Latest / The Agora / October 22, 2026 — Sanctions, Snubs, and Sketchy Sponsorships

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October 22, 2026 — Sanctions, Snubs, and Sketchy Sponsorships · The Agora

0:19
Arthur Kline: Good evening.
0:20
Welcome to THE AGORA.
0:22
Tonight — Trump's widening rupture with Ukraine,
0:26
a Netanyahu endorsement Vance won't echo,
0:29
and a Habba–Grenell MAGA feud over missing millions.
0:33
Plus two lightning rounds.
0:35
I'm Arthur Kline.
0:36
It's Thursday, October 22nd, 2026.
0:39
Let's go.
0:46
Arthur Kline: ISSUE ONE — sanctions, passed then parked.
0:49
Executive Order 14436, "Implementing the Lindsey O.
0:53
Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026," issued by President Trump on
0:58
October 16,
0:59
waives specified duties,
1:00
sanctions and restrictions under the Act until the President or Secretary of State
1:06
determines further action is appropriate.
1:08
The governing law, the Graham Act,
1:11
authorizes the President to waive its covered sanctions, restrictions and duties.
1:16
Trump signed the order two days before the Act's measures were scheduled to take
1:22
effect.
1:22
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the administration would use up to 60 days to
1:27
assess the measures' economic impact.
1:30
The order landed in a week of wider strain with Kyiv.
1:34
By this week's reporting,
1:35
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had not approved transferring Patriot interceptors
1:41
that European allies had already bought and paid for,
1:44
and on October 19 Trump said someone else should negotiate on Ukraine's behalf;
1:49
Zelenskyy said he felt betrayed.
1:52
Sloane,
1:52
Trump waived the Graham Act's Russia and Iran sanctions two days before they took
1:58
effect.
1:58
Careful economics, or an early present for Moscow?
2:02
Sloane Barrett: Wrong question, Arthur.
2:03
"Careful economics versus a present for Moscow" lets the actual culprit leave the
2:08
room unnoticed.
2:09
The Graham Act, which Congress wrote, contains the waiver Trump just used.
2:14
Article I,
2:14
Section 8 gives Congress the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations,
2:19
and Congress chose to hand the off switch to the President.
2:23
That's not a sanctions law, that's a strongly worded suggestion with a bow on it.
2:28
Do I think the Kremlin is pleased?
2:30
Somewhere in Moscow they're channeling Ice Cube:
2:33
Today I didn't even have to use my A.K.
2:35
/ I got to say it was a good day..
2:37
But the fault belongs to a Congress that built an escape hatch and now acts
2:42
scandalized that someone climbed through it.
2:45
If they wanted sanctions, they should have written sanctions.
2:49
Arthur Kline: So Congress built the escape hatch and the President merely climbed through it.
2:54
Convenient.
2:55
Eli, does Capitol Hill own this waiver?
2:58
Eli Navarro: Capitol Hill owns the drafting, Arthur, not the decision.
3:01
A waiver clause is standard equipment in sanctions law.
3:04
Congress writes in flexibility for real emergencies,
3:07
not so a President can switch the law off before it's ever switched on.
3:12
Blaming the Graham Act's authors is like blaming the brakes because the driver
3:16
stomped on them at the on-ramp.
3:18
And look at what Executive Order 14436 actually covers:
3:21
the duties under sections 112 and 113,
3:24
the sanctions and restrictions under sections 102 through 111 and 117,
3:28
practically the whole Act, until the President decides otherwise.
3:32
Rubio wants up to 60 days to measure the economic impact.
3:35
Channeling my inner Yogi:
3:36
the best way to study a sanction's effect is to make sure it never has one.
3:41
Nora Kessler: Come on, Eli, you're treating Rubio's sixty days like a deadline.
3:45
It's a talking point.
3:47
Executive Order 14436 has no clock at all;
3:50
it runs until somebody upstairs decides to stop.
