billionaire tax

President Trump's effort to squeeze Canada is coming back to bite American businesses as a new report reveals just how hard it is for the US to find an alternative to something it has long purchased from its northern neighbor.

"This country desperately needs aluminum," Trump admitted during an August telephone rally for Oklahoma Republican gubernatorial candidate Mike Mazzei. He later added: "We don't have it. We get it all from Canada, for the most part, and we need it badly."

That admission now looks very odd as Trump has imposed a 50 percent tariff on Canadian aluminum imports, yet American companies still need the metal to make cars, build houses, manufacture aircraft, construct data centers and all sorts of other things.

The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that the tariffs have driven the premium paid for aluminum in the US to record levels, adding costs for businesses that have very few real alternatives.

Higher material costs could eventually make their way to car buyers and families trying to build homes.

The issue is decades old, as there were 24 operating aluminum smelters in America 26 years ago. Today, there are just four, with Canada providing about 70 percent of US aluminum imports.

It's not simply that Canadian companies can produce the metal cheaper. Aluminum production requires enormous amounts of electricity, so the advantage of having access to cheap power is crucial. Quebec's huge hydropower resources give its smelters an advantage that their American counterparts simply can't match.

There's an irony in the very fact that America helped Canada build its aluminum factories. During World War II, the US helped turn the remote Saguenay region of Quebec into an aluminum powerhouse to supply aircraft and munitions. Thousands of Canadians built smelters and a hydropower plant in freezing conditions in just 18 months, and the region has supplied American manufacturers ever since.

Rio Tinto is investing $1.5 billion in modernizing its operations in the region, while a proposed $4 billion smelter in Oklahoma is meeting resistance over pollution, foreign ownership, and the public money required to get it built.

That leaves US manufacturers paying more today, while Trump's domestic replacement remains very much in doubt.

Canada, in the meantime, has found other partners, with its aluminum shipments to Europe up 77 percent year on year through August, according to the Journal, indicating that producers are finding other markets as Washington makes their principal market increasingly difficult to access.

For American businesses, that creates another problem. Even if Trump eventually wants more Canadian aluminum, suppliers may have other places to sell it.

President Donald Trump's political era could come crashing down in a matter of days as election forecaster Nate Silver says a midterm wipeout could leave the president a "super lame duck" for the rest of his term.

Silver, the founder of FiveThirtyEight, made the prediction in an interview with New York Times columnist Ezra Klein to discuss his feeling that the upcoming election is “momentous.”

"If the election goes roughly as the polls say it will go, then in some ways it would mark the end of the Trump era. I think," Silver told Klein, continuing: "He'll still be president for two more years. But the minute the 2028 election campaign begins, and if Trump has a bad night, as polls show, then he's a super lame duck."

Silver compared Trump’s potential fate to George W. Bush, whose last two years in office after the 2006 midterms were legislatively strangled by Democrats when they took control of both chambers of Congress.

The warning comes as most polls point toward a GOP wipeout with major Republican losses up and down the country as they are predicted to pay the price for Trump’s unpopular and costly domestic and foreign policies.

Silver delivered devastating results for Republicans on Sunday during an appearance on CNN using his FLIPR forecasting model. He told host Fareed Zakaria that is model gave Democrats roughly a 95 percent chance of taking the House and a 75 to 76 percent chance of winning the Senate.

In the NY Times interview, Silver said this election cycle feels different because Democrats could flip traditionally red districts, with many in razor-thin races, leaving Republicans pouring money where they thought they wouldn’t need to.

"And part of what people understandably are having trouble believing in the polls, it kind of looks like a different regime, where Kansas is competitive, Texas is competitive, potentially gains for Democrats deep into Republican territory," he said.

Republicans currently control both chambers, making November's contest a referendum on the first two years of Trump's second term as Democrats seek to capitalize on the historically unpopular Iran war and the rising cost of living.

Losing Congress would not only severely limit Trump’s ability to pass legislation, but also open the door to the investigations and oversight Democrats say they are already preparing for.

Silver suggested the transition could be bigger: “But maybe we’re on the verge of something different between generational turnover, between Trump being three-quarters of the way through his two constitutionally provided-for terms”

He singled out artificial intelligence as potentially the “biggest issue of 2028," he said, adding that AI and the economy could dominate a future presidential campaign.

