodei, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, Elon Musk, and more.
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he → hold → Amodei
Zuckerberg appeared to stifle a laugh as Trump railed against “fake news” CNN after the network interrupted Amodei during a typical warning about the risks of AI.
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network → appear → AI
No word on if the CEOs will adopt Trump’s “super intelligence” rebrand
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CEOs → adopt → rebrand
On top of that, Trump launched America.gov, a new AI website designed to help the public interact with the federal government.
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public → launch → government
Hailing it as “a restoration of America’s founding promise,” he claimed it would save hundreds of hours of laborious paperwork.
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it → hail → paperwork
And that’s not even to mention him dismissing U.S. Ambassador to China David Perdue’s claims that the White House discussed selling weapons to Xi Jinping during last week’s state visit.
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House → ’ → visit
He also had time to create confusion with the United Kingdom over a suspected terrorist plot outside a British air base, RAF Fairfield, a key base for U.S. heavy bombers.
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He → have → bombers
After British police released the suspects on bail, Trump expressed his displeasure at the decision.
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Trump → release → decision
And he also expressed his amazement at Benjamin Netanyahu’s story that an Israeli plumber was responsible for stabilizing a hijacked Flydubai flight.
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plumber → express → flight
“I don’t know if it’s true, but that’s the story that I got from Bibi,” Trump said.
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Trump → know → Bibi
That’ll definitely help quell suspicion from some corners of the internet that there’s more than meets the eye to this story.
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That → help → story
So what did our two strategists make of it all?
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strategists → make → it
Current polling shows Trump with his lowest approval rating on handling the economy 26%.
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polling → show → economy
The congressional generic ballot reveals double-digit leads for Democrats, with one as high as a 16-point lead, 56% to 40%.
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ballot → reveal → lead
The Democrats appear to be holding on to those who voted for Kamala Harris in 2024, plus 10% of those who voted for Trump that year.
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who → appear → Trump
But, to quote the late great Del Shannon, ‘I wa-wa-wa-wa-wonder…’
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I → quote → Shannon
Lots can happen in one month.
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Lots → happen → month
Trump says he wants to be on the ballot, and he is.
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he → say → ballot
More and more GOP candidates are running away from him.
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candidates → run → him
And the hits keep coming.
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hits → come → ?
Former Special Prosecutor Jack Smith confirmed in testimony, in what was supposed to a GOP-Senate triumph, that Trump had engaged in ‘serious crimes’ and had won grand jury indictments against him.
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Trump → confirm → him
The hearing backfired when, at a dramatic moment, a Missouri senator (whom I won’t name because I am sure he would prefer it that way) confused the Atlanta Hawks with the Iowa Hawkeyes, earning shock-and-awe looks from his own colleagues.
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he → backfire → colleagues
For his part, the president started running faux “Morning in America” ads with taxpayers’ money, receiving condemnation from all sides.
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president → start → sides
And he did a lengthy interview with Time in which he declared victory multiple times in the war with Iran, left annihilation of Iran on the table, expressed regrets over his three Supreme Court choices, and said he might ban more press from the White House.
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he → do → House
So, the Democrats appear to be in good shape today, including Senate candidates in deep red states like Mississippi, Kansas, Nebraska, and even Kentucky.
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Democrats → appear → Mississippi
…and 22 more, not listed.
The Aporia
