1. Trump has amassed, by far, the largest midterms war chest ever. He’s finally started spending it.

🚨 BEWARE of VoteSafe.org 🚨 While it bills itself as a “safe” way to register to vote, it is actually a digital surveillance machine created by Elon Musk’s super PAC.

1. This week is the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Trump is marking the occasion by describing his role in heroic terms, claiming he personally went to Ground Zero with an army of construction workers to aid recovery efforts. It is all a fantasy.

1. Elon Musk is spending millions pushing Americans to VoteSafe, which bills itself as a voter registration site but is actually a digital surveillance machine.

1. A Senate Republican super PAC tricked a grieving father into appearing in a political ad. A GOP operative targeted A SUPPORT GROUP FOR THE PARENTS OF MURDER VICTIMS offering an opportunity to speak about their children and gun violence. 🧵

1. ICE has not paid outside medical providers that treat detainees SINCE LAST OCTOBER. It is leaving hospitals and other providers with millions in unpaid bills.

UPDATE: Still no on-the-record statement from Sonderling, but he has taken all of his photos offline.

Judd Legum@juddlegum.bsky.social · 2w ago

1. Keith Sonderling, Trump’s nominee for Labor Secretary, traveled to China in 2015 to pitch investments in a Florida real estate project. During these events, Chinese nationals were promised green cards and access to “America’s Comprehensive Welfare”

1. Keith Sonderling, Trump’s nominee for Labor Secretary, traveled to China in 2015 to pitch investments in a Florida real estate project. During these events, Chinese nationals were promised green cards and access to “America’s Comprehensive Welfare”

1. Senate Republicans used their super PAC to create a fake news website, The North Carolinian. It is now using that site, which is promotes as “Independent Journalism,” to launder a brazenly dishonest smear against former North Carolina Governor, and current Democratic Senate Nominee Roy Cooper.

1. The New York Post and others have repeatedly claimed that Mayor Mamdani “doxxed” wealthy New Yorkers when he published a list of property owners to implement the new pied-a-terre tax. THIS IS NOT TRUE BECAUSE ALL OF THIS INFORMATION WAS ALREADY PUBLIC AND EASILY SEARCHABLE ONLINE

1. The billionaires fighting a billionaire tax in California have created an AI-slop ad that shows the tax’s supporters assaulting kids and stealing their stuff.

1. Michael Whatley, the GOP nominee for U.S. Senate in North Carolina, launched his general election campaign with an ad emphasizing that he travels in his GMC truck. A Popular Information investigation has found that Whatley has spent over 130K reimbursing donors for the use of private jets.

1. Mitch McConnell suffered a fall on June 14 and has not been in the Senate for two months. But he's continued to get paid his salary of 174K/year. Since he entered the Senate in 1985, McConnell has voted against creating or expanding medical leave — paid and unpaid — at least 23 times.

Polymarket, which bills its self as a “truth machine,” has been using X to promote brazen misinformation in an effort to drum up engagement. This week, for example, it claimed that babies in the US are required to get 72 shots, which is false.

The Strait of Hormuz is closed. The fighting in Ukraine has intensified. The peace deal in Gaza is crumbling. Meanwhile, Jared Kushner is vacationing in Iceland.

This CNN story is more artfully crafted but continues to push the false narrative started by the New York Post:

UPDATE: After the Mamdani 9/11 smear, a cover-up

Media outlets pushed a false narrative about the number of family members of 9/11 victims who signed a petition targeting Mamdani — and then covered their tracks.

popular.info

CNN@cnn.com · last mo.

Twenty-five years after the mayor of New York City became the champion of America's grief and resilience at the time of the 9/11 attacks, families of those killed are split on whether the current mayor should attend the annual remembrance. https://cnn.it/4zkKYdc

1. A new Popular Information investigation reveals that Senate Republicans have recently launched at least six fake news sites in key states.

1. Last week, we revealed that the New York Post published a fake cover story claiming "thousands" of 9/11 families were trying to ban Mamdani from the 25th anniversary ceremony at Ground Zero. Instead of admitting its error, the Post quietly edited the article, adding even less credible info.

United Democracy Project, an AIPAC-affiliated super PAC, is running YouTube ads featuring an AI-generated Trump assisting Abdul El-Sayed’s Michigan campaign. “Don’t Help Trump’s Candidate,” the ad warns. Meanwhile, United Democracy Project’s largest donor is Paul Singer, a major Trump fundraiser.

Meta is spending $600 billion+ to build out its AI model. That model is being aggressively integrated into platforms used by 3.9 billion people. This week, Meta announced its AI will be trained on content from Newsmax, the far-right website with a history of promoting pro-Trump conspiracy theories.

David Barton is a fake historian who wrote a book on Thomas Jefferson that was so inaccurate his publisher was forced to pull it from the shelves. Now Barton, and his son Tim, are advising Trump on his anti-Smithsonian crusade.

Hope everyone who picked up this story now corrects it. popular.info/p/the-truth-...

The truth about the viral 9/11 petition targeting Mamdani

“We don’t have a list”

popular.info

If you appreciate journalism by humans who are willing to make phone calls I have one request: please sign up for my newsletter. There are no paywalls. popular.info

Judd Legum@juddlegum.bsky.social · 2mo ago

1. This New York Post cover: “Thousands of 9/11 families demand Mamdani be banned from 25th-Anniversary” is a brazen lie. How do I know? I interviewed the organizer of the petition.

1. This New York Post cover: “Thousands of 9/11 families demand Mamdani be banned from 25th-Anniversary” is a brazen lie. How do I know? I interviewed the organizer of the petition.

1. American taxpayers are spending $2 BILLION every year providing Medicaid benefits to hundreds of thousands of employees of Amazon and Walmart, a new analysis by Popular Information reveals.

News outlets that covered the US-Saudi nuclear deal without mentioning that Jared Kushner, Trump’s top foreign policy advisor, is getting paid by the Saudi government: WSJ NYT AP Reuters CNN NBC ABC CBS The Guardian Semafor Washington Post Fox News New York Post BBC Newsweek MS NOW

A nuclear deal for the Saudis. A media blackout for Kushner’s corruption.

On Wednesday, the Trump administration signed a 30-year nuclear agreement with Saudi Arabia that paves the way for the kingdom to enrich its own uranium.

popular.info

1. Trump just signed a landmark nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia, paving the way for the Saudis to enrich their own uranium. Meanwhile, Trump's top foreign policy advisor, Jared Kushner, is being paid tens of millions of dollars anually by the Saudis That fact was IGNORED in almost all the coverage

On May 26, a healthcare executive received a letter from the FDA that created an existential legal crisis for his company — and his career. Days later, he sent $1 million to MAGA Inc. (1/2)

1. ICE is lying about body cams and I have the documents that prove it. On July 14, Tom Homan, who oversees ICE's immigration crackdown at the White House, said that ICE purchased body cams as soon as Democrats approved funding for DHS in April. That is a lie.

I took a hard look at the financial donors to ICE’s biggest supporters in Congress. These are people who want to significantly expand ICE’s power and have sponsored or co-sponsored legislation to do so. Here are the top 25 consumer brands bankrolling the biggest ICE supporters in Congress: