Pete Hoekstra, controversial US ambassador to Canada, has also accused Canadian officials of interfering in US elections
The US ambassador has suggested Canada could be blamed if Republicans perform poorly in next week’s midterm elections, the latest intervention from a controversial figure who has been accused of inflaming a bitter dispute that has angered and baffled residents of both countries.
On Wednesday, CTV news reported that Pete Hoekstra told business leaders at a closed door meeting that if a number of swing races – including Maine and Michigan – go to the Democrats, it could make things harder for Canada because Donald Trump might try to blame the loss on it.
Texas Senate candidate James Talarico, a Democrat, speaks at a public exhibit about the Epstein files in Dallas. | Chitose Suzuki/The Dallas Morning News via Getty Images
This story appeared in Today, Explained, a daily newsletter that helps you understand the most compelling news and stories of the day. Subscribe here.
Eighteen years after his first conviction, and seven years after his much-debated death, the ghost of the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein is suddenly inescapable again.
He’s the subject of scores of midterm campaign ads, each more lurid than the last. A second bill mandating the release of the Epstein files is currently kicking around Congress. And on Monday, House Democrats released a new report alleging that the Justice Department helped cover up details of Epstein’s relationship with President Donald Trump, calling — very aspirationally! — for an independent criminal investigation.
Of course, no one really expects Trump’s attorney general to name a special counsel to investigate the Trump administration. In a statement, one White House spokesperson panned the report as “a desperate attempt by crazed Democrats to distract Americans.” (The timing, just one week before the midterms, does seem pretty fortuitous.)
The document, which runs to 50 pages, draws on public accounts and staff interviews with an unspecified number of survivors, including a former pageant queen who alleges that Trump raped her in 1993. The woman had previously accused Trump of groping her, which a Trump spokesperson dismissed at the time as “fake.”
When it comes to Epstein, however, Democrats don’t need a lot of new material to damage Trump. The scandal, and his administration’s handling of it, continue to cast a long, dark shadow over Republicans.
That’s surprising to me, candidly, because the decades-old dealings of even a very despicable sex offender don’t have any bearing on Americans’ day-to-day costs or experiences. And Trump has been able to brush off a lot of other unsavory behavior and associations.
Many of these young voters “resent the fact that Trump’s basically become part of the establishment” and see the Epstein files as evidence of that, the political analyst Rachel Janfaza recently told Vox. Some also feel burned by Trump’s campaign promise to release the government’s investigative files on Epstein…and his about-face once in office.
Democrats, sensing an opening, are hammering the issue. Relentlessly so. According to data from the tracker AdImpact cited by NBC News, there are currently more than 500 campaign ads airing across the country that include the words “pedophile” or “predator.”
Many of them reference Epstein or the so-called Epstein files, and three-quarters are backed by Democrats. One recent ad featuring an Epstein survivor, and targeted at Kansas Republican Roger Marshall, slams the incumbent senator’s September 2025 vote to block a procedural measure that would have released the Epstein files. (The Senate later moved to release the files by unanimous consent.)
Another ad, this one in Maine, claims that Epstein’s “business partner” funneled $3 million to Sen. Susan Collins’s super PAC. (Importantly, the connection between Epstein and this purported partner is so tenuous as to be nonexistent.)
These ads will fade after Tuesday, of course. But you haven’t heard the last word on this. Should Democrats win control of either chamber, they’ll gain the power to subpoena witnesses and documents for yet more Epstein investigations.
Some Democratic leaders in the House are already salivating over that prospect.
One link for later
➨ Ask better questions than “what do you do?” Small talk is often dominated by idle chatter about traffic, weather, or jobs. To actually get to know your conversation partner, try leading with questions that get at their interests: what a friend’s friend is reading, for example, or what a barista’s favorite beverage is. You can even draft a little list of go-to questions in advance to deploy in conversation when you need them. Just don’t treat the exercise like a checklist. The real key to better small talk is being curious.