3:53
That's not a study, it's a sabbatical.
3:56
Arthur Kline: An open-ended waiver isn't a pause, it's a repeal with better manners.
4:01
Grant, is Nora right that Rubio's clock binds nobody?
4:05
Grant Mercer: Legally, Arthur, it binds nobody,
4:07
but calling it a mere talking point gets it backwards.
4:11
Executive Order 14436 has no expiration date,
4:13
which makes Rubio's sixty days the only deadline anyone in this administration has
4:19
said out loud,
4:19
and a deadline said out loud is a receipt.
4:22
I'm going to get yelled at by my own side for this,
4:25
but Republicans in the House and Senate should circle day sixty-one and haul Rubio
4:30
in to testify about what his economic study actually found.
4:34
Congress wrote the waiver into the Graham Act,
4:37
so the least it can do is check whether that waiver is a pause or a permanent exit.
4:42
My guess is the findings arrive shortly after the heat death of the universe.
4:46
Sloane Barrett: Hold on, Grant —
4:47
a day-sixty-one hearing is Congress begging for a progress report on power it never
4:53
had to give away.
4:54
Amend the Graham Act and strike the waiver.
4:56
That's legislating; a hearing is a complaint with a gavel.
5:00
Grant Mercer: Wait, no, Sloane, an amendment striking the waiver lands on Trump's desk,
5:05
and overriding his veto takes two-thirds of both chambers.
5:09
A hearing is the leverage Congress actually has.
5:12
I'll take a gavel over a veto message.
5:15
Nora Kessler: Grant's veto math assumes the amendment travels alone, Arthur,
5:19
and it doesn't have to.
5:20
Bolt the fix onto the National Defense Authorization Act,
5:24
the must-pass annual defense bill,
5:26
and Trump's choice becomes vetoing the entire defense budget to protect a Russia
5:31
waiver.
5:32
A hearing, by contrast, is leverage only if the witness feels it,
5:36
and Rubio can show up, praise his own study, and leave.
5:39
Congress already knows how to do this properly.
5:42
The Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act of 2017 required any
5:47
President who wanted to ease Russia sanctions to submit the move to Congress first,
5:52
and it gave lawmakers a vote to block it.
5:55
The Graham Act skipped that part,
5:57
which is like installing a smoke detector and pulling out the battery.
6:01
Sloane Barrett: No, Nora, that battery's dead too.
6:03
The Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act's block was a joint
6:08
resolution,
6:09
which the President can veto.
6:11
Alarm sounds, he hits hush.
6:13
Strike the waiver in the defense bill.
6:16
Arthur Kline: So Congress installed a fire alarm with a presidential snooze button.
6:20
Eli, is Sloane right that the veto makes congressional review decorative?
6:25
Eli Navarro: Decorative?
6:25
By that standard, Arthur, every bill Congress has ever passed is decorative,
6:30
because every one can be vetoed,
6:32
including the defense-bill fix Sloane just endorsed.
6:35
The veto doesn't erase review; it changes what the President has to do.
6:39
Under the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act,
6:42
he had to submit the relief to Congress first, wait out a review window, and then,
6:47
if lawmakers disapproved, veto that resolution in public,
6:50
personally signing his name to sanctions relief for Moscow.
6:54
That's not a snooze button.
6:55
That's a fire alarm that makes you explain to the whole building why you silenced
7:00
it.
7:00
Executive Order 14436 skipped all of it: no submission, no window, no recorded vote.
7:05
Just a signature.
7:06
Grant Mercer: Come on, Eli, Executive Order 14436 didn't skip a thing,
7:09
because the Graham Act never required a submission, a review window, or a vote.
7:14
You can't ticket the driver for running a stop sign Congress never installed.
7:19
Eli Navarro: Hold on, Grant.
7:20
I never said Trump ran a stop sign; I said nobody installed one,
7:24
and that's the indictment.
