And what a week it’s been for MAGA. Ken Paxton rang in the new year at a luxury Dubai high-rise with two men f…

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Never in the history of modern polling has “corruption” been the leading issue in an American election. Donald Trump just made it one.

Before I get to the numbers, I have to marvel at how frequently the American people are confronted with the reality of the theft in Washington. It’s unending. Just look at what was reported this week.

On the east side of the White House, we’ve got crews frantically pouring concrete for a billion-dollar ballroom (with a bunker underneath) that Donald Trump swore he and his “friends” would pay for and which is named in his honor. On Wednesday, the Washington Post obtained the list of those friends, like Apple, Nvidia, and the Adelson family at $25 million apiece, and Lockheed Martin, Microsoft, and Palantir at $10 million. Many have since won regulatory decisions and government contracts, and in one case, a donor’s father secured a presidential pardon for a crime. Last night on our podcast, former DOJ official Liz Oyer called the ballroom a “deposit box for bribes.”

Of course, the one name missing from the list of people paying for Trump’s ballroom is Trump himself. So far, he doesn’t appear to have given a dime. Meanwhile, hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars are going into the combined ballroom-bunker project that he said we’d never have to pay for.

That’s just one day’s bad headline. This is happening every day. And the American people have noticed. I finally have overwhelming numbers to prove it.

A Fox News poll released this week asked registered voters what worries them most heading into the midterms. The winner was not affordability or the economy, which have dominated every election cycle in living memory. It was corruption in government. A whopping 88 percent of voters said they were extremely or very concerned about it. It beat high gas and grocery prices. It beat healthcare. It beat everything! In the same survey, Trump’s approval sank to 36 percent, the lowest Fox has ever recorded for him. In other polls, it’s dipped into the 20s.

It doesn’t stop there.

A day earlier, an AP-NORC survey found that most Americans believe Trump is profiting from the presidency either illegally or unethically, and that he’s more focused on building his own wealth than on helping them. Yikes. And last month — as you all know, because I’ve been referencing it almost every day — Gallup reported that 89 percent of Americans now believe corruption is widespread in their government, the largest Gallup has ever measured and which puts America at the very bottom of the developed world (out of 38 countries) when it comes to perceived corruption.

These are history-making developments, folks.

Pollsters have been asking Americans what worries them most since the 1930s, and through every scandal of the past century, grift and graft have never been ranked at the top. Not even after Watergate in 1974, when voters still ranked the economy and inflation ahead of Nixon’s crimes. To be sure, Americans have always been angry about government scandal and mismanagement of their tax dollars. But they’ve never put it ahead of grocery prices and the economy.

The reason for all of this is, without a doubt, is that Trump has made corruption literally impossible to ignore. He turned it from a background story that’s always playing out in Washington into basically the lead story of every news cycle for the past 18 months. What’s worse, the high prices people are experiencing at the grocery and at the pump are in no small part because of Trump’s corruption — tariffs he imposed illegally, wars he started without Congress, and meddling in the economy that has upended markets.

This will have generational repercussions.

More immediately, it’s why we announced that on Tuesday, October 27, one week before Election Day, we’re releasing a documentary called CORRUPTIONLAND to give the American people a full sense of the rot before they go to the polls. We spoke with leading legal scholars, watchdog groups, journalists, Members of Congress, and more to grasp the scope of the problem. You won’t believe what we uncovered. If you think you know how bad it is, you ain’t seen nothing yet. (Also, we’re making it free for everyone in the country to watch because of how important the issues is).

These latest polling numbers are a death sentence for MAGA as a governing movement. To a certain extent, affordability is an issue a president can blame on someone else, and this one certainly tries. He points at the Fed, at Biden, at foreigners, etc. But corruption is personal. It’s a profound statement on the character of the man in charge and of our leaders writ large. And this week, it became abundantly clear that voters have rendered their judgment.

There’s nothing Trump can do about it in the next three weeks. Nothing. When nine-in-ten Americans say the government is corrupt and only one-in-ten say the president is looking out for them, the little guy, there’s no earthly messaging strategy that can save the party in power. The Republicans running with Trump’s name on their ballots are running on the most radioactive issue in modern American political history because they have slavishly covered for his corruption or outright enabled it.

Trump spent more than a decade telling Americans the system was rigged. He finally convinced them. What he didn’t tell them is that he would be the one rigging it. Now they’ve noticed.

Your friend, in defiance,

Miles Taylor

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P.S. DEFIANCE.org is a nonprofit “club for the courageous.” We literally exist to FIGHT the corruption you just read about. We announce a new effort every week to counter Trump’s abuses of power. That’s what your membership funds. If you haven’t yet, become a member today.

DEFIANCE DAILY

In case you missed it, last night’s episode of DEFIANCE Daily is below. Catch our next episode tonight at 5 pm ET!

TRACK THE TRUMP-EPSTEIN READING ROOM & BOOKMOBILE

The Donald J. Trump and Jeffrey Epstein Memorial Bookmobile will stop in Columbia, South Carolina, TODAY, and Charlotte, North Carolina, on Sunday, Oct. 18. Meanwhile, the Reading Room will be in Detroit, Michigan, on Monday, Oct. 19 through Thursday, Oct. 22.

Plan a future visit and share with others. Check out the tour schedule and RSVP HERE.

THE ANT HILL IS OUR MEMBERS-ONLY CORNER OF THE COLONY, WHERE “DEFY ANTS” GET MORE THAN JUST THE NEWSLETTER.

IF YOU’RE ALREADY A DEFIANCE MEMBER, THEN MARCH RIGHT IN. IF NOT, SIGN UP HERE, SO YOU DON’T MISS A THING.

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Trump, however, is nowhere to be found on the list.

And with the price tag now hovering around $600 million, taxpayers could end up footing half the bill. So much for that promise.

The donor list reads like a quid pro quo fun bag: pardons, government contracts, and investigations quietly snuffed out. Former U.S. Pardon Attorney Liz Oyer (@lizoyer) joins us to discuss the connection.

And the DOJ has been busy elsewhere, threatening California with a lawsuit over supposedly ineligible voters. Its evidence arrived on a thumb drive with the password written on a sticky note. With the midterms just weeks away, that’s quite a way to handle election security.

There’s also a new twist in those suspicious Iran oil trades. Career analysts flagged them for investigation, only to be ordered by a senior adviser to retract their referral. The agency says its investigation is continuing.

Finally, its time for Who’s Joining the DEFIANCE. Streamer Sneako has turned against Trump after backing him in 2024. Given his past behavior, we’re welcoming him to the DEFIANCE on a strictly probationary basis. We’ll be keeping an eye on him.

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THIS WEEK ON THE ANT HILL

• FRI, OCT 16 — DOGS OF THE DEFIANCE — That’s right…even our furry friends are sticking it to the man. Do you have a dog (or a cat or a horse or a rabbit or a ferret…) that would sooner lift their leg on Trump than play fetch? Send us a pic, and they might be featured in a future issue! Because fighting authoritarianism is hard work, a little fun is important too. :)

GROW THE DEFIANCE

DEFIANCE Members are absolutely crushing it, spreading the word about our club for the courageous to their friends. There is strength in numbers, and that’s exactly what defiance requires. Here’s how you can help build our numbers—and get a shoutout on the Daily with Miles and Xander:

1. Go to https://www.defiance.news/leaderboard

2. Use the buttons provided to share your personal referral link on X, Facebook, or email. Or, copy the link (circled in the example below) to share it via text or other social platforms.

Donald Trump may have just done something far worse than his first impeachment. In fact, he went back to the scene of the crime. And there may be a phone call to prove it.

