Today’s notice: A cool video reminder that we’re The Washington Sun now. Live from Dallas. The effort to defeat Susan Collins is having a bumpy takeoff. The likely next mayor of D.C. cranks up expectations. Hospitals are ignoring Trump’s pricing transparency rules. And: The Democratic generation gap goes Hollywood.
THE LATEST
Day 1 of the Republican midterm convention in Dallas was most notable for the Democrat who spoke via video and Donald Trump promising a $5,000 payment to every American if Republicans win in November. Sen. Tim Scott (R-South Carolina) said many of the Democrats running for Senate are “dangerous, radical and frankly weird.” A mention of Senate Majority Leader John Thune brought boos. Attorney General Todd Blanche broke Justice Department tradition by giving a speech at the political event — and was received well by the crowd.
But who is the crowd? This is a strange event at a strange time. Polls and historic headwinds suggest Republicans are wasting valuable general election time rallying around the president. And yet: “It’s Trumpapalooza,” Ty Bommarito, part of a conservative cadre from Michigan State University invited to sit on the floor, told The Sun’s Jasmine Wright. “It’s to get everyone excited for the midterms, and I think it will energize the base.”
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But for the most part, it’s not young people in the audience. “I think what you find, there’s a lot of people who have been delegates or alternate delegates in the past that are here today,” Pennsylvania state Sen. Scott Martin told The Sun’s Oriana González. “People who come here are paying their way, you know, on their flight costs, on their hotel — it’s not a freebie for them.”
They’re in Dallas for Trump, or at least his vision of Republican politics.
About that Democrat we mentioned, Sen. John Fetterman appeared in a video message to the crowd. In theory, it was an introduction to his Pennsylvania colleague, Republican Sen. Dave McCormick, whom Fetterman has regularly made public appearances with. But there was an undertone aimed at some in the Democratic Party: “I’m always going to reject the extremes and socialism and that anti-American way of life,” Fetterman said.
So is this guy going to switch parties, or what? “I’m a lifelong Democrat who votes overwhelmingly with my party-and should the Senate flip in November, I will still be the 51st vote that I ran on,” Fetterman said in a statement to The Sun. Keep a close eye on that should the Senate flip part.
More: Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee Loses Democratic Primary • Missouri Redistricting Case Reaches Supreme Court — Again • States Say Compliance With USPS Ballot Rule Would Take ‘Herculean’ Effort • Trump Wants the Census to Stop Collecting Race and Ethnicity Data
Open tabs:
- Secretive Vance-aligned donor network draws GOP power players in Dallas (Axios)
- Diesel average nears $6/gallon (AAA)
- Hunter Biden’s Meme Coin Imploded Immediately (NY Mag)
- Bernie Sanders-endorsed challenger defeats Providence mayor in a Democratic primary (NBC)
FROM THE GREAT AI FREAKOUT
Doomscrolling has a whole new meaning: This week, a couple of AI researchers connected to the two biggest American AI companies revealed in a public online conversation that some in the industry are busily working away on a technology they believe could kill all humans.
“Anytime you have folks talking about AI moving towards extinction of human life, I think that’s got to rise to the top of priorities for us in Congress,” Rep. Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on House Oversight, told The Sun. He promised to investigate AI companies if Democrats win the majority. Hey, Claude: Will that be too late?
Others who have been AI skeptics all along, like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), are taking this opportunity for an I told you so. Sanders is hosting a private briefing for senators with industry experts next week to discuss the “extraordinary dangers that AI poses for humanity.”
In Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee for Senate, told The Sun’s Igor Bobic that it’s time for a pause on all AI development. “The speed at which this is all progressing is really quite alarming,” he said.
