HCR HQ (@hcrhq.bsky.social)

@hcrhq.bsky.social Oct 11, 2026, 3:38 AM

October 10, 2026 So now, after more than a decade of pretending that he is not associated with Russia and that he would honor the U.S. national security position of support for Ukraine and our European allies, Trump is openly backing Russia’s president Vladimir Putin….

@hcrhq.bsky.social Oct 10, 2026, 9:18 AM

Letters from an American
October 9, 2026

Read the full letter here: heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/october-9-...

Americans don’t like corruption, and with the midterms shaping up to be a disaster for the Republicans, Trump has launched an all-out offensive to solidify his base.

That offensive includes spinning the Iran War, calling for a public execution, attacking immigrants both rhetorically and in real life, and shifting the United States against the defense of international law and allying with authoritarian governments.

@hcrhq.bsky.social Oct 9, 2026, 11:33 PM

Today's Politics Chat with @hcrichardson.bsky.social www.youtube.com/live/GsXbQWd...

@hcrhq.bsky.social Oct 9, 2026, 5:57 PM

Letters from an American
October 8, 2026

Full letter available here: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/october-8-2026

@hcrichardson.bsky.social

On October 8, 1871, dry conditions and strong winds drove deadly fires through the Midwest. The Peshtigo Fire in northeastern Wisconsin and parts of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula burned more than 1.2 million acres (4,860 square kilometers) and 17 towns, claiming between 1,500 and 2,500 lives. The Great Chicago Fire burned 3.3 square miles (8.6 square kilometers) of the city, destroying the wooden structures that made up the relatively new town, killed about 300 people, and left more than 100,000 people homeless.

The Peshtigo Fire is the deadliest wildfire in U.S. history. The Chicago Fire is the one people remember. The difference is in part because Chicago was a city, easy for newspapers to cover, while the Peshtigo fire killed people in lumber camps and small towns. But the Great Chicago Fire also told a political story that fit into an emerging narrative about the danger of organized labor.

It was not clear, coming out of the Civil War, how Republicans would stand with regard to workers. After all, the U.S. government had fought the war to protect the right of every man to enjoy the fruits of his own labor. But immediately after the war, workers had started organizing to demand adjustments to the wartime financial policies that favored men with money. By 1866 the Democratic Party had begun to listen to them, and leaders called for rewriting the terms of the Civil War debt, which had been generous to investors in the days when U.S. bonds were a risky investment.

Republicans, horrified at the idea of changing the terms of a debt already incurred, added to the Fourteenth Amendment the clause saying, “The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.” They were also concerned when more than 60,000 people came together in August 1866 to launch the National Labor Union, calling for the government to level the playing field between workers and their employers. They asked for an eight-hour day, an end to monopolies, and cooperation between Black and white workers.

@hcrhq.bsky.social Oct 9, 2026, 7:14 AM

On October 8, 1871, dry conditions and strong winds drove deadly fires through the Midwest. The Peshtigo Fire in northeastern Wisconsin and parts of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula burned more than 1.2 million acres (4,860 square kilometers) and 17 towns, claiming between 1,500 and 2,500 lives….

@hcrhq.bsky.social Oct 8, 2026, 9:16 PM

The Chilling Laughter at the Nebraska Rally | From American Conversations with @hcrichardson.bsky.social & Scott MacFarlane. @macfarlanenews.bsky.social

Watch the full conversation on YouTube: https://youtube.com/live/mMS4Ep91db0

@hcrhq.bsky.social Oct 8, 2026, 8:20 PM

See ya tomorrow, folks!

Politics Chat rescheduled for tomorrow at 3 pm PT, 6 pm ET.

@hcrhq.bsky.social Oct 8, 2026, 5:52 PM

Letters from an American
October 7, 2026

Full letter available here: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/october-7-2026

@hcrichardson.bsky.social

On October 7, 2016, in the run-up to the 2016 election, the Washington Post broke the story of the so-called Access Hollywood tape, a video from 2005 in which Donald Trump told television host Billy Bush about his approach to women. “I don’t even wait” to start kissing them, he said. “And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.... Grab ‘em by the p***y. You can do anything.”

On October 7, 2021, the Democratic majority of the Senate Judiciary Committee released a draft report of its investigation into Trump’s attempt to use the Department of Justice to overturn the results of the 2020 election. The report found that Trump repeatedly tried to get the Department of Justice to endorse his false claims that the election was stolen and to overturn its results, singling out nine specific attempts to change the outcome. Trump, the report says, “grossly abused the power of the presidency.”