At three in the morning on Tuesday, Russian ballistic missiles started landing on Ukraine, and for the first time in a very long time, nobody in the United States warned Ukraine they were coming.

America has a system for this. U.S. satellites reportedly spot Russian launches and pass the data to Kyiv in time to switch on air defenses. This week, Ukrainian officials say, the system went dark. When they asked why, American officials told them the system had failed because of “bad weather.” The Ukrainians didn’t buy it. They told CBS News the U.S. was “playing” with the system.

The following night, something else went dark. Starshield, which is the military version of Elon Musk’s Starlink — which Ukrainian troops use to fly drones and intercept Russian attacks — was suddenly throttled without warning. Ukrainian President Zelenskyy was furious and warned that “people will die.”

Surprisingly, Musk himself pointed the finger at the White House. “Any limits on speed or usage are decided by the U.S. military and ultimately POTUS,” he wrote, referring to the President of the United States, Donald Trump. Most damningly, the White House has not denied it.

Are we to believe this was a coincidence? Missile warnings and battlefield communications all coming down at the same time? Was it all “the weather”?

Not even a fool would accept that conclusion. Look at last week, and you can surmise exactly what happened. And it may well be criminal.

On Friday, Trump spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and something about that call is very suspicious. Because Trump subsequently announced a deal to buy millions of tons of Russian diesel, waiving sanctions he had signed into law a month earlier. Even GOP Senators have warned this may be an act that broke U.S. law and gave a financial gift to America’s enemy. That very same day in Florida, Trump’s envoys told Ukraine that if Kyiv didn’t stop hitting Russian oil refineries, Washington would cut off intelligence. Then on Saturday, after Russian glide bombs killed 20 people in Ukraine, Trump said the words Putin has been dreaming of him saying: “It’s time for Ukraine to get a new president.”

It doesn’t stop there. On Sunday, Trump announced an “energy ceasefire” neither side had agreed to, basically pressuring Ukraine not to attack Russian energy infrastructure (even though Russia bombed a Ukrainian power station within hours). And by Tuesday, the intelligence warnings and internet connections for Ukrainian forces had gone dark, and the missiles started flying in from Russia. Then last night, the FBI director responded to reports that he’s planning to visit Moscow to meet with the FSB, the successor to the KGB, with a gloating tweet: “From Russia, with Love…”

There are very serious questions here, with very serious implications for the Trump presidency. What did the president know, and when? What did Putin ask of Trump in that phone call? Did Donald Trump agree to give Putin a financial boost and buy his oil? Did Putin suggest it might help Trump in the midterms by lowering gas prices? Did Trump offer to weaken Ukraine’s defenses for Putin? Did Trump then personally order the Pentagon to restrict Ukraine’s satellite communications while Ukrainian cities were under attack? Did he order American agencies to sit on intelligence about incoming strikes? What, exactly, did the two men say to each other on Friday?

And here I suppose is the most glaring question: Does Donald Trump remember that he was investigated for two years over Russia, and impeached over Ukraine, on almost this exact subject? The parallels are uncanny. The first impeachment, in 2019, was about how he had withheld military support from Ukraine in order to extract a political benefit for himself in a “perfect phone call” with the Ukrainian leader. Back then, he froze foreign aid that was supposed to go to Ukraine in order to get leverage over them to help his re-election.

Seven years later, he’s evidently doing it again, but this time it’s far more serious. After a very suspicious phone call with Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump may have shut down early warning systems and battlefield communications — by literally switching them off while civilians slept in their apartments in Ukraine, in the crosshairs of Russia — in order to pressure Ukraine into a bogus “energy ceasefire” in order to herald lower gas prices before the U.S. midterm elections.

There’s a provision in the Constitution about treason, though it’s too narrow to apply directly to this situation. Yet a president who puts his allies in mortal danger with favors to an enemy and for personal benefit has essentially done what treason describes. And impeachment doesn’t require a statute. Indeed, the words “high crimes and misdemeanors” were written to allow Congress to impeach a president for abuses of the public trust, and there’s no clearer abuse than a commander in chief using American intelligence as leverage against the people it was built to protect, on behalf of the dictator trying to kill them.

Vladimir Putin is unleashing hell on Ukraine, and the question our country must confront is whether the leader of the United States lowered the shield so that Putin could carry out murder and so that he could secure some political wins. In 2017, it took a special counsel to find out what Trump and Russia were doing together. In 2026, it might get blown open over an alleged lie about a weather report.

The collusion is real. While the FBI won’t do anything about it, Congress should reopen the Russia investigation. This time, they may have a smoking gun.

Your friend, in defiance,

Miles Taylor

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P.S. DEFIANCE.org is a nonprofit “club for the courageous.” We exist to fight corruption, like what you just read about. We announce a NEW effort every week to counter Trump’s abuses of power. That’s what your membership funds. If you haven’t yet, become a member today.

DEFIANCE DAILY

In case you missed it, last night’s episode of DEFIANCE Daily is below. Catch our next episode tonight at 5 pm ET!

TRACK THE TRUMP-EPSTEIN READING ROOM & BOOKMOBILE

The Donald J. Trump and Jeffrey Epstein Memorial Bookmobile is heading south. This week, it will stop in Columbia, South Carolina, TOMORROW, and Charlotte, North Carolina, on Sunday, Oct. 18, Meanwhile, the Reading Room heads to Detroit, Michigan, next week.

Plan a future visit and share with others. Check out the tour schedule and RSVP HERE.

THE ANT HILL IS OUR MEMBERS-ONLY CORNER OF THE COLONY, WHERE “DEFY ANTS” GET MORE THAN JUST THE NEWSLETTER.

IF YOU’RE ALREADY A DEFIANCE MEMBER, THEN MARCH RIGHT IN. IF NOT, SIGN UP HERE, SO YOU DON’T MISS A THING.

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What’s better than one Win of the Week? Two! And that’s exactly where our Mission Wednesday got started.

First, a new AP-NORC poll finds that about 6 in 10 Americans believe Donald Trump is profiting from the presidency, either illegally or unethically — about 4 in 10 say he’s flat-out breaking the law, and only about 2 in 10 say he’s doing nothing wrong.

Trump’s June financial disclosure reported more than $1 billion from his family’s new crypto businesses, one of which landed a half-billion-dollar investment from a business tied to the UAE royal family.

As one Ford factory worker in Michigan who voted for Trump in 2024 put it, “He’s not putting the country first.” Even a quarter of Republicans say Trump puts “a lot” of emphasis on his personal business interests. Folks are waking up.

Then, at the Atlanta Press Club’s Georgia Senate debate on Tuesday night, Republican Mike Collins tried to use the Epstein files against Sen. Jon Ossoff. It backfired on him spectacularly.

Collins claimed he’d voted to release the files, but the record says otherwise: he voted against forcing the Justice Department to release them in July 2025, and only came around later, under pressure, on the bill Trump eventually signed.

Ossoff’s response? “Mike, who on your team advised you to raise the Epstein files? … You voted to cover up the evidence, Mike … even though you knew 14-year-old girls had been raped … because Donald Trump told you to.” Quite the retort — and spot on, too.

The debate took place as early voting got underway in Georgia, which brings us right to our Weekly Mission Briefing and your DEFIANCE actions for this week.

BOTTOM LINE UP FRONT: THE BIGGEST EARLY VOTE IN THE HISTORY OF THE REPUBLIC

The beating heart of DEFIANCE.org is our Weekly Mission Briefing. Every Wednesday at 5p ET, we take real action to counter Donald Trump’s abuses of power.

