Kagro in the Morning

David Waldman drops us off on Friday, usually the calm center of Trump's chaos typhoon... It's Trump's "grand conspiracy", all right, although it depends on how you define "grand". Nevada's top court revives the state's fake electors case, anyone looking into anything Bill "Slimebag" Pulte does are sacked, while Eric Swalwell gets Pulte-ed and FBI Mis-Informant Alexander Smirnov slips out the back door. Ghislaine Maxwell gets the Perv-a-Lago 6 Star Diamond Deluxe Grande treatment, plus a puppy. Donald K. Trump vows to prosecute and imprison every single person connected to Jeffrey Epstein... give or take. MAGA accepts only two genders, yet sees pedophilia as an infinite spectrum, with Jeffrey and Matt Gaetz way over on the nicest possible end. AI-Generated ICE porn might actually be the worst porn one could make with Sora. Kai Trump proves that she's every bit the golfer grandpa is at the LPGA Tour's Annika tournament. She just doesn't have his caddy, though. Kristi Noem stars in an ad campaign with an "Avengers" budget… Or... is she just playing hide the salami with taxpayer money?

David Waldman brings us another two hours of KITM, while Greg Dworkin puts down his Xbox controller for an hour to join in the latest news and badinage. But his emails! The House Oversight Committee gave us a small nasty taste of what's to come in the Epstein files. Republicans retaliated with 23,000 pages of proof that Jeffrey Epstein and his oh-so-close frenemy Donald K. Trump weren't only about the little girls. Sometimes they were about Ghislaine Maxwell, Trump, and little girls, and sometimes they were about Russia, Trump, and little girls. The thing about Jeffrey Epstein is that he never had a shortage of strange bedfellows to pillow talk with. Meanwhile… Matt Gaetz! Adelita Grijalva has finally been sworn in and became the 218th signature of Trump's very painful discharge petition. Who wouldn't vote for this bill? Wow, this news almost pushed Dem's shame of shutdown caving off the front page! Hey, Democrats didn't perform "horribly", some say they didn't completely "fail", in fact… they "won", that's it! In fact, Trump wasn't really "winning". People hate, hate, hate Trump… and they disapprove of him as well. Republicans love him less than they used to. In fact, Jeff might be the more popular one across the board. Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker worries what Trump might do to distract from the Epstein files and will be discussing it over the Thanksgiving table with family members. Kash Patel keeps hoping to score frequent flier points with his girlfriend.

David Waldman and Greg Dworkin are convening in working session today for the first time since Monday to address the national backlog of news and punditry. It's day two of the shutdown… cave by the Democrats. Dems knew when to hold'em, say they knew when to fold'em, according to government gamblers John Fetterman and Chuck Schumer. But what if the Democrats' big shutdown loss turns out to be a win? Well, it already has… for Republicans, who can pick up half a million dollars for subverting the government on Jan 6, and destroying it this year. Of course, the reason for the shutdown has not been addressed. Has this completely ruined the Democratic party chances in '26? No, not yet, but there's still time. Rising Republican star Glenn Youngkin has Santorumed out and won't be able to wrest Andrew Cuomo from upcoming Fox pundit slots. Sure, we kill people that we don't like the looks of. Hell, we slaughter hundreds of thousands. All of a sudden, the United Kingdom has something against war crimes? Jeffrey Epstein knew all about Donald K. Trump. Everybody hates Donald Trump and is out to get him, according to criminal charges soon to be filed by the next Trump sacrificial attorney Jason Reding Quiñones. Obviously, such an overtly political hitjob would never be accepted in court by any judge who… AILEEN CANNON?!?

David Waldman has some explaining to do, and just the venue to do it. Dems spent a half week too close to the sun before finding a nice familiar cave to retreat to, back safe in the protective arms of the Gop, who have promised to quit beating them, this time. Democrats had to give in, for the sake of the children. Well rested, the Capitol kicked into high gear, running like the finely tuned machine that we've come to expect. Meanwhile, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson performed an excellent example of jurisprudential Jiu Jitsu by administrative stay to save SNAP from slow rolling. Laura Loomer follows the voices in her head (Who sound just like Donald K. Trump) to smite Trump enemies, who never seem to include pedophiles, coal rollers, etc. Is Trump's cruelty or stupidity worse? Today's vote is for stupidity, for promoting mortgages that would take generations to pay off. Hey, at least Trump's was bigger than FDR's! RIP today to Sally Kirkland, memorable in an almost unimaginably varied artistic career.

