Sunday Reflection: The Week Everything Turned on Trump at Once

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Good morning, this is Really American. It is Sunday, October 11, 2026. Before we get to it, hit that ❤️and restack this one. Every restack puts this reporting in front of readers the MAGA propaganda machine would rather never see it.

No news roundup this morning. On Sundays we like to step back and take stock, and this week gave us a lot to take stock of. Trump had a bad week, not because of one scandal, but because the people who are supposed to carry him stopped doing it. Republican senators, a retired general, the Pope, his own local party officials, and finally the crowd standing in front of him. Let’s talk about that.

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HIS OWN PARTY SAID NO ON RUSSIA

Start with the diesel, because that is where the week broke open.

Three weeks after signing a sanctions bill written to strangle Putin’s war economy, Trump got on a call with Putin and agreed to open American and global markets to Russian fuel. He announced it himself, in capital letters, promising prices would fall fast. The first shipment he bragged about works out to roughly fourteen hours of American diesel supply.

Republicans would not go along with it. Lisa Murkowski said he should be using the sanctions Congress just passed rather than letting Russia “rake in revenues and continue its catastrophic war in Ukraine.” Don Bacon said buying Russian fuel is the wrong answer and that now is the time to squeeze Putin, not reward him. Brian Fitzpatrick went further and started drafting bipartisan legislation to block the purchases, saying he will force it to the floor.

There is also the small matter of the 2022 law banning Russian energy imports until Russian troops leave Ukraine. “The president cannot simply ignore that law to buy diesel from Putin,” Jeanne Shaheen said.

Then Trump told reporters that Zelensky should stop hitting Russian refineries, that “he better damn well stop,” and that Ukraine ought to get a new president. He is blaming the country being bombed for a shortage his own war produced, and his party is not pretending otherwise.

THE EXECUTION PLAN NOBODY WOULD DEFEND

Pete Hegseth said the country would get to watch a firing squad, and then watched everyone leave him standing there alone.

Austin Scott, a senior Republican on House Armed Services, said livestreaming executions “is what jihadists do.” John Curtis warned that a civilization erodes when it cultivates an appetite for executions as entertainment. Thom Tillis said public executions are what dictatorships like Iran and Afghanistan do and called the plan beyond disgusting. Joe Kent, who ran Trump’s own counterterrorism center, called it beneath the dignity of the country.

The man who approved the death sentence in the first place broke with it too. Sean MacFarland, the retired general who commanded Fort Hood, wrote that broadcasting this execution surrenders moral ground America has held through two decades of fighting groups that filmed their own killings.

On Saturday the Pope answered from Rome. “The death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person,” Leo said, adding that justice can be met without it.

Notice who is not in that list. Not one serious figure in national security, in the Senate, or in the church has stood up to say this is a good idea. Six days after announcing it, the secretary of defense has no allies left on it but the president who signed off.

MOCKERY IS DOING REAL WORK AGAIN

Trump spent the week campaigning for the Nobel Peace Prize in public. “I settled eight wars,” he told reporters. “It would be a great discredit to them” if he did not win.

He did not win. The prize went to Navi Pillay, a South African judge who defended Nelson Mandela under apartheid and later presided over war crimes cases at the Rwanda tribunal. She was at a conference in Nuremberg when it was announced, and she walked into a room already applauding and said, “If you clap a little bit more, I may share this prize with Trump.”

She did not argue with him. She made a joke, in front of an audience, seconds after beating him, and the joke traveled further than any statement would have. He answered with a 590-word rant in the middle of the night and an attack on Norway.

This keeps mattering more than it looks. Authoritarian politics depends on the leader seeming enormous. A judge who has spent her life prosecuting powerful men needled him in one sentence, and millions of people watched him prove her point by melting down about it.

AND THEN THE ROOMS TURNED

The rallies were supposed to be the part that always works.

In San Antonio, protesters interrupted him more than a dozen times, and C-SPAN caught an elderly man in a MAGA hat grabbing a departing protester by the hair and trying to drag him to the ground. Trump’s first words after that were to ask the crowd whether there is anything like a Trump rally. The same cameras caught the empty seats behind him.

In Syracuse, the local paper surveyed sixteen Republican candidates and party leaders and found four planned to show up. Thousands protested outside. A woman being walked out turned around and gave him both middle fingers while the room chanted USA.

In Tennessee on Saturday, in a state he has carried three times, he looked at the people who came to see him and said, “I could say the stupidest things and you’d clap.” He caught it a sentence too late and trailed off into numbers that meant nothing.