7:26
That missing review is why Executive Order 14436 needed only a signature.
7:31
Legal and accountable aren't synonyms.
7:34
Arthur Kline: Fine, no stop sign.
7:35
Then Congress built the intersection.
7:37
Nora, is Eli indicting the president or the lawmakers who wrote the Act?
7:42
Nora Kessler: Both, Arthur, and Eli just switched defendants mid-trial.
7:46
Earlier he said Capitol Hill owns the drafting, not the decision.
7:50
Now the missing stop sign is "the indictment," and the only people who install stop
7:56
signs are lawmakers.
7:57
That's Sloane's argument wearing Eli's jacket.
8:00
But the drafters' negligence doesn't launder the driver's choice.
8:05
Congress built an intersection with no stop sign,
8:08
and the President decided to floor it two days before the road even opened.
8:13
Perfectly legal,
8:14
much like running an economic study on sanctions that never touched a single ruble.
8:20
Congress owns the design flaw, Trump owns the timing, and Moscow owns the windfall.
8:25
Grant Mercer: Wait, no, Nora, there's no windfall yet.
8:28
The measures never took effect, so Moscow holds a coupon with no expiration date,
8:33
not cash, and coupons can be revoked.
8:35
That's why Rubio belongs under oath on day sixty-one.
8:39
Nora Kessler: No, but Grant, a coupon that only the man who handed it out can revoke is a gift.
8:45
The windfall is certainty:
8:46
anyone trading with Moscow now knows the Graham Act's penalties won't land until
8:52
Trump changes his mind.
8:54
Arthur Kline: Congress passed a sanctions law, and the White House signed it and shelved it.
8:59
Enough.
9:00
Nobody at this table changed a single mind.
9:04
Arthur Kline: ISSUE TWO — Trump endorses Netanyahu, Vance demurs.
9:08
On October 18,
9:09
President Trump endorsed Benjamin Netanyahu for re-election in a post on Truth
9:14
Social.
9:15
Israel votes on October 27, nine days later.
9:18
In the same post,
9:19
Trump wrote that the United States would soon "finish the job" in Iran unless Iran
9:25
rapidly changed its ways.
9:27
On October 19,
9:28
on Mark Halperin's show "2WAY Tonight," Vice President JD Vance declined to endorse
9:33
Netanyahu,
9:34
saying he endorses American candidates and is not getting involved in Israeli
9:40
elections.
9:40
Eli, is the President standing by an ally,
9:43
or campaigning in an election where he can't even vote?
9:48
Eli Navarro: That's a false choice, Arthur, and it misses the dangerous half of the post.
9:52
The endorsement is the wrapping paper; what's inside the box is a war threat.
9:57
In that same Truth Social post,
9:59
Trump told Israelis that picking anyone else means America does the work itself,
10:04
and promised to "finish the job" in Iran.
10:06
That's not an endorsement, it's a ballot with a missile stapled to it.
10:11
Article I of the Constitution gives Congress, not the President,
10:15
the power to declare war, and the War Powers Resolution,
10:18
the 1973 law Congress passed over Nixon's veto,
10:21
requires a president to report hostilities to Congress within 48 hours and to end
10:26
hostilities Congress hasn't authorized within 60 days.
10:29
Nobody in Congress voted to make strikes on Iran contingent on an Israeli election.
10:34
Vance's demurral is etiquette; my objection is constitutional.
10:39
Arthur Kline: Eli says the endorsement is just wrapping paper, and the box holds a war with Iran.
10:44
Sloane, real threat or campaign bluster?
10:47
Sloane Barrett: Real threat, Arthur, but Eli has it pointed the wrong way.
10:51
Listen to the post: a different winner means America does the work itself,
10:56
which Trump says he's not inclined to do.
10:58
That isn't a missile stapled to a ballot;
11:01
it's a promise to stand down if Netanyahu loses,
11:04
which is campaign leverage aimed squarely at Israeli voters.
