You can tell how a campaign thinks it’s doing by its closing argument in the final weeks. Candidates who believe they’re winning talk about their record. Candidates who believe they’re losing throw everything at the wall, including the kitchen sink.
Three weeks out from the US midterm elections, Donald Trump and his allies are in a state of extreme panic. His opponents are cautiously celebrating this apparent validation that the Maga movement is on the ropes. But I watched this president lose up close, when I worked for him, which is why I see the panic as an ominous sign, too.
The first sign of despair came when he started throwing money at people. Last month, at the Republican Party’s first-ever “midterm convention” in Dallas, Trump promised every American adult a $5,000 (£2,656) cheque if his party keeps the House and Senate. Trump dangled it like a not-so-subtle bribe. Vote for us, and you’ll get your money.
What we know about Christa Pike’s botched execution
Recordings of the calls made to emergency services after the failed execution of Christa Pike reveal confusion and delays to her care, as her lawyers fight to get her off death row.
Who is Christa Pike?
- The 50-year-old was given the death penalty for killing her 19-year-old classmate Colleen Slemmer in 1995.
- She was set to be the first woman executed in Tennesee for more than 200 years before the botched injection.
Pike’s lawyers are now arguing for her sentenced to be commuted to life without parole, arguing she cannot be subjected to the death penalty twice.
Help was delayed by half an hour
Ambulance workers were not cleared to enter Riverbend Prison in Tennessee until half an hour after the first call was made, recordings obtained by the reveal.
The initial call came at 8.40pm on 30 September, an hour after the two attempted lethal injections, and crews were let into the prison at 9.11pm.
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What did prison officials say?
The recording of the first call has not been released, but at 9.03pm, a dispatcher said it was a “false call” and there was “no medical assistance needed at Riverbend Prison”. At 9.07pm officials from the prison’s central control confirmed they “did not make” the initial call.
At the same time, a first responder said there was someone “outside the gate at the prison telling us that it’s real and demanding us to go in”, and asked for someone from the prison to come out to speak to them.
Pike taken to hospital
- Pike was taken to hospital at 9.34pm.
- She has now been discharged after 10 days.
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Tom Cruise film Digger forecast to lose $245m at box office
With ticket sales slumping in the film’s third week in cinemas, is set to lose its studio, Warner Bros, hundreds of millions as it fails to recoup its $280 (£211m) production and marketing costs.
On course to be a historic flop
Tom Cruise’s satirical comedy, in which he stars as oil tycoon Digger Rockwell, has taken just $35m at the box office so far, with ticket sales dropping by 60 per cent this weekend.
It is on track to take $50m according to , which would make it one of only a handful of films to lose a nine-figure sum.
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How bad is it?
- Critics say Cruise gives a poor performance and have labelled the film his “vanity project”.
- The secret twist is said to be too “meta” and the script not funny.
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Women’s autoimmune conditions more likely to be misdiagnosed
Women are up to 75 per cent more likely to have an autoimmune condition misdiagnosed as psychosomatic than men, and face longer waits for treatment, according to new research.
What did the study show?
A study of 6,607 patients found that
43%
of women reported their autoimmune symptoms had been misdiagnosed as psychiatric, compared to 33 per cent of men.
Women were overall 46 per cent more likely to receive a psychiatric misdiagnosis.
34%
of women received a psychosomatic (physical symptoms caused or worsened by psychological factors) misdiagnosis compared to 22 percent of men.
What is an autoimmune condition?
These occur when the body mistakenly attacks its own tissues, and many are more common in women. Diseases include multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis and lupus, and symptoms range from fatigue and low mood to pain and digestive issues.
Women reported a longer period between onset of these symptoms and diagnosis than men, with more appointments in between.
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Women struggle to be believed, says researcher
Although labels such as hysteria are outdated, and fortunately rarely used nowadays, as women we still often have a harder time having our symptoms believed and therefore addressed accurately
Shaista Tayabali, co-author and patient partner at the University of Cambridge and University of East Anglia
More health from The i Paper
Breaking Bad actor RJ Mitte dies aged 34
Who was RJ Mitte?