FROM MAINE
Democrats still haunted by the primary? “I think he’s got a very challenging road ahead,” Mark Dion, the Democratic mayor of Portland, Maine, said of his party’s nominee for Senate, Troy Jackson. The Sun’s Al Weaver has a deep dive into the Maine race as it enters the general election — and finds incumbent Republican Sen. Susan Collins activating her traditional all-politics-is-local strategy while Jackson struggles to unite a base fractured by the rise and dramatic fall of Graham Platner.
Al reports that one person who attended a town hall with Jackson criticized him because the movement he’s trying to harness “was built by someone else,” meaning Platner. Democrats hope this race will center around Trump and the economy, not Collins and Jackson as candidates. Republicans want the opposite — and Collins is putting a lot of emphasis on her distance from the president and his actions (read: Canadian tariffs).
“It’s certainly not helpful. There’s no doubt about that,” Collins told The Sun, adding that voters are “perplexed” and “more puzzled than anything” about the Canada trade war.
FROM THE DISTRICT
Can Janeese Lewis George meet expectations? The populist lefty presumptive next mayor of D.C. has asked residents to tell her what they want — and they are definitely doing that, The Sun’s Michael Brice-Saddler reports. On the road with Lewis George, Michael clocked a paper trail of demands calling for everything from universal child care to traffic-calming speed cameras. That’s not counting the online requests, and she’s not even mayor yet.
More: How Virginia Could Smoke Out D.C.’s Cannabis Industry • Alexandria Leaders Want to Get Rid of the City’s Flock Cameras
THE BIG ONE
Hollywood leaves Democrats to their civil war: Screenwriter Gregg Hurwitz was one of several storytellers who actively helped hone the Democratic Party’s 2018 winning message. He says this of 2026: “The Democratic Party right now is torn in a couple directions, and some of those directions I’m no longer willing to work for or countenance, and so I’m a lot more sparing about it.”
The contours of this are familiar. Hurwitz and the other messaging gurus from Tinseltown who helped in 2018 are among those turned off by the rise of the ultraleft and the party’s growing generation gap. The Sun’s Oriana González and Kadia Goba report on a far-flung front of the intraparty debate.
It’s another sign of what’s to come for a potential Speaker Hakeem Jeffries. He helped spearhead his party’s work with Hollywood as co-chair of the House Democrats’ messaging arm in 2018. Jeffries’ staff met with screenwriters to talk campaign messaging as recently as this July, The Sun has found.
But he may not like what they have to say these days. “Only Democrats have a hard time with this, and that’s because we tend to speak in these cotton candy terms that sound like they were dreamed up in the Harvard faculty lounge,” one filmmaker who still works with Democratic candidates said.
PODCAST
From your favorite podcast app: Today, Sun Managing Editor Kate Nocera chats with reporter Igor Bobic about our name change. Then, Igor is joined by congressional reporters Al Weaver and Avani Kalra for a look into Trump’s new ads in battleground states and how data centers are shaping midterm races.
NEW ON THE WASHINGTON SUN
Hospitals are not following Trump’s pricing transparency rules for the most part, The Sun’s Paige Winfield Cunningham reports. Fewer than one in five hospitals owned by the nation’s largest health systems are displaying dollar amounts for at least half of their posted items and services, despite rules written during the first Trump administration requiring them to do so. CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz has said he’ll crack down on noncompliance.
More: The AP Will Keep Using ‘Lake Ontario’ Despite Trump’s Renaming Effort • ICE Opens a Tip Line to Report Undocumented Truck Drivers • Maine Gubernatorial Candidate’s Sister Says She’s Voting for His Opponent
NOT US
- Candidates contend with the rise of ‘resurfaced’ old clips, by David Weigel for Semafor
- Ominous outlook for Medicare drug spending, by Adriel Bettelheim for Axios
- Ken Paxton Transformed the Texas AG’s Office. What Comes Next? By Eric Benson for Texas Monthly
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DA LAS
https://x.com/MatthewARein/status/2097782015500169319
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The newsletter was produced by Thomas Burr and Andrew Burton. Photo by Alex Brandon/AP.
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