11:08
The genuine threat is the "finish the job" line on Iran,
11:12
and there the problem is bigger than this President.
11:15
The War Powers Resolution doesn't stop unauthorized hostilities, it schedules them,
11:20
handing a President a window to fight first and report later.
11:24
Show me where in Article I Congress may lend out its war power on a timer.
11:29
The Framers wrote "declare," not "ratify upon notification."
11:33
Grant Mercer: Hold on, Sloane, "do the work itself" isn't standing down.
11:36
It means America fighting Iran without Israel's help.
11:40
Either way,
11:40
Israeli voters decide the size of an American war Congress never authorized.
11:45
That's outsourcing.
11:46
Sloane Barrett: Come on, Grant, that same post says Trump is NOT inclined to do that work.
11:51
You're quoting the threat and deleting the disclaimer.
11:55
And Israeli voters decide nothing here;
11:57
a Congress that won't vote decides everything.
12:01
Grant Mercer: "Not inclined" isn't a disclaimer, Arthur.
12:03
It's a mood, and moods don't bind anyone.
12:06
Sloane reads it as a promise to stand down,
12:09
but the same Truth Social post says America will soon "finish the job" in Iran
12:14
unless Iran changes its ways,
12:15
with no exception for who wins in Israel.
12:18
So the Israeli vote changes only whether we fight with a partner or alone.
12:23
"Not inclined" is Scarlett O'Hara closing Gone with the Wind: "After all,
12:27
tomorrow is another day!"
12:29
That's not a refusal; it's a rain check.
12:31
Sloane's right that Congress could settle this with one vote.
12:35
But until it does, a foreign electorate is shaping an American war,
12:39
and a president's reluctance is the flimsiest firewall in Washington.
12:44
Nora Kessler: No, NO, Grant, you just refuted yourself.
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If Trump's "finish the job" line carries no exception for who wins in Israel,
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then Israeli voters aren't shaping the war at all.
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Trump is.
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Blaming their ballot is outsourcing the blame.
12:59
Arthur Kline: Enough exegesis.
13:00
Does the endorsement move a single Israeli vote?
13:03
Nora Kessler: Probably not many, Arthur,
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and the precedent suggests it could cost more votes than it wins.
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Israeli voters have a long habit of resenting visible foreign meddling,
13:14
and Netanyahu knows that better than anyone.
13:17
In the nineties,
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President Bill Clinton made little secret of preferring Shimon Peres,
13:23
and Netanyahu won anyway.
13:25
That also answers who is actually shaping this war.
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Trump's "finish the job" line on Iran applies no matter who wins on October 27,
13:33
so Israeli ballots aren't deciding it.
13:36
A cheer from the visitors' section rarely moves the home crowd.
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What the endorsement does move is Washington's credibility.
13:44
Vance declining to echo it tells Israelis this is one man's preference,
13:49
not American policy, and that undercuts the threat Trump is trying to make.
13:54
Sloane Barrett: Nora's credibility argument has it backwards, Arthur.
13:58
Vance declining to echo the endorsement doesn't show Israelis that this is one man's
14:03
preference rather than American policy.
14:05
It shows that, on Iran, one man's preference IS American policy.
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War policy shouldn't be whatever the President posts on Truth Social or whatever the
14:15
Vice President tells Mark Halperin's audience.
14:18
Under Article I, that decision belongs to Congress.
14:21
And Nora's backlash point won't faze this President.
14:25
His posture toward foreign resentment comes straight from Nas and Puff Daddy:
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Escobar...
14:30
I demand yours...
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You can hate me now, but I won't stop now / 'Cause I can't stop now,
14:36
you can hate me now.
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So stop grading the Vice President's manners.
14:40
A Congress that wants a credible Iran policy should vote on one, yes or no,
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before "finish the job" turns into a press release.
14:48
Grant Mercer: Sloane, that's absurd — you just restated Nora's point and called it a rebuttal.
