Good Day, this is the Commonwealth Report.
News for the public, not the powerful.
Will ICE Be Waiting at Your Polling Place? Trump Won’t Say No
Donald Trump sat down with Time magazine at the White House on Monday, and the reporters asked him point blank if he plans to send ICE agents to polling places in next month’s midterms. He didn’t say no. He said he hasn’t thought of it. Then they asked if he’d rule out declaring a state of emergency before the election. His answer was, “I don’t rule anything out or in.” He added that he could use the Insurrection Act and that a lot of people think he should. Remember, Steve Bannon promised back in February that ICE would surround the polls. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court agreed today to review Trump’s policy of locking up immigrants without a bond hearing while they fight deportation. The case involves a Brazilian man who’s lived here since 2005 and was arrested last September. Judges in nine of 11 federal appeals circuits have already said the policy breaks the law, and tens of thousands of people are sitting in detention because of it. Put those two stories together. A government that can jail people without a hearing and park armed agents outside the voting booth isn’t protecting democracy. It’s threatening it.
69% of Americans Turn on Trump as His Approval Crashes to a Record Low
The new AP-NORC poll is out, and it’s brutal. Just 31% of Americans approve of the job Trump’s doing, 69% disapprove, and 51% say they strongly disapprove. That’s the worst number in any AP-NORC survey from either of his terms, worse even than the 41% he had right after January 6th. The pollsters talked to 2,140 adults between September 24th and 28th. On the economy, he’s at 26%. On the cost of living, the very thing he ran on, he’s at 17%, with 82% disapproving. Nearly two-thirds, 65%, say today’s high prices are because of his policies. Another 69% say the war with Iran hasn’t been worth fighting, 73% say the country’s headed in the wrong direction, and 54% say he doesn’t even try to keep his promises. When Time magazine told him his polls have never been lower, Trump said, “They’re fake numbers.” They’re not fake. They’re your neighbors and your coworkers. This is what happens when a president promises to bring prices down and delivers a war and tariffs instead. The American people have noticed, and in 33 days they get to say so at the ballot box.
Renee Good’s Family Drags the Trump Administration Into Court Over Her Killing
Nine months after an ICE agent shot Renee Good to death in Minneapolis, her family is suing the Trump administration. Reuters reports that two lawsuits demand damages and a jury trial, and they accuse federal officials of negligence and of violating the civil rights of Good and other Minneapolis residents. Good was 37, a U.S. citizen, sitting in her car on January 7th during a protest against the masked agents of Operation Metro Surge. Video shows agent Jonathan Ross walking around her car and filming with his phone. She told him, “That’s fine, dude, I’m not mad at you.” Moments later, as she turned the wheel to leave, Ross fired and hit her 3 times, once in the head. Trump officials called her a domestic terrorist. The Justice Department barred its own prosecutors in Minneapolis from investigating, and at least 6 of them quit in protest. No agent has been charged. Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty is investigating under state law, and she says the feds won’t hand over evidence. When the government kills a citizen and then refuses to investigate itself, a civil jury may be the only place left where the truth gets told under oath. Her wife Becca deserves that. So do the rest of us.
Did Trump Just Admit He Wants Justices Loyal to Him Instead of the Law?
In that same Time interview, Trump was asked if he regrets putting Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett on the Supreme Court. He said yeah. Twice. His reason? “They voted against me too often.” He said he gave them the position of a lifetime and it’s unfortunate what they did. Then he praised the three liberal justices, of all people, because he claims they stick together like glue and he admires the loyalty. He’s furious that the court struck down his tariffs, which he says cost the country $400 billion in refunds, and that it ruled against him on birthright citizenship. Asked if loyalty is what he wants from his picks, he said he does like loyalty. When the reporters pressed him, he tried to walk it back and said he just wants good decisions. But the mask had already slipped. This is the court that handed him sweeping immunity, and it still isn’t enough for him. Judges don’t swear an oath to a president. They swear it to the Constitution. A man who thinks a lifetime appointment buys a lifetime of obedience doesn’t want a court. He wants a rubber stamp, and that’s how republics die.
Can a Young Prosecutor Break the GOP’s 44-Year Lock on Mississippi?
Mississippi hasn’t elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1982. But the Washington Post reports today that the political climate has soured so badly for Republicans that even Mississippi Democrats are feeling hopeful. Their candidate is Scott Colom, the young district attorney from Lowndes County, who’s challenging Republican Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith. There’s history here. Joe Biden nominated Colom for a federal judgeship in 2023, and Hyde-Smith blocked it. Now he’s coming for her seat. Trump carried Mississippi by more than 20 points in 2024, but a poll this summer had Hyde-Smith up just 6, and tied at 40 once voters heard about both candidates. Colom’s message to party officials and donors is blunt. “If we try, we win these voters.” The national party’s been slow to put real money behind him, and an independent on the ballot could split the vote. But if he pulls it off, he’d be Mississippi’s first Black senator in nearly 150 years. For decades Democrats wrote off the Deep South and left millions of working people with nobody fighting for them. You can’t win where you don’t show up. And if Mississippi is in play, no seat is safe for the party of Trump.
Crazy Alert! Why Did Trump’s DOJ Chase an Olympian Over a Crime That Never Happened?
Remember David Hearn, the former Olympic canoeist that Jeanine Pirro charged with a felony for supposedly damaging the new liner in the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool? Pirro announced it in July, and he was looking at up to 10 years in prison. Then the Interior Department told prosecutors the damage actually came from flawed installation by the contractor. Pirro’s office moved to drop the case, but they wanted to keep the right to charge him again later. Trump blew up anyway, said he disagreed 100%, and called it a pure case of vandalism. Today D.C. Superior Court Judge Todd Edelman ended the circus. He threw out the indictment with prejudice, which means they can never bring it back. He wrote that the government itself recognized “no crime had occurred.” Hearn’s lawyers, including Norm Eisen, had argued the whole thing was driven by politics. So let’s review. They threatened an Olympian with a decade in prison over a badly installed pool liner, and the president still wanted him prosecuted after his own people said there was no case. It’d be funny if it weren’t so dangerous. When prosecutors serve one man’s temper instead of the facts, any one of us could be next.
And that’s the way it is, Today Thursday, October 1, 2026. I’m Thom Hartmann.
