Trump goes on a media tour to rev up the base, Republicans admit that they’re coming after health care and retirement programs if they win, and Democrats look to flip a slew of key governorships. Then Democratic congressional candidate Lucy McBath talks about the gun violence that took her son’s life, and her campaign to win the Georgia 6th.

Show Notes:

Trump’s Twitter tantrum and interview spree

• Vox: Judge dismisses Stormy Daniels’s defamation suit against Trump, requires her to pay his legal fees
• New York Times: Stormy Daniels Told to Pay Trump’s Legal Fees After Defamation Suit
• NPR: ‘Tiny’ Vs. ‘Horseface’: Trump Slings Mud With Stormy Daniels After Courtroom Win
• New York Times: Trump’s ‘Horseface’ Tweet, and Other Times He Has Attacked Women
• Politico: Trump’s new fights with women stoke GOP concern about female voters
• Daily Beast: Fox News Airs Trump’s ‘Horseface’ Insult But Won’t Show Stormy Daniels’ Response
• Dallas Morning News: Trump sets ‘major rally’ with Ted Cruz for Houston on Oct. 22 at arena that seats 8,000
• USA Today: President Trump calls Stormy Daniels ‘Horseface,’ claims he may take legal action against her
• Washington Post: House Russia-probe witness invokes Fifth Amendment as Trump urges firing of DOJ official connected to dossier
• CNN: Trump unleashes festering list of grievances during unscheduled morning
• Washington Post: Trump seems eager to contain, not confront, fallout from journalist’s disappearance
• CNN: ‘The show is Trump, and it is sold-out performances everywhere’
• New York Times: Polarization Seems to Be Helping Republicans in Run-Up to Midterms
• New York Times: Alarmed About the Midterms
• Time: President Trump’s Midterm Strategy: Dominate the News
• Associated Press: Interview with Donald Trump
• Associated Press: Trump criticizes rush to condemn Saudi Arabia over Khashoggi
• New York Times: Trump Defends Saudi Arabia in Khashoggi Case
• Axios: Trump: Khashoggi case another instance of “guilty until proven innocent”

Elizabeth Warren

• Boston Globe: Warren releases results of DNA test
• Vox: Elizabeth Warren’s DNA test has started a whole new controversy
• The Atlantic: Trump, Warren, and America’s Racial Essentialism
• New Yorker: Elizabeth Warren Falls for Trump’s Trap—and Promotes Insidious Ideas About Race and DNA

Deficit politics

• New York Times: Budget Deficit Jumps Nearly 17% in 2018
• Washington Post: Deficit balloons to $779 billion in Trump’s second year
• New York Times: This Election Season, Republicans’ Deficit Focus Goes the Way of the Vuvuzela
• The Atlantic: Paul Ryan’s Legacy Defines the Race He’s Leaving Behind
• Washington Post: The deficit is a key concern for Republicans. Trump isn’t making it better – Analysis
• Bloomberg: McConnell Blames Entitlements, Not GOP, for Rising Deficits
• Washington Post: McConnell calls deficit ‘very disturbing,’ blames federal spending, dismisses criticism of tax cut

Governor races 

• Vox: The 13 most important governor elections in 2018, briefly explained
• Washington Post: The 10 governor’s seats most likely to flip parties in November
• CNN: Here’s what should excite and depress Democrats so far in 2018
• Washington Post: The Washington Posts’s gubernatorial race ratings
• Washington Post: In Trump country, Republican candidates this year fall flat
• Politico: Scott Walker, in fight for political life, slow-walks Medicaid work rules
• Think Progress: Scott Walker vows to protect people with pre-existing conditions. There’s just one problem.
• Washington Post: Midterm elections are likely to change the calculus for post-2020 Census redistricting
• Vox: Republicans have dominated state races for years. A new liberal Super PAC wants to change that.
• Washington Post: At state level, GOP renews push to require ‘supermajorities’ for tax hikes, imperiling progressive agenda
• News & Observer: How will Pat McCrory’s tenure be remembered?
• NPR: As Trump Proposes Tax Cuts, Kansas Deals With Aftermath Of Experiment
• New York Times: Teacher Walkouts Threaten Republican Grip on Conservative States
• Washington Post: Here’s the real reason teachers are revolting in red states
• The Atlantic: The Ideological Reasons Why Democrats Have Neglected Local Politics

Lucy McBath

• Campaign website
• Washington Post: Lucy McBath: Moved to run for Congress by son’s fatal shooting, she just won her primary
• Huffington Post: Can Gun Control Advocate Lucy McBath Win In Gun-Loving Georgia?
• Roll Call: Democratic Poll Shows Tight Race in Georgia’s 6th District
• Mother Jones: A White Man Shot and Killed Her Only Son. Now Lucy McBath Is Running So It Doesn’t Happen to Anyone Else.
• Elle: Lucy McBath Lost Her Son to Gun Violence. Next Came Activism. Now She’s Running for Congress
• The Nation: Stacey Abrams and Lucy McBath Are Leading the Charge to Turn Georgia Blue
• CNN: Lucy McBath refused to be quiet after her son’s murder. Now she’s running for Congress.