FiveStack with Dean Blundell & Zev Shalev

Lev Parnas sat in for Dean Blundell, and every story led back to Russia.

5️⃣ Fourteen minutes at the podium

Katie Zacharia gave her first briefing as White House press secretary and left after 14 minutes. She read a statement, called on three friendly reporters, announced that the president had asked Ambassador Kimberly Guilfoyle to resign, took a question about her children and ended it. Along the way she said "my president," then corrected it to "my husband." Zev: stage managed, a corruption firing announced from the podium with no follow-up allowed. Lev: "She's from Central Casting." Outside Marine One, Trump did the cleanup: "She wasn't a member of my family." Zev: she was engaged to Don Jr., and now he barely remembers her.

4️⃣ Paxton's Dubai New Year

Wall Street Journal reporters found Ken Paxton, Trump's pick for the Texas Senate seat, in a Dubai high-rise on New Year's Eve with his girlfriend and two men under federal indictment in Illinois. One of them, Anosh Ahmed, gave Paxton's campaign $190,000, including $25,000 days after his indictment. Lev: they go to Dubai because there is no extradition. The same night in Ohio, JD Vance opened for Trump with "I'm the vice president, not James Talarico," and Trump told the crowd about examining a candidate's body on stage: "I don't do this with men very often."

3️⃣ Guilfoyle's bill

The Journal reported last week that Guilfoyle asked donor Eric Deters to pay a $100,000 American Express bill before her confirmation hearing, by wire so it would leave no paper trail, in exchange for access to administration officials. Her lawyers deny she sought money. NBC reports the State Department's inspector general is investigating. Lev: it reminded him of paying Rudy Giuliani's American Express, and his sources say Deters is about to go "scorched earth" on Guilfoyle and on Trump. Zev: the corruption is one degree from the president's son.

2️⃣ The Greatest Heist

Zev walked through Chapter 10: Liquid Funding, the Bermuda company Jeffrey Epstein built with Bear Stearns, borrowed $6.7 billion against almost nothing, made the margin calls that broke American Home Mortgage in July 2007, and was the only lender paid in full. Whoever controls when a market collapses controls when to sell and when to buy. Lev: the same play is running now, in energy.

1️⃣ Russia, Russia, Russia

The Treasury licensed Russian diesel into the United States for six months after Trump's call with Putin, up to 4.8 million tons in stages. Zev: the deal feeds Russia's army and is timed to get Trump through the midterms. Asked why both sides say there is no ceasefire, Trump said: "They agreed because I said they agreed." Lev says his sources describe a larger plan: Nord Stream, pressure to push Zelensky out, and a halt to intelligence sharing he cannot yet confirm.

BONUS: Pope Leo XIV had part of his right lung removed in Rome after doctors found cancer, the Vatican said. And Zev and Lev agreed to build a regular Ukraine and Russia show.

Thank you Ellie Leonard, LC - Silence is Complicity, Dr. Eric Lullove, Robin Payes, Alex LeMay, and many others for tuning into my live video with Lev Parnas! Join me for my next live video in the app.

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5️⃣ Canada's Nobel

The Swedish Academy gave the Nobel Prize in Literature to Anne Carson, a 76-year-old Toronto-born poet, the first Canadian since Alice Munro in 2013. She emailed The Globe and Mail one word: "YIKES!!" Zev, who lives in her city and had never heard of her, played a minute of her reading. Trump told reporters Wednesday he should get the Peace Prize, announced Friday.

4️⃣ The Epstein record costs a chair

Leon Botstein resigned his remaining Bard College roles a day after Rep. Jamie Raskin asked for a criminal investigation into his dealings with Jeffrey Epstein. Zev: a small step, since Botstein had already retired as president. Raskin takes the Oversight gavel if Democrats win, with a list of untouchables waiting and Howard Lutnick at the top. Why corporate America will fight it is the subject of "The Trigger," Chapter 10 of "The Greatest Heist," publishing today with the document on how the network lit the fuse on 2008.

3️⃣ CNN, back inside and bought

Judge Timothy Kelly kept CNN, Politico and MS NOW in the White House through Tuesday. The bigger story is the owner. David Ellison, whose family now owns CBS and Warner Bros., told Anderson Cooper that CNN's independence would be protected. Dean put CNN's front page beside MS NOW's: no San Antonio rally. Zev: CNN has not been CNN for a long time.