Acting! The Kagro in the Morning Players, Messrs. David Waldman and Greg Dworkin, debut the first of their one-act plays: "It's Not So Bad, When You Look at It". Did Dems underreach? Will Gops overreach? Well, that is what they do. Today is for replays and takeaways. It's not over yet, and there's plenty more to come. Now, will Donald K. Trump's next move be cruel, or stupid? Of course, it will be both. Trump can't bribe himself into popularity… not in this economy. ICE'S not yet being welcomed as liberators. Russia hunts civilians with drones, while Pete Hegseth says, "Hold my beer." Trump is being forced to share his food with others, and you can imagine how that makes him feel. The goal is to herd most Americans into ghettos, and the rest into fortresses, perhaps not the future most desire. Kash Patel keeps leaving spies out in the cold. Who needs intelligence when you have loyalty? That sure works for Alexander Smirnov, who was disappeared, but in a good way. Rudy Giuliani and his gang of fake electors got fake pardons they can pin to the walls of their state cells. SCOTUS declined to revisit their same-sex marriage decision filed by OG Karen, Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis, because really, no one wants to give her any more time.

David Waldman brings us the end of a fairly cheerful week. Don't worry, they'll make the weekend suck. Sean Dunn flung a hoagie, and Sean done got off misdemeanor and felony charges, too. Remember that when troops come to your neighborhood... lunch is on them! Still working out the details on the Trump White House renovation, Trump functionaries correctly spelled "The Oval Office" and pasted it on the outside of the Mar-a-Lago North's cabana room. In that "Oval Office", as Dr. Mehmet Oz described his plan to make lots of Trump babies in time for the midterms, Donald K. Trump hoped to catch a little shut eye but was rudely awakened by one of those White House fainters. Trump was forced to then finish his nap standing up. Donald hates seeing anyone sick or injured, unless it's on a surveillance camera. That's just how the Navy prefers to disembowel fishermen, popping a few more of them out in the Caribbean. Turning fishers into fish food cuts down on embarrassing court visits, and hearing judges grouse on about their shocks to the conscience. A Federal judge is throwing restrictions on Operation Midway Blitz officers just trying to have a little fun. SCOTUS is allowing the administration to continue busting the balls of those that they believe should be displaying theirs but might really harsh their vibe on starving the destitute. They can take Trump's tariffs when they pry them from his cold, dead, hands. Trump pardons corrupt Tennessee Republican politicians, because they are corrupt Tennessee politicians, duh! Zohran Mamdani has been NYC mayor for… so long now and has already done way too little and/or way too much. Even George Santos is leaving. (He's lying.) The best that can be said is this. The worst is this.

David Waldman returns today, because there wasn't enough yesterday! Greg Dworkin returned also, but discovered that there wasn't enough today either, so he stuck around for most of the show! There is so much delicious data to share, most of which pollsters wished that they had a couple of days ago or at least had the foresight to analyze correctly. In hindsight, however, we can see that a bunch of Democrats voted, and not a lot of QAnon MAGAs had their panties bunched this go-round. Instead of conspiracies, voters were motivated by reality. Fewer jobs and bigger bills are being felt everywhere, especially with the MAGA who have noticed that America is not so great again. Not just the economy either. Every statewide office contested went blue. The whole nation has re-woke-ened. From sea to shining sea, assholes are looking for new jobs this week. Running for Democratic office is becoming so fun, everybody's doing it! Every little Podunk and Spotsylvania goes Dem as voters get out and vote. The fate of the free world rests in Zohran Mamdani's hands. That is according to everyone to the right of him, Democrat or Republican, and to the left of him and above and below him, who will now need to move their backbiting-sweet talking over to the Hizzoner's office lobby. Donald K. Trump is going full dotard because of all this. That seems like a fun thing, but it could be a bad thing. Meh, it couldn't get worse… could it? Perhaps someone should give him an award today. Nancy Pelosi is retiring from making history in Washington DC, might make a little more on the other coast.