14:53
If one man's post were American policy,
14:55
his own Vice President wouldn't go on Halperin's show to decline it.
14:59
That's the hype man walking offstage.
15:02
Arthur Kline: Grant says Vance's shrug proves one post isn't policy.
15:06
Is the president's vow to finish the job in Iran just a post, Eli?
15:11
Eli Navarro: No, Arthur, it's not just a post, and the Vance evidence cuts the other way.
15:15
Read what the Vice President declined on Halperin's show: the Netanyahu endorsement,
15:20
and nothing else.
15:21
He didn't say one word walking back "finish the job" in Iran.
15:24
The hype man left the stage during the campaign jingle and stayed for the war
15:28
anthem.
15:29
The only half of that post anyone in this administration has disowned is the half
15:33
without bombs in it.
15:35
What this table keeps missing is that silence from the number two isn't dissent.
15:39
It's ratification.
15:40
A President who can strike first and report to Congress later doesn't need a policy
15:45
memo.
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When the Commander in Chief can act on a sentence, the sentence IS the policy.
15:50
Arthur Kline: The President stumps for Netanyahu, the Vice President abstains, and Congress,
15:55
true to form, declares nothing.
15:59
Arthur Kline: ISSUE THREE — Habba, Grenell, a phantom donation.
16:02
On October 9,
16:03
Alina Habba met President Trump at the White House and accused former Kennedy Center
16:09
leader Ric Grenell of steering her husband,
16:12
Turhan Mildon,
16:13
into a payment that included a donation to the center that never arrived.
16:18
A financial record dated May 29, 2025,
16:21
reportedly shows $17.6 million wired to Houston-based Texas Armament & Technology,
16:27
with roughly $5.6 million allegedly intended for the Kennedy Center.
16:32
Trump directed White House Counsel Will Scharf to investigate.
16:37
In his denial,
16:38
Grenell called the accusations "absurd" and said he received no payment from Mildon.
16:44
Grant, Ric Grenell calls the accusations "absurd."
16:47
Corruption worth investigating, or a MAGA family feud with a wire transfer attached?
16:54
Grant Mercer: Arthur, that's a false choice.
16:56
A family feud is how most corruption gets discovered,
16:59
because nobody files a complaint about an arrangement that's going smoothly.
17:03
Loyalty is forever, right up until a donation goes missing.
17:07
Grenell may well be innocent, but look at who's investigating.
17:11
Will Scharf is White House Counsel, and his client is the President,
17:15
the same President who installed Grenell at the Kennedy Center.
17:18
That's the boss grading his own hire.
17:21
In All the President's Men,
17:22
Deep Throat tells reporter Bob Woodward in that parking garage to "follow the
17:27
money," and here the money already left a trail:
17:30
a wire to a Houston arms company and a promised donation that never arrived.
17:34
Hand those records to the Justice Department, not the President's lawyer.
17:38
Nora Kessler: Wait, Grant, follow the money and it starts with Mildon.
17:42
Wiring millions to a Houston arms company on the promise of a Kennedy Center
17:47
donation means he paid to get near power.
17:50
That's a participant, not a victim.
17:53
Arthur Kline: So Mildon bought a ticket to the president and now wants a refund.
17:57
Sloane, is the buyer a victim or a co-conspirator?
18:01
Sloane Barrett: Co-conspirator overstates it, Arthur, because paying for access isn't a crime;
18:06
buying a gala table is how every arts charity keeps the lights on.
18:11
The alleged fraud runs the other direction.
18:13
A text message dated May 3, 2025, reviewed by Axios,
18:17
allegedly shows Grenell promising that once money reached Texas Armament &
18:22
Technology,
18:23
he'd arrange a Kennedy Center donation,
18:25
and Mildon would get VIP events and closeness to the President.
18:29
Grenell denies sending it.
