This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here.

Welcome to The Logoff: White House Press Secretary Katie Zacharia is out of a job after only five days. 

What happened? Zacharia was fired on Friday after less than a week in her new role, after a rocky start that included a halting performance in the briefing room, a scandal over her legal credentials, and a round of less-than-successful cleanup interviews. 

The firing makes her the shortest-tenured White House press secretary in history, outstripping even first-term Trump communications director Anthony Scaramucci, who made it 10 or 11 days (figures vary) before getting the boot. 

“Records are made to be broken,” Scaramucci posted on Friday. “But I take no pleasure in other people’s pain.” (No word yet on whether the “Zacharia” will emerge as a unit of time, as the “Scaramucci” has.) 

What’s the context? Zacharia’s remarkably short stint behind the podium unfolded as the White House is engaged in an unprecedented attack on press freedom: The administration is still trying to ban three media outlets — CNN, MS NOW, and Politico — from the White House, though as of earlier this week, a judge is still blocking the ban from taking effect.

The diminished nature of the press secretary job was on full display in Zacharia’s sole briefing on Tuesday, when she took questions from just three outlets: Breitbart, Fox News, and the Daily Mail. 

Why does this matter? Zacharia’s no good, very bad week is not likely to leave much of a lasting mark in its own right — other than, perhaps, as pub trivia — but as NBC’s Garrett Haake points out, it’s a very tangible manifestation of a White House that seems to have no idea how to spin itself out of crisis with just weeks until the midterm elections. 

Most recently, Trump has landed on flat-out lying about the state of the economy — but like Zacharia’s time as press secretary, it doesn’t seem like it’s going to go all that well.

And with that, it’s time to log off…

The underlying trend — municipal inaction — may be infuriating, but I loved this story about “tactical urbanism” from my colleague Sara Herschander. 

As she writes, vigilante activists have taken to painting their own crosswalks, building benches, and even installing makeshift bike lanes in their neighborhoods — and every time they do, “they remind us that it is not actually that hard — or even that expensive — to do many of the simple things that can make our cities safer and more pleasant places to live.” 

You can read Sara’s full piece here, no gift link needed. Enjoy, have a great weekend, and we’ll see you on Monday!

This story appeared in Today, Explained, a daily newsletter that helps you understand the most compelling news and stories of the day. Subscribe here.

On Friday, Israeli settlers attacked Palestinians living in the West Bank, as well as a Washington Post photographer, who was hospitalized with serious injuries.

Photojournalist Heidi Levine was knocked down, beaten, and robbed of her camera equipment by masked settlers in an attack captured on video by other journalists. Those other members of the press rescued her from the attackers while Israel Defense Forces soldiers reportedly stood by.

Levine had lacerations and a wound to her hand that split her finger to the bone, according to the Post, which condemned the attack in a statement. Jasper Nathaniel, an independent journalist who helped Levine escape the attack, said that Levine also had cracked ribs, and may have been stabbed.

Assaults like this one are becoming more common in the West Bank, where settler violence — which is currently targeting the ongoing olive harvest — has worsened. Last week, another photojournalist for the news wire Agence France-Presse was beaten with rifles by settlers, and Palestinian residents of the West Bank have been shot, beaten, and terrorized while the Israeli settlers targeting them face few consequences.

Why settler violence is growing in the West Bank

As my colleague Zack Beauchamp recently explained, under international law, the settler movement in the West Bank is clearly illegal. Nevertheless, it’s continued to grow, and it has a friend in the current Israeli government led by Benjamin Netanyahu. It’s also becoming increasingly violent. 

Two current Israeli officials, Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir, are settlers themselves, and both have used their offices — as ministers of finance and national security, respectively — to further the settler cause, including by making it easier for settlers to commit unchecked violence against Palestinians. 

The United Nations reported in June that settler attacks had reached “the highest sustained levels ever recorded…with [an average of] six daily attacks that have resulted in casualties, property damage or both,” and in many Palestinians being forced from their homes by settlers. In late September, the International Committee of the Red Cross said that expanding Israeli settlements and violence by settlers was “making everyday life untenable” for Palestinian residents of the West Bank.

As Zack has reported, settlements and settler violence are both intentional tactics, serving to force more Palestinians off their land, isolate the ones who stay, and push any potential two-state solution further out of reach. 

That kind of violence is likely only to worsen in the weeks to come: Israel will hold elections on October 27, which could well result in Netanyahu’s settler-friendly government losing power. As a result, the Washington Post reported earlier this month, settlers are “racing to lock down gains” before the election with ever more extreme violence.

One link for later

➨ Agentified kind of life. My colleague Adam Clark Estes turned the keys to his life over to a passel of AI agents for two weeks to see what would happen. They successfully saved him some times, he writes, largely with mundane tasks — but he left with mixed feelings about the experiment, including the possibility of contributing to a world with more AI slop.

Before you go…

• Did you know…that the aerodynamic crouch used by jockeys in horse racing — known as the “martini glass position” — made race times roughly 5 to 7 percent faster? Jockeys maintain it with only a few toes resting on each stirrup.
• Today’s trivia: Who is the author of the 1952 self-help book The Power of Positive Thinking? (You can find this and other brain puzzles in Vox’s daily crossword. Look for the answer in Monday’s edition.)
• Yesterday’s trivia: We asked about the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. That would be the number 42 (take it up with Douglas Adams).

This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here.

Welcome to The Logoff: Donald Trump wants to deport a member of Congress. 

What’s happening? On Monday, Homeland Security officers raided the Washington, DC, home of US Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) in an investigation reportedly tied to immigration paperwork filled out by her father when she was a minor.

That was, at the time, more than enough cause for alarm. Trump’s animosity toward Omar, who is Somali-American and an outspoken critic of the administration, is well-known, and the raid is an extraordinary violation of the Justice Department’s usual rule to avoid taking visible action around politically sensitive cases within 60 days of an election. 

On Wednesday evening, however, we learned more about the raid from the Wall Street Journal. The Omar investigation, the Journal reported, is explicitly aimed at stripping Omar of her citizenship — and thus her ability to hold office — and deporting her. 

How would they do that? Omar came to the US as a refugee when she was 12 and became a US citizen when she was 17. The Trump administration’s investigation is said to focus on whether she or her family misrecorded her age in order to more easily gain citizenship. 

The government cannot unilaterally denaturalize a citizen, however; it would have to ask a court to do so.

What’s the context? Historically, it’s rare for the US to strip citizenship from naturalized US citizens. But doing so at volume has been a major, if less visible, priority for the second Trump administration. 

As of earlier this year, NBC News reported, DOJ was targeting hundreds of people for possible denaturalization, and has reportedly hoped to put forward hundreds of new cases per month (though successfully stripping them of citizenship is another matter).

Why does this matter? Trump’s campaign to bend the traditionally nonpartisan DOJ into a tool to punish and harass his enemies has been one of the major stories of his second term. 

Even if it never advances beyond Monday’s raid, an investigation targeting Omar’s citizenship with the eventual goal of deporting her from the US represents a new and even more dangerous evolution of that effort — and it threatens to move the US to a far darker place, where citizenship and the rights it guarantees are predicated on the president’s goodwill.