David Waldman, Greg Dworkin, and Dems are back, baby. Now, if you are tuning in to KITM today, you are probably wanting to know when, what, where, how, and why. When? Yesterday, and over the last 9 months or so, voters have determined that they need to fix things, and universally that Democrats were the ones to do that. What? Dems won in red and blue areas, in big and little races. Where? New Hampshire, New Jersey, Bucks County, Wake Forest, Edison… everywhere. In Cincinnati, JD Vance's brother is a loser. You might have heard about places like California, and New York City, where the Mamdanimentum has become a Mamdanimandate. You got to love Virginia, where even the reddest counties turned blue, including, of course, home of Kagro in the Morning World Headquarters, Loudoun County. Democrats could gerrymander blue states bluer, but so could Republicans. How? The Hispanic vote, obviously, makes a lot more sense in a party that isn't cracking their skulls daily. A party whose motto is "Resistance is just asking for it." shouldn't expect much support from women. Antisemitic comedy is antisemitic. Why? Trump. The rest of them suck too, of course. If the new Dems do a good job, the contrast will be harsher come midterms. Gops aren't the only ones smelling the onions and mustard this morning. Border Patrol agent Gregory Lairmore still has BMT PTSD. Greg Bovino says he may never recover from that punch to his blutbewußtsein, but the judge says he'll just have to soldier on. Trump still can't attack Portland, but Indianapolis wants some. Hey, guess which Dick is still dead? Cheney! Dick Cheney did horrible things when he was alive but was never the kind to allow a cardiac arrest to obstruct his skullduggery.

David Waldman brings us a Throwback Tuesday KITM in which we explore the things that we did not throw back hard enough. There was a time when bigotry, dishonesty, inhumanity, and megalomaniacal cruelty had a craft to it. There was a sense of pride and effort in underhanded Machiavellian scheming that you just can't find anymore. We'll probably never see a Dick like Cheney again. Donald K. Trump destroys thousands of lives, the graft just rolls in, while he hardly lifts a finger. Trump wants to abolish the filibuster because he could then avoid the effort of circumventing it. Remember when David recommended filibuster reform? Back then we were all into affordable health care concerns, gun deaths and such. Simpler times. Turns out that all the lead poisoning didn't keep them from voting Trump in, let's hope the concussive blast waves help in the midterms. Let's revisit those years between Trump terms during which the SOB did not go to jail. If it was anybody else, he'd be there today. We are all left to scratch our heads, connecting the dots, following the money, wondering how it all went wrong.

David Waldman, drinking his throat tea by the quart, doesn't hold back on today's KITM: Greg Dworkin prepares us today for his Wednesday post-vote analysis. Virginia is for lovers, not haters, yet Gops kinda love to hate. Antisemitic hate is loved by the Gop, not by those that the Gop hates. SNL understood the NYC mayoral debate as if they were locals. Ha ha! Oh, well. That's Our Trump!™ Donald K. Trump took a break from his achieving that perfect balance between Tsar Nicholas II and Tony Montana on his new fancy crapper, then flew down to Perv-a-Lago for a Great Gatsby/Cabaret/Marie Antoinette Night O' Sleaze. Then it was time for Donald to watch his conquering return to 60 Minutes in order to make sure that the editors took good care of him. 73 minutes cut down to 27 left a more highly polished turd, still filled with the usual Trump golden kernels of impeachable confessions and casual idiocy, always with the promise of more and worse to come. Generally, brown people, especially those sitting on oil, better watch out. Trump sees your 25th Amendment and reveals that his whole operation revolves around his cluelessness. Autopen is his alibi! Let them execute the rest for war crimes, Trump is just too plain stupid to hang. Anyhow, all those Venezuelans aren't being killed by missiles, they're being killed by loopholes.

David Waldman wishes everyone a faboolous Halloween and reminds us to never ghost the boollot box! Ah roooooo! Trump's architects of chaos are moving into some really gated communities, as 20,000 troops are being sent out to states that might require blitzing or krieging in the near future. The DHS is releasing videos of our continued triumphs and the constant threat of Eastasian/Eurasian Antifa. Oops! ICES accidently deported Trump's house illegal, and one of Donald's favorites too! Most are horrified by Trump's destruction of the East Wing, at least those with brains. Of course, some do just fine without brains but it's just a pity. Donald K. Trump has ordered the "nuclear option" on the never-ending shutdown, either because someone told him it was "nuclear", or they called it his "trump card". Dems aren't invited to briefings on fishermen massacres, which might benefit them in future war crime trials. Today, David methodically peels the corruption onion of Trump's $550 billion Japan deal. You'll be crying by the end!

Against his better judgement, David Waldman returns today. He lived, so he'll probably return tomorrow. Greg Dworkin fished a couple more polls out of the fetid recesses of ex-Twitter. Zohran is Mamdaniminating the competition, while Andrew Cuomo is barely eking out enough votes to become a panel regular on Fox. Zohran is earning each vote, while Eric Adams isn't worth a bus fare bribe. In Virginia, Abigail Spanberger is sprinting ahead, right down the middle to the finish line. The Times of London wanted to speak to Bill DeBlasio, but weren't picky on which one, and took what they could get. Donald K. Trump has shuffled through Asia with each leader assuring him that he's a winner, handing him a little something, and sending him on his way… now we have to take care of him again. Someone has to break the news to grandpa about the government shutting down. All of Donald's pals get to play with their nukes, why can't he? No Kings protests were so joyous that the Pentagon is training 20,000 national guard troops to take them down. Meanwhile, ICE'S breaking ribs and taking names of Antifa suspects, and deporting journalists out of any place they might be reporting from. Central casting fascist Greg Bovino kept his cyanide capsule in his pocket as he got out of daily questioning by enemy judicial forces. Merrick Garland woulda shoulda coulda.

