“As the midterm elections approach and one of the most expensive races in history gets nastier by the day, the vice president has gone even further, joining the fray with a not-so-subtle joke criticized as homophobic.”

“With less than three weeks until the midterms, deep-pocketed GOP groups are trying to push struggling candidates over the finish line, while President Trump and Vice President JD Vance are crisscrossing the country to shore up Republican support in red areas that seemed virtually unassailable just months ago.”

“Democrats, working to capitalize on Trump’s weak approval ratings and economic concerns in the wake of the war in Iran, have expanded their target map into more Republican-leaning territory.”

Axios: Unexpected House battles pop up deep in Trump country.

“The trend has stretched beyond party lines and political positions. Sometimes incidents stem from a dispute over unfavorable coverage; others from logistics snags or credentialing issues. But clashes between politicians and members of the media appear to have reached a fever pitch.”

“Zacharia sat for the California bar exam after graduating from law school at Pepperdine University in 2011, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter, but she didn’t pass. She took the exam around the time she was planning a wedding and preparing to move to China with her future husband.”

New York Times: Katie Zacharia is Trump’s new press secretary. But is she a lawyer?

Said Trump: “Whenever I have a news conference, somebody will stand up, say, ‘Mr. President, affordability.’ I said, ‘Yeah, that was caused by Biden, who gave us the highest inflation in history.'”

“But Ms. Guilfoyle’s forced resignation also was part of a larger pattern in President Trump’s second term: The prominent figures who have departed the administration, either voluntarily or involuntarily, overwhelmingly are women.”

Said Trump: “You just do it! You’re the president!”

“After bipartisan backlash on Wednesday, Elon Musk said it was the U.S. not his company SpaceX that provides the systems, that made the call.”

“That’s the takeaway from today’s inflation report, which deepened Republican gloom as it revealed that rising energy costs, largely driven by the war with Iran, have pushed prices up with a few weeks to go until the midterms.”

“The report showed that consumer prices last month were 3.7 percent higher than they were a year earlier, contradicting President Trump’s sunny pronouncements about an improving economy.”

Said Trump: “In my opinion, leakers should be shot. They should be shot. In the old days, we used to shoot leakers. Leakers should be dealt with very, very strongly. They’re real. To me, they’re the scum of the earth.”

“The multipronged effort is focused at least in part on how Omar obtained her citizenship after she arrived in the U.S. from Somalia decades ago. Investigators are focused both on the congresswoman and actions of her deceased father… Nur Omar Mohamed brought his daughter and other family members to the U.S. from a refugee camp in Kenya in 1995.”

Washington Sun: Ilhan Omar’s phone was seized and relatives were subpoenaed for criminal probe.

“The emergency order, which was unsigned and did not give a vote count, marked the latest time that the justices have weighed in on an obscure but critical part of the rules surrounding political advertising and whether political parties should be able to take advantage of the same low rates as candidates.”

“The court’s decision was a win for Republicans ahead of the midterm elections. Democrats have typically been thought to benefit from the old rules, which limited access to lower rates for ads to political candidates. That’s because Democratic candidates have tended to raise more money than their party’s committees. The opposite is true for Republicans.”

“The trip follows voyages to other early primary voting states, including South Carolina in September and Nevada in July, that could be critical to his campaign if he officially joins the race.”

“The amount of diesel Russia could supply under that agreement is much lower than what the country was exporting this time last year and constitutes a small proportion of the diesel supply the world has lost because of Mr. Trump’s war with Iran, energy analysts said. And it is not clear that Russia could even deliver all the fuel the president and Russian officials have promised.”

“Put another way, American political campaigns, every two years (and a bit more in between), spend vast amounts of money doing everything possible to destroy the electorate’s faith in American politics.”

“Apple doesn’t do that in its ‘category.’ Coca-Cola doesn’t either. Nor does Walmart or Costco or Eli Lilly. There’s a reason they don’t. You don’t burn the village to save it.”