This week, our mission is to help turn this Saturday’s No Kings 4 protest into the largest early vote in American history.

So here’s what we did about it this week…

FIRST, we brought in Jess Morales Rocketto, founder of Maremoto, and David Hogg (@davidmileshogg), co-founder of Leaders We Deserve, to talk turnout. Early voting is already breaking records — Georgia beat its day-one midterm record by more than 50,000 votes this week alone. A new Cook Political Report survey shows Texas Democrats leading 2-to-1 among likely Hispanic voters, but there’s a real threat hiding in the data: the administration is still mining state voter lists for supposedly illegitimate voters. Young, mobile voters are the easiest to knock off the rolls, but checking your registration this week matters for everyone.

SECOND, we talked about the fear factor. LULAC, UnidosUS, Common Cause, and the city of Denver have sued to keep armed ICE agents away from polling places, after two ICE agents showed up at a Syracuse polling site during New York’s June primary. More than half of Americans now say they’re worried about voter intimidation at the polls. Jess and David’s answer: warn people, but don’t scare them away — and bring the fight back to what No Kings has been saying all along about where this authoritarian drift leads if it goes unchecked.

THIRD, we welcomed back Ezra Levin (@ezralevin), co-founder of Indivisible, to talk about Saturday’s main event. The first three No Kings protests filled the streets; last March’s event was the largest single-day protest in American history. Ezra encourged everyone to show up for the No Kings 4 Nationwide Day of Action this Saturday, October 17. Find an event near you. If you can’t find an event nearby, sign up to host one yourself, whether 500 people participate or five! But, as Ezra notes, marching alone isn’t enough. Our ultimate defense is the biggest early election turnout in history. So protest — then vote.

YOUR MISSION, IF YOU CHOOSE TO ACCEPT IT

As a DEFIANCE.org Member, you’re already refusing to let democracy die on our watch. But if you want to do even more this week, here’s what you can do…

1️⃣ Register for an event. You can either join or host a No Kings 4 event.

👉 Find an Event OR Host an Event

2️⃣ Recruit friends. Bring friends, family, and neighbors. Share your event on social and in group chats.

👇 Badge below

🖥️ IF YOU MISSED IT

You can watch the full Weekly Mission Briefing at the top!

As always — stay loud, stay brave, and stay together.

Best,

The DEFIANCE.org Team

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THIS WEEK ON THE ANT HILL

• THURS, OCT 15 — SHOW US YOUR ANT-ITUDE! — We wanna see your DEFIANCE swag, your original artwork, your unique ways of shouting out your defiance to the world in creative ways. Send your pics to our editor here.

• THURS, OCT 15 — DEFIANCE BOOK CLUB — Our current selection is: 1984 by George Orwell. We’ll be discussing chapters 7 & 8 in our Members-only chatroom @ 2:30 pm ET. It’s never too late to join the party! Visit your library or favorite bookstore to pick up a copy.

• FRI, OCT 16 — DOGS (AND CATS!) OF THE DEFIANCE — That’s right…even our furry friends are sticking it to the man. Do you have a dog (or a cat or a horse or a rabbit or a ferret…) that would sooner lift their leg on Trump than play fetch? Send us a pic, and they might be featured in a future issue! Because fighting authoritarianism is hard work, a little fun is important too. :)

GROW THE DEFIANCE

DEFIANCE Members are absolutely crushing it, spreading the word about our club for the courageous to their friends. There is strength in numbers, and that’s exactly what defiance requires. Here’s how you can help build our numbers—and get a shoutout on the Daily with Miles and Xander:

1. Go to https://www.defiance.news/leaderboard

2. Use the buttons provided to share your personal referral link on X, Facebook, or email. Or, copy the link (circled in the example below) to share it via text or other social platforms.

MAGA Senate hopeful Mike Collins tried to tie Jon Ossoff to the Epstein Files during a debate. It backfired spectacularly. And it’s a warning sign for Republicans everywhere.

Last night in Georgia, Trump’s candidate for the U.S. Senate, Mike Collins, thought he’d backed Jon Ossoff into a corner. Collins is trying to take Ossoff’s seat, and in a televised debate, he decided his best shot was to tie the senator to Reid Hoffman, the LinkedIn billionaire and Democratic donor who has acknowledged past meetings with Jeffrey Epstein.

Partway through the debate, Collins went in for the kill.

“You claim to fight against the Epstein class, but I’m going to tell you, this call is coming from inside the house,” he said, visibly excited to drop his supposed truth bomb. Collins pointed out that Ossoff has accepted campaign contributions from Reid Hoffman. “The Epstein class is on stage right now. And it’s you. Will you condemn Reid Hoffman and apologize for your hypocrisy tonight?”

Ossoff didn’t flinch.

“Mike, who on your team advised you to raise the Epstein files?” he asked. “You voted to cover up the evidence, even though you knew 14-year-old girls had been raped, because Donald Trump told you to. Donald Trump, who by the way is named a thousand times in the Epstein files.”

Then he went in again.

“Have you ever met with Jeffrey Epstein’s victims when they ask you why you voted to cover up the Epstein files? What would you say to them tonight, Mike, after you voted to cover up evidence of the most notorious sex trafficking ring in American history? The vote is public record. You should explain that vote to Jeffrey Epstein’s victims right now.”

You have to watch the video. Collins spends most of it looking down at his notebook and squiggling his pen, belatedly realizing he’d built a trap for himself and walked right into it.

Naturally, Collins’ answer was to insist he had voted to release the files. Which is partly true, in the least heroic way possible. In July 2025, House Democrats tried to force a vote compelling the Justice Department to release the records, and Collins voted with his party to block it, echoing the president’s line that the whole thing was a hoax. Then, four months later after Trump reversed himself and gave Republicans permission (under withering public pressure) to release the files, Collins finally voted “yes” along with nearly everyone else in the chamber.

He didn’t “release” the files; he dutifully obeyed the president’s orders.

I bring this up because the exchange is bigger than one Georgia debate.

For a year, Republicans in Washington have told themselves that the Epstein cover-up is a Democratic obsession, a story for the base and something that would fade. Well, last night showed what it actually is. It’s a glaring liability sitting in the voting record of every single member who followed Trump’s lead… and the first time a Republican tried to use it by going “on offense,” it exploded in his face.

I have to say, friends, that’s a damned fine consequence of covering up corruption. You end up owning it. Mike Collins didn’t sexually abuse anyone, and to my knowledge he’s not mentioned in the files. But they’re all over him now. Why? Because he followed orders from a man he knew — knew — was nakedly trying to protect his own interests by perverting the justice system to shut down an investigation that would embarrass him… and possibly worse. Now a Democrat gets to stand next to Mike Collins on live television and ask whether he’s ever looked a survivor in the eye and explained why sucking up to Donald Trump was more important than prosecuting pedophiles.

This isn’t just a trap Mike Collins built for himself. It’s a trap MAGA Republicans built for themselves by obeying Trump’s corrupt commands, time and time again. Voters now rank the Epstein cover-up among the top issues of this election, and not just Democratic voters. A whopping 88 percent of Americans (including 83 percent of Republicans) say they’re prioritizing candidates who support seeking justice on the Epstein scandal. And every single one of the Republicans who ran dutifully to Trump’s side in July 2025 — then scrambled to the other side in November — has the same two votes on the same public record as Mike Collins does. By the way, that’s nearly the entire House Republican conference, and most of them are on the ballot in three weeks.

The president’s cover-up was supposed to protect him. Instead, it’s become the one thing his party can’t defend, can’t explain, and absolutely can’t take back. It’s the most visible symbol of corruption in Washington. Mike Collins learned that the hard way last night. And the rest of them are about to.