Speaker Mike Johnson spoke to Fox News host Laura Ingraham on Monday night, where he was forced to face some very bad numbers.

He said the GOP's numbers were so bad because Ingraham was citing inaccurate information.

Ingraham cited the new Reuters/Ipsos poll, ahead of the midterms next Tuesday. It showed that, on the generic congressional ballot, registered voters preferred Democrats 47 percent to Republicans 36 percent.

“Now, people like Nate Silver say the polls would have to be really wrong, crazy wrong almost, for Republicans to pull out victories in the House, at least,” Ingraham said, speaking of the statistician and founder of FiveThirtyEight.

Silver told the New York Times on Monday, “Most analysts seem to have little to no confidence in the polling, but maybe they should,” he said.

“Polls in the past two midterms were pretty accurate and unbiased. More important, they may not be projecting anything all that remarkable," Silver added.

Ingraham cited a nonpartisan news poll, but Johnson tried to discount that as well.

“And then you have that new Reuters Ipsos poll showing registered voters favoring Democrats over Republicans 47 to 36. That’s on the generic congressional ballot. So, do you think that poll is not accurate?” she asked.

“Yes, the polls are wrong,” Johnson said. “Let me tell you why. Look, in the last 10 days, we had two polling organizations nationwide that have been exposed for completely fraudulent numbers, Wedgewood and SoCal Strategies. Then you have the more traditional polling organizations having to acknowledge quietly that their numbers are off."

Indeed, Wedgewood and SoCal Strategies were shown to be completely fraudulent. But Reuters, a news wire service, doesn't aggregate polls to get its numbers. They do their own surveys.

“CNN ran a story about a week ago. And they said that 14 out of the last 16 elections, the October generic ballot underestimated Republicans by an average of 4 points," Johnson claimed. “Laura, I think it’s even further off this time because more and more Republicans are unwilling to participate in these surveys."

According to Johnson, people being polled don't want to reveal their private information to someone over the phone.

“They don’t play along. They’re calling it the partisan nonresponse bias. That’s the technical term for ‘Republicans don’t trust you anymore,’” he claimed.

The one number that could confirm or deny Johnson's assessment is the early voting numbers. People who have already voted far surpass the number of voters in 2022, the last midterm election.

President Donald Trump has spent the past week campaigning across the U.S., delivering remarks that a poke holes in his case for war against Iran.

The Bulwark's Will Saletan cited 13 rallies or press gaggles in which Trump detailed his expectations for the war and reasons for it. Saletan noted the president's claims just don't add up.

Saletan's video is aimed directly at Trump voters, and he's using the president's own words against him.

At a Trump rally in South Carolina on Oct. 21, Trump claimed, "Half of the things I am telling you I did I never discussed in the campaign ... I never said we're gonna take over Venezuela beautifully. I never said we're gonna stop Iran from having a nuclear weapon. You know, we have to do it."

Saletan noted that the president is spot on he not only never told Americans he'd end up in a war with Iran, he told voter the opposite. Trump told voters he believed in "America First," and that meant "no new endless wars."

Another point came from Trump's claim that "we obliterated Iran's nuclear program" after the 2025 bombing. But in February 2026, he had to do it again.

He made the point with an NBC Montana reporter on Oct. 14 while visiting the state. Trump said, "And they will never have a nuclear weapon. It was all about the nuclear weapon and we've already done that with our B2 bombers. They will never have a nuclear weapon."

Despite his claim that the U.S. took out all of Iran's nuclear weapons a second time in February 2026, eight months later the U.S. remains.

Then, on Oct. 23, Trump told his audience in Florida, "We obliterated Iran's nuclear enrichment capacity with Operation Midnight Hammer. You remember that? Late at night, 1 in the morning."

Trump also said he knew then it would drive up gas prices, telling his Arizona rally on Oct. 14 that he expected the numbers to be much higher.

"This is a very small price, people," Trump told the audience. "But we have to meet tomorrow because the Islamic Republic of Iran is two weeks away from having a nuclear weapon."

Saletan questioned why Iran was two weeks away when Trump said he "obliterated" the nuclear program the previous year.

"So he decided to start a war at your expense to stop a nuclear program that he had already destroyed," Saletan said.

During an Oct. 2 rally in Alabama, Trump told the audience he promised the war would be over in a few weeks. At a rally in Oklahoma the day before, he similarly recalled promising that the war would be over in four to six weeks.