A truck full of deadly virus-infected "aggressive" lab monkeys were released in a crash in Mississippi. It's about time, right? In fact, doesn't it feel a little late in this disaster of a timeline for that kind of event? Anymore, a thing like that feels like some sort of shitshow oasis. David Waldman has already shown some signs of infection this morning, but Greg Dworkin remains hale, and hearty enough to dredge another a raft o'stories from the dismal fen of Ex-Twitter. Fewer people like Donald K. Trump. More like him less. Tariffs that were to hurt the other guy, foreign and domestic, have been discovered to hurt them as well. Generic Democrats come to the rescue of the American economy. Gops have ways of dealing with those nasty polls, and one way is to simply cease to be and allow the scum to float to the top. Judges are now the last line of defense. A federal judge has decided that Bilal Essayli can't be U.S. attorney for the Central District of California just because the Senate has never selected anyone for the job. Another federal judge demands that violent recidivist Greg Bovino wear a camera and report to her each day. The Ninth Circuit en banc bench continues to block Trump's Portland invasion. The House is trying to fund SNAP because having the National Guard put down food riots might image badly heading into the midterms. South Korea takes satire further than South Park would ever dare, handing Trump a gold crown and a bottle of ketchup. Satire can never catch an administration that keeps male veterans from getting coverage for breast cancer,,, What, hasn't Pete Hegseth banned nipples in the armed forces yet? Meanwhile, Ken Paxton sues Tylenol until he can figure out how to jail mothers of autistic children. In local news… maybe not local to you, but local to somebody, Jay Jones' texting scandal hardly hurts him, let alone Abigail Spanberger. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, on the other hand, hopes the Zohran Mamdanimentum always rolls her way. Andrew Cuomo not only hopes people will remember him next week, but he also hopes they can find him on the ticket.

David Waldman returns to explain more. Sadly, the "Kavanaugh stop” won’t even slow down Brett Kavanaugh. It’s just another move to self-obsolescence made by the Trump Supreme Court, autographed by Brett. If you don’t look right, sound right, aren’t in the right place, or you cross the wrong ICES, you get your ass beat. Now that use of unnecessary violence has been approved, ICE’S leadership is being rotated out to more bloodthirsty troops and strategies. That’s been working in sniffing out the sea drug suspects/corpses. We don’t need skin color or accents, just the number of motors on a boat and missile coordinates. It’s Tim Mellon’s turn to rent the troops this week. You know Tim, don’t you?... Jeffery sure did. You remember Jeffery Epstein, don’t you? Donald K. Trump sure… well, maybe he remembers. Donald might not remember which way his Depends go on anymore. Donald tried to wander off in Japan but unfortunately was captured and returned to his handlers. Trump’s seventy-year decline into madness is reflected in his foreign policy approach. Hey, how about Charlie Kirk’s widow as editor-in-chief of NBC and CNN? It’s amazing what you can do with Grok these days. Another guy working hard to make his position and branch of government obsolete is Mike Johnson, who works hard to be hardly working. The Trump boys can attest that there’s a whole lot more to becoming a success in life than putting any effort into things.

A catch-up Monday! Pop quiz: Did you already know about the three presidency-ending corruption scandals… just from last week? Greg Dworkin gets us grounded with his Abbreviated Pundit Roundup. All the news you can eat in one hour! All the pre-game punditry comes to an end soon enough in Virginia, New Jersey and New York City. That VA AG race remains tighter than most of the other ones. Canada is soory, not soory, eh? But the bottom line remains that Trump is wrong about Reagan and tariffs. He just is. In fact, he's just wrong about tariffs in general. But then again, he's wrong—well past the point of lunacy—about a lot of things. He's even wrong about how he targets "enemies" for his special punishments. Maybe that's why he had to have his head examined. As the government shutdown continues, ACA insurance premiums are set to become the source of the first widespread pain delivered to the middle class by this intentional Republican failure. They just don't care. And it's not clear that debate is a real tool for changing that. Stephen Miller and Pam Bondi ended last week with new threats to investigate and prosecute Democrats they don't like, claiming it's a felony to hold federal officers accountable if they break state laws. But no, it's not. Are you still using AI? The Russians won't stop, but you should! Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead, and so is the East Wing of the White House. Melania is actually said to be unhappy about it. But Michael Wolff may make her unhappier still, by turning the litigation tables on her.