The American actor was cast as Bryan Cranston’s on-screen disabled son when he was 14, and drew on his experience of living with cerebral palsy for the role.
His disability is rarely mentioned in the show, which ran from 2008 to 2013, with Walter ‘Flynn’ White Junior defying his father and cracking jokes at his expense. He won a Screen Actor’s Guild award for his performance in the role in 2014.
What did he do after ?
Mitte continued acting with roles in Talking to Strangers and Switched at Birth. He also created The Mitte Foundation, a charity to support community initiatives, and was an ambassador for United Cerebral Palsy.
He died on Monday at what is believed to be his home in Brownsville, Texas, aged 34. No cause of death has been determined.
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I’m in deep despair as I write this tonight…That kid was still pretty raw when we started shooting the pilot in February 2007, but little by little we watched him grow into a real fine actor…All that promise and potential is now such a loss.
bryan cranston, Actor for Walter white in , on instagram
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Midwives win £750,000 over nitrous oxide exposure
More than 120 maternity staff at Basildon University Hospital have been awarded almost £750,000 after they were exposed to high levels of nitrous oxide, which is given to women during childbirth, at work.
How did midwives get exposed to the gas?
- Leaky pipes and poor ventilation caused exposure to the gas.
- Midwives reported fatigue, headaches, brain fog and anxiety.
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Who got the payout?
The payout was awarded to staff who worked at the hospital between 2021 and 2023, after the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) took legal action against the hospital.
Roughly 80 members of the RCM received compensation along with around 60 others.
The union said the hospital knew about the leaks in 2021 but staff were not warned about the risks until October 2022.
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The UK towns at risk of running out of water this winter
Five successive heatwaves and the warmest summer on record have left millions of Britons living in drought conditions, which experts believe could remain in place for the foreseeable future unless there is a “significant amount of rainfall” this winter.
Which regions are in drought?
- Yorkshire became the latest area to fall into drought last Friday.
- All of central, southern and eastern England are already in drought.
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Eight reservoirs ‘exceptionally low’
The i Paper understands the Environment Agency is concerned about the low levels at Wimbleball, Ardingly, Clatworthy, Colliford, Hanningfield and Abberton.
These are variously operated by South West Water, South East Water, Wessex Water and Essex and Suffolk Water.
England would need 120 per cent of typical rainfall over the next seven months just to be considered out of the drought status.
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When will hosepipe bans be lifted?
No bans have ended in the past month, with restrictions on water usage still in place in most of southern and eastern England, affecting almost 30 million people.
- Professor Liz Bentley, chief executive of the Royal Meteorological Society, said the bans would stay in place for the forseeable future unless there is a “significant amount of rainfall” soon.
Then he moved into full panic mode and started sending money out anyway. In a flurry before Election Day, the administration has mailed $500 (£378) payments to almost a million Americans (ostensibly for a healthcare programme rebate), but they’re hardly innocuous government refunds. The cheques come with a signed letter from Trump blaming his Democratic predecessor Joe Biden for economic hardship.
Meanwhile, Trump has blitzed the airwaves with ads touting his record. But rather than use campaign funds, he’s used taxpayer dollars from the Department of Homeland Security, where I was once chief of staff, to fund the promotional spots. This includes a near-identical copy of a 2024 campaign advert that now ends with the words “Paid for by the US Government”. A US judge just ordered a temporary halt to the ads, and said the plaintiffs who claimed they were an unlawful use of taxpayer money were likely to win.
Trump is also getting desperate as he watches Americans — including from his own side of the aisle — complain about prices at the pump. So days ago, Trump struck a surprise deal with one of America’s foreign adversaries, Vladimir Putin, to import Russian fuel into the United States, mere weeks after he signed sweeping sanctions against Russia’s energy sector as punishment for its war with Ukraine. The Ukrainian President has called the move a “gift” to Putin, while US analysts have noted that buying oil from our enemies will do little to lower gas prices, may be illegal (since Congress banned Russian energy imports in 2022) and will almost certainly embolden a cash-strapped Putin. Left unsaid by the White House is that fuel prices have soared because of his war in Iran.