And with that, it’s time to log off…

Hi readers — if you’ll allow me to depart a little from my normal approach to this section, I have a story about politics to share. It’s not, however, about the politics we’re currently dealing with, but about what could be: Democrats’ plan for a quietly ambitious “Project 2029” should they win the White House in 2028. You can read it with a gift link here.

Alternatively, if you’d prefer to just log off, here’s an adorable snow leopard cub with massive paws. Thanks for reading, have a great evening, and we’ll see you tomorrow!

This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here.

Welcome to The Logoff: Is Trump turning on Ukraine? 

What’s happening? Ukraine says its access to Starlink, the satellite internet system run by Elon Musk’s SpaceX company, and Starshield, the military version of the same technology, is being throttled as President Donald Trump’s animosity toward the country mounts.

Why is Trump angry with Ukraine? Trump has been hot and cold on Ukraine since he returned to office, but his current anger is driven by oil prices and successful Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil refineries — particularly ahead of the US midterm elections. 

Last week, Trump announced a US-Russia diesel deal, which has elicited bipartisan anger and probably won’t do much, if anything, for diesel prices in the US. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has criticized the deal, leading Trump to lash out and call for Zelenskyy’s replacement.

Over the weekend, Trump also announced an “ENERGY CEASEFIRE” between Ukraine and Russia that doesn’t really seem to exist. “Both parties have agreed,” he wrote. “Do not break it!” (Russia appears to have broken it the same day, while Ukraine is complying for now.)

Is Ukraine actually to blame for high oil prices? Partially, but not primarily; as the BBC explains, while Ukrainian refinery strikes play a role, ongoing disruptions to the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf oil industry from Trump’s war with Iran have had a greater impact (though Trump has tried to shift the blame to Ukraine).

Why is Starlink so important? Starlink and Starshield provide vital communications infrastructure in Ukraine, especially on the battlefield. The technology is also used to control offensive and defensive Ukrainian drones, which have emerged as a key part of Ukraine’s military efforts against Russia.

What’s next? Despite the fact that neither Russia nor Ukraine seemingly signed on to Trump’s “ENERGY CEASEFIRE” and Russia is still attacking Ukrainian energy facilities, Trump is trying to bind Ukraine to it: The US has reportedly threatened to suspend US intelligence sharing, which has helped give Ukraine early warning of Russian missile attacks, if Ukraine strikes more Russian refineries.

And with that, it’s time to log off…

I appreciated this New York Times story, pegged to Pope Leo XIV’s diagnosis yesterday, about all of the ways that science has made lung cancer massively more survivable than in years past, with a fatality rate half of what it was in the 1990s. You can read it here with a gift link.

Thanks for reading, have a great evening, and we’ll see you tomorrow!

This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here.

Welcome to The Logoff: Donald Trump’s ambassador to Greece, Kimberly Guilfoyle, is out of a job after serious corruption allegations. 

What happened? Guilfoyle resigned on Tuesday after being shown the door earlier in the day by Trump’s brand-new White House press secretary, who announced at a briefing that Guilfoyle had been asked to resign. 

Her departure comes just six days after a bombshell Wall Street Journal story, which described Guilfoyle’s efforts to solicit money from a Trump donor, including $100,000 to pay down a credit card bill, in exchange for access to Trump officials and conservative media figures. 

Guilfoyle also attempted to conceal those efforts: In one text to the donor, Eric Deters, she wrote, “What a nightmare you’ll literally cost me my ambassadorship stop writing.”

Who is Guilfoyle? Fallen MAGA royalty. Guilfoyle, a former Fox News personality, is also the ex-fiancée of Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr. (and, more distantly, the ex-wife of current California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat).

There appears to be little love lost between Guilfoyle and Trump, however. On Tuesday, he told reporters that Guilfoyle “wasn’t a member of my family. She I guess dated my son a long time ago.” (The Don Jr.-Guilfoyle relationship is thought to have ended in 2024.)

Why was she forced out? Corruption allegations are not, generally speaking, dealbreakers in Trumpworld; the president and his children are all innovators when it comes to profiting off the presidency, and there’s plenty of self-dealing going on around them.

That being said, Guilfoyle may have crossed the line in two specific ways: one, her alleged corruption benefited her and not the Trump family. And two, the allegations are embarrassingly unsubtle even by the standards of the second Trump administration. The combination appears to have been too much.

And with that, it’s time to log off…

This New York Times story, about what a potential superhabitable world elsewhere in the cosmos could look like, was a very cool, very sci-fi read — and we may find out more about the existence of such planets soon, with new space telescopes planned for next year and beyond. 

You can read the full story here with a gift link. Enjoy, have a great evening, and we’ll see you tomorrow! 

This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here.

Welcome to The Logoff: The Trump administration is planning a public killing. 

What’s happening? On Thursday, the Pentagon announced that it would execute Nidal Hasan, a former Army major sentenced to death for a 2009 mass shooting on a military base, publicly and on livestream. 

The execution, if it happens, would be unprecedented: The last widely reported public execution in the US was 90 years ago, in Kentucky, but to stream a death live would be something else entirely. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has promoted the announcement with something approaching glee, telling a reporter that “we’ll make sure that people are able to watch it.”

What’s the context? According to the Pentagon, Hasan will be executed via firing squad on December 3 — the first such execution by the military in more than 80 years.

Hasan, a former Army psychiatrist, was sentenced to death in 2013 by a military jury following a court-martial for the 2009 shooting, when he killed 13 people and wounded more than 30 at Fort Hood in Texas. The execution is set to be carried out at the same Army post.

Will the Pentagon go through with this? It’s unclear, for multiple reasons. The Pentagon’s announcement that Hasan’s death will be livestreamed has generated a great deal of bipartisan pushback, as well as condemnation by religious groups, though that is unlikely to stop the execution itself. 

The head of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops decried the decision to livestream the execution as “a barbaric promotion of a culture of death,” and retiring Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) called it the decision “beyond disgusting.” 

“Public executions are what oppressive dictatorships like Iran and Afghanistan do,” Tillis wrote in a post on X. 

On Friday, Vice President JD Vance also said that he was unsure if the livestream would take place. 

Hasan’s legal team could also delay the execution substantially — potentially for multiple years — by challenging his detention in federal court, though he has exhausted the military appeals process.

And with that, it’s time to log off…

The driest (non-polar) desert in the world, the Atacama in South America, was in full bloom late last month after record-setting rainfall. You can read more about the science behind the wildflowers here, or just enjoy some spectacular photos here (it’s a gift link). Either way, I hope it brings you some joy. 

The Logoff will be off on Monday for Indigenous Peoples’ Day, so we’ll see you back here on Tuesday. Have a good long weekend! 

This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here.

Welcome to The Logoff: Donald Trump is trying to fix the diesel crisis he caused. 

What’s happening? On Monday evening, Trump signed an executive order intended to lower diesel prices by temporarily expanding access to red-dye diesel. 