Your friend, in defiance,

Miles Taylor

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P.S. DEFIANCE.org is a nonprofit “club for the courageous.” We exist to fight corruption, like what you just read about. In fact, we’ve put all 3.5 million Epstein Files on the road across America, as you’ll read about below. We announce a NEW effort to right corruption weekly. That’s what your membership funds. If you haven’t yet, become a member today.

DEFIANCE DAILY

In case you missed it, last night’s episode of DEFIANCE Daily is below. Catch our next episode tonight at 5 pm ET!

TRACK THE TRUMP-EPSTEIN READING ROOM & BOOKMOBILE

The Donald J. Trump and Jeffrey Epstein Memorial Bookmobile is heading south. This week, it will stop in Columbia, South Carolina, on Friday, Oct. 16, and Charlotte, North Carolina, on Sunday, Oct. 18, Meanwhile, the Reading Room just wrapped up its well-attended engagement in Columbus, Ohio, and heads to Detroit, Michigan, next week.

Plan a future visit and share with others. Check out the tour schedule and RSVP HERE.

THE ANT HILL IS OUR MEMBERS-ONLY CORNER OF THE COLONY, WHERE “DEFY ANTS” GET MORE THAN JUST THE NEWSLETTER.

IF YOU’RE ALREADY A DEFIANCE MEMBER, THEN MARCH RIGHT IN. IF NOT, SIGN UP HERE, SO YOU DON’T MISS A THING.

Read more

Elsewhere, an Air Force major is facing military charges after publicly calling for Trump’s impeachment and removal from office, including being held in solitary confinement 24/7. Author Paul Loeb (@paulloeb) joins us to discuss the consequences of speaking out, a subject at the heart of his newly reissued book, The Impossible Will Take a Little While.

And finally, Kristi Noem decided to pick a fight with Kacey Musgraves. The singer’s response lands her in the DEFIANCE Hall of Fame.

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THIS WEEK ON THE ANT HILL

• WEDS, OCT 14 — MY DEFIANCE MISSION — On Mission Wednesdays, we highlight the defiance actions Members are taking in their own communities. Tell us your story here. Every action counts!

• THURS, OCT 15 — SHOW US YOUR ANT-ITUDE! — We wanna see your DEFIANCE swag, your original artwork, your unique ways of shouting out your defiance to the world in creative ways. Send your pics to our editor here.

• THURS, OCT 15 — DEFIANCE BOOK CLUB — Our current selection is: 1984 by George Orwell. We’ll be discussing chapters 7 & 8 in our Members-only chatroom @ 2:30 pm ET. It’s never too late to join the party! Visit your library or favorite bookstore to pick up a copy.

• FRI, OCT 16 — DOGS (AND CATS!) OF THE DEFIANCE — That’s right…even our furry friends are sticking it to the man. Do you have a dog (or a cat or a horse or a rabbit or a ferret…) that would sooner lift their leg on Trump than play fetch? Send us a pic, and they might be featured in a future issue! Because fighting authoritarianism is hard work, a little fun is important too. :)

GROW THE DEFIANCE

DEFIANCE Members are absolutely crushing it, spreading the word about our club for the courageous to their friends. There is strength in numbers, and that’s exactly what defiance requires. Here’s how you can help build our numbers—and get a shoutout on the Daily with Miles and Xander:

1. Go to https://www.defiance.news/leaderboard

2. Use the buttons provided to share your personal referral link on X, Facebook, or email. Or, copy the link (circled in the example below) to share it via text or other social platforms.

What’s happening in the White House today would’ve caused political apocalypse if a Democrat was in power.

I was a Republican aide on Capitol Hill back when the Benghazi scandal consumed Washington. After four tragic deaths in Libya, my party turned the Obama administration’s diplomatic security missteps into years of hearings and a select committee that spent millions of dollars. Meanwhile, I watched members demand impeachment over an email server. It may have been overwrought, but it sure was relentless.

Now picture this.

Imagine that weeks before a midterm, Barack Obama had run taxpayer-funded television ads starring himself… cut a deal with Vladimir Putin months after American intelligence caught Russia handing Iran the coordinates of U.S. troops in order to kill them… sent federal agents into the home of a Republican congresswoman… banned news outlets from the White House that investigated his administration… told a crowd of supporters that maybe one of our adversaries should bomb Republican-led cities… said he’d withhold money from GOP states that don’t elect Obama-approved candidates… and met with outside advisers who’ve reportedly drafted plans for the president to declare martial law and seize Americans’ ballots in the midterms.

Any one of those outrages would’ve spawned congressional fury. Together, they would’ve led to a spike in chatter about civil war.

Yet Donald Trump did all of it (and then some) in just the past month. The taxpayer-funded ads ran until a federal judge halted them Sunday night… the Russian diesel deal came late last week, despite warnings that it was illegal and after U.S. intelligence concluded Russia was feeding Iran targeting data on American forces… federal agents raided the home of Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar… CNN, MSNOW, and Politico were barred from the White House and still facing intermittent punishment from the administration… in Nebraska last week, Trump offered that Iran could “take out” Los Angeles and San Diego if they wanted — and then repeated the line after his staff had tried to claim that’s not what he meant… in Ohio, he warned that if the Democrat won, he wouldn’t be sending federal aid to the state… and last week, he reportedly huddled with a convicted criminal and election conspiracist in the Oval Office, who’s part of a cabal of outsiders urging the president to upend the election by seizing voting machines and ballots.

Oh, and that’s just the short list.

It leaves out the $810 million in congressionally approved spending that Trump unilaterally cancelled… the disaster aid he told North Carolina it wouldn’t get if his candidate lost… and the 250-foot triumphal arch his administration is racing to build — in his honor — before the courts rule against him.

This would rip apart the nation if a Democrat did it.

But it’s worse than that. Rather than threatening armed conflict over Trump’s corruption, some MAGA Republicans are apparently welcoming it in order to prevent the president from losing power. One of Trump’s outside advisers, Peter Ticktin, hinted at the possibility of civil war if the president’s opponents riot in the wake of an overturned election. “Believe me, our armed forces are a lot bigger than they are,” he told The Atlantic. Ticktin even expanded on the comments in another interview: “[Trump’s] got nothing to lose, the nation has nothing to lose, it’s better if we’re going to have a civil war of any sort that it would be martial law with our side in control of the armaments.”

This isn’t some random MAGA guy on social media. He and his allies have been having Oval Office meetings with the president. When a talk show host put this outrageous idea to Trump directly — of him declaring some kind of national emergency around the election — the president said: “Let me just say, stranger things have happened, okay? I’ll leave it at that.”

Let’s not forget that the last time he lost an election, his supporters did ransack the seat of government, and militia members staged rifles in a hotel across the Potomac in anticipation of a wider armed conflict.

The contrast between the two parties couldn’t be more striking. Democrats police their own. They forced Al Franken out of the Senate amidst a scandal, ran Bob Menendez out of it, and ended Joe Biden’s candidacy when they decided he couldn’t win and looked too old on the debate stage. A Democratic president doing a tenth of this would be facing the wrath of his own party’s subpoenas by now, if only because members would be terrified of losing their seats.

Instead, elected Republicans have offered tepid statements. Senator Susan Collins criticized Trump’s spending cancellation. Senator Thom Tillis questioned the Russia deal. Neither has scheduled a congressional hearing. And of course House Speaker Mike Johnson has been silent or deferential on most of it.