The desperation has spread outside government, too, with the billionaires and smear merchants scrambling to pitch in to help Trump salvage an election that appears headed toward major defeat for Republicans. Elon Musk has reportedly spent $366m (£276m) to help the President’s candidates, with special attention on deep-red Texas, where the GOP shouldn’t be having trouble but is flailing. In fact, Democrat James Talarico has led Ken Paxton in nine of the last ten polls. When Talarico left the trail for ten days with the flu, Paxton demanded “proof of life” and the reality TV personality Spencer Pratt told followers his sources said Talarico was in a mental health facility. Talarico made an appearance at a country music concert days later.
None of this is how a confident party behaves. Trump’s approval is below 40 per cent in every major polling average, and Democrats lead the generic ballot by more than they did before their 2018 “blue wave” during Trump’s first administration, which sent him into a spiral. He can see what’s coming.
And that’s where the caution comes in. The last time Trump believed he was losing, he searched for any voice near him that was willing to whisper back reassuring lies that he hadn’t really lost. Indeed, in December 2020, Trump was in such denial that he summoned outside advisers Sidney Powell, Michael Flynn and Patrick Byrne to the Oval Office to hear their pitch for seizing the voting machines from the election Trump had just lost. White House lawyers spent hours fighting them off. Weeks later, Trump spoke to a rally of Maga followers who then marched across town and stormed the Capitol – although he did not make a direct call for violent action.
These outsiders are what I call Trump’s “crackpots cabinet”. As his anxiety about the midterms swells, he’s consulting with these flunkies about his options. The one that has me most worried is Tina Peters, a former Colorado county clerk and conspiracy theorist convicted of election interference. Trump spent a year pressuring Colorado’s governor to let her out of jail; within weeks of her release, she was having lunch at the White House with the President. Last Monday, according to Trump ally Ed Martin, she was back in the Oval Office discussing election “plans”, which the White House won’t confirm or deny.
Why should that concern you? Well, her lawyer is a man named Peter Ticktin (a boyhood friend of Trump), and he’s drafted an executive order for Trump to declare an election emergency. This month, in fact, he described a plan to “seize ballots” across America and do hand recounts wherever the White House likes, warning that “Donald Trump is not going to relinquish control again.” Ticktin added that a “civil war” would be better for his side because they’re in power right now and hold the nation’s armaments. He told about one scenario in which the President could declare “martial law” on or around Election Day.
The White House says these people don’t set election policy, but I know better. I remember when people like that would call Trump at all hours of the day and night and do exactly that — shape his views on policy — because we’d get the phone call right afterwards when he’d order us to do something that they had suggested to him. Trump certainly seems to be signalling that he’s listening to the crackpots. In Dallas, he led supporters in raising their right hands in a mock pledge to “cheat like hell like they do” in the election. People laughed. I didn’t.
So I’ve been going across the country urging vigilance. Governors, secretaries of state and judges should decide now what they’ll do if federal agents holding badges and guns turn up at polling places demanding the ballots. And America’s allies, Britain included, should say in advance that they’ll recognise election results as certified by the states, not illegal hand recounts Trump wants to do himself.
Before the 2020 election, as the President’s desperation grew more apparent, I talked with my former boss John Kelly, who’d served as Trump’s chief of staff.
We talked about whether Trump might try to stay in office, unconstitutionally. At the time, his staff were scoffing at the idea and assuring everyone Trump would “concede gracefully” if he lost and hand over power peacefully. Kelly knew that was unlikely and had a different vision: “Nothing would please me more than if he chained himself to the Resolute desk, and they have to go in and cut the chains and carry him away in a straitjacket.”
The end result wasn’t far off.
This time, the people who’d happily hand him the chains are back in the Oval Office. They’re whispering in his ear again. And they’re telling him that desperate times call for desperate measures.