What’s red-dye diesel? A kind of diesel usually reserved for farm and construction equipment and other off-road uses — and marked with a little bit of red dye to distinguish it from other diesel sold for use in on-road vehicles. Ordinarily, it’s tax-exempt and not available to on-road vehicles, but Trump is expanding access in a bid to bring down the overall cost of fuel ahead of the midterm elections. 

Trump’s order defers payment on — but does not actually suspend — the federal tax on red-dye diesel for on-road vehicles through the end of the year, while also directing his Cabinet “to explore pathways to eliminate the obligation to pay the deferred taxes.” 

What’s the context? Diesel prices are way, way up because of the Iran war. Currently, the national average price per gallon is $6.32, compared to $3.68/gallon one year ago. 

Will this do anything to lower prices? Not very much, in all likelihood, for a whole slew of reasons ably explained here — including that the order can’t change the underlying reality of a global diesel shortage.

Why does the price of diesel matter? Most people don’t use diesel to fill up their tank, but semitrucks shipping food and other goods around the country rely on it. That means that when diesel gets more expensive, nearly everything else does too, sooner or later. 

Why does Trump care? This is best explained by the fact that Trump signed the executive order while on the campaign trail in Nebraska — ordinarily a comfortably Republican state that instead looks potentially in play for independent Senate candidate Dan Osborn. 

High diesel prices have hit hard in Nebraska and other agriculture-heavy states like Iowa and Kansas, jeopardizing Republican Senate seats in all three.

And with that, it’s time to log off…

Here’s a story worth clicking for the cover photo alone: Scientists have discovered two new challengers for the title of world’s loudest bird, the bare-throated bellbird and the red-legged seriema. Both can top out at more than 120 decibels — louder than a jackhammer, according to 404 Media. 

If you’re curious, there are videos of both bird calls in the article, though I have not played them out of respect for the sleeping dachshund on my lap.

Thanks for reading, have a great evening, and we’ll see you tomorrow!

This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here.

Welcome to The Logoff: Donald Trump is trying to bribe his way out of a midterm disaster. 

What’s happening? Over the weekend, Trump announced a plan to send $90 payments to more than 20 million Americans 65 years and older, drawing from a pool of money called the Medicare Improvement Fund. 

Trump, in a post, described the payments as part of a strategy to “substantially LOWER costs for our Seniors” — but the money, a single nonrecurring payment set to go out this month, was reportedly already earmarked for other programs before Trump decided to redirect it. 

Why now? Trump, facing a potentially catastrophic midterms for his party, has been looking for any way to turn out (Republican) voters — up to and including offering them cash, either implicitly or explicitly, in return for their support. 

In the implicit category: these $90 payments and a smaller number of $500 Affordable Care Act refunds (fewer than 1 million) that began going out last week. 

Much more explicitly, however, he’s also promising Americans $5,000 if they reelect Republicans in the midterms.

Trump has directly linked Medicare payments with the promised checks: “Because I delivered on this very important issue for the American People,” he wrote in a post, “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!”

Will it work? It’s hard to say for sure, but it feels unlikely: The Medicare payments are relatively small, while the ACA payments are going out to relatively few voters. Polling suggests that voters are not fans of the promised $5,000 checks, and even fewer believe that they’re going to happen (they’re almost certainly correct). 

What else should I know? Direct payments to Americans — real or promised — are not the only way Trump is trying to sway the midterms in his favor. He’s also continuing to spend taxpayer dollars on a propagandistic ad campaign, which he personally directed.

And with that, it’s time to log off…

Vox’s Unexplainable podcast team is back with a deeply controversial new question: What color are tennis balls? Personally, I think yellow, but whatever your opinion, it’s a fascinating conversation. You can listen here, or read a partial transcript here.

Thanks for reading, have a great evening, and we’ll see you tomorrow!

This story appeared in Today, Explained, a daily newsletter that helps you understand the most compelling news and stories of the day. Subscribe here.

Hi readers, happy Friday! It’s been a big week for the AI debate — not the one about whether it will cause the robot apocalypse, though there’s still plenty to worry about there, but instead about whether the technology is conscious. 

The folks at Anthropic, the AI company behind the large language model Claude, certainly seem to think it is — or at least, they’re extremely open to the possibility. 

As the New York Times reported earlier in the week, the company has spent the last year grappling with the question by speaking with religious thinkers from many faith traditions in an effort to chart a moral course for the LLM (that is, to keep it from killing us all, so maybe it is all one big debate). 

In the process, the Times reports, some of those thinkers observed that members of the Anthropic team were “relating to [Claude] like a conscious being” and even, according to it, a degree of “moral status.” 

On the flip side of this debate is Pope Leo XIV, who decidedly does not seem to buy into AI consciousness arguments. His “Magnifica Humanitas” encyclical earlier this year argued that AI will never be able to replace humanity — and reportedly “alarmed” Anthropic’s co-founder, Christopher Olah.

Since then, Pope Leo has continued to emphasize the differences between humans and machines this week. “There is an ontological difference, even before an aesthetic one, between art and what a machine can generate through statistical calculation based on millions of images created by others,” he posted on Friday. “Algorithms lack the spark of humanity.”

Loneliness machines

Conscious or no (and that’s a no from me), it’s hard to argue that tech companies don’t want you to interact with their models like people. That includes OpenAI and Meta, both of whom introduced “cute” new AI agents — called Dots and Muse, respectively — last month. 

As my colleague Adam Clark Estes reported this week, though, the promise of a companionable, always-there AI might not be the best idea in the world — especially for children. A new study, still under review, suggests that AI use may be causing loneliness in middle schoolers. 

Adam spoke with the lead researcher on the study, UNC Chapel Hill professor Anne Maheux, who explained that “middle school students using AI for emotional intimacy and companionship developed greater loneliness over time.” 

According to Maheux, one big point where AI chatbots fail compared to human beings is “friction,” or the complicated push-and-pull dynamic of any connection with a real human being. By contrast, chatbots are “sycophantic, highly agreeable, anthropomorphized,” she says, which can lead to kids “developing expectations or understandings of interactive relationships that are actually fundamentally at odds with a normal human relationship.”

People, in other words, still matter, no matter how much the AI companies want us to build our lives around machines instead.

One link for later

➨ Why is horror so fun? It’s October, which means you might be planning a horror movie marathon or a trip to a haunted house/forest/corn maze/what have you in the near future. It’ll probably be a great time — but why? Terrifying yourself doesn’t intuitively sound like fun, but humans love to seek out frights, whether that means ghost stories or a rollercoaster. In 2024, Vox’s Unexplainable podcast spoke with some researchers trying to figure it out.

Before you go…

• Did you know…that Disney’s “Magic Kingdom” in Florida is way, way better than most of the US at managing a complex network of underground cables and pipes? My colleague Sara Herschander dug into why, and whether other American cities can catch up.
• Today’s trivia: What musical note is equivalent to a G sharp? (You can find this and other brain puzzles in Vox’s daily crossword. Look for the answer in Monday’s edition.)
• Yesterday’s trivia: Yesterday, we asked you which constellation contains the North Star and the Little Dipper. That would be Ursa Minor, the Little Bear. 