That is the week in one line. He has started insulting protesters, reporters, allies, a foreign committee, the Pope, and now the people who drove out on a Saturday to stand in a room and cheer for him.

Here is where things stand looking ahead. Democrats are up nine on the generic ballot, the Cook Political Report has seven Senate races as toss-ups with three more leaning Democratic in states Trump carried, and his own Senate committee emailed donors this week admitting the party is down eight points and warning they will “LOSE BIG.” Twenty-three days.

None of it is decided. It never is. But this was a week when Republicans refused to follow him to Moscow, a general refused to bless a spectacle, a judge in Nuremberg laughed at him, and a crowd in Tennessee got told exactly what he thinks of them. That is not nothing. That is what it looks like when the spell starts to break.

SUPPORT THE FIGHT AGAINST MAGA-CONTROLLED MEDIA

Weeks like this one are why we do this. A party breaking with its own president over Putin, a general breaking with a defense secretary, a Nobel laureate making a joke that traveled around the world, a crowd insulted to its face. These are the stories that get flattened into a paragraph or skipped entirely in newsrooms owned by people with something to lose. We chase them down without a billionaire deciding what reaches your eyes; Facebook and Elon Musk’s X keep throttling how far they travel, and we are betting everything on this page instead. The next step is a Really American correspondent in Washington, working to get into the White House briefing room, and paid subscribers are the only thing that makes it possible.

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-The Really American Team

ONE MORE THING

Every person who stood up this week had an easier option available. The senators could have said nothing. The general could have let it pass, since he signed the sentence himself and nobody would have asked. The judge could have accepted her prize graciously and left him out of it. The woman in Syracuse could have walked out quietly instead of turning around. None of them had to, and all of them did, on an ordinary week, without a parade afterward. That is what holding a line actually looks like, and it is almost never dramatic. Rest today. We will see you soon.

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BREAKING: Trump Caps a Terrible Saturday by Insulting His Own Fans and the Pope Slamming Him

Really American | Substack

Good evening, this is Really American. It’s Saturday, October 10th. Trump stood in front of his own supporters today and admitted they are ‘stupid ’; he faces a Bipartisan backlash over a deal with the ‘devil,’ and the Pope just called him out.

Before we get to it, hit that like button and restack this one. Every restack puts this reporting in front of readers the MAGA propaganda machine would rather never see it.

It’s been a terrible Saturday for the president. He insulted the people who drove out to see him in Tennessee, saying the love in the room is so strong he could say the stupidest things and still get applause. The pope used his platform to rebuke Pete Hegseth over the plan to let the public watch a firing squad. Republicans in Congress spent the day revolting against his diesel deal with Vladimir Putin, and one is already drafting legislation to kill it. And another leak caught his ambassador to Greece raging about being left off a Trump family guest list. There are 24 days until the midterms.

Before the news, we need to tell you what your subscription is about to build. One year ago Really American didn’t exist on Substack, and today it’s one of the fastest-growing independent pro-democracy outlets in the country, and you’re the reason, because this answers to readers, not billionaires or anyone who needs a favor from this White House. The next step is hiring a Washington correspondent and getting that reporter into the White House press briefing room, and paid subscribers are funding that job. If you do one thing tonight, forward this edition to a family member or a friend who should be reading it, because with Facebook and Elon Musk’s X both burying independent media, a recommendation from someone people trust goes further than anything an algorithm will ever allow us. Every reader counts. Share this and help us grow.

TRUMP ACCIDENTALLY ADMITTED WHAT HE THINKS OF HIS OWN SUPPORTERS

Trump told a crowd in Tennessee on Saturday that he could say the stupidest things and they’d applaud anyway.

He was in a state he’s carried three times, campaigning for Bill Hagerty and Marsha Blackburn, and he opened by admitting he didn’t need to be there. “What am I doing in Tennessee?” he asked, before saying he came to thank the people who elected him. He also repeated that he’d won three elections and “got screwed the second time because they cheated.”

Then he told a story about a friend with stage fright who asked how he gets up in front of crowds day after day. “You know, for me it’s easy because there is such love in these rooms,” Trump said. The room cheered and chanted his name. Someone yelled, “We love you!”

“It’s like, like, I mean, it’s amazing. When you stand up here, it’s just like, the love,” Trump said. “I could say the stupidest things, and you’d clap.”

