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Tuesday, October 13, 2026
Federal agents in HSI windbreakers were seen carrying out boxes of material from the home of Rep. Ilhan Omar early Monday morning. The Department of Justice says it’s part of an ongoing investigation, though President Donald Trump distanced himself from the early morning raid, insisting it had nothing to do with him. Omar is, of course, the vocal Trump critic and naturalized American citizen originally from Somalia, and a frequent target of Trump’s insults and, more importantly, insistence that she should be sent back to where she came from. It’s possible that the DHS did not follow direct orders from the president on this, but it’s also possible that DHS and DOJ leadership simply saw what Trump had repeatedly said about deporting Omar and charging her and are simply trying to please their boss. Either way, it sure looks like an example of revenge justice, as well as a narrative distraction from the high gas prices, disastrous Iran war, and terrible polling for the GOP three weeks out of the midterms.
01. Trump’s Revenge Justice Grows Despite His Insistence the Omar Raid Has ‘Nothing to Do With Me’
[Going Mainstream]. Monday morning, agents carried boxes out of Omar’s house. By night, Trump had called her garbage and insisted the raid had nothing to do with him.
Agents from Homeland Security Investigations searched Representative Ilhan Omar‘s Washington home Monday morning and left with boxes. The investigation, per the Times, is into whether her late father lied in legal-status paperwork in the 1990s. She became a naturalized American citizen in 2000 and on a ballot in three weeks.
Trump was asked on his way to Ohio whether he knew in of the raid advance, and insisted he has always found her “totally crooked” and that the raid “has nothing to do with me.” That night in Youngstown, he called her garbage and the crowd chanted “deport.” Katie Miller, wife of Stephen Miller and a former spokeswoman for Mike Pence and DOGE, posted “Promise made, promise kept” under a story about the raid, then deleted it. Hmmm…
By Monday evening, the defense was the judge. Fox News’s own report said Justice Department practice is to avoid steps like this so close to an election, then noted a judge signed the warrant anyway. Jonathan Turley told Hannity the department hasn’t yet revealed why it departed from its policy, which is a guideline, not a law. Tuesday morning, all three morning shows gave the raid a full segment in their first hour; the day after, none of them did. The Fox News one closed with Brian Kilmeade saying, “We’ll see if he told the truth when he came here,” about her father.
TAKEAWAY: Is anyone surprised? The White House can see the same polling data as everyone else, and if the Congressional party majority changes, Trump will face the constitutional checks and balances the framers intended. So time is running out for the president to act with impunity until January 3rd, when a new Congress takes their oath.
02. Trump Siding With Putin Splits the GOP as a Republican Moves to Kill the Diesel Deal
[Gaining Traction]. Sunday the dissent was a senators’ letter. Monday Trump called his GOP critics not serious and Fox News reported a Republican bill to block the deal.
Told at the White House Monday that both Russia and Ukraine say they never agreed to his energy ceasefire, Trump said, “They agreed, you know why? Because I said you agree.” Of the Republicans who want the diesel deal reversed, he said “these are Republicans that can’t really be serious,” and of the deal itself, “It’s not really a deal with me.”
That evening Fox News’s Jennifer Griffin reported on Special Report that the deal appears to violate the 2022 ban on Russian oil imports and the sanctions law passed last month in Lindsey Graham’s name, and that Representative Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, whose Bucks County seat Democrats are after, is introducing a bipartisan bill named for Ronald Reagan to block all purchases of Russian oil products. Tuesday Mika Brzezinski read from the Wall Street Journal, which called the ceasefire farcical and told Trump his courtship of Putin has never worked.
Morning Joe spent most of its first half hour on Putin, the Duke of Windsor and Lindbergh. Over two hours Tuesday, Fox & Friends and CNN didn’t say Putin or Ukraine once, a day after Fox News’s own news hour told viewers the deal may be illegal.
TAKEAWAY: Russia, Russia, Russia…amirite? When Brian Kilmeade’s schooling of Rachel Campos-Duffy on Fox & Friends Weekend gets two minutes of fulsome praise on Morning Joe? You know we’ve crossed a line into the much-anticipated harmonic convergence (or at least something that is moving towards that utopian state on this one very tiny issue.) Small victories, people!
03. The GOP’s Red-State Rescue Leans on Elon Musk’s $276 Million as Trump’s Crowds Shrink
[Gaining Traction]. Yesterday the worry was what Trump says to his crowds. Last night it was the size, about 3,000 where he drew 7,000 in 2017. Musk is the backstop.
Trump filled about 3,000 seats Monday night in a Youngstown arena where he drew about 7,000 in 2017, by the Tribune Chronicle‘s count, and told the room to “pretend that I’m on the ballot, because in a way, I am on the ballot.” Tonight he’s in Wasilla, Alaska, in support of Senator Dan Sullivan, who currently trails Mary Peltola. Wednesday he’ll be in Bullhead City, Arizona, in a county that gave him 77 percent in 2024.