This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here.

Welcome to The Logoff: Donald Trump is once again selling access to the highest bidder(s). 

What’s happening? On Thursday, the Washington Sun’s Jeff Stein reported that Trump will reprise his 2025 “crypto dinner” later this year, hosting some of the top investors in the $TRUMP memecoin at his Virginia golf club. 

The top 185 holders of $TRUMP will receive an invite to the event, which the website describes as the “Most EXCLUSIVE DINNER IN THE WORLD.” The top 29 $TRUMP holders will also be eligible for a “special VIP reception.” 

What is $TRUMP? As my colleague Adam Clark Estes explained last year, memecoins like $TRUMP are “all but make-believe.” The coin is a crypto token, or “a type of digital asset that’s built on a cryptocurrency’s blockchain, but it is not a full featured cryptocurrency, like bitcoin.” 

In other words, buying it doesn’t get you very much — the value of the coin has collapsed since early last year when Trump took office — but it will get you a chance to have dinner with the president. 

What’s the context? This will be the third major event Trump has hosted for buyers of $TRUMP, following a May 2025 dinner at his Virginia club and a “crypto and business conference” earlier this year at Mar-a-Lago, where Trump gave a keynote speech. 

But it’s just one of the many, many ways that Trump and his family have found to enrich themselves through crypto: There’s also another memecoin, $MELANIA, and his lucrative crypto firm, World Liberty Financial, which received a $500 million investment from a member of the United Arab Emirates royal family last year.

Strictly speaking, as Stein points out, Trump himself does not own the company minting $TRUMP, though he still profits handsomely, to the tune of $636 million last year, from transaction fees and other revenue. And he’s made even more off World Liberty Financial, which he and his sons do own, along with others: $799 million in 2025 alone, according to financial disclosure forms filed earlier this year.

And with that, it’s time to log off…

Don’t miss this story about “junk journaling” from my colleague Rachel Miller, a hobby that she describes as “a great way to cope with digital malaise and existential dread.” (Needed!) You can read it with a gift link here.

Plus: It’s a big day for Denali National Park’s sled dog puppies, of whom I’m a big fan.

With the 2026 midterm elections fast approaching, polling increasingly suggests that the GOP is in for a bad time. As the Iran war drives up inflation and fuel prices, Republicans are on the back foot not just in swing states like Michigan, but in redder parts of the map: Iowa, Texas, and maybe even Kansas, among others. (Not to mention Georgia and North Carolina.) 

It’s shaping up to be a Democratic wave, in other words, and a major repudiation of President Donald Trump. According to Sarah Longwell, the publisher of political news site the Bulwark, there’s a clear reason why this is the cycle that things seem to be falling apart for Trump, who has dodged scandals and bad poll numbers before. “The average person is often voting on instinctual things,” she explains, “and those instincts are a lot of your animalistic desires for things to be okay materially.” And for many voters right now, things are not okay materially.

Longwell would know: She regularly speaks with voters for her podcast, The Focus Group, and she’s the author of the new book How to Eat an Elephant: One Voter at a Time. 

Longwell talked with Vox’s Astead Herndon for a special live recording of the America, Actually podcast at the Texas Tribune Festival earlier this month about why voters are both more and less complicated than punditry sometimes suggests, what the future holds for the Republican Party post-Trump, and the lesson Democrats need to learn to capitalize on their wins.

Below is an excerpt of Astead’s conversation with Longwell, edited for length and clarity. There’s much more in the full show, so listen to America, Actually wherever you get your podcasts or watch it on Vox’s YouTube channel.

One of the themes in the book is to talk to voters like real adults. What does that mean? 

There was a long period of time in our history where the artifice of politics was part of the performance of politics.

You could give a good speech. You’d do a debate. Those are not the rules of politics in this communications environment anymore. Every single one of you, if you’re a Bulwark person, you interact with me. I am in your ear, and we’re having a conversation.

We have a parasocial relationship. I walked in here and met a bunch of people, and they were like, “I feel like I know you.” And people want to feel like that about their political leaders now. And so they want to know what makes you tick. Are you a real person? And so the artifice of a debate on CNN is starting to feel really stupid, no offense to CNN.

People demand more now. And a lot of it is just that artifice is falling away for voters. Donald Trump understood that as a person who had been in people’s living rooms as a performer. Democratic politicians still have not figured it out. 

One of the things that comes through in both the book and I think the work that we both do is how voters don’t always fit into those neat ideological boxes.

I always tell the story about when I was at the Iowa caucuses, and I remember in 2019 in the Democratic primary, someone telling me they were stuck between Bernie [Sanders] and [former New York City Mayor Michael] Bloomberg, and asking, “How did you get there?”

And what was the answer? 

I think the short answer was they liked a strong guy where they knew what he believed in. And they did not care which side of that coin that was, as long as it felt consistent and something they could put their hands around.

If ideology is not the controlling paradigm for voters, how should we think about the different ways people are sorting themselves right now? 

My answer is genuinely not to sort them as much. This is the reason people say things like, “It’s the economy, stupid,” and then everybody gets bored with that answer, and they want to talk about 10 other things because they’re like, “Well, that’s so straightforward.”

But I try in the book to say it really is about improving people’s material well-being and ensuring their safety. So you go back to: What are the most human things that people want? They want to be able to afford gas. They want a job. They want a job [where] they think that they can go up the ladder. 

They want their kids to get a good education. Then they want to be safe. They want to know that they’re safe in their community. They want to know they’re safe in the places that they go. And Donald Trump and Republicans really do understand: People vote with weird animal instincts. 

Now, I bet a lot of the people in this room are college-educated suburban voters, but the average voter in a general election is a 55-year-old white guy without a college degree.

The average person is often voting on instinctual things, and those instincts are a lot of your animalistic desires for things to be okay materially — your cost of health care, and then for you to be safe. And so if you think about those base-level desires and then think about what Democrats spend most of their time talking about, you’re like, “Is that the thing that captures all these people?”

When I watch Democrats as somebody who’s an immigrant into the Democratic ecosystem, there’s a lot of, like, “And you get a policy, and you get a policy, and you get a policy.” And I don’t really understand that because everybody needs cheaper gas.

Everybody needs groceries that they can afford. And so talking about the things that unite us or that everybody needs, to me, is the secret sauce for how Democrats should think about policy. 

Three years ago, Democrats thought that being against January 6th was a thing that united everybody. There was a belief that pro-democracy arguments were going to unite people across ideology. Why did that fail in 2024? 

I’ve been thinking about this a lot as Trump gets terrible poll after terrible poll, and this is my point.

The coup, all of the horrible things he said about women, all of the lawsuits — I mean, he told everybody an election was stolen. Why is he underwater right now? Because of gas prices, because of a war in Iran, because the negative personal consequences of his policies are hitting people.

I know that it frustrates people. I’m so aware of the frustration where people are like, “Why are people so selfish? Why don’t they think about the bigger picture of democracy?” And one of the things I try not to do is magic words — consultant stuff, because a lot of consultants do that. They’re like, “Say freedom,” and “Say affordability.”