He was looking at supporters who gave up a Saturday to hear him, and he told them their applause is automatic and has nothing to do with what he says. He wasn’t talking about his critics. He was talking about the crowd in front of him.

He caught it a beat too late. “But we don’t say the stupidest things, we say things of common sense,” he added, then trailed off into a list that went nowhere. “It’s like seven, eight, 10, five, four, it’s just things that are common sense.”

On Friday in Syracuse, he called protesters “radical left scum.” Earlier in the week, he mocked a man who’d just been assaulted at his San Antonio rally. Now he’s turned the condescension on the people who show up for him.

THE POPE JUST REBUKED HEGSETH OVER THE EXECUTION LIVESTREAM

Pope Leo XIV used his platform Saturday to answer Pete Hegseth’s plan to put an execution on camera.

He didn’t need to name anyone. “The death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person,” the pope said. Justice doesn’t require it, he argued. “The common good can be safeguarded, and the requirements of justice can be met without recourse to capital punishment,” he said, pointing to prisons that protect the public “while at the same time do not completely deprive those who are guilty of the possibility of redemption.”

Everyone knew what he was answering. Hegseth announced this week that Nidal Hasan, convicted of killing 13 people at Fort Hood in 2009, will be executed by firing squad on December 3, and told a conservative network the Pentagon would “make sure that people are able to watch.” Trump personally approved the firing squad.

Republicans had already said it more bluntly. “Hasan should face the death penalty, but making his execution public and streaming it? Beyond disgusting,” Sen. Thom Tillis said. “Public executions are what oppressive dictatorships like Iran and Afghanistan do. It should not be happening in America.”

This pope and this administration have clashed before. When Hegseth told Americans to “pray every day, on bended knee” for military victory in the Middle East, Leo answered in a homily that the Christian mission has often been “distorted by a desire for domination, entirely foreign to the way of Jesus Christ.” Trump fired back on Truth Social, calling the pope “WEAK on Crime, and terrible for foreign policy.”

Leo has also challenged the administration on immigration. “To simply say, ‘We’re going to send them away and wash our hands of the problem’ doesn’t seem like the most Christian response,” he told reporters this summer about the remigration policy.

The list of people against this plan now includes Republican senators, House Armed Services members from both parties, a former Trump counterterrorism chief, the retired general who approved the death sentence, and the leader of the Catholic Church. The defense secretary is isolated on a plan he announced four days ago.

REPUBLICANS ARE REVOLTING AGAINST TRUMP’S DIESEL DEAL WITH PUTIN

The backlash to Trump buying Russian fuel got worse Saturday, and it’s coming from his own party.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski went straight at the contradiction. “A few weeks ago, Congress overwhelmingly passed legislation to increase sanctions and tariffs on Russia,” she wrote. “The president should be using those authorities instead of allowing Russia to export diesel, rake in revenues and continue its catastrophic war in Ukraine.” Rep. Don Bacon said Americans want lower prices, but “buying Russian fuel is the wrong answer,” and that now is the time “to squeeze Putin’s war machine. Not reward a dictator.”

One Republican is moving to kill it. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick said he’ll introduce bipartisan legislation blocking all purchases of Russian oil. “It will be forced to the Floor via discharge and it will pass overwhelmingly,” he wrote, meaning he plans to go around leadership to get a vote.

It may also be illegal. Congress banned Russian energy imports in 2022 and tied any lifting of the ban to Russia pulling its troops out of Ukraine. “Congress banned Russian energy imports in 2022,” Sen. Jeanne Shaheen said. “The president cannot simply ignore that law to buy diesel from Putin.”

Democrats made the moral case. Sen. Richard Blumenthal said the deal “will lead to the slaughter of more innocents in Ukraine” and called it “a stain on our nation’s character, an insult to Lindsey Graham’s memory, and directly contrary to Congress’s intent in our bipartisan sanctions bill.” Sen. Mark Kelly put it simply: “Whose side is Trump on?”

Asked about the deal, Trump went after Volodymyr Zelensky over Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries. “He better damn well stop,” Trump said. “I think it’s time for Ukraine to get a new president.” He’s now blaming Ukraine for the fuel shortage instead of his own war with Iran.

The public isn’t with him. An Economist/YouGov poll found 61 percent of Americans sympathize more with Ukraine, compared with 3 percent for Russia. And on Saturday, Moscow started easing its own export ban, clearing 500,000 tons of diesel for foreign markets, the first money moving under this arrangement.