"And I said it numerous times that it would take four to six weeks to get rid of the Iran nuclear threat, and I did it in one night. That was when the B-2 bombers went in there," said Trump.

Saletan said that he appeared confused as the B-2 bombers went out last June, not in February.

So, why are we still there, asked Saletan. Trump told an audience in Kansas on Oct. 19 that the U.S. could leave at any time because he'd already achieved the objective.

"By the way, somebody said you could leave right now. It's true. We could leave right now. They're not going to have a nuclear weapon. Those B-2 bombers," said Trump

He repeated the same claim at the Alabama rally, noting, "It would take them years to rebuild."

So he believes that the U.S. defeated Iran's nuclear program and he believes that they're not interested in starting it again.

"It raises the question," said Saletan, "why don't we leave? And the answer from Trump is that he won't leave until Iran signs a permanent agreement."

Speaking to Newsmax on Oct. 15, Trump made it clear that the U.S. could pull out, but they may be back in a year. Trump said he's worried that he "may not be here" in a year. He didn't elaborate. Instead, Trump doubled down a few days later to reporters, saying he wanted a written guarantee from Iran. Former President Barack Obama secured a 25-year pause of the nuclear program in Iran, but Trump ripped that up.

Members of President Donald Trump's White House are eyeing up the exits and plotting their next steps, as one political guru told The Daily Beast that an ugly firing spree could arrive soon after the midterms.

This week, David Rothkopf, a former Bill Clinton administration official turned prolific political commentator, appeared as a guest on the latest episode of The Daily Beast Podcast, where he predicted that many in the Trump administration are awaiting their own version of "the Night of the Long Knives," a reference to the infamously brutal purge of political rivals ordered by Adolf Hitler in Nazi Germany during the spring of 1934. He also noted that it is not uncommon for administrations to undergo staffing shakeups in the wake of the midterms, and suggested a few names that might be concerned about how much time they have left.

"There are a bunch of people in the White House right now who are waiting for the Night of the Long Knives that is undoubtedly going to follow this election," Rothkopf told host Joanna Coles. "Because even typically in most administrations, sort of halfway through, you get some turnover. But if you're [FBI Director] Kash Patel or you're [Defense Secretary] Pete [Hegseth] or you're [HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.], or you're [chief of staff] Susie Wiles, or you're some of these other characters who are out there, you're probably thinking, how much longer do I have? What's my next job?"

Rothkopf added that, from his own perspective, Trump's thoughts about who to fire next are a "good thing, because these are good people to get rid of." He noted, however, that the issue with a mass White House exodus is the fact that Trump almost never "trades up" with his officials, suggesting that even worse people could be in line to replace the people he ditches after the midterms.

"The longer he gets into his term, he trades down, and we get, you know, the less good version of Kash Patel, the less sane version of RFK Jr., the more demented version of Pete," Rothkopf said. "And, you know, yuck. Is there a more demented version of Pete?"

Following that line of thought, Rothkopf wondered if Hegseth might get replaced by Doug Jones, his Christian nationalist "preacher friend who's giving him all these big ideas that the military shouldn't have women in it or people of color."

“There’s going to be so much churn that I’d just advise everybody, you know, keep your powder dry,” Rothkopf said. “Election Day is going to be interesting.”

President Donald Trump has suffered an embarrassing defeat to former President Barack Obama in a new national poll exploring masculinity.

The Bulwark and Pablo Torre Finds Out released a poll, which found that 59 percent of American adults view Obama as a stronger role model for men, while only 37 percent said the same of Trump.

Trump was right at the bottom of the list when respondents were asked whether he represented a positive example of masculinity. 55 percent said the president was not a strong male role model, leaving him with a negative 18-point net rating.

However, Obama earned a positive 28-point net rating, which is a huge 46-point gap between the rival presidents, which puts the spotlight on how the public feels about Trump’s desire to portray himself as a political strongman.

The results were not split across party lines, as 23 percent who voted for Trump identified Obama as a stronger male role model.

Trump finished last among the politicians, athletes and entertainment figures who were included in the survey.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth performed slightly better than the president, but only 28 percent of respondents considered the Pentagon chief a strong role model for American men, while 39 percent disagreed.

With younger adults between the ages of 18 and 29, Hegseth plummeted, with 34 percent rejecting his image as a strong male role model.