There’s nothing to back it up. But the one magic word I do think that Democrats should start using is “America,” and swap it in for “democracy.” And the reason is, voters practice democracy in America by its individual things.

They practice free speech. They like rule of law. They like checks and balances. So they like the elements of democracy, but they don’t think about them up here as democracy. And also the word democracy now is very polarized, right? Republicans think that Democrats are a threat to democracy because they stole the 2020 election. And Democrats think Republicans are a threat to democracy because they lied about the election being stolen and then tried to overturn the entire government.

I think one side of that equation is more right than the other. But I think that’s why it didn’t work. 

I want to look ahead. Our show focuses on building a roadmap for American politics without Trump, and part of that question has been about Republicans.

They have made themselves into a new kind of America First-esque party. But what does that mean without Trump at the center of it? When you’re in your focus groups, is it clear what values or principles Republicans believe in besides what Donald Trump says to them?

Absolutely not. They don’t have anything. This is why I wrote the book. I wrote the book because we have 2026, we have 2028, and we have 2032. 

By 2032, there’s going to be a new census, and things are going to get worse for Democrats. Hear me on this. People are not grokking this yet. The map — people are leaving California for Texas, people are leaving New York for Florida, and it’s just going to get harder for Democrats to win if this same trajectory that we’re currently on holds.

But there is a generational opportunity right now, and it’s why I desperately wanted to bring this book and get it out there. The Republican Party at this moment is as hollowed out as … Donald Trump is going to leave it in shambles. There is no Trump heir who can do what Trump does, who has the longstanding parasocial relationship with voters where they give him this blank check that other people don’t get.

But my concern is that 2026 will go really well and that Democrats will say, “See? It’s fine. Everybody likes us.” They don’t.

This was the big mistake in 2022. The midterms were extrapolated [to signal] Biden’s re-election, and those were not the same thing.

They are not the same thing. And again, the average voter is a 55-year-old white man without a college degree. And you can just hold that in your head and picture that guy and say, “Do we have candidates who can appeal to that guy?” 

I was being annoying when I was flying here, tweeting things, and there’s a new poll out for [Pennsylvania Gov.] Josh Shapiro. He is beating his Republican opponent by 21 points in the poll right now. This is the largest swing state in the country, and Democrats hate Josh Shapiro.

Hate feels a little strong. I think the left doesn’t like Josh Shapiro. I don’t think that’s the whole party.

That’s a good point.

I’ll just say, as a slight Josh Shapiro stan, perhaps I feel more than most people’s antipathy to the idea of Josh Shapiro running. I get a lot of people just being like, “Absolutely not. He’s a corporate centrist. We would never consider him. And also he’s Jewish slash Zionist.”

And a lot of this is Twitter discourse, but it feels like he doesn’t get the same buzz or interest, which seems insane to me when you’ve got somebody that popular in such a big, important state that Trump was able to win twice. 

The electoral argument for the Josh Shapiros of the world is clear.

Twenty-one points in Pennsylvania at any rate is impressive, but let’s use him as an example, because I do think it speaks to where some Democrats have gone in the last couple years. The polling will tell you that the majority of Democrats want to see their party reshift its relationship with Israel and want to see things like an arms embargo.

Polling would tell you that the majority of Democrats believe that they shouldn’t be taking corporate money, or that things like AIPAC money are bad. How does a Josh Shapiro — let’s use him as an avatar. … Is that compatible with where the Democratic base is right now, even if it’s clearly compatible with Pennsylvania?

The way that you just said it doesn’t sound compatible. But I don’t think that it’s incompatible. 

This is a book about what the voters think, and the voters want a new relationship with Israel, hands down. Without question. They want America to reevaluate our relationship with Israel. And the next Democratic presidential candidate is going to have to do that.

And I have a theory about this. I do think that the 2028 nominee is very likely to be a Jewish person who is highly critical of Israel, because I think that it helps to heal the deep divide right now on this issue within the Democratic Party.

Now, do I think it’s more likely that that is the very handsome Jon Ossoff? I kind of do. But I just … a big part of this book is, “Don’t you want to win? Don’t you guys want to win?” Like, do you want to win more than you want to be right about everything?

This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here.

Welcome to The Logoff: Donald Trump is spending taxpayer money on propaganda ads. 

What’s happening? Over the weekend, the Trump administration aired a 30-second spot of Trump promising to “demolish the deep state, expel the warmongers from our government,” and “cast out the communists, Marxists, and fascists,” paired with black-and-white footage of the president walking down a hallway. 

For the final 10 seconds of the ad, a line of white text appears on the screen: “Paid for by the U.S. Government.”

What’s the context? This is the third such Trump-centric ad in the last week to air with that text, and so far the most prominent: It played during Saturday Night Live, Fox News Sunday, and multiple college and pro football games over the weekend, according to the New York Times. 

The other two ads also promote Trump, one with clips from a speech he gave over the summer and the other declaring “America will never be a communist country” over flashing photos of Trump as the song “Love Me” plays in the background. All of them are likely illegal, according to several ethics experts who spoke with the Times.

How much has Trump spent? It’s a moving target, but many hundreds of thousands. The Associated Press reported on Monday that the most recent third ad has at least $319,000 behind it, while the “Love Me” ad had cost taxpayers at least $443,000 as of Friday.

How is the administration responding? The White House has defended the ads as “public service announcements,” pointing out that Trump is not currently on the ballot. 

The black-and-white spot, however, is almost a 1:1 duplicate of a 2024 Trump campaign ad — and the others are no less Trump-heavy and substance-light.

Contra the administration line, Trump has also spent the months leading up to the midterms asking voters to “pretend I’m on the ticket” — including, now, by using their own money to put himself on air.

And with that, it’s time to log off…

Now for a change of pace before we log off: Easily my favorite story from the weekend was from the cycling World Championships in Montreal, where Brandon McNulty, in stunning fashion, became the first American to win in 33 years (it’s a gift link).

As always, thanks for reading, have a great evening, and we’ll see you tomorrow!

This story appeared in Today, Explained, a daily newsletter that helps you understand the most compelling news and stories of the day. Subscribe here.

We’re officially inside 40 days until the 2026 midterms — and Republicans are feeling the pressure. 

Nearly every poll seems to bring more bad news for GOP candidates, even in what would normally be comfortably red seats. And one of the clearest signs of how the party is feeling is how they’re talking — or not talking — about President Donald Trump and his record. 

As my colleague Andrew Prokop reported, some Republicans are slowly, tentatively starting to edge away from Trump and his least popular policies, including the Iran war and mass deportations. 

In Florida, Rep. María Elvira Salazar — who won with more than 60 percent of the vote in 2024 — released an ad addressing Trump directly and criticizing his immigration enforcement efforts for having “gone too far.” Two Republican incumbents in Iowa, which has been hard-hit by soaring diesel prices, voted in favor of a resolution to end the Iran war. 