A catch-all Friday! Tops on the list for the day: the continued destruction at the White House. HuffPost documents the donors who thought they were signing up for ballroom construction, only to find out Trump was saddling them with East Wing demolition, instead. Next up: We’ve always been at trade war with Canada! Or at least, we are now. Again. Because something, something, Ronald Reagan. Speaking of which, “something, something, Ronald Reagan.” Third: Trump says he has no intention of asking Congress to authorize his Caribbean (and now Pacific) strikes. Even though it would give the tacti-cool set lots of lingo and jargon to toss about. Israeli hard-liners are talking about annexing the West Bank, now. JD Vance makes it about him. Happy Diwali! MAGA makes that about Kash Patel. Ronny Jackson is so dumb, not even Matthew Kacsmaryk can save his “case!” Neither can anyone save the MAGA “cases” of supposed “left-wing violence.” The right has never learned—and never had to learn—the lesson of The Case of the Backwards B. New bootstrapping theory dropped! The “reason” Trump thinks he’s entitled to reparations from the DOJ is that they should have foreseen in 2022 that in 2024, SCOTUS would invent a new theory of “presidential immunity,” and that he would totally have been entitled to it. Heading out to vote early in Virginia? Do you feel like you need some context on Jay Jones? Or nah?

David Waldman talks about the things you wanted to hear about on today’s KITM! Greg Dworkin found some polls floating in the sewage over at ex-Twitter. They indicate that Dems are way up. Now, people still hate Democrats, but they despise Republicans, which could lead to midterm wins if Republicans allow voting to happen. R Paul LePage is winning in Maine, but D Jared Golden is putting the effort in. In the Senate race Graham Platner will be getting his past lasered off and is presently doing quite well. To guess at who will win in Virginia, watch who is resigning now. Zohran Mamdanized Andrew Cuomo in their second debate and gave him a kick out the door. Donald K. Trump opens his Pacific theater of operations in order to serial murder fisherfolk and possibly curtail “the ocean drugs and the sea drugs, drugs by sea they call it also”. (The president was of course referring to the deadly drug “chloroquine”) After the trawlers are cleared out, Trump can pump the Pacific on to the Portland fires. The mind-rot algorithm destroys minds around the world, including those doing the rotting. Mike Johnson thinks inflatable frogs have it in for Hakeem Jeffries. Lindsey Halligan wants this, and everything prior to this, off the record. John Fetterman must have meant to say that Trump is stealing $230 million because of his small balls, it just doesn’t make sense any other way. Trump will demolish anything to put his thing in its place. The East Wing is the thing he is demolishing this week. Planning only gets in the way of the demolishing. Demolishing will become easier once the economy is out of the way. Don’t worry, Democrats have a word they’ve been focus grouping and are almost ready to deploy. Senator Jeff Merkley had 22 hours and 36 minutes of words to say against Trump doing such things.

David Waldman is back to sort out the weekend chaos. Belated RIP to Ace Frehley, yet Greg Dworkin is back in his New York groove today, presenting links from Ex-Twitter, which, alas, is still with us. Not long for this New York mayoral race world is Andrew Cuomo, whose absence won’t be felt like Curtis Sliwa, world’s easiest interview subject. Silwa voters aren’t part of the Mamdanimentum, btw. No Kings rallies had a very nice day. Several million pleasant people at a few thousand locations made their presence known to everybody other than the New York Times. Sadly, in these days and times, terrorists will inevitably show up wherever large groups of patriotic Americans gather. Terrorist in Chief, Donald K. Trump wishes he could have been at all of them. Kenny Loggins is pretty certain that Trump is more of a bottom gun, but Mike Johnson believes that Donald is just perfect the way he is. Trump notes that the Constitution plainly states that he’s allowed to be king, just like 50 or 60 of his predecessors did 1000 to 1500% of the time. Unfortunately, he could be right. It turns out that the test for enemy terrorist drug runners is the same as the test for witches: If they float, they are innocent. Marco Rubio betrayed drug gang informants to get the El Salvadoran prison deal. Trump is betraying American ranchers to pay off Argentina. Australia discovers that they aren’t on the good end of the kickback seesaw. JD Just Dance Vance was almost taken out by a Marines artillery shell. No way could his ear have withstood that.