On October 7, 2026, from the Oval Office, Trump told reporters: “I could have done very bad things to Hillary Clinton. I could have done very, very bad things to Joe Biden. I could have done very bad things to Barack Hussein Obama. “I thought it was inappropriate to do so because you have to treat the office of the presidency with respect.”

“Then I found out that they impeached me twice, and I certainly even, to this moment, I have, I can do whatever I want, if I want. “They’ve done some very bad things. You just mentioned it. It was just mentioned in the form of a question, what they did, very illegal, what they did, many illegal things, but I view the presidency as a very sacred position.”

@hcrhq.bsky.social Oct 8, 2026, 4:43 AM

October 7, 2026 On October 7, 2016, in the run-up to the 2016 election, the Washington Post broke the story of the so-called Access Hollywood tape, a video from 2005 in which Donald Trump told TV host Billy Bush about his approach to women. “I don’t even wait” to start kissing them, he said….

@hcrhq.bsky.social Oct 7, 2026, 10:01 PM

An Unprecedented Attack by a U.S. President | From yesterday’s Politics Chat with @hcrichardson.bsky.social

Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6JoBflwhkk

@hcrhq.bsky.social Oct 7, 2026, 5:42 PM

Letters from an American
October 6, 2026

Full letter available here: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/october-6-2026

@hcrichardson.bsky.social

Judging from his social media posts, Trump is panicking. Shortly after noon Monday, he posted that it was “no longer the Strait of Hormuz” driving up gasoline prices, but Ukraine’s strikes on Russia’s refineries. In fact, some oil tankers have indeed been passing through the strait but, as Spencer Kimball of CNBC explains, “only due to a major U.S. military commitment and at a high cost to the lives of tanker crews.” That policy was already too expensive to sustain, and now increased strikes from Iran are threatening it altogether.

Then Trump posted a wild attack on Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate from South Carolina, Annie Andrews, in an effort to boost his hand-picked candidate, Darline Graham, the late Senator Lindsey Graham’s sister. Why is Trump suddenly interested in South Carolina? As William Kristol noted in The Bulwark yesterday, new polls show that Andrews, a doctor who has refused to respond to what Kristol calls Trump’s revolting bigotry, is competitive against Graham, whose major qualification for the seat is that she is Graham’s sister.

With media stories noting that Republican candidates do not want to be seen with Trump, yesterday morning he posted: “Thanks you [sic] to the great Networks that are covering the Rallies in full. They are being rewarded with BIG RATINGS. Watch for the ‘Midterm Surprise!’” About an hour and a half later, he posted: “MY RALLIES ARE SAVING THE REPUBLICAN PARTY, AGAIN!!!” That post was likely in light of the outrage yesterday over his statement about oil prices at a rally in Nebraska Monday night:

“And again, remember, with the war it’s just artificial, it’s a little bit high, it’s a small price to pay for keeping the world safe, keeping our country safe. They can take out a city, let ’em take out Los Angeles. Let ’em take out San Diego. [crowd cheers] “That’s, this is a very small price to pay, and it’s gonna be over with very soon. It’s essentially almost over with, and they might keep going a little long, you know? They always say they have a big threshold for pain. They need it, let me tell you, they need it. But it’s gonna end very soon….”

@hcrhq.bsky.social Oct 7, 2026, 4:28 AM

Today’s Politics Chat with @hcrichardson.bsky.social www.youtube.com/live/U6JoBfl...

@hcrhq.bsky.social Oct 6, 2026, 9:01 PM

Selling Tyranny | From “What the Heck Just Happened?” with @hcrichardson.bsky.social & Dr. Joanne Freeman. @jbf1755.bsky.social

Watch the full conversation on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51qgG5cyKyE

@hcrhq.bsky.social Oct 6, 2026, 6:09 PM

Letters from an American
October 5, 2026

Full letter available here: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/october-5-2026

@hcrichardson.bsky.social

Sunday night, on October 4, U.S. Southern Command posted that it had struck another small boat in the Caribbean, killing another four people it called “narco-terrorists.” This brings the number of strikes to more than 70, and the number of people killed in the strikes that began a year ago to more than 230 people. The administration’s justification for the strikes has not been made public. It has claimed—without evidence—that the men on the boats were trafficking drugs, but such a charge would normally be handled by the legal system.

The Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice produced an opinion providing legal cover for the strikes, and some of the members of Congress who have seen it are alarmed. Senator Adam Schiff (D-CA) saw the memo in November and said: “If that opinion were to be adopted, it would not constrain any use of force anywhere in the world...it is broad enough to authorize just about anything.” On September 21 a report from the United Nations concluded that the extrajudicial killings broke international law and may be crimes against humanity.

On October 1, John Hudson of the Washington Post reported that the Trump administration has taken $52 million Congress appropriated for countries impacted by Russia’s war on Ukraine and rerouted it to right-wing governments in Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, and Peru. While the administration is billing its intervention in Latin America as a battle against drugs, the comparison to Venezuela, where Trump has claimed control over the country’s oil fields and says he has taken billions of dollars out, although there is no public acknowledgement of where that money has gone, is instructive.

On Sunday, Jan Crawford of CBS News published an interview with Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, in which Alito said one of his first thoughts after he learned that a draft of his Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health decision overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision had been leaked was that “this would endanger” the people on the court. Alito went on to say that he does not anticipate that the court will overturn the 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision recognizing the right to same-sex marriage. That case is different from Roe v. Wade, he said, because people have come to rely on Obergefell as they organize their lives.

@hcrhq.bsky.social Oct 6, 2026, 8:38 AM

October 5, 2026 Last night, on October 4, U.S. Southern Command posted that it had struck another small boat in the Caribbean, killing another four people it called “narco-terrorists.” This brings the number of strikes to more than 70, and the number of people killed in the strikes….

@hcrhq.bsky.social Oct 5, 2026, 5:21 PM

Letters from an American
October 4, 2026

Full letter available here: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/october-4-2026

@hcrichardson.bsky.social

On Friday night, just before 11:00, Trump announced that his administration “will, immediately, begin sending ‘Checks’ of nearly $100 to over 20 MILLION wonderful Seniors to help pay for their Medicare Part B premiums, which we have already reduced by significant amounts. “This money will come from the Medicare Improvement Fund, a pointless ‘Slush Fund’ that has only been used by Dumocrats in Congress to pay for the Waste, Fraud, and Abuse for their Special Interest friends, and drive up Healthcare costs.”

Congress established the Medicare Improvement Fund in 2008 to enable improvements to the program and periodically adjust payments to healthcare providers. A Republican congressional aide told Dan Diamond of the Washington Post that lawmakers had been planning to use the fund to help fund several health programs this year, and were taken aback by Trump’s announcement.

Trump continued: “Because I delivered on this very important issue for the American People, they can also rest assured the highly popular $5,000 Trump Dividend will be distributed to every U.S. Citizen if, and when, the Republicans win the Midterm Elections!” The fact that he is openly using taxpayer money to buy votes in the election suggests just how worried Trump is about Democrats winning control of Congress in the upcoming midterms.

As Aaron Parnas reported in Meidas News, Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, the top-ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, wrote a letter on September 30 to Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI director Kash Patel demanding they immediately release a document they are “illegally” concealing, and any others like it. Wyden has been doggedly following the money trail connected to sex abuser Jeffrey Epstein, noting that his operations, including human trafficking and sexual abuse, depended on the banks whose officers looked the other way as Epstein’s finances repeatedly indicated he was engaged in criminal activity.

@hcrhq.bsky.social Oct 4, 2026, 12:55 PM

October 3, 2026 On Saturday, October 3, the Power to the People festival, organized by Rock & Roll Hall of Fame guitarist Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave, took over the stage at the Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Maryland….

@hcrhq.bsky.social Oct 3, 2026, 11:41 AM

October 2, 2026 Trump held a campaign rally tonight in Mobile, Alabama, the city where, as Shawn McCreesh of the New York Times recalled, his MAGA rallies really took off in August 2015, when more than 30,000 people showed up to hear the television personality turned presidential candidate….

@hcrhq.bsky.social Oct 2, 2026, 9:38 PM

A quick Politics Chat check-in with @hcrichardson.bsky.social. We should be back to our regular schedule on Tuesday! www.youtube.com/live/h5okrSc...

@hcrhq.bsky.social Oct 2, 2026, 5:32 PM

Letters from an American
October 1, 2026

Full letter available here: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/october-1-2026

@hcrichardson.bsky.social