2️⃣ All the grift in one story

Wall Street Journal reporters published texts in which Ambassador Kimberly Guilfoyle asked donor Eric Deters to wire $100,000 to her American Express account days before her confirmation hearing: "It won't show up anywhere if you wire money to American Express." Vice President Vance: "I don't love that," then said he did not know the details. Rubio keeps her in Athens. Trump's midterm chiefs Chris LaCivita and James Blair took money from the Russia-aligned government of Republika Srpska, and Susie Wiles's daughter works at the firm that lobbies for it. Trump's August disclosure shows up to $25 million in Meta stock and up to $5 million in SpaceX debt, bought two days before he signed a commercial space policy. Thursday he pinned a medal on Elon Musk and called him a "national treasure." Zev: "The corruption is hand in hand with the incompetence."

1️⃣ The war gets a date

Trump posted at 12:17 p.m. that the United States "will not be attacking Iran at any time prior to the Midterm Elections," citing "productive discussions," days after the Pentagon told Central Command to finish preparing to resume major combat. Zev's read: he is not attacking because he cannot. A strike before Nov. 3 would start a revolt inside a party losing on the war.

BONUS

The USS Abraham Lincoln docked in San Diego after 321 days, as Trump kept naming San Diego as an Iranian target. And Mark Carney said von der Leyen and Costa will be in Montreal in three weeks to launch a Canada-EU alliance. Dean: "We're divorcing the United States of America."

No show Friday; back Tuesday after Canadian Thanksgiving.

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5️⃣ The shot he didn't take

Asked what Democrats could impeach him for if they win Congress, Donald Trump said he could have done "very bad things" to Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and Barack Hussein Obama but thought it "inappropriate." Then: "I've had my shot and still do." People have told him "let's go get them," he said, and he told them no, "you can't do that to the presidency." Zev's read: he is trying to talk Democrats out of impeaching him by reminding them what he could have done. Dean translated it as a man afraid of what happens after Nov. 3.

4️⃣ Camp David on county land

Asked whether he would call it Camp Donald, Trump said the course is "already called Trump International" and that the military and the Secret Service suggested making part of it a retreat for presidents. "This wouldn't be for me," he said. The club's lawyer wrote Palm Beach County on Sept. 3 for county land the club would pay to build on. Zev doubts the Secret Service ever asked, and calls it a land grab four weeks before an election.

3️⃣ The Senate is in play

Democrats need four seats and the map offers seven. Cook moved North Carolina to Likely Democratic and Kansas to a toss-up, Inside Elections projects two to four pickups, and Republicans hold the chamber 53 to 47. In Texas, James Talarico leads Ken Paxton 51 to 49 at Fox News, and a third tape from the same donor meeting has Paxton blaming the war. Zev and Dean both read the leaks as Paxton's own doing, which puts distance between him and Trump without a public fight.

2️⃣ The Epstein untouchables

Ellie Leonard joined from New York after Tuesday's protest asking MoMA to drop Leon Black from its board. Black has denied every allegation and has never been charged or convicted. She walked through where he stands: House Oversight subpoenaed him for his NDAs, he skipped the deposition, the House held him in contempt, and he sued the committee. Zev's four men in the Epstein record with no charges: Howard Lutnick, still Commerce Secretary, Black, Paolo Zampolli and Trump. Zev wants the new Congress to open a special investigation into all four on its first day.

1️⃣ Told to leave, with WHO waiting

Trump says he has "a call set up" with Putin, and the Kremlin says nothing is arranged. Dean read the Oct. 6 U.S. Embassy alert, which repeats the Level 4 advisory telling Americans in Russia to depart immediately. The World Health Organization says it is ready to support the Russian authorities if they ask, and nobody outside Russia has seen the lab. Zev: 12 days in, Russia has given two numbers, 197 contacts and two possible deaths. "You don't quarantine six hospitals when nothing is going on."

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5️⃣ Trump's FBI

Jill Fields, a former supervisory intelligence analyst in the FBI's Los Angeles office, told the Senate Judiciary Committee that Trump watched a TikTok of protesters warning neighbors about immigration agents in Alhambra, and that Kash Patel told FBI leaders the president "was angry about the incident, and he wanted those protesters investigated and arrested." A second order, she says, came from Emil Bove: investigate anyone protesting at federal buildings in Los Angeles, with no federal crime identified. Everyone assumed it. Now a witness has said it on the record, and Sen. Alex Padilla has asked Patel and Todd Blanche how many of those investigations are open.