NEW TAPE CATCHES GUILFOYLE RAGING OVER A TRUMP FAMILY SNUB

Another leak about Kimberly Guilfoyle surfaced Saturday, and this time it’s audio of her reaction to being left off a guest list.

The Wall Street Journal reported the recording, from January, when the ambassador to Greece learned she wasn’t invited to a Davos dinner organized with Eric Trump. She went after the organizer. “You don’t have the [expletive] U.S., you know, ambassador to Greece not come,” Guilfoyle said. “She should be kissing my [expletive] ass.”

She also suggested to a wealthy businessman that if he helped get her into the dinner, she could be valuable to him, and bragged about Greek businessmen paying for her travel. “You know, I can deliver the world to you. Which you deserve,” she said. “I’m going to make you a lot of [expletive] money.”

She got into the dinner, and it didn’t go well. The chairwoman of the venue told the Journal that organizers “had to manage a small crisis that affected a number of high-profile guests,” and that Guilfoyle left early.

It lands on top of everything else this week. On Wednesday, the Journal published texts showing her pressing a MAGA donor to pay her $100,000 American Express bill while dangling access to Trump officials. The State Department inspector general is investigating improper gifts, private travel and her conduct on the job. She denies wrongdoing and disputes the messages without saying what’s wrong with them.

Her colleagues are frustrated. State Department staff were reportedly annoyed that word of the texting scandal reached Marco Rubio only as he was flying to Athens for a major speech and a day of events at her side. White House officials are now weighing whether to pull her, with Trump making the final call.

One former Trump insider thinks she’s untouchable. “I would be shocked if she faces any consequences for this,” a former aide to Melania Trump wrote. “She knows far too much about the Trump family/inner circle and I imagine they like her as far away as possible. An angry KG stateside would not be a good thing for Trumpworld.”

SUPPORT THE FIGHT AGAINST MAGA-CONTROLLED MEDIA

If tonight’s edition told you something the billionaire-owned outlets would rather keep quiet, that’s exactly the point, and you paid for it. A president telling his own supporters they’d clap for the stupidest things he says. The pope rebuking a defense secretary over a televised firing squad. Republicans drafting legislation to kill their own president’s deal with Putin. And an ambassador caught on tape promising to make a businessman a lot of money. This reporting answers to readers, not billionaires, and your subscription is what funds the next step, which is a Really American correspondent in Washington working to get into the White House briefing room. With 24 days left and both big platforms burying us, the most valuable thing left is a recommendation from someone people trust. Send this to one person tonight. Thank you for everything you do. Every reader counts. Share this and help us grow.

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Alleged wife-beating MAGA congressman's girlfriend indicted — on truly spectacular charges

By Matthew Chapman | Raw Story

Rep. Max Miller (R-OH), who is accused of abusing his ex-wife, faces a new headache after his girlfriend of two years was indicted on theft-related charges, Mother Jones reported on Friday.

Jaclyn Alatrash, an anesthesia assistant and bodybuilder who has been dating Miller for roughly two years, was charged by a Cuyahoga County grand jury this week. She faces grand theft, telecommunications fraud, and credit card misuse counts, based on claims from her former husband, Matthew Kampert, that she charged more than $9,000 in groceries and other goods to his card once their marriage had ended. Kampert said she was never an authorized user, even while they were married.

The accusations were first aired in May by The Rooster, a progressive Ohio blog. Instacart records Mother Jones reviewed show many of the orders went to Miller's northeast Ohio home. They include purchases from Spirit Halloween, Ulta Beauty, the Vitamin Shoppe, and Costco.

A police report says the card was used between September 2025 and January 2026. Kampert told Shaker Heights officers that his divorce became final in February 2025, which means the alleged charges began seven months after it ended.

Alatrash's arraignment is set for October 23.

The case adds to a reelection bid already clouded by allegations from Miller's ex-wife, Emily Moreno. She has accused him of throwing boiling water at her, shoving her, and pointing a gun at her. Their young daughter's collarbone was also broken in suspicious circumstances.

Her father, Sen. Bernie Moreno, said after the reports that Miller "should not serve in the House of Representatives." Miller has repeatedly denied ever being violent toward women. Under oath in a deposition tied to his custody fight with Moreno, Miller said he has been with Alatrash since December 2024. In an interview filed as an exhibit in the case, he called her a "very nice lady."

Miller faces Democrat Brian Poindexter in the election, and polls have shown a competitive race in the usually solid-Republican district.

https://www.rawstory.com/max-miller-2678068264/