18:31
But if it's real, Mildon is a vain man who got swindled, and vanity isn't a felony,
18:37
or Washington would be empty.
18:39
The question that matters is whether the Kennedy Center's name was used to sell a
18:44
donation that never existed.
18:46
That deserves a prosecutor, not the President's lawyer.
18:50
Nora Kessler: A gala table, Arthur, is a check made out to the Kennedy Center.
18:54
Mildon's money went to a Houston arms company,
18:57
most of it never even earmarked for the arts,
19:00
in exchange for promised closeness to the President.
19:03
That isn't philanthropy;
19:05
it's paying a middleman for access to the most powerful man on earth,
19:10
and getting shortchanged doesn't turn the buyer into a victim.
19:14
The 1919 Black Sox,
19:15
the White Sox players who took gamblers' money to throw the World Series,
19:20
were stiffed on most of their promised payoff too.
19:23
Nobody remembers them as swindled.
19:25
What Sloane and Grant have both missed is who curated the evidence:
19:30
Mildon's own attorneys.
19:31
Treat him as a witness with exposure, not a complainant with a grievance.
19:36
Eli Navarro: Nora, that's backwards.
19:37
Your Black Sox analogy convicts the wrong man:
19:40
the players were the ones selling something that wasn't theirs.
19:43
Here, that's whoever sold proximity to the President.
19:46
Mildon's the gambler; the alleged seller is the scandal.
19:49
Nora Kessler: See, Eli, the gamblers weren't innocent either; they bankrolled the fix.
19:54
Calling Mildon the gambler concedes my point.
19:56
A buyer of access isn't a victim because the seller's worse,
20:00
and his own lawyers picked which records Scharf sees.
20:04
Eli Navarro: Bankrolling the fix didn't make the gamblers the scandal, Arthur,
20:07
and Nora's own analogy keeps proving my point.
20:10
Baseball banned eight White Sox players for life, while Arnold Rothstein,
20:14
the New York gambler widely believed to have financed it, was never charged.
20:18
The disgrace stuck to the men selling what wasn't theirs to sell,
20:22
and here that's whoever allegedly sold access to the President.
20:25
Nora is right that Mildon's lawyers picked which records Will Scharf sees,
20:29
which is exactly why prosecutors with subpoena power belong on this.
20:33
Grenell says he never sent that May 3 text.
20:35
That's Yogi's line,
20:36
"I really didn't say everything I said," promoted to a legal defense.
20:40
Phone records can settle it.
20:41
The President's lawyer can't.
20:43
Grant Mercer: Eli, that's absurd.
20:44
Arnold Rothstein walking free isn't the moral of the Black Sox story;
20:48
it's the miscarriage of it.
20:50
Subpoena both ends of that wire, Grenell and Mildon,
20:53
and stop handing out halos before the phone records arrive.
20:57
Eli Navarro: Grant, absurd is calling that a halo!
20:59
I never said Rothstein walking free was justice;
21:02
I said the disgrace landed on the sellers.
21:05
And subpoena both ends?
21:06
I demanded prosecutors with subpoena power one breath ago.
21:10
Welcome aboard.
21:11
Grant Mercer: Eli's subpoena wasn't aimed at both ends, Arthur.
21:14
It was aimed at one phone.
21:16
He said phone records could settle whether Grenell sent that May 3 text,
21:20
and he cast Turhan Mildon as the gambler whose role is backstory, not scandal.
21:24
That's the halo: not a claim of innocence,
21:27
but a quiet decision about whose records nobody bothers to request.
21:31
Mildon's own attorneys picked which documents Will Scharf received,
21:35
so a prosecutor needs Mildon's bank and phone records just as much as Grenell's.
21:40
If that wire to Texas Armament & Technology bought access,
21:43
the buyer knows exactly what he thought he was paying for.
21:46
Eli can welcome me aboard all he likes.
21:49
I just want the subpoenas addressed to two men, not one.