4️⃣ The wedding receipt

Umar Kremlev, the Russian boxing boss Putin just decorated with the Order of Friendship, told a press conference in Istanbul that Donald Trump Jr. had paid him back for the Bahamas wedding: "He did repay the money I spent on the present." Then: "Frankly speaking, I do not understand why he decided to do so." Kremlev paid hundreds of thousands of dollars toward the May celebration, by AP's account. Nobody denies it happened. The defense is that it was nothing.

3️⃣ A small price to pay

Trump told a Nebraska crowd that Iran taking out Los Angeles and San Diego would be "a very small price to pay." The tape shows what he was defending: a minute after asking the crowd to vote by Nov. 3, he called the war's gas prices "a little bit high" and "a small price to pay for keeping the world safe," named the two cities, and closed on "your gas and your gasoline." The White House says he meant a nuclear Iran; nuclear is seven minutes earlier on the tape.

2️⃣ The DOJ named the whistleblower

When the Justice Department published Simon Andriesz's 2021 FBI interview in the Epstein files, it blacked out every reference to him but one. On page two his name stands, misspelled, in plain sight. Britain's regulator later told him that because his identity had been disclosed he had lost his whistleblower protection, advice it now calls wrong. He died in Thailand on Sept. 23. The man he accused is the Commerce Secretary, who told the Senate about his family's lunch on Epstein's island: "I don't recall why we did it. But we did it."

1️⃣ The plague Russia won't name

Russian media report a second death in the Irkutsk outbreak, a week after a 28-year-old laboratory assistant at the Anti-Plague Research Institute died; reports say she broke a test tube holding live plague bacteria. Russia's health agency calls it pneumonia of unknown cause and says it found no plague among 197 contacts. REN TV deleted six of its own posts on the outbreak, one of which said a second test had confirmed plague; Narativ saved the captures. The second death is a claim until Moscow or Washington confirms it.

Bonus

Dean Blundell, drawing on the Washington Sun, walked through the Trump family's crypto: on May 19, four anonymous wallets moved more than 20 billion World Liberty Financial tokens into a vesting contract. Dean's read: a getaway van, packed before Nov. 3. He also reported that the OSCE, which has observed every U.S. federal election since 2002, has been uninvited from this one. A plague and a war are the two things that keep people home on election day.

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5️⃣ Flávio Bolsonaro beats Lula and every pollster in Brazil

Flávio Bolsonaro finished first in Brazil's presidential election with 47 percent of the valid vote, two points and about 2.2 million ballots ahead of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, according to the electoral court. Neither cleared 50 percent, so they meet in a runoff on October 25. Lula called the result unexpected and said, "we are in extra time." Every final poll had Lula ahead. Jair Bolsonaro, Flávio's father, is serving 27 years for plotting a coup. If Brazil's pollsters all missed in the same direction, November's polls deserve the same caution.

4️⃣ Trump promises Ohio a "big surprise" in November

At a Saturday-night rally in Vandalia, Trump told the crowd, "They're in for a big surprise." He asked supporters to "pretend that I'm running," because "when I don't run, they draw 44% less people." Ohio's Republican senator Jon Husted "always wants money," he said, and if Democrat Amy Acton wins the governor's race, "I'm not going to help her, probably." Dean heard a threat to punish every Ohio voter who picks the wrong candidate. Every major poll points to a Democratic win, and a president this sure of a result the numbers do not show is worth watching.

3️⃣ Russia cannot say what killed its plague-lab technician

A 28-year-old technician at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute, Siberia's state laboratory, went into hospital on September 29 and died days later. The governor of neighboring Buryatia wrote that she died of plague. Russia's health watchdog says pneumonia of unknown cause. Nearly 200 people are under medical observation. Marco Rubio has asked his Russian counterparts for information. Dean set it beside Chernobyl, when Moscow stayed silent for days. Zev set it beside Wuhan. He wants flights out of Russia stopped, Vladimir Putin's December trip to the G20 in Miami included.

2️⃣ Taxpayers paid $20 million to tell them to love Trump

Dean's reporting at deanblundell.substack.com traced about $20 million of government money into a dozen "Love Trump" ads that ran this week on Fox, CBS, ABC and NBC, NFL games among them. The networks took the money. Government-paid ads do not belong on air a month before an election, and the voters who funded them are the audience.