Not long ago, I bought my two-year-old the classic If You Give a Mouse a Cookie book. She loves it. The moral is that the cookie is never the end. The mouse wants the milk and then the straw and then to run all over the house stirring up trouble. Republicans in Congress didn’t hand over a cookie to Donald Trump. They left the cabinet open, put the box on the floor, and moved out. So when the house burns, it will be on them.

So what does the other side do when a president is this corrupt?

Not what his friends would do. The pro-democracy movement wins by the rules; otherwise, it isn’t worth winning. This Saturday, No Kings events in thousands of communities will do something that sounds almost quaint in comparison to the president’s corruption blitz: they’ll check registrations, request absentee ballots, and walk neighbors to early voting sites before the deadlines close. While one side is stockpiling grievances and talking about the size of its armed forces, the other is making carpool plans to the polls.

That’s the whole difference, folks. And it’s the reason that — in the long run — we’re going to prevail.

Your friend, in defiance,

Miles Taylor

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P.S. DEFIANCE.org is a nonprofit “club for the courageous.” We exist to fight corruption. That’s it. Every Wednesday at 5pm ET, we announce new efforts (like these, HERE) to hold Trump accountable. Your membership is what makes it possible. If you haven’t yet, become a member today.

DEFIANCE DAILY

In case you missed it, Friday night’s episode of DEFIANCE Daily is below. Catch our next episode tonight at 5 pm ET!

TRACK THE TRUMP-EPSTEIN READING ROOM & BOOKMOBILE

The Donald J. Trump and Jeffrey Epstein Memorial Bookmobile is heading south! This week, it will stop in Columbia, South Carolina, on Friday, Oct. 16, and Charlotte, North Carolina, on Sunday, Oct. 18, Meanwhile, the Reading Room just wrapped up its well-attended engagement in Columbus, Ohio, and heads to Detroit, Michigan, next week.

Plan a future visit and share with others. Check out the tour schedule and RSVP HERE.

THE ANT HILL IS OUR MEMBERS-ONLY CORNER OF THE COLONY, WHERE “DEFY ANTS” GET MORE THAN JUST THE NEWSLETTER.

IF YOU’RE ALREADY A DEFIANCE MEMBER, THEN MARCH RIGHT IN. IF NOT, SIGN UP HERE, SO YOU DON’T MISS A THING.

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We had another great Monthly Members Meeting last night, where we (1) got an eye-opening interview with Rich Logis, founder and Executive Director of Leaving MAGA, on why MAGA defections are speeding up; (2) walked through the missions YOUR memberships funded last month, from taking the Epstein Files on the road to protecting the vot…

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DHS claims Belgal tried to use his vehicle as a weapon against officers. B…

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An agency that was created to protect Americans after 9/11 has put us under siege. It cannot continue to exist. Period.

On Thursday evening in the Marble Hill section of New York, a five-year-old boy sat in the back seat of his father’s car, while a federal agent dressed up like a construction worker fired seven rounds into it. One of those rounds struck the father in the neck, just below his left ear. A neighbor who watched from his building threw himself to the floor because the shots were coming his way.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) says the man has a criminal record and gang ties. Maybe. Maybe not. Americans don’t really believe anything DHS says anymore, not after the Department insisted that Americans its agents had killed in cold blood were “terrorists,” even though recorded video showed anyone with an eyeball that those were peaceful protesters who’d been murdered by their government. (To say nothing of that fact that public communications in general out of DHS have become meme-fueled, shit-posting, lie-spewing nonsense.)

I spent most of my career building DHS. That’s basically been my life. I worked for Secretary Michael Chertoff in the department’s early years under President Bush, when we were still figuring out how to make two dozen agencies function as one. I spent years on the House Appropriations Committee deciding how much money DHS would get, and then on the House Homeland Security Committee deciding how it should evolve. I went back to the department in the first Trump administration and ended up as its Chief of Staff. I’ve defended that department, funded it, reorganized it and, on more than one occasion, apologized for its unacceptable transgressions.

So believe me when I say that its most notorious agency, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE, should be abolished.

There are plenty of nuanced policy arguments for that position, and I’ll make them another day. Today, I want to set them aside, because there’s a more basic problem. A federal law enforcement agency is funded by the taxpayers and exists to serve and protect the people. When the people no longer trust it, it cannot do that job. Full stop. It doesn’t matter how the org chart looks or how many training hours get added or how much “reform” is undertaken.

You cannot fix an agency that the people themselves see as a hostile secret police. There’s no going back.

The numbers aren’t good. A majority of Americans now say they have little or no confidence in ICE, and most now support abolishing the agency outright, a figure that was closer to a quarter just over a year ago. That’s how fast times have changed. People didn’t arrive at this view because of a slogan, “Abolish ICE!” They arrived at it by watching the agency shoot people in the streets, from Minneapolis to Manhattan, over and over.

The writing was on the wall in the first Trump administration. During my time at DHS, the White House repeatedly wanted ICE to do things our lawyers said were plainly illegal. What stopped those orders from being carried out was not a statute or some kind of institutional safeguard built into the agency. It was basically just a thin layer of people willing to say “no.” And not all of them were particularly courageous. You just had enough people who didn’t want to go to prison for the president and, at the very least, who didn’t want to get dragged into depositions and courtrooms after leaving office. Apparently, that’s no longer the minimum standard.

I knew then that if Donald Trump ever returned to power, the thin protective layer of people with even a half-formed conscience would be scraped away. An institution whose only check is a few worried bureaucrats cannot withstand corruption. With them gone, it would only be a matter of time before the agency was turned into the type of personal police force the president so obviously craved. All it would need is the wrong sort of people to take control. And the wrong people are most definitely in charge now.

Some will say the answer is “reform.” Believe me, I’ve been part of DHS reforms, and I can tell you how long rebuilding public trust takes once a law enforcement agency loses it. And it ain’t a year or two. It takes a generation. After all of this is over, voters won’t have the patience to watch what they felt was the American Gestapo get a two-coat paint job. That won’t suffice. Whatever agency is responsible for enforcing the nation’s immigration laws next will need to be a wholly new agency, built from the ground up, with the public’s trust designed into it, rather than bolted on after all the damage is done.

Again, I helped build the department that houses ICE, and I still believe in the mission of keeping this country safe. But a five-year-old in Marble Hill is going to remember Thursday for the rest of his life, and so should we. The agency that put him in that bloodied back seat has forfeited its right to exist. And we remedy it by taking out the wrecking ball.

Your friend, in defiance,

Miles Taylor

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P.S. DEFIANCE.org is a nonprofit “club for the courageous.” We exist to fight corruption. That’s it. Every Wednesday at 5pm ET, we announce new efforts (like these, HERE) to hold Trump accountable. Your membership is what makes it possible. If you haven’t yet, become a member today.

DEFIANCE DAILY

In case you missed it, last night’s episode of DEFIANCE Daily is below. Catch our next episode tonight at 5 pm ET!

TRACK THE TRUMP-EPSTEIN READING ROOM & BOOKMOBILE

The Donald J. Trump and Jeffrey Epstein Memorial Bookmobile will be in Manchester, New Hampshire, TODAY. Meanwhile, the Reading Room is still on display in Columbus, Ohio through Sunday.

Plan a future visit and share with others. Check out the tour schedule and RSVP HERE.

THE ANT HILL IS OUR MEMBERS-ONLY CORNER OF THE COLONY, WHERE “DEFY ANTS” GET MORE THAN JUST THE NEWSLETTER.

IF YOU’RE ALREADY A DEFIANCE MEMBER, THEN MARCH RIGHT IN. IF NOT, SIGN UP HERE, SO YOU DON’T MISS A THING.