The Bulwark report shows a contradiction between Hegseth’s efforts to project masculinity and toughness and how the public views him.

The Pentagon chief has put an emphasis on his masculinity ideals, such as proposing a testosterone replacement program and physical fitness tests, along with his war on beards.

He has also fat-shamed people whom he considered overweight and frequently participates in physical training with military personnel.

Actor Matthew McConaughey had one of the strongest ratings, posting a positive 33-point net score, followed by Obama at 28 points and NBA legend LeBron James at 25 points.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom didn’t fare well with a negative two-point net rating, with 35 percent identifying him as a strong male role model and 37 percent disagreeing.

YouGov carried out the online poll of 1,417 U.S. adults between 10th and 14th October. The results were weighted to reflect the adult population, and the margin of error reported was 3.6 percentage points.

Trump has frequently attacked Obama, describing him as a "weak leader," but has recently complimented his ability to walk down the stairs of the White House as he deals with the physical decline that usually comes with advanced age.

The latest ridiculous freakout from President Donald Trump and his MAGA followers has once again exposed just how "stupid" they think their voters are, according to the hosts of MS NOW's Morning Joe.

Earlier this week, at a midterm rally in Ohio, former President Barack Obama took a brief aside to mock the overly gold renovations that Trump has done to the White House, and the Oval Office in particular, calling it out with a pointed comedic jab.

"What's with all the gold? He's got the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened up a Cheesecake Factory," Obama said.

Certain right-wing pundits attempted to spin that remark as Obama making fun of the Cheesecake Factory restaurant chain, arguing that it exposed him as snobbish and out-of-touch with everyday Americans. Other observers countered these criticisms, pointing out that the reference to the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was the actual point of the punchline. Trump himself appeared rattled by the remarks during his own rally appearance, defending his ability to renovate buildings "very good, [and] very beautifully."

During the Tuesday morning broadcast of Morning Joe, co-host and former congressman Joe Scarborough went off on Trump and the other MAGA acolytes for their attacks on Obama's remarks, arguing that it shows how much contempt they have for the intelligence of their voters.

"The fact that they take a very funny Barack Obama joke and go, 'Oh, the guy whose middle name is Hussein has stepped into it,'" Scarborough said. "We can now say he's un-American for making fun — no, not making fun of The Cheesecake Factory, making fun of all the fake gold that Donald Trump has slathered all around the White House. So it's again, time and time again, they think their viewers are so stupid that they're not going to be able to connect things... 'They closed the rural hospitals, my trucking company's out of business, but he made a joke about Donald Trump that had the words "Cheesecake Factory" in it. I'm voting for the Republicans.' Like, do they really think people are that stupid?"

"Well, it's the desperation," co-host Willie Geist said. "As one host said yesterday on Fox News, this is the deplorables moment, just like [with] Hillary [Clinton]. This is it. Again, as Joe just said, no, it wasn't a joke about The Cheesecake Factory. It was a joke about Donald Trump's supergluing pieces of cheap gold all over the White House and making it look as cheap as it does. The other part of this is, do they really want to have a contrast about who the elitist is? If we're comparing Barack Obama to Donald Trump, the guy who is building a ballroom bigger than the white house, the guy who wants to build an arch, who wants to take over the Kennedy Center, the guy who lives in a castle by the sea, the guy who made [$2.3] billion since he took over[.] Do you really want to have that conversation here?"

National security reporter Ken Klippenstein is hearing from more sources inside President Donald Trump's administration that his Justice Department is trying to craft a "contingency plan" to possibly intervene in the Nov. 3 election.

Three officials with knowledge of the discussions inside the administration revealed that there is a "doomsday" scenario that some think is "improbable but not impossible."

Recently, Trump has even hinted that Trump might do something major if there are things like foreign interference, claims that noncitizens voted or other chaos at the polls, said Klipperstein.

“Nobody knows what the president might do if the midterms don’t go his way," said one intelligence official who served in the first Trump administration.

Axios reported Monday that Trump's new lawsuit in Alaska is only one of the lawsuits Attorney General Todd Blanche plans to file. So far, he's also attacked California, trying to remove 20,000 voters from the rolls at the last minute. This is happening while the DOJ is also trying to indict Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook; after the FBI raided Rep. Ilhan Omar's (D-Minn.) Washington residence; after the DOJ indicted Virginia state Sen. Louise Lucas (D), a big Trump critic; and as the department is making a third go at indicting former FBI Director James Comey.

