Today’s HC-R
October 16, 2026 (Friday)
Trump’s new pick for White House press secretary lasted less than five days. Katie Zacharia resigned today after a series of disastrous performances and news that she had misrepresented her legal credentials. Trump said he would let her decide if she wanted to stay but added that if he were in her shoes, he would “reconsider.”
Wags noted that the time unit of a Scaramucci—named for the White House communications director who lasted only 11 days during Trump’s first term and used to identify an official whose stay in public office has been exceedingly brief—has been replaced by the Zacharia.
Yesterday morning, Trump posted on social media that the execution of Nidal Hasan, who killed 13 people and injured 32 others at Fort Hood in 2009, will not be livestreamed. As Amy B. Wang and Alauna Safarpour of the Washington Post reported yesterday, 80% of Americans opposed livestreaming the execution to the public.
A poll by the Washington Post, ABC News, and Ipsos showed that the only demographic polled in which a majority wanted a livestream of the execution was MAGA Republican men, of whom 57% wanted the event livestreamed and 42% were opposed. Veterans, Democrats, non-MAGA Republicans, Independents, and MAGA Republican women all opposed the livestream by overwhelming amounts.
And so, the chaos of Trump’s MAGA administration continues.
Chaos continues as well in Trump’s approach to Ukraine, and it has a deadly pattern.
After SpaceX debilitated Ukraine’s military defenses on October 14, in the midst of one of the heaviest Russian bombardments of the war, by slowing down the speed of Ukraine’s Starlink terminals and the Starshield system that Ukraine’s military uses, Elon Musk, who owns SpaceX, and Trump, who controls Starshield, each blamed the other for the slowdown.
Yesterday, Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), the top-ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, led a bipartisan group of nine senators demanding answers from Platte Moring, the inspector general of the Department of Defense.
Noting that the slowdown meant that “U.S. diplomatic, military, and security personnel were unable to reach designated bunkers during Russian air raids,” they asked “[w]hether any Department of Defense or other U.S. government officials directed, authorized, approved, or had advance knowledge of changes to intelligence-sharing arrangements, warning capabilities, or Starlink and Starshield services affecting Ukraine.”
They also asked if the slowdown was a policy decision or a contractor action, whether U.S. personnel received adequate warning, and whether “any restrictions on Starlink or Starshield services were directed, authorized, or implemented by SpaceX, the Department of Defense, or other U.S. government entities.” They also wanted to hear exactly what “immediate corrective measures are being implemented” to make sure such a crisis doesn’t happen again.
Today Trump told reporters that neither he nor Musk had caused the shortage. “I didn’t do that. No, we didn’t do that at all. In fact, I don’t even think it was slowed down, from what I understood. Because I just checked this morning.” He continued: “I heard about it from the news, the media. And we didn’t slow it down at all. And I think it’s probably functioning, from what I understand.” When a reporter asked if Musk had had anything to do with the slowdown, Trump said: “I don’t know if it was anybody, because it wasn’t me, and I don’t think it was Elon, and from what I understand, it’s the same as it’s always been.”
Joe Barnes of The Telegraph reported today that according to four sources familiar with the discussions over the issue, as well as “[a] high-ranking European official and two “well-placed Ukrainian sources,” it was Musk who approached Trump with the idea of slowing down the Starlink systems in Ukraine, and Trump agreed. But, according to Barnes, the outcry over Russia’s destructive attacks that night made Musk worry that European customers might turn against him, as indeed they warned him on social media.
A source told Barnes: “He tweeted out that he was innocent and that it was the US administration that did it. The reality is that they were both in it.”
Meanwhile, Theodore Schleifer of the New York Times reported today that Musk donated $158 million in September alone to a super PAC that immediately sent $158 million to back Ken Paxton’s campaign to become the next U.S. senator from Texas instead of Democratic candidate James Talarico. Musk donated an additional $10 million to a different pro-Paxton super PAC, as well.
Musk’s huge donations have kept the unpopular Paxton financially competitive with Talarico. Paxton is currently the Texas attorney general, responsible for the few state regulations concerning SpaceX and Musk’s more than 90 other companies and other legal entities in Texas.
Trump has clearly decided his own personal interests require bringing the United States to the rescue of Russia’s president Vladimir Putin. Just a week ago, he announced he was waiving sanctions to allow Russia to sell diesel on the global market, funneling money to Putin to continue his war on Ukraine.
Tonight, in a late Friday night news dump, Trump signed an executive order waiving yet more sanctions on Russia that would have gone into effect in two days under the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026. The president wrote that waiving those sanctions is “in the national interests of the United States,” although he did not specify why.
Congress passed the Graham Act just weeks ago, making clear that it expected stronger measures against Russia. Trump signed the law but is doing the opposite of Congress’s intent. Representative Don Beyer (D-VA) posted: “Trump’s latest surrender to Putin again betrays our Ukrainian partners and defies clear congressional intent of legislation designed to punish Russia for its illegal war of aggression.”
Like Putin, Trump has been determined to sow confusion and fear over the midterm elections, likely hoping to depress voter turnout and destroy faith in the outcome. Central to that is Trump’s insistence that noncitizens are swinging elections against him, even though experts across the political spectrum agree that voting by noncitizens is both illegal and exceedingly rare.
Jacob Bogage and Andrew Goudsward of Reuters reported on October 13 that after losing 26 of its lawsuits designed to get access to state voter rolls and winning none, the Department of Justice gave California officials just two days to review a list of 20,000 people it suspects are not citizens but may have received mail-in ballots for the midterm election. The DOJ sent along a thumb drive that it said identified those voters.
California officials did not do as the DOJ demanded, saying the scheme had no legal basis. Sarah N. Lynch of CBS News reported that Dean Logan, the registrar-recorder/county clerk of Los Angeles County, said his office would not open the thumb drive “because doing so would conflict with established data privacy and information security protocols.” He added: “Federal and state laws are clear on how voter eligibility is established—and any action to remove a voter from eligibility must be based on verifiable information, not assertions of unconfirmed data matching.”
Yesterday Alanna Durkin Richer, Sophie Austin, and Safiyah Riddle of the Associated Press reported that the administration is escalating its threats, suing election officials in California and asking a judge to stop the state from counting mail-in ballots from people the administration claims aren’t citizens until their citizenship has been verified.
Today Juhi Doshi, Alexander Mallin, Luke Barr, and Lucien Bruggeman of ABC News reported that the administration is now threatening criminal prosecution for election workers who knowingly count ballots filled out by noncitizens. Trump added on social media: “They will all go to jail for a long period of time!!!”
According to the ABC News journalists, “Experts overwhelmingly agree the lawsuit is unlikely to succeed. But they fear the consequences of publicly calling election outcomes into question could damage confidence in democracy.”
That concern is behind the No Kings events taking place across the country on Saturday, October 17. While earlier No Kings events emphasized protest and solidarity, tomorrow’s will be about “nonpartisan voter participation, being in community with each other, and making sure every eligible voter has a plan, knows their options, and is ready to make their voice count.”
The organizers remind Americans: “Our democracy depends on every eligible voter having the freedom to participate without intimidation, interference, or barriers.”