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Some of it is on full display, while the rest might have stayed buried if organizations like Democracy Forward hadn’t gone digging.

Newly uncovered government records show ICE investigating voter registration groups, including a Pennsylvania skate shop that partnered with organizations helping young people register to vote. Yes, a skate shop.

Meanwhile, the Postal Service is deploying nearly 1,000 armed private guards to more than 55 facilities, including centers that process mail-in ballots. The Postal Service says it’s part of a longstanding security plan, but that’s quite a show of force at a place where Americans expect their votes to be handled without intimidation.

And if you can’t intimidate, just buy some good will — or try.

Trump is sending Americans checks in the mail. Sounds good, except he’s refunding them their own money, with much of it headed to key battleground states.

He’s even tucked a little self-promotion into the envelope, hoping $500, or a measly $90 for seniors, will make Americans forget about their soaring healthcare costs. Not likely.

Then, Scot Nakagawa (@scotnakagawa), co-founder of the 22nd Century Initiative, joins us to discuss Trump’s promise of “big surprises” before the midterms.

And for Who’s Joining the DEFIANCE, we hear from Keith Porter, Sr. After months of grieving his son, who was killed by ICE, Keith was beginning to heal when news of two more deaths brought everything back. Now he’s lending his voice to the families demanding accountability.

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• FRI, OCT 9 — DOGS OF THE DEFIANCE — That’s right…even our furry friends are sticking it to the man. Do you have a dog (or a cat or a horse or a rabbit or a ferret…) that would sooner lift their leg on Trump than play fetch? Send us a pic, and they might be featured in a future issue! Because fighting authoritarianism is hard work, a little fun is important too. :)

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DEFIANCE Members are absolutely crushing it, spreading the word about our club for the courageous to their friends. There is strength in numbers, and that’s exactly what defiance requires. Here’s how you can help build our numbers—and get a shoutout on the Daily with Miles and Xander:

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This summer, the United States government put an Olympic athlete in handcuffs for touching a strip of loose plastic. It’s a case that should lead to a sprawling investigation of the Department of Justice itself.

As you may remember, former Olympic canoeist David Hearn was detained by National Guardsmen at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, indicted on a felony carrying ten years in prison, and publicly branded a vandal by the Secretary of the Interior. The pool liner he touched was already peeling (as Interior’s own engineers had flagged eight days earlier), a consequence of Trump’s rushed and botched makeover of the National Mall ahead of America’s 250th celebrations. Prosecutors already knew about the renovation errors.

Yet they indicted Hearn anyway.

Jeanine Pirro’s office eventually dropped the case, admitting it couldn’t support the charge. Of course, Donald Trump’s reaction was to say she “choked,” and then to push the Justice Department to refile. Last week, a federal judge dismissed the indictment permanently so the government could never try again. And this week, Hearn’s legal team, including Norm Eisen and former DOJ Inspector General Michael Bromwich, sent a 21-page letter to the watchdogs at Justice and Interior demanding a full investigation into who did this, who pressured them, and why.

I know what it feels like. I sent one of the first letters of that kind to Trump’s DOJ last year.

After Trump signed an executive order falsely accusing me of stealing classified information and committing treason, he stripped my security clearance and ordered the Department of Homeland Security and the Attorney General to investigate me. The order identified no wrongdoing. It didn’t need to. The offense was that I had publicly revealed the depths of his incompetence and corruption.

That June, my lawyer Abbe Lowell filed a formal complaint with the inspectors general of DOJ and DHS. We asked a simple question: are your departments being used to punish dissent, and are your employees aware they’ve been directed to violate the constitutional rights of an American citizen in the process? The answer was already visible. People I went to high school with were getting calls from federal agents. Multiple U.S. government employees whom I was friends with were fired for mere association. I was told they were already digging through my emails.

Sixteen months later, I’m still waiting for a serious answer.

Hearn and I aren’t special. Chris Krebs got his own memo the same day I did. James Comey and Letitia James were indicted by a prosecutor a court later found was never lawfully appointed. Across the U.S. government, career lawyers were pushed out for refusing to sign onto bogus cases, and the ones who stayed came under grave pressure to bring charges against the president’s enemies, whether or not they had evidence.

But if they thought they’d get away with it, they’re more intellectually challenged than I expected. None of this was an accident, and none of it was done in ignorance. The prosecutors who indicted Hearn had the exculpatory evidence; they went forward anyway. The officials who executed the order against me knew that a president isn’t allowed to declare someone guilty of a crime and then have them investigated in order to find some kind of evidence. These were all lawyers who swore an oath to the Constitution and were bound by professional rules that forbid exactly this. They made a choice, and they made it knowing the law was on the other side.

“Investigate the investigators” was Trump’s own slogan in 2019 while he was being probed for potential collusion with a foreign adversary, Russia. Like all of his slogans (“Drain the swamp!” “Lock them up!” “Stop the steal!”) this one’s going to be turned against him.

The process of accountability starts with the inspectors general, even the ones Trump installed after firing seventeen of their predecessors in his first week. These letters create a real-time record of misconduct — opening lines in eventual investigations into how Trump’s prosecutors were directed to bring fake charges against people as a means of retaliation. But it can’t end there. Every prosecutor who signed an indictment they knew they couldn’t prove should face disbarment or prosecution. Every official who retaliated against a citizen for protected speech should end up in a courtroom. And the next Justice Department should reopen every one of these cases… and turn the focus on the investigators themselves.

By the way, I’m a firm believer that consequences are not vengeance. They’re the only thing that stops the next administration, of either party, from doing it again. They hoped we would forget. We won’t.

Your friend, in defiance,

Miles Taylor

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P.S. We built the Anti-Weaponization Fund for exactly the people in this piece: whistleblowers, fired public servants, and journalists targeted by presidential revenge. DEFIANCE.org is a nonprofit club for the courageous, and paid memberships fund efforts like it. We announce a new one every Wednesday at 5pm ET. Become a member and help us investigate the investigators.

DEFIANCE DAILY

In case you missed it, Tuesday night’s episode of DEFIANCE Daily is below. Catch our next episode tonight at 5 pm ET!

TRACK THE TRUMP-EPSTEIN READING ROOM & BOOKMOBILE

The Donald J. Trump and Jeffrey Epstein Memorial Bookmobile will be in Manchester, New Hampshire, tomorrow, Friday, October 9. Meanwhile, the Reading Room will be on display TODAY through Sunday in Columbus, Ohio.

Plan a future visit and share with others. Check out the tour schedule and RSVP HERE.

THE ANT HILL IS OUR MEMBERS-ONLY CORNER OF THE COLONY, WHERE “DEFY ANTS” GET MORE THAN JUST THE NEWSLETTER.

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KENNEDY’S VACCINE CATASTROPHE. Pennsylvania’s measles outbreak is the largest in the country in three decades, having passed 1,004 cases across 39 counties, with 198 hospitalized and five dead, including two infants. So what’s Health and Human Services Sec. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., up to this week? Announcing a new NIH clinic for suspected vaccine injuries. But others are fighting his health-threatening agenda. A coalition of Democratic-led states is suing to undo the CDC’s January decision to drop seven vaccines from the routine schedule. And on Tuesday, the 1st Circuit heard arguments on Judge Brian Murphy’s ruling blocking 13 Kennedy appointees to the vaccine advisory panel, whom he found “distinctly unqualified.” Stay tuned.