1️⃣ Lutnick's Epstein whistleblower is dead

Simon Andriesz, the British banker who gave Congress the 2018 emails tying Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to Jeffrey Epstein's Adfin investment, is dead at 57, a reported suicide. He worked at BGC, Lutnick's brokerage, and went to the FBI in 2020. They interviewed him in 2021 and nothing happened. The commodities regulator fined BGC $3 million in November 2019 on his reporting and paid him a $420,000 whistleblower award. Lutnick has said nothing since. Zev does not claim to know it was not a suicide, but the sequence looks wrong, and Dean counted nine deaths around the Epstein files.

The Greatest Heist now runs 22 chapters at thegreatestheist.com, with a new one next week.

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Donald Trump is reshaping the White House while the American labor market slows. September brought just 29,000 new jobs. On this FiveStack, those two stories bookend a countdown about what power protects—and who absorbs the cost.

Between them: a new prosecutor in the Cornell sexual-assault investigation, a Republican senator’s private rebuke of Trump, and another military deployment toward the Middle East. Together, they put accountability at the center of the month before the midterms.

Anne P. Mitchell and Lev Parnas join Zev Shalev for a discussion that refuses to treat an election result as the end of the struggle. They disagree about Trump’s next move. They agree that the public needs to understand what is happening and prepare to defend its rights. Dean returns next week.

5️⃣ The People’s House—or Trump’s palace?

Trump says he is exploring federal-landmark status for the Oval Office. [The Washington Post](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/10/01/trump-says-secret-service-wants-him-take-down-oval-office/) reports his remarks. Separately, a federal panel has approved the final design and building plans for an underground White House visitor-screening facility.

The show asks what these projects reveal about Trump’s priorities. Zev describes the accumulating construction as a presidential palace; Lev reads it as a statement about Trump’s desire to remain in power. Those are the panel’s interpretations, not proof of a plan to demolish the remaining White House or stay beyond his term.

Anne’s response is to keep the focus on resistance: presidential ambition does not guarantee presidential success. Courts, election officials and voters still have decisions to make.

4️⃣ Cornell: the investigation changes hands

Governor Kathy Hochul appointed Attorney General Letitia James’s office as special prosecutor to investigate the alleged October 2024 sexual assault at Cornell. James confirmed the appointment on October 1.

A former student’s civil lawsuit alleges that members of the Chi Phi fraternity sexually assaulted her. The appointment follows criticism of the original handling of her allegations. The allegations remain allegations; a new investigation must establish the facts.

For the panel, the issue reaches beyond one campus. Who gets heard when someone reports sexual violence? Who takes responsibility when institutions fail to act? Anne discusses Hochul’s call to address intoxication and consent in state law. Lev calls on men with influence to stand alongside women demanding accountability.

3️⃣ A Republican tells Trump: “We are failing”

Senator Thom Tillis’s private messages to Trump became public through reporting by Politico. In a May 22 message, Tillis warned that the administration was failing, turning an internal dispute into a public account of Republican frustration.

Zev welcomes the confrontation while questioning why it comes so late. Lev argues that criticism alone does not curb a president who retains substantial executive power.

That distinction drives the discussion toward November. Winning congressional seats matters. Turning that result into oversight, investigations and enforceable limits requires another round of work.

2️⃣ Iran, oil—and the argument over what comes next

Another carrier group is heading toward the Middle East, carrying more than 7,000 sailors and 2,000 Marines, as Trump considers further action against Iran.

Zev raises a possibility: increased oil flows could lower prices and give Trump a political opening before the election. Lev disputes that reading, arguing that Trump’s ambitions extend beyond the midterms. Anne challenges the idea that a brief improvement at the pump would reverse voters’ judgment.

These are competing forecasts. The deployment does not establish any of them. What the disagreement exposes is the uncertainty facing voters: military escalation, household costs and electoral calculation are moving together, and temporary relief would not resolve the underlying conflict.

1️⃣ Just 29,000 jobs

The September employment report shows payroll growth of 29,000 and unemployment of 4.2%. July and August payroll estimates were revised down by a combined 60,000.

Those numbers bring the countdown back to where it began. The White House can announce another project. A family waiting for a job offer cannot build its budget around an announcement.

The panel debates whether economic distress will weaken Trump politically or make people more susceptible to promises of relief. Neither outcome is inevitable. Both depend on how voters judge the gap between what they are promised and what they experience.

THE PATTERN

This episode follows the distance between acquiring power and answering for its consequences.