The money is working the same map that defines Trump tour of candidate support. The Senate Leadership Fund put close to $100 million into Ohio for Jon Husted, an appointed senator who has never run statewide for the seat, against Sherrod Brown, who leads him in CNN’s poll.
Elon Musk‘s people told the Times he has given more than $276 million to Republican efforts since July, $158 million of it to that same fund, and volunteered the numbers ahead of Thursday’s filing deadline. Last year he said of political spending, “I think I’ve done enough.” He appears to have changed his mind.
Chuck Schumer framed the fight for control of the Senate as coming down to whether “the unprecedented tsunami of Republican money” beats Democrats’ advantage in candidates. In five Fox News primetime hours Monday, the one mention of the $276 million was Laura Ingraham’s, as a sign of strength, “compared to the Democrats who are lagging behind in fundraising.”
TAKEAWAY: Republican candidates are likely delighted with the sudden infusion of cash into their struggling campaigns; however, the narrative that a trillionaire tech oligarch known for his bromance with Trump is putting in NINE figures of cash does little to dismiss the narrative that the GOP is only in support of trillionaire tech oligarchs known for their bromances with Trump and able to put in NINE figures of cash. The more things change…
“Making a deal with the Russians seems like a very bad idea here... this is Russia’s war of aggression, and they are the villains.”
That’s Guy Benson, Fox News political analyst and conservative talk radio host, on the Special Report panel Monday night, after Jennifer Griffin’s report that the diesel deal appears to violate two federal laws. Benson also said of ex-Fox Newser Kimberly Guilfoyle, on the same panel, that when the president is asked about firing you and says he’s not happy, it’s “probably not going to end well for you.” (Fox News)
Where the prediction markets and the coverage disagree. Odds: Kalshi, as of 7:56 AM ET Tuesday. Morning Frame does not offer betting advice.
Odds: Kalshi, as of 7 am ET. This newsletter holds no position in any market listed. Not betting advice.
Bari Weiss Fought Lesley Stahl Over a West Bank Story. Status reports that CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss and a top CBS editor gave heavy notes on Lesley Stahl’s 60 Minutes piece on settler violence, suggested holding it, and that Stahl privately discussed quitting. CBS calls the account “a ludicrous, twisted narrative” and says the piece got fewer edits than most. (Status)
The Last Time the Feds Raided a Congressman, the Republican Speaker Fought the Republican DOJ. On a Saturday night in May 2006, more than a dozen FBI agents searched Representative William Jefferson’s office on Capitol Hill. The affidavit said agents had earlier found $90,000 in cash in his home freezer. Speaker Dennis Hastert and Nancy Pelosi issued a joint statement demanding the material back, and the next day President George W. Bush ordered it sealed for 45 days, saying “our government has not faced such a dilemma in more than two centuries.”
Based on transcripts from the 6 and 7 a.m. hours of Fox & Friends, CNN This Morning, News Central, and Morning Joe
Monday's raid on Ilhan Omar’s home was the one story that made all three networks, though each told it with the same facts and presented it with a very different frame. Fox & Friends focused on probable cause and her father’s paperwork. CNN led with “not the FBI, not the DOJ” and the “garbage” tape. Morning Joe’s panel featured a conservative calling it perverse. But even traditionally right-of-center voices have raised their eyebrows. Just weeks ahead of the midterms, a Fox News correspondent asked ‘why now?’ which was echoed by its own legal contributor, and even a Washington Examiner conservative columnist. Trump insisted it had “nothing to do with me,” despite his repeated calls for her to be charged and deported. He’s lost many blind followers, even on the right side of the aisle. This story is likely to metastasize, not fade.
The Morning Frame tracks which political stories are spreading, which are stalling, and how you can tell the difference. Powered by Narrative Prism.
Republican Loser Quote of the Day
When reporters subsequently challenged him on the White House lawn, noting that both governments denied any such agreement existed and that Russia had actually just bombed a Ukrainian power plant, Trump responded: “Well, they agreed. You know why? Because I said, 'You agreed.' That's why. They agreed because I said they agreed.”
Historical Parallel:
“When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.”
Former President Richard Nixon said this during his famous May 1977 televised interviews with British journalist David Frost.
Lessons Not Learned:
“Nixon argued that executive power has the authority to change the nature of reality itself, viewing the law as something that could be reshaped or bypassed by the executive branch.” But, even Nixon had to later qualify that he did not mean the President was above the law.
Trump’s ceasefire rhetoric does not simply ignore the truth—it purports to override it. He acknowledges the absence of a real-world agreement but asserts that his verbal command carries the authority to bend the behavior of foreign nations into compliance, regardless of material facts. Fox Broadcasting calls this “leadership” - another obfuscation.
It’s Authoritarian Hubris at its worst, which the regime’s propagandists dress up as leadership. It’s the mindset that does not accept the truth even when it is staring him right between the eyes!
January 6 Redux opens with live performances less than three weeks from now!
Stay tuned!