Blanche has even admitted openly that he could move to block a state from certifying the election results.

“Yes, of course there’s scenarios that we could all come up with hypothetically, you know, some doomsday scenario, for example, right?” he told reporters.

Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon told "60 Minutes" that everything would remain normal “absent some shocking contingency that is unexpected."

"These remarks, sources explain to me, are not just rhetoric. There really are contingency plans," said Klippenstein.

Foreign cyberattacks by pro-Trump hackers in Russia, for example, could spark action from the Justice Department.

“If we need to put in federal controls as opposed to state controls,” Trump said way back in February. “If they can’t do it honestly and it can’t be done properly and timely, then something else has to happen."

Trump went on to say that there is a need for federal controls over elections and not leave it up to the states, despite the role of the states being outlined in the U.S. Constitution.

A few weeks after that interview, Trump met with state governors about the possible "doomsday plan." The DOJ began preparing scenarios that would trigger federal action.

"Under the law, the Attorney General may seek a temporary restraining order or injunction when a violation has occurred or there are reasonable grounds to believe that one is imminent," Klippenstein warned. "The Justice Department could also ask a court to delay finalization of a particular election as part of its argument that the law has been broken."

"Reasonable grounds," he noted, is a judgment call that will depend on which court and which judge is overseeing the case.

“There is no general presidential or attorney-general power to suspend elections or veto a state’s results simply by alleging fraud,” one government lawyer says. “The administration would need to identify some statutory violation, present supporting evidence, and justify whatever particular remedy it is requesting.”

Even if the DOJ can come up with something, the lawyer said, “There is no law covering a federal government takeover."

The former Trump intelligence official asked whether Trump could even sign a classified emergency order to justify intervention.

“Could Doomsday involve some continuity of government argument? You just never know with Donald Trump," he said. “If all else fails,” Trump could put “pressure on officials, undertake unsupported litigation, or even issue unlawful executive orders.” That could then provoke a riot like Jan. 6.

Still, the planning inside the DOJ continues, the government lawyer said.

President Donald Trump and his administration have been linked to an unprecedented $377 billion in alleged corruption and abuses of power, according to a new documentary examining 100 episodes of potential misconduct since he returned to office.

Corruptionland investigates allegations of corruption and details each instance with an interactive map on the website. The documentary is also free to stream.

The documentary is led by Miles Taylor, a former senior Department of Homeland Security official during Trump’s first administration, who said, “For two years, Trump’s scandals have hit one at a time, and each one gets buried under the next.”

Taylor described the findings as “a tangled web of alleged corruption,” which he says amounts to $377 billion and is unprecedented in American history; he continues:

“Even that number undersells it, because you can’t put a price on the president’s revenge agenda and his weaponization of federal power. Every American deserves to see the full picture before they vote, and now they can.”

The $377 billion figure is based on a published methodology that values public funds, private benefits, and transactions involved in the 100 cases examined.

The investigation looks into court filings, government documents, congressional records and published reports. It also covers the actions by Trump’s administration that can’t be measured financially, such as the removal of government watchdogs and allegations of retaliation against political opponents.

In the documentary, Taylor joins Donald Sherman, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, on a tour of the National Mall, using locations around the capital to explain the alleged misconduct.

Other contributors include former Justice Department pardon attorney Liz Oyer, former FBI official Chris O’Leary, journalist Terry Moran and Democratic Rep. Jason Crow.

The filmmakers also examine how Trump has dismantled the traditional guardrails to protect against government misconduct and describe how congressional oversight, inspectors general and ethics attorneys have been either “purged, captured or sidelined.”

Taylor also accuses Trump of using his federal government to come after him personally due to his criticism of the administration. The documentary arrives as polls have shown Americans are concerned about corruption; some surveys have shown those concerns are only eclipsed by concerns over the rising cost of living.

A September Gallup survey found that 89 percent of Americans believe corruption is widespread in government, including 83 percent of Republicans and 91 percent of Democrats.

Democrats have used corruption attacks on the campaign trail to convince voters they can’t trust their GOP officials.

The film comes just a week before the midterms, as voters have expressed their concerns and will likely have corruption on their minds when they vote on November 3.