At Cornell, accountability means an investigation capable of establishing what happened. In Washington, it means criticism that produces action. In the economy, it means judging policy by what reaches households.

Lev urges vigilance. Anne insists that fear must not become surrender. Zev keeps returning to the evidence—and to the decisions still ahead.

Watch the full conversation above. Subscribe to Narativ for the next FiveStack, and explore TheGreatestHeist

Thank you This Will Hold, Cat: Poli-Psych, LC - Silence is Complicity, Cash Flow Collective, Noble Blend, and many others for tuning into my live video with Anne P. Mitchell, Esq. and Lev Parnas! Join me for my next live video in the app.

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Sale lasts until 11 PM ET

5️⃣ Trump campaigns only where Republicans cannot lose

Donald Trump heads to a Peterbilt plant in Denton, Texas, and a rally in Durant, Oklahoma. "I want all of them by a lot. I'm going there just to make sure," he told reporters before leaving. Ken Paxton explained the itinerary on a leaked tape: "everyone's numbers dropped" after the Republican midterm convention. No candidate on the bubble wants Trump near their district, Zev said, because voters blame him for the price of groceries and gas. "Wherever he goes, it turns to garbage, not gold," said Anne P. Mitchell, sitting in for Dean Blundell.

4️⃣ Trump keeps Insurrection Act in reach for midterms

Trump told TIME he keeps the Insurrection Act within reach a month before the vote: "I could use it. A lot of people think I should use it sometimes." Asked about ICE agents at polling places: "Haven't thought of it." Mitchell called it the January 2025 script, built to frighten people out of voting: "If your individual vote did not count, he would not be trying so hard to suppress it." The Pentagon did its part on paper, filing emergency requests in late August to drop the overseas-ballot box, in place since 2013, for Americans who have "never lived in the United States"; the two options left require a sworn statement of intent to return, or uncertainty. Mitchell expects the states, which print the ballots, to challenge it.

3️⃣ Hegseth cuts generals, adds testosterone testing

Pete Hegseth told the generals at Quantico that he fired 10 percent of the generals and admirals, "and I know because I directed it," and cut general officer slots by another 10 percent. Then: "The ideological clowns are out. The patriotic cowboys are in with testosterone testing on top." Zev's question is whether the officers who would refuse to deploy into American cities are the ones going. Mitchell, an Army veteran, said she was appalled: Hegseth is building "his own troop of Hessians." Both hosts landed in the same place: the rank and file swore an oath to the Constitution, and handed an illegal order, "they're just not going to do it," Zev said.

2️⃣ Trump sinks to 26 percent on the economy

Twenty-six percent of Americans approve of Trump's handling of the economy, the American Research Group found in a poll fielded September 21; the Associated Press numbers Zev put on screen have his overall approval at 31 percent against 69. That 24-to-26 zone is where Republican senators told Richard Nixon he had to go. "There's no mandate," Zev said. Trump, in TIME: "They're fake numbers. I would beat anybody running today by 20 points." The 31 percent is the MAGA base, Zev said, but a base that now blames him for the Iran war and the economy.

1️⃣ Rubio expels Iran's UN team after Fairford arrest

Marco Rubio ordered Iran's delegation to the United Nations out of the country Wednesday night. On Thursday British police arrested a UK-Iranian dual national under the Terrorism Act over RAF Fairford, and Prime Minister Andy Burnham said there was a "strong indication" Iran was involved. Trump followed: "They'll either sign a very fair deal, or they won't exist any longer." Zev doesn't buy it: the men first arrested for moving fuel in vans near the base walked free within days, which does not happen to real terrorists. "I suspect this is more of a false flag operation than anything else," Zev said. Mitchell called the expulsion "at least 50 percent, if not more, performative." Rubio threw out the delegation because there is no deal to be reached, Zev said, and Americans stay stuck with the prices.

The Greatest Heist is back in one place: Zev opened the show with the new trailer and thegreatestheist.com, all three books chapter by chapter, three new Book Two chapters starting next week, and click here for a 50% annual discount until midnight 10 PM ET tonight.

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5️⃣ Jack Smith

Jack Smith told the Senate Judiciary Committee under oath that his investigation "developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in serious crimes against our nation." Republicans spent four hours trying to turn it on him. Senator Eric Schmitt held up a poster of texts to put Smith at an Atlanta Hawks game the day after Fani Willis disclosed her affair, told him "I think you've already perjured yourself," and called him "a total dirtbag." Smith had been in Maryland watching Iowa's Caitlin Clark, he said. Iowa's team is the Hawkeyes. Schmitt never apologised. Senator John Kennedy asked Smith whether he believed in the Easter Bunny, then told him "you make me want to throw up in my mouth." No Republican argued Trump did not do what Smith described. Trump says he did nothing wrong.