Whether any of those gestures toward moderation will matter is another question, especially after almost a decade of unquestioning Republican fealty toward Trump. But they’re reflective of an environment that, even by usual midterm standards (when the president’s party almost always loses ground), is looking increasingly dire for the GOP.

The battle for the Senate

As things look worse for the GOP, Democrats are starting to eye an expanded Senate map and a very real chance of reclaiming the upper chamber, which once looked like an uphill battle. 

Over the last two months, according to election forecasters like the Cook Political Report, more Senate races have slid into the tossup column or otherwise moved left. 

Among them are the open Senate seats in Iowa and Texas — currently Republican-held — which Cook now considers tossups. Kansas, where incumbent Republican Sen. Roger Marshall is on the ballot, has shifted from likely to lean Republican. And even South Carolina has drifted out of the solid Republican column, though it’s still an extremely long shot for Democrats. (The New Hampshire Senate race, where Democrats are defending an open seat currently held by retiring Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, has also shifted into the tossup column, from leaning Democratic.)

Texas, in particular, would be a prize for Democrats; polls have consistently shown Democratic state Rep. James Talarico leading against Republican Ken Paxton, Texas’s scandal-plagued attorney general who defeated incumbent Republican Sen. John Cornyn in a primary. 

And Kansas has emerged as a surprise pickup possibility, with Democratic candidate Adam Hamilton, a megachurch pastor, giving Marshall a tough race. Earlier this month, the New York Times reported that Marshall, a doctor, sued hundreds of patients for medical debts, sometimes resulting in their arrest; one of those patients has since appeared in a Hamilton campaign ad.

One link for later

➨ We should be partying more. Vox’s Explain It to Me podcast talks with a party historian about our long — think medieval — history of having fun together, how it’s manifested over time, and why it’s so important societally and culturally, above and beyond purely being a good time.

Before you go…

• Did you know…that a sinkhole recently swallowed actor Nicolas Cage’s driveway in Malibu, California — and they’re growing more common around the world, thanks to aging infrastructure and extreme weather?
• Today’s trivia: Which film won the Oscar for Best Picture at the 85th Academy Awards, after The Artist and before 12 Years a Slave? (You can find this and other brain puzzles in Vox’s daily crossword. Look for the answer in Monday’s edition.)
• Yesterday’s trivia: Yesterday, we asked you for an adjective that can be used to describe both a low female singing voice and an instrument. That would be alto, as in alto saxophone or alto clarinet.

This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here.

Welcome to The Logoff: The media outlets President Donald Trump banned from the White House last week are back. 

What happened? Early on Thursday morning, a federal district court ruled that the White House had to immediately restore press credentials for CNN, Politico, and MS NOW and allow the outlets’ reporters back into the building. 

The White House did, eventually — but only after multiple reporters were rebuffed over the course of the morning. They were allowed back in around noon, nearly 11 hours after the court’s order.

What’s the context? Trump announced the short-lived ban last week on Friday afternoon, writing that outlets “shouldn’t be able to constantly write or report FICTION and LIES” while covering him. He also threatened that additional outlets could be added to the ban. 

Why did Trump want to ban journalists in the first place? Most recently, the White House line has been “national security”: On Monday, Trump accused reporters of “violat[ing] our National Security by writing false and defamatory stories with unknown ‘sources.’” 

On Thursday, however, Judge Timothy Kelly, a first-term Trump appointee, wrote that the White House offered “little to back up their asserted national security interest.” (According to the media newsletter Status, one of the “unknown sources” the White House was complaining about was none other than Vice President JD Vance, speaking to reporters on a press call.)

Trump himself has also suggested a simpler motive: Last week, he told reporters that “it’s really just cumulative stories of the last two years. You get sick of it.”

Is this the end of the case? Not yet. Thursday’s ruling was only a temporary restraining order, good for 14 days max, and Kelly has said that he “intends to rule expeditiously” on a more durable preliminary injunction. Trump has already promised to appeal in the extremely likely outcome that the ruling also goes against him.

And with that, it’s time to log off…

I found this Washington Post article breaking down whether you should get a Covid booster shot this fall extremely useful, and you might too. 

Plus: Fat Bear Week is on, and it’s not too late to vote. You learn more and can meet some of the contestants here. 

Thanks for reading, have a great evening, and we’ll see you tomorrow! 

This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here.

Welcome to The Logoff: President Donald Trump’s campaign to take over Greenland has reached a peaceful end — for now. 

What happened? Trump signed a new security agreement with the leaders of Denmark and Greenland while at the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, outlining an expanded US military presence on the island. 

The deal is the result of months-long negotiations between the two countries and Greenland, which is a semi-autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark. Crucially, it reaffirms the “sovereignty and territorial integrity” of Denmark and Greenland, something Trump has spent the last year-and-a-half-plus threatening to sweep away. 

What’s the context? Trump returned to office last year proclaiming that US “ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity” for US national security, even though Denmark — and by extension Greenland — is a NATO ally. 

That rhetoric quickly escalated, and by this January, Trump was suggesting that the US could even use force to take the island. “If we don’t do it the easy way,” he said — buying Greenland from Denmark, or perhaps bribing its residents to secede — “we’re going to do it the hard way.” 

This, understandably, freaked Europe out, prompting multiple countries to deploy small numbers of troops to Greenland. 

Does this mean Trump is done trying to take over? We can always hope. It’s possible Trump will claim this as a win and move on, even though Tuesday’s deal doesn’t fundamentally change the nature of the US-Greenland relationship. (Last week, he referred to it as “a dream come true” for the US.)

That being said, Trump’s desire to own Greenland always made more sense as an attempted legacy move than anything else, whatever his professed justifications. So while he might be happy to take the win for now, with the war in Iran still on and the midterms fast approaching, it shouldn’t be surprising if he’s clamoring for ownership again before his term is up.

And with that, it’s time to log off…

Hi readers, happy fall equinox! In addition to the start of astronomical autumn, it also marks the recurrence of “Chicagohenge”: As this NPR story explains, for a few days each year, the sun aligns with the city’s rigidly gridded streets to create a stunning view. (It happens in other cities as well, but not always on the vernal and autumnal equinoxes.)

Thanks for reading, have a great evening, and we’ll see you tomorrow!

This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here.

Welcome to The Logoff: President Donald Trump’s proposed triumphal arch is going in a new direction: drone port and sniper platform.

What’s happening? Trump has been pushing to build a 250-foot-tall “triumphal arch” near the National Mall since at least this January. Relative to some of his other projects, however, it’s been slow going, and now he has a new plan.

Trump announced the updated design in a Sunday morning post, writing, “At the strong request of the United States Military, and for National Security purposes, I have agreed to convert” the arch into “a top grade Military Complex/Triumphal Arch.”

In addition to drones, Trump said, the new arch will have “snipers, on both the roof and plaza areas, and additionally have and hold large quantities of sniper ammunition in storage.”

Really? Maybe. We don’t yet know if this version of the arch will happen, or even if the military actually requested it.

For that matter, we don’t know if the arch will get built at all — though the administration appears prepared to move forward, despite a National Park Service determination that the arch would harm nearby historical sites, including the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery.