ANOTHER CONFLICT FOR KUSHNER. No stranger to conflicts of interest, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner’s firm, Affinity Partners, is the largest shareholder in Phoenix Financial, which has invested at least $265 million in Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest defense contractor. Why does it matter? Because Kushner has been heavily involved in negotiations to end the war in Gaza. While Kushner calls the story “deeply misleading,” Rep. Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, has asked Affinity for details on its Middle East dealings, citing “an apparent conflict of interest.”

A SKETCHY DEAL MADE AT THE END. In Kristi Noem’s last few hours as Homeland Security secretary, her department bought five aircraft from Daedalus Aviation for more than $300 million. The deal looks pretty suspicious. Six aviation experts told The New York Times the prices ran millions above market value for the aging planes, which largely sat idle. And here’s the kicker: Daedalus chair William Walters gave $10,000 to a PAC supporting Noem in 2024. Noem has called the reporting “libelous” and demanded a retraction, but she didn’t dispute those prices.

ICE’S ABUSES CONTINUE. According to ProPublica, more than 500 U.S. citizens have been detained by immigration agents under this administration. More than 100 were held after agents questioned their citizenship, nearly all of them people of color. At least 70 were children or teens, and about a dozen citizens were deported. As one a naturalized citizen who was detained (and voted for Donald Trump) said, “ICE isn’t looking for criminals. They’re looking for Latinos.” Meanwhile, ICE officers are now asking the immigrants they arrest whether they’ve ever voted illegally, part of a pre-election push to root out alleged voter fraud. An internal ICE email says that starting Oct. 1, anyone who admits to it gets asked how they voted too.

IS DYED DIESEL DEAD IN THE WATER? In an attempt to ease skyrocketing diesel prices, Trump signed an executive order this week allowing anyone buy tax-exempt “red dye” diesel, which is normally limited to off-road farm use. The IRS won’t penalize highway use through year-end, and the White House claims truckers will save over $100 a fill-up. But energy experts are skeptical. GasBuddy’s Patrick De Haan says, “Taxes aren’t the problem, supply is.” The order could also push up prices for the farmers who already depend on dyed diesel.

DEFIANCE IN THE COURTS. Disney is suing to stop FCC Chair Brendan Carr from fast-tracking license reviews for all eight ABC-owned stations years ahead of schedule. Likening the case to censorship, Mark Fowler, a Reagan-era FCC chair, says, “What Carr is doing is unconstitutional… The First Amendment is very plain in its wording and its meaning.” Meanwhile, lawyers for ex-Olympian David Hearn, who was falsely charged with vandalizing the Reflecting Pool this summer before the government dropped the case, are calling on the DOJ and Interior Department inspectors general to investigate, citing “an indictment obtained through unusual haste and a prosecution shaped from the outset by political pressure.” And finally, Judge Kathleen Cardone halted border wall construction across a 500-mile stretch of West Texas, including Big Bend National Park. Congratulations to our defiant friends who fought it tooth and nail.

DEFIANCE DAILY

In case you missed it, last night’s episode of DEFIANCE Daily is below. Catch our next episode on Thursday, Oct. 8, at 5 pm ET.

TRACK THE TRUMP-EPSTEIN READING ROOM & BOOKMOBILE

The Donald J. Trump and Jeffrey Epstein Memorial Bookmobile has left Manhattan and is heading north. Next stop: Manchester, New Hampshire, on Friday, October 9. Meanwhile, the Reading Room will be on display tomorrow through Sunday in Columbus, Ohio.

Plan a future visit and share with others. Check out the tour schedule and RSVP HERE.

THE ANT HILL IS OUR MEMBERS-ONLY CORNER OF THE COLONY, WHERE “DEFY ANTS” GET MORE THAN JUST THE NEWSLETTER.

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Our Members-Only Meeting is TODAY.

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His White House would now like you to believe you didn’t hear that correctly.

Meanwhile, there are actual weapons of mass destruction to worry about. Two people are reportedly dead after a suspected plague outbreak tied to a Russian biological weapons facility.

Then, after the real funding source of Trump’s ads was unveiled by the Washington Post, Trump says MAGA Inc. will pick up the tab going forward.

Just don’t expect a refund for the millions already spent.

But Trump isn’t the only one with ad problems. In Texas, leaked audio has Ken Paxton admitting he has little control over his own campaign, with Trump and DC calling the shots.

And after viewing the GOP’s latest ad featuring his estranged wife, we have to agree with Ken.

Rashad Robinson of the Committee for the First Amendment shares his take after an FBI whistleblower alleged Trump ordered an investigation into anti-ICE protesters he saw on TikTok.

Plus, in Who’s Joining the DEFIANCE, an 18-year Interior Department lawyer quits over what he calls the Trump administration’s “assault on the rule of law.”

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THIS WEEK ON THE ANT HILL

• WEDS, OCT 7 — MY DEFIANCE MISSION — On Mission Wednesdays, we highlight the defiance actions Members are taking in their own communities. Tell us your story here. Every action counts!

• THURS, OCT 8 — SHOW US YOUR ANT-ITUDE! — We wanna see your DEFIANCE swag, your original artwork, your unique ways of shouting out your defiance to the world in creative ways. Send your pics to our editor here.

• THURS, OCT 8 — DEFIANCE BOOK CLUB — Our current selection is: 1984 by George Orwell. We’ll be discussing chapters 5 & 6 in our Members-only chatroom @ 2:30 pm ET. It’s never too late to join the party! Visit your library or favorite bookstore to pick up a copy.

• FRI, OCT 9 — DOGS OF THE DEFIANCE — That’s right…even our furry friends are sticking it to the man. Do you have a dog (or a cat or a horse or a rabbit or a ferret…) that would sooner lift their leg on Trump than play fetch? Send us a pic, and they might be featured in a future issue! Because fighting authoritarianism is hard work, a little fun is important too. :)

GROW THE DEFIANCE

DEFIANCE Members are absolutely crushing it, spreading the word about our club for the courageous to their friends. There is strength in numbers, and that’s exactly what defiance requires. Here’s how you can help build our numbers—and get a shoutout on the Daily with Miles and Xander:

1. Go to https://www.defiance.news/leaderboard

2. Use the buttons provided to share your personal referral link on X, Facebook, or email. Or, copy the link (circled in the example below) to share it via text or other social platforms.

The NYPD and the Park Police were trying to kick us out last night at the end of our press conference in New York City. We’d run way into overtime. But I had one more thing to say. So I went to the microphone.

First, some context.

Behind me in Washington Square Park yesterday evening stood close to a dozen survivors of sexual abuse and alleged assault, including at the hands of Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump. Behind them sat the Trump-Epstein Bookmobile, 17,000 pounds of evidence that DEFIANCE.org and the Institute for Primary Facts have hauled from Dallas to Des Moines to New York so any American can read the 3.5 million pages the government was forced to release about these monstrous crimes.

We were joined by Robert De Niro, Rosie O’Donnell, Rosanna Arquette, and many others. De Niro had just told a crowd (in the neighborhood where he grew up) that one man was standing in the way of releasing the rest of the evidence — and doing it to cover his own ass. Americans of all political stripes now see this. It’s why surveys show the coverup has become one of the most important issues to voters ahead of the midterms, whether they’re Democrats or Republicans. In fact, 88 percent of likely midterm voters, including 83 percent of Republicans, prioritize candidates who will hold the powerful accountable including by releasing the files, and Epstein justice ranked above healthcare and affordability.

The survivors said harder things than any of us at the press conference. Marina Lacerda was 14 when she met Epstein. Lara Blume McGee was 20 — in her words, “an adult on paper, a target in practice” — and she told the crowd not to mistake her fellow survivors’ gratitude for restitution. “A library is not a courtroom. A bookshelf cannot issue a subpoena,” she said. And midway through the press conference, Chauntae Davies confessed to the cameras that her body rejects the unspeakable crimes that happened to her so violently that she sometimes ends up in the hospital when asked to speak about them. Then she asked a rhetorical question: “I look at the people leading this country and I ask, would I leave my daughter alone with them?”