4️⃣ Pete Hegseth

War Secretary Pete Hegseth will cut 20 percent of the positions reserved for generals and admirals, double the 10 percent he ordered in May 2025, Fox News reported from Pentagon memos; he announces it Wednesday at Quantico. On September 22 he signed a memo ordering Cyber Command and the NSA to "identify, disrupt, and neutralize foreign interference in U.S. democratic processes," which the Pentagon published Monday. CNN reported the memo largely restores work those agencies did before Trump returned and shrank the FBI teams that tracked foreign influence.

3️⃣ Marco Rubio

Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Fox News on Monday night that the plot beside RAF Fairford, the British base used by the U.S. military, "clearly involves the hands of a foreign actor." He named no country and offered no evidence. British police bailed the five men, all British nationals aged 23 to 25, on Monday without charge, and call a foreign-state proxy one line of inquiry among several. Asked whether Iran was behind it, Trump said "might be," then "I'd rather not say." The Narativ asked on Monday whether Fairford was a false-flag operation. A day later five men are home and nobody is charged.

2️⃣ Trump's Bonds

Trump holds between $300 million and $1 billion in municipal bonds, CNBC calculated from his own disclosures: more than 1,000 positions, at least 243 bought this year, none sold, from cities, hospitals and power plants his government regulates. His accounts bought up to $100,000 of Georgia Power's Plant Bowen bonds in February 2025; 57 days later Trump exempted the plant from stricter EPA limits. CNBC found no evidence he traded on advance knowledge, and the White House says the family cannot "direct, influence, or provide input." The Wall Street Journal reported that Customs and Border Protection paid for the taxpayer-funded ads starring Trump, nearly $1.5 million by AdImpact's count. A president who waives a $400,000 salary holds up to a billion dollars of debt from borrowers who answer to him, and his border agency buys his airtime.

1️⃣ The AI Lunch

Senator Ted Cruz blocked the Democrats' AI safety-board bill and says nothing moves in his committee before the election. The same Tuesday Trump invited the chiefs of Google, Nvidia, Meta, Anthropic and Palantir to lunch, and launched America.gov, a government chatbot built on Google's Gemini and Elon Musk's Grok, telling the crowd it "cannot in theory be hacked into." The AP asked the bot who won 2020. It answered that official sources show no fraud changed the result. While Trump was still speaking, the answers changed: no more "political questions" on 2020, impeachment or his felony conviction. Two of his lunch guests built the machine that edited itself mid-speech. Cruz killed the rulebook the week the Republican president set the table for the companies it would have governed. The companies are at lunch.

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5️⃣ Egypt

Egypt's intelligence chief telephoned Benjamin Netanyahu days before October 7 and warned him Hamas was about to strike, the Journal reported Monday, the third Egyptian warning to reach him. Netanyahu's office denied it within hours. Netanyahu may not have built the attack, but he was warned, and the war that followed kept him in power. Israel owes itself the reckoning America owes itself over Trump: how did we keep giving this man permission?

4️⃣ The ad

Fox News Sunday aired a 30-second black-and-white Trump spot that closed with "paid for by the U.S. government." Trump walks a hallway while his rally voice promises "the final battle": demolish the deep state, expel the warmongers, cast out the communists, Marxists and fascists. Trump is describing himself. Dean called it Nazi propaganda, "and by the way, you paid for it." Putin's party ads run on the Russian taxpayer. Now America has them too.

3️⃣ Xi

Trump asked Xi Jinping whether China wanted to buy American weapons, his own ambassador David Perdue said on Fox News Sunday. American law bans the sale, and the State Department spent the weekend saying so. Trump is offering China the munitions America ran short of bombing Iran. "He'll sell anything to anybody, including America's mortal enemies," Dean said. Surrender, again.

2️⃣ Bailey

FBI co-deputy director Andrew Bailey walked out Monday after one year, the second of Kash Patel's hand-picked deputies to quit. Bailey said he is "stepping down to return to my family in Missouri," the line every departing official uses. Dean ran the month's cabinet exits and called it rats leaving the ship: "all of them know what's coming." A blue wave, and the accountability behind it.