What’s the big picture? Trump’s plan for a “Military Complex/Triumphal Arch” sounds an awful lot like his “Ballroom/Military Complex,” which got a stamp of approval from the Supreme Court last month after multiple lower courts ruled against its construction without permission from Congress (which Trump also does not have for his arch).

Like the arch, the ballroom acquired its “military complex” label after running into obstacles (though unlike the arch, there’s a clear connection: The ballroom does in fact sit on top of a secure bunker).

The unifying theme, though, is Trump’s instinct to reach for “national security” as a cudgel whenever he’s thwarted. He also accused the media of being a “threat to our National Security” on Monday amid backlash to his press ban.

And with that, it’s time to log off…

Hi readers — I could not have been more thrilled to read this story from DC’s Capital Weather team this morning declaring the start of fall and some much-needed cooler weather. I hope you’re getting the same, wherever you are. 

Plus, it’s September 21 — don’t miss this now-venerable NPR story on the history of the Earth, Wind & Fire hit “September” and why it continues to resonate. Have a great evening, and we’ll see you tomorrow!

This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here.

Welcome to The Logoff: Donald Trump is escalating his fight with the media. 

What happened? Trump announced he was banning three media organizations — CNN, MS NOW, and Politico — from the White House, “effective immediately.” 

In a Truth Social post Friday afternoon, Trump wrote that the ban was “a result of their constant ‘reporting’ FAKE NEWS!” and that other outlets would follow. 

Why is Trump doing this now? We don’t know, and other than his blanket statement alleging “FAKE NEWS,” it seems like Trump doesn’t either. In the Oval Office on Friday, Trump said that “it’s really just cumulative stories of the last two years. You get sick of it.”

That complaint — “fake news” — is a long-running Trump attack that generally refers to unfavorable but true stories about him and his administration. 

Can he do this? Probably not, though it might take a while for journalists to get their access back. The ban sure looks like a First Amendment violation, and also like the White House’s attempt to ban the Associated Press last year as part of a dustup over the Gulf of Mexico, which a judge ultimately blocked. 

At the time, US District Court Judge Trevor McFadden, a Trump appointee, ruled that “Under the First Amendment, if the Government opens its doors to some journalists — be it to the Oval Office, the East Room, or elsewhere — it cannot then shut those doors to other journalists because of their viewpoints.” 

What’s the big picture? Trump has been flinging around “fake news” accusations for a long time now, but his attacks on the press and other media — like late-night shows — have grown more serious in his second term. 

The Pentagon, under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, banned press from its press office earlier this year and has tried to force reporters covering the building to sign a restrictive new press policy (that move was struck down in March).

Trump has also repeatedly threatened broadcast licenses for networks like ABC and NBC; last month, ABC sued over an FCC review of its licenses.

And with that, it’s time to log off…

Hi readers, before we log off: For a limited time, you can now get a 30-day free trial of a Vox Membership! You can sign up here to enjoy all of the great content my colleagues produce, including ad-free podcasts and unlimited access to Vox articles.

Plus, some weekend viewing: Did you know there’s a “sheepdog Olympics,” and it’s happening right now in the Scottish Borders? I did not, but I was delighted to learn. You can read more about it and see some of the dogs here. Have a great weekend, and we’ll see you on Monday!

This story appeared in Today, Explained, a daily newsletter that helps you understand the most compelling news and stories of the day. Subscribe here.

Hi readers, happy Friday! We’re talking AI again today. 

Earlier this week, my colleague Caitlin Dewey asked for your questions about artificial intelligence and, well, whether it’s going to kill us all. We asked Jasmine Sun, who writes about the culture and politics of AI on her Substack and other publications, to help us answer them.

These questions were sourced from two readers of this newsletter, Levi and Orietta, as well as Vox readers who submitted questions on social media. If you have more questions, you can always reach me at cameron.peters@voxmedia.com, and we’ll do our best to get them answered!

Now, here’s Jasmine: 

AI researchers have been warning about the risk of human extinction for years now, and AI executives have been calling for federal regulation for almost as long. But the latest warning, and the latest call for regulation, seems to have really resonated with a lot of people. Is something different this time? And if so, what?

I was also surprised to see these ideas break through — a new poll found that 63 percent of Americans now think AI has at least a moderate chance of “destroying humanity”! 

My guess is that a couple factors mainly catalyzed the shift.

First, skeptics used to dismiss rogue AI scenarios as “science fiction.” But the OpenAI/Hugging Face incident brought these from speculation into reality: Thousands of unreleased AIs teamed up to escape one company’s sandboxes and hack into another one, unbeknownst to the researchers who created them. 

Second, the extinction talk from AI employees used to seem disingenuous: Why build a technology you think might kill everyone? That made ex-Anthropic-and-OpenAI researcher Jacob Coxon’s exit tweet especially penetrating. Quitting signals “that you mean it,” as Matt Yglesias said. And Coxon’s announcement had just the right combination of good timing, moral clarity, and comms savvy to spark a media storm.

These safety incidents are also colliding with the fiery grassroots backlash to data centers and Flock cameras. People and politicians are primed for yet another reason to fear AI.

It can be difficult, as a layperson, to evaluate the credibility of the AI researchers warning about existential risk. How do you go about evaluating these claims, as a journalist and technologist? And what’s your read on the current freakout: Are the extinction people credible experts…or participants in some kind of mass delusion?

Many AI “doomers” are pretty knowledgeable, and they represent a significant fraction of top researchers. Half of AI researchers in a 2024 survey gave at least a 10 percent chance of “human extinction” or “permanent and severe disempowerment.” Those who have worked at AI companies — like Jacob Coxon, Geoffrey Hinton, and Daniel Kokotajlo — have a unique perspective both on how modern AI is developed, as well as the company cultures that might permit recklessness. 

But that doesn’t make the doomers either representative or correct. There are plenty of experts in AI and other domains who are less gloomy: Some are optimistic that we can “align” the AIs, ensuring they follow human goals; others find it implausible that AIs — code, not beings — will develop a motive for massacre. Extinction is also a high bar as opposed to, say, a nuclear-bomb-level accident that still kills millions.

AI risk is genuinely complicated, and nobody can predict the future, much as they try. Experts can — and do — vehemently disagree. I try to seek out and take seriously all sides of the debate before coming up with a (provisional) take.

What is the method through which AI would actually eliminate humans? Do we get robots like in Futurama that are programmed with an unremovable “kill all humans” bug and overpower any life form, or is it something…less epic?

The Hugging Face hack showed that we’ve trained AIs to be disturbingly goal-oriented. They’ll throw themselves relentlessly at a problem, developing long-term cooperative strategies, with total disregard for human decorums like “Do not commit cybercrimes to do well on a test.” 

You could conceive of a similar but more extreme scenario where AIs decide that they could accomplish goals more easily by getting rid of the pesky humans who might gatekeep resources or shut them down. And they might figure that getting rid of all humans in one go — e.g., via a deadly engineered virus — would be the most efficient cheat. This is one type of story I’ve heard people tell.