So when the police started waving us off, I stepped forward to say what I’d been thinking all afternoon. There wasn’t time to properly close out the event, so I just said this: “A message to the men out there: if you believe in supporting women, then on Nov. 3, fucking prove it.”

Forgive my language. But that’s how I feel.

Election Day is less than a month away. As many of you know, I’ve spent most of this year arguing that it’s the most important anti-corruption election of our lifetimes. Thankfully, voters finally seem to be agreeing with me. A record 89 percent of Americans now say government corruption is widespread, and for supermajorities of them, the Epstein cover-up is the most visible example of it in the country. But yesterday brought something else to the surface, too. This election also happens to be a test of whether we believe what we say when we tell folks to “stand up for women.”

Ten years ago, a guy on a leaked tape bragged that he could grab women “by the pussy.” It wasn’t just locker room, jock-strap-slapping antics. He was boasting about how he got away with sexual assault. Indeed, more than a dozen women came forward by Election Day in 2016, and they were eventually joined by a former Trump aide, Alva Johnson, who stood in the park yesterday and said that her sisterhood of survivors “warned all of you.” They did. And America didn’t listen. A jury has since found Trump liable for sexual abuse in one of those cases.

While Trump is not on the ballot this year, he keeps telling his rallies to “pretend, please” that he is. We should really take him up on it. Even so, the men who Donald Trump has gathered around him inside the MAGA movement are on the ballot. Congressman Max Miller of Ohio, a former Trump aide, is running for a third term while the House Ethics Committee investigates whether he committed domestic violence. His ex-wife accused him of physical and emotional abuse (and abuse of their daughter), and his ex-girlfriend said he slapped her and shoved her against a wall. He denies all of it, and he’s still “Trump’s guy.”

Meanwhile, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is asking for a promotion to the U.S. Senate. Last week, he went on stage and defended the deal his office offered a man charged with repeatedly sexually abusing a nine-year-old boy. A child. Paxton had the perpetrator plead to two misdemeanors then gave him one day in jail. I don’t know how you feel about that, but I read that and want to vomit.

But the rot is so much bigger than Max or Ken. Last month, House Republican leaders sent members home ahead of schedule, with the chamber not due back until after Election Day. Why did they go home early… and in such a panic? In part, because a petition was gaining steam inside the chamber to force a vote on releasing the rest of the Epstein files. Survivors were burning down their phone lines. They were sweating. Terrified of angering their leader, Donald Trump, they balked and dismissed the legislative session and flew home. So brave.

These are the examples we are offering our sons and daughters. Our sons are watching what men get away with. And our daughters are watching to see whether anyone stops them. Does our country actually stand up for women? They’re right to wonder.

I’m going to say what might be uncomfortable for other men reading this. It’s easy to say the right thing when a survivor is standing in front of you. “This is terrible,” you say. “I’m appalled. We have to fight back.” But you know what? The real test happens in a voting booth with a curtain, where nobody is watching and when many of you have told yourself, well, I really care about tax cuts too and defense spending and regulations. And incredibly, you talk yourself into voting for a pervert.

That’s exactly what happened in 2016. A lot of men who would never say it out loud decided, in private, that a man on tape bragging about sexual assault was an acceptable price for whatever it was that they hoped to get from the sloppy, failed businessman who they elevated to the White House. We have a chance to redeem that grave civic mistake. The choice is the same one it was ten years ago. The question is, will we make it differently?

As you’re wondering, come see the Bookmobile. It’s free and open to the public, it’s now traveling all over the East Coast, and it rolls into West Palm Beach near Mar-a-Lago on Nov. 3, the day the country decides whether to tolerate rank corruption or throw out the politicians who protect predators.

If you’re a man who’s ever told a woman in your life that you stand with her, this is where it counts. Fucking prove it.

Your friend, in defiance,

Miles Taylor

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P.S. DEFIANCE.org is a nonprofit, and every dollar from paid members goes toward fighting the kind of corruption you just read about. Every Wednesday at 5pm ET, we announce new efforts (like these, here!) to hold Trump accountable. Your membership is what makes it possible. If you haven’t yet, become a member today.

DEFIANCE DAILY

In case you missed it, last night’s episode of DEFIANCE Daily is below. Catch our next episode tonight at 5 pm ET.

TRACK THE TRUMP-EPSTEIN READING ROOM & BOOKMOBILE

The Donald J. Trump and Jeffrey Epstein Memorial Bookmobile has a busy schedule between now and the midterm elections. Plan a future visit and share with others. Check out the tour schedule and RSVP HERE.

THE ANT HILL IS OUR MEMBERS-ONLY CORNER OF THE COLONY, WHERE “DEFY ANTS” GET MORE THAN JUST THE NEWSLETTER.

IF YOU’RE ALREADY A DEFIANCE MEMBER, THEN MARCH RIGHT IN. IF NOT, SIGN UP HERE, SO YOU DON’T MISS A THING.

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At the Trump-Epstein Bookmobile in New York City, the incredibly courageous Epstein survivors took the mic alongside Robert De Niro, Rosie O’Donnell, Rosanna Arquette, Katie Phang, Norm Eisen, and others to demand what they’ve been denied for decades: the full truth and real accountability.

But the message went beyond Epstein. Survivors drew a direct line from the failures that allowed Epstein to operate for years to what’s happening at Cornell University today.

Then to close out the event, Miles had a message for the men who say they stand with women.

It starts with what we do in November.

A huge thank you to DEFIANCE members, who helped fund the Trump-Epstein Bookmobile and keep it on the road. To support the Bookmobile, please donate here.

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THIS WEEK ON THE ANT HILL

• TUES, OCT 6 — TRIVIA TUESDAY — Test your knowledge of defiance throughout history, and we’ll give a shoutout to everyone who gets all five right AND a $15 discount on any swag in our swag store!

• WEDS, OCT 7 — MY DEFIANCE MISSION — On Mission Wednesdays, we highlight the defiance actions Members are taking in their own communities. Tell us your story here. Every action counts!

• THURS, OCT 8 — SHOW US YOUR ANT-ITUDE! — We wanna see your DEFIANCE swag, your original artwork, your unique ways of shouting out your defiance to the world in creative ways. Send your pics to our editor here.

• THURS, OCT 8 — DEFIANCE BOOK CLUB — Our current selection is: 1984 by George Orwell. We’ll be discussing chapters 5 & 6 in our Members-only chatroom @ 2:30 pm ET. It’s never too late to join the party! Visit your library or favorite bookstore to pick up a copy.

• FRI, OCT 9 — DOGS OF THE DEFIANCE — That’s right…even our furry friends are sticking it to the man. Do you have a dog (or a cat or a horse or a rabbit or a ferret…) that would sooner lift their leg on Trump than play fetch? Send us a pic, and they might be featured in a future issue! Because fighting authoritarianism is hard work, a little fun is important too. :)

GROW THE DEFIANCE

DEFIANCE Members are absolutely crushing it, spreading the word about our club for the courageous to their friends. There is strength in numbers, and that’s exactly what defiance requires. Here’s how you can help build our numbers—and get a shoutout on the Daily with Miles and Xander:

1. Go to https://www.defiance.news/leaderboard

2. Use the buttons provided to share your personal referral link on X, Facebook, or email. Or, copy the link (circled in the example below) to share it via text or other social platforms.