Before you go…
Did you know…that concrete is the second-most-used material on Earth? (The first is water!) Mixing and pouring concrete is responsible for a huge share of global emissions, but there are efforts underway to make it more sustainable.
Today’s trivia: An arroyo is a stream — or at least, a streambed — found in what type of environment? (You can find this and other brain puzzles in Vox’s daily crossword. Look for the answer in tomorrow’s edition.)
Yesterday’s trivia: Yesterday we asked you for the name of the lovable yellow dog in the comic strip Garfield. That would be Odie, whose look evolved over the years as illustrator Jim Davis sought to distinguish him from his iconic canine rival Snoopy.
Republicans have condemned the presence of two Dan Sullivans on the ballot, calling it a ploy to split votes
Alaska Democrat Mary Peltola’s campaign was behind an effort to recruit a challenger with almost the same name as the Republican US senator Dan Sullivan, both of whom will appear on the ballot in next week’s midterm elections, the New York Times reported on Wednesday.
Republicans have condemned the presence in the race of two candidates named Dan Sullivan – one the two-term US senator, the second a retiree living in south-eastern Alaska with scant political experience – calling the newcomer a ploy by Democrats to cost the incumbent re-election by splitting his supporters.
James O’Keefe and Cam Higby were trying to show vulnerabilities in allowing a voter to vouch for another
Two rightwing influencers have been charged with felonies in Minneapolis over attempts in the state’s election primary to disguise themselves in what they called “Muslim garb” and claim they were local voters.
James O’Keefe and Cam Higby went to polling places in Minnesota during the state’s August primary in an attempt to show vulnerabilities in the practice of “vouching”, where a registered voter from the same precinct can vouch for another voter’s eligibility.
Barack Obama versus Donald Trump. It is the presidential election that never happened but has come to define an era of US politics.
Obama is back on the campaign trail for the midterms, still electrifying crowds, earning shouts of “We love you!” and skewering his successor. “What’s up with the gold?” he asked a crowd in Detroit. “I mean, he’s got the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory.” This has, predictably, set off a mini culture war involving questions of elitism and the tastefulness of chain restaurants.
Circumstances are ripe for change in this onetime Republican stronghold given the current dissatisfaction with Trump agenda, experts say
Donald Trump has repeatedly asked voters to pretend that he is on the ballot in November’s crucial midterm elections. And in the comfortable confines of Arizona’s most affluent and fiercely contested congressional district, Trump is definitely on voters’ minds.
But whether that helps or hurts the warring congressional candidates in this sun-drenched swath of suburbia, where Teslas and walled-in luxury homes dominate, depends on who you ask.
US health secretary falsely claims at Mike Rogers rally that Arabs have never won major prizes in science or literature
Robert F Kennedy Jr, the US health secretary, faced backlash on Wednesday for a “wildly racist tirade” during a campaign stop in Michigan in which he falsely asserted that Arabs never won leading awards in science or literature.
Kennedy was speaking at the Monday night event in Grand Rapids in support of Mike Rogers, the Republican US Senate candidate trailing his Democratic midterms opponent Abdul El-Sayed, who is Muslim, in polling.
For months, Mary Peltola’s campaign for Alaska’s Senate seat has denied any connection to a separate campaign launched by a man who, coincidentally, shares the exact same name as Peltola’s Republican opponent, Dan Sullivan.
New reporting from the New York Times undercuts that claim. The outlet reported, based on interviews, obtained text messages and legal filings, that the Peltola campaign had not only recruited Mr Sullivan (not the Republican), but had sought out a number of Dan Sullivans across the state for potential candidacy, as well as others who could peel votes away from Peltola’s main opponent.
President at Texas campaign rally hails deal struck with post-Maduro government as ‘greatest oil victory in history’
Donald Trump suggested Venezuela would become the 51st state of the United States on Tuesday as the president showed off a tanker he claimed had “one million barrels of oil on it” from the country, nine months after deposing its president.
At a campaign rally in Corpus Christ, Texas, Trump touted a US oil deal with Venezuela, which the US attacked in January, capturing its long-serving leader Nicolás Maduro.
Login