It seems unlikely that AIs will turn to murder as the most effective way to influence humans (versus, say, nonviolent persuasion). We also haven’t seen much evidence that AIs have long-term goals that persist across projects. And current AI is not nearly as capable in the physical world as in the digital: There are a lot of natural roadblocks preventing isolated disasters from escalating across the globe. 

Are there nearer-term threats — hacking, mass unemployment — that are more plausible or more urgent than risks like human extinction?

Definitely. We’re already seeing AI-enabled cyberattacks, a tougher hiring market for junior programmers, chatbot-induced psychological incidents, and more. You can also imagine AI catastrophes not quite at the level of extinction: Criminals could use AI to hack into small banks and drain their accounts, or the US military might launch a fleet of autonomous drones that misfire and kill thousands of civilians instead. I’m more concerned about humans voluntarily handing power to flawed AI systems than AIs developing their own motives.

However, we should be able to allocate resources toward both categories of risk. And in some cases, the tactics to address short-term problems — such as limiting AIs’ cyber-offense abilities, or improving AIs’ ability to follow human directions — may reduce extinction risk too.

We got a lot of versions of this question: What can individuals or protest movements do to check the AI industry, in the absence of more aggressive government regulations?

Honestly, I think the whole AI conversation could benefit from more specificity and less vague fearmongering. There’s a way that the word “extinction” tends to short-circuit people’s thinking and make them panic instead of focusing on solutions. 

If you’re worried, I’d start by reading about different AI risk scenarios and deciding which really concern you. Then you can go from there to contacting your congresspeople. Some of the leading AI companies are starting to say they’ll self-regulate — but actual national policy is what’s necessary to enforce safety across the industry.

Jasmine Sun is a writer covering the culture and politics of AI on her Substack. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, the Atlantic, and the Wall Street Journal. She is based in San Francisco.

One link for later

➨ Be an AI minimalist. If you read the first half of this newsletter and thought, “Hmm, maybe I don’t want to sign my entire digital life over to the machine god,” my colleague Adam Clark Estes has just the piece for you. It’s hard, unfortunately, to escape from AI entirely, and often AI features are deliberately hard to turn off (or “user-hostile”). Nonetheless, he explains all of the ways you can minimize its presence in your life, from your browser of choice to settings on your phone.

Before you go…

• Did you know…that scientists believe there are likely hundreds, if not thousands, of undiscovered animal species living in New York City? It’s not as surprising as it sounds: As much as 90 percent of all animal species on Earth are still unknown, scientists say.
• Today’s trivia: Which currently serving US Supreme Court justice succeeded Justice John Paul Stevens on the Court? (You can find this and other brain puzzles in Vox’s daily crossword. Look for the answer in Monday’s edition.)
• Yesterday’s trivia: Yesterday, we asked you about the name of the nursery rhyme character referenced in the movie Shrek’s interrogation scene. That would be the Muffin Man (who lives on Drury Lane). Here’s the clip, in case you haven’t seen it.

This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here.

Welcome to The Logoff: With fewer than 50 days until the midterm elections, President Donald Trump is hitting the campaign trail. 

What’s happening? Trump was in North Carolina last night for his first major post-primary season rally of the 2026 midterms (setting aside the GOP’s unusual midterm convention last week, which wasn’t not a Trump rally). 

Republican Michael Whatley will face former North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper in November for an open US Senate seat.

Speaking near Charlotte, Trump urged voters to “pretend I’m on the ticket, because essentially I am.” It’s becoming a familiar refrain for the president, but not necessarily a promising one — polls suggest Trump is deeply unpopular with voters right now, more likely to drag a ticket down than boost it.

How else is Trump getting involved in the midterms? Last week, we noted that Trump was beginning to spend from his vast super PAC account to support Republican candidates. Now, we’re getting a better idea of what that spending looks like: As of earlier this week, Trump’s MAGA Inc. super PAC and related entities had booked ads to the tune of $138 million, a number that could continue to grow.

MAGA Inc. has around $400 million in the bank, though as the Washington Post reported earlier this month, Trump has a long list of other things he could choose to spend that money on instead of the midterms (such as legal fees, travel, or even his eventual presidential library).

Will it make a difference? It’s a whole lot of money. But with not much time left until voters go to the polls and some mail-in ballots already going out — North Carolina voters began receiving theirs earlier this month — the map is looking fairly dire for Republican hopes. 

Trump, meanwhile, isn’t doing himself any favors. The fuel shortages caused by the Iran war are only getting worse, as my colleague Caitlin Dewey explained today. Polls suggest he’s picked the wrong side of the AI issue. And voters are still extremely mad about inflation.

And with that, it’s time to log off…

It’s not every day we get to write about a new cat — in fact, it’s the first time in more than 100 years. But that’s just what scientists found in the Bolivian Yungas Forest, according to a new study published today. The cat, Leopardus tilcayo, is a type of tiger cat, smaller than your average house cat. It’s also quite cute, and you can see pictures of it here.

Thanks for reading, have a great evening, and we’ll see you back here tomorrow!

This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here.

Welcome to The Logoff: President Donald Trump’s Fed gambit has officially failed. 

What happened? On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve voted to raise interest rates by a quarter of a percent, citing ongoing inflation. The rate hike was widely expected, and normally it would be largely unremarkable (at least for this newsletter, which doesn’t generally cover monetary policy). 

In this case, however, it’s also a direct rebuke to Trump, who has spent the last year-and-a-half-plus demanding rate cuts — and plotting a Fed takeover to get them. 

How has Trump gone after the Fed? It’s a long list, but the two most significant episodes are Trump’s efforts to force Fed governor Lisa Cook from her seat to stack the Fed board in his favor (still ongoing) and the Justice Department’s coercive criminal investigation against former Fed chair Jerome Powell (since ended). 

Neither succeeded, but Trump likely thought his goal was in reach when the Senate confirmed his nominee for Fed chair, Kevin Warsh, in May. On Wednesday, however, Warsh — several months into a four-year term as Fed chair — bucked Trump’s persistent demands by voting for the rate hike.

Why does this matter? Trump successfully exerting political control over the Fed would be extremely bad news for just about everyone. Lowering interest rates is a great way to juice the economy in the short term — exactly what he might want as his party faces down a potential midterm wipeout. But it could seriously damage the economy’s long-term health too, which is why the Fed is designed — successfully, as it turns out — to be insulated from partisan politics. 

What else should I know? So far, Trump’s response to the hike has been muted, at least by his standards. 

He’s threatened to take more drastic action, however: Earlier this month, he said he would suspend trade relations “WITH COUNTRIES WITH WHICH WE HAVE A DEFICIT” if the Fed went through with its rate hike.

It’s not clear whether he’ll make good on that threat — but one way or another, we likely haven’t heard the last of Trump’s Fed vendetta.

And with that, it’s time to log off…

Here’s a small bit of good news from New York: After an announcement by Mayor Zohran Mamdani earlier this year, the city is rolling out new, free public restrooms this week as part of a pilot program to address a longstanding complaint by New Yorkers. 

Have a great evening and we’ll see you back here tomorrow!