by Steve Benen | Nov 3, 2026 | Iran, Iran Tensions, Maddowblog, White House
On the eve of Election Day 2026, Donald Trump did a live telephone interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity, and when the discussion turned to the ongoing war with Iran, the president said something unexpected.
“This is not much of a war, Sean, because there hasn’t been shooting for months,” he said.
The Republican made similar comments several hours earlier during a bizarre pre-election event at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, where he declared, “We had a war with Iran, we won. We had a war with and, you know, I don’t know if you even call it a war, because we haven’t been doing any fighting for months.”
Trump’s timing could have been better. As The Wall Street Journal was the first to report, “The U.S. attacked Iran’s Qeshm Island on Monday, U.S. officials said, in the latest of a series of limited strikes Washington has secretly carried out against the country in recent weeks.”
Observers were left to wonder whether the American president was trying to deceive the public with his rhetoric on the same day, or whether he simply didn’t know about the latest U.S. military operations in the war he initiated eight months ago.
Making matters slightly worse, in the Hannity interview, Trump also said, “I heard a very stupid congressman on Fox, on, I think it was ‘Fox & Friends,’ saying about we spent $30 billion on this war with Iran. Well, that’s peanuts.”
Putting aside the fact that $30 billion is a lot of money, it’s just as notable that every cost estimate of the conflict, including the Trump administration’s, is far in excess of $30 billion.
Hours before the Hannity
by Julia Conley | Nov 3, 2026 | 2026 midterms, AI, Bernie Sanders, Democratic Party, Democrats, News, Progressives, Wealth Tax
As a campaign season in which dozens of progressive candidates endorsed by US Sen. Bernie Sanders prevailed in primaries, the independent Vermont lawmaker urged his supporters across the country to “do all we can to bring out the vote to end Republican control of Congress,” while urging voters to look beyond the goal of reining in President Donald Trump. “If the pundits are correct and…
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by Austin C. McCoy | Nov 3, 2026 | 2026 Elections, 2026 midterms, AI, ALPR, Anthropic, big tech, data centers, elections, Flock, labor, license plate readers, Meta, midterms, Op-Ed, OpenAI, Organizing, Taxes, Workers
Since taking front row seats at Donald Trump’s second inauguration in January 2025, Big Tech companies led by Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and others have accumulated more profits and political power than they have ever before enjoyed. However, as Big Tech has sought to impose AI technology onto U.S. communities, often without consent, masses of Americans have risen to challenge AI data…
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by Steve Benen | Nov 3, 2026 | 2026 election, elections, Maddowblog
According to Donald Trump’s own version of events, his own team recently encouraged him not to celebrate higher gas prices. The president ignored their advice.
In fact, with just 11 days remaining in the election cycle, the Republican headlined a campaign rally in Georgia, where spent quite a bit of time bragging that oil and gas companies were “making a fortune” as a result of higher prices, so consumers struggling to pay their bills should be glad they’re paying more at the pump.
As for the members of his team who encouraged him not to make such comments, the president added, “I said, ‘I don’t give a damn. I’m going to say it. We’re making a freaking fortune.’”
To a degree, that was true: American consumers are struggling, but Big Oil is not. Last week, The New York Times reported that U.S. war with Iran “has been very lucrative for American oil companies, which have earned more than $130 billion in profit as people pay much higher prices for gasoline, diesel and other fuel.”
Three days after that information reached the public, The Washington Post reported:
Gas prices are set to be the highest for any Election Day in U.S. history Tuesday, as the issue weighs heavily on voters’ minds.
The average gas price as of Monday is $4.17, according to data from AAA. That is roughly 37 cents higher than prices heading into the 2022 midterm election, which held the previous record for an Election Day.
This also applies to diesel, which now costs $6.28 per gallon, which is also the highest average ever on a U.S. Election Day.
I suppose it’s possible that Americans paying these
by Neesha Powell | Nov 3, 2026 | 2026 Elections, ballot measure, Ballot Measures, elections, Inequality, News, North Carolina, Organizing, Public Schools, Tax Breaks, Taxes
The affordability crisis is hitting people hard across the country, but it’s especially acute in North Carolina. For the sixth year in a row, North Carolina holds the distinction of being the worst state in the nation for workers based on its wage policies, worker protections, and rights to organize, according to Oxfam. Nearly half of renters in the state are struggling to afford their homes…
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