21:52
Sloane Barrett: Grant, listen: Mildon's records are the ones he has already volunteered.
21:57
Subpoenas exist for records nobody hands over, and Will Scharf,
22:01
as White House Counsel, can't issue a single one.
22:04
Send this to a grand jury, not a desk drawer.
22:08
Arthur Kline: An investigation without subpoena power is a suggestion box.
22:12
Nora, is Sloane right that Scharf only sees what Mildon chooses to show?
22:17
Nora Kessler: Not quite, Arthur, because Scharf's blind spot is narrower than Sloane suggests.
22:22
He can't issue a subpoena, true, but the other end of this transaction isn't hidden.
22:28
The Kennedy Center can tell the White House in an afternoon whether a single dollar
22:33
ever arrived,
22:34
no grand jury required.
22:36
So the problem isn't what Scharf can see; it's who picked his inbox.
22:40
Habba didn't take this to the FBI or a federal prosecutor.
22:44
She took it straight to the President.
22:46
Mildon allegedly paid for proximity to the President, and when the deal soured,
22:51
he used his wife's proximity to the President to file the complaint.
22:56
Very consistent shopping habits.
22:58
Everyone at this table wants a grand jury now,
23:01
and nobody has asked why the complainant skipped one.
23:05
Arthur Kline: And now, The Herald — with Simone Hargrove.
23:09
Simone Hargrove: This is The Herald — the week beyond the table.
23:12
On October 21,
23:13
the Supreme Court declined to let the Trump administration immediately enforce
23:19
restrictions on medical care for transgender people held in federal prisons.
23:25
The Bureau of Prisons policy, adopted under Executive Order 14168 of January 2025,
23:31
would have halted surgeries, tapered hormone treatment,
23:35
and ended accommodations such as makeup and wigs.
23:39
For now, the restrictions remain on hold.
23:42
A driver was shot and killed on October 20 while crossing the George Washington
23:48
Bridge,
23:48
the major roadway linking New York and New Jersey.
23:52
The Port Authority Police Department is investigating the shooting.
23:57
In Ohio,
23:58
a chemical tank leak at the MC Tank Transport terminal in Toledo forced evacuations
24:04
on October 20.
24:05
Authorities allowed the plume to vent while the evacuations were in place.
24:11
The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency is investigating.
24:15
And in business,
24:16
on October 20 the Federal Aviation Administration cleared Boeing's long-delayed 737
24:22
Max 10 to enter airline service.
24:25
The approval removes a major regulatory hurdle for the largest aircraft in the Max
24:31
family,
24:31
which Boeing unveiled nearly a decade ago.
24:35
From beyond the table — I'm Simone Hargrove.
24:38
The Agora continues.
24:41
Arthur Kline: ISSUE FOUR — LIGHTNING ROUND — a deleted tweet at CBS.
24:45
On October 17, at a Michigan town hall,
24:48
a questioner named Tommy asked Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic Senate nominee,
24:54
to disavow the Muslim Brotherhood, and El-Sayed answered, "Yeah, sure,
24:59
absolutely," then challenged the premise.
25:02
In a now-deleted X post,
25:04
CBS News chief legal correspondent Jan Crawford thanked Tommy and called the
25:09
response a "spectacular self own."
25:12
On October 18,
25:13
Crawford said she deleted it for violating CBS News standards and apologized.
25:19
Sloane, Crawford's post called El-Sayed's answer a "self own".
25:23
Whose self own was it?
25:25
Sloane Barrett: Arthur, the question assumes El-Sayed stumbled.
25:28
He didn't.
25:29
The self own is Jan Crawford's.
25:31
A chief legal correspondent should know Article VI of the Constitution,
25:36
which bars any religious test as a qualification for federal office.
25:40
It binds the government, not Tommy, but the principle is the point:
25:45
demanding that a Muslim candidate disavow the Muslim Brotherhood is a religