25 days to the midterms. Trump knows what's coming. And he's telling us what the last stretch looks like.

First: a mea culpa on Tuesday's episode. In trying to contextualize what Trump said about Iran and LA, it came across like Grant was defending it. He wasn't. This episode explains why accurate context matters, why sanewashing is different from journalism, and why getting it right is the whole job even when it's inconvenient.

Then: why Trump keeps saying it anyway. The LA and San Diego moment is now a rally fixture because backing down would mean admitting defeat. In San Antonio he doubled down and got more specific. In a one-on-one interview after the rally he said "I say this all the time." He doesn't. Nobody does. The reason we're all talking about it is because nobody does.

The reason he included both LA and San Diego? It was a leak. ICE launched an aggressive new operation into both cities today, ordered to "go after anybody" for the next 45 days. Trump was so excited about the coming crackdown he couldn't help himself.

Now the bigger picture. Michael Wolff, four-time Trump biographer, says what's coming after the midterms is an existential collapse of who Trump is as a person if he suffers a second election loss. His response to that will not be withdrawal. It will be escalation.

The signals are already here: threatening federal troops in Chicago over a fabricated crime wave, a presidential decree that anyone using "artificial intelligence" instead of "super intelligence" is the enemy, the DOJ rehabilitating Nixon's legacy via a 78-slide presentation from a conspiracy theorist, "I can do anything I want" said out loud in the Oval Office, planning potential Iran strikes the day before the election, and the Substack piece on plans to seize ballots and voting machines that's free to read this week.

Trump's calculation is simple: after January 3rd he's a lame duck with nothing left to lose. He's already showing us the playbook.

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CHAPTERS:

0:00 A mea culpa on Tuesday: what Grant said, what it sounded like, and why accurate context is still the job

3:00 Why contextualizing isn't sanewashing and why authoritarians love being misquoted

5:00 The San Antonio doubling down: more specific, a missile now, and "I say this all the time"

7:00 Why LA makes sense as a target and why San Diego was the weird one

9:00 The real reason he said San Diego: it was a leak about a new ICE operation starting today

10:30 “Go after anybody” for 45 days: what the new California ICE operation actually means

11:30 Ken Paxton: Trump humiliates him at his own rally and why Paxton is down six in the Times/Siena poll

13:30 Sponsor break

15:00 Michael Wolff: an existential collapse if he loses a second election, and what he’ll do with that

17:00 More deportations, federal troops for Chicago, and a fabricated crime wave

19:00 Chicago crime is actually down three years running. Trump fabricated it completely.

20:30 A presidential decree: anyone saying “artificial intelligence” instead of “super intelligence” is the enemy

21:30 The DOJ rehabilitates Nixon via a 78-slide presentation from a conspiracy theorist

23:00 “I can do anything I want.” The Supreme Court basically agreed.

24:00 Considering Iran strikes the day before the election: what the Atlantic reported and where it stands

25:30 The ballot and voting machine seizure plans: what this week’s free Substack piece actually says

27:00 Lame duck with nothing left to lose: what the next 25 days and then some are going to look like

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