1️⃣ Fairford

British counter-terror police bailed the five men arrested beside RAF Fairford on Monday, a day after the pre-dawn raid at the Gloucestershire base American bombers fly from to hit Iran. Police charged nobody. Britain's counter-terror chief Laurence Taylor said the five "absolutely remain under investigation" and his detectives are "keeping an open mind" on a foreign hand. You do not bail a terror cell after two days. Trump told a crowd Sunday "we had them under view for a long time, and we got them," while London says a farmer found the vans and dialled 999. Both accounts cannot be true. Dean named three possible authors: Russia, Iran, or Trump. Narativ asked this morning whether the plot was a false flag. Police have named no sponsor, no motive and no explosives, and nobody has produced proof of a set-up. The question stays open.

⭐ Guilfoyle

Kimberly Guilfoyle, Trump's ambassador to Greece and Don Jr.'s former fiancée, told Greece's energy minister at an Athens dinner in March that Washington could bring down his government the way Romania's was about to fall, the Wall Street Journal reported. "We can do that here," a guest recalled her saying. Romania's parliament voted Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan out in May; a video posted Sunday claims he fell for refusing to buy American gas above market price. Her lawyer disputes the Journal's account, and nobody has shown Washington's hand in that vote. "That's who we are," Dean said.

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Dean Blundell came straight from his son’s wedding on Thursday — congratulations to the new Mr. and Mrs. Blundell.

5️⃣ The red carpet

America is watching its empire fold in real time. Trump rolled red carpet from the tarmac to the East Room for Xi Jinping this week, then walked the whole room out to the building site of his ballroom. “It’s one year away from completion,” Trump said in his toast. “This is an honor of President Xi.” He did this for the leader of a country whose groups, CNN reported, have fed Iran intelligence to target U.S. sites. Xi repaid him with a warning: the Thucydides trap, a rising power and a fading one ending in war, with one way out — cooperation, on his terms. He came to Washington to set the terms of the next war. Trump gave no answer. “Watching Donald Trump torch 250 years of hegemony,” Dean said, left him as sad as he has ever been for America.

4️⃣ The locked door

Trump shut the American press out of the dinner and Friday’s tea, and let Chinese state media in. The press corps got one shot all day, shouted across the lawn at the arrival: why are you banning media outlets? Nobody answered. Inside, by the pool reports, sat Elon Musk, Jensen Huang, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg, Justices Alito, Gorsuch and Barrett, and not one Democrat. “Why would you not want to have prying eyes in that room?” Dean asked. “There’s your answer about who Donald Trump serves. It’s not you.”

3️⃣ Cook moves 15

Cook Political Report moved 15 House races toward Democrats on Friday, six weeks out, and Axios reports Republicans are on track to lose the majority. Republicans in swing seats are keeping their distance, and Trump is rallying in Oklahoma and Alabama to hold what he can. No one wants to be seen with him. A party losing at the ballot box goes looking for another way to win.

2️⃣ The voter rolls

The Supreme Court on Friday let Trump switch his SAVE citizenship checks back on across state voter rolls, six weeks before Election Day, lifting a June ruling that found the system broke privacy law and flagged citizens as noncitizens. Sotomayor, Kagan and Jackson dissented; Jackson wrote that burdening “even a few lawful voters outweighs the nonexistent harm” to the government. Citizenship is the cover. They want the voter rolls so they can manipulate the numbers — question every vote that went the wrong way and refuse the result. “I know exactly what they’re going to do,” Dean said. Trump bowed to Xi all week and got the voter rolls on Friday.

1️⃣ The farewell

Friday morning Xi got more red carpet — at the White House arrival, at the tea, and on the steps of the National Archives, where he went to see the original Constitution. He is a Communist Party functionary, not royalty, and Trump carpeted his every step like a conquering emperor’s. “President Xi went and looked at that Constitution almost like, hey, cool document. I own you now,” Dean said. “And he does. He owns Donald Trump.” Then, Dean added, came the fundraising email: help me normalize relations with China. How many meals would that red carpet have put on American tables? None of it matters to this president — only the power and the money he stands to make off Xi Jinping. Show up in person and vote like your life depends on it. It does.

Thank you Ellie Leonard, Cat: Poli-Psych, LC - Silence is Complicity, Caro Henry, Dr. Eric Lullove, and many others for tuning into my live video with Dean Blundell! Join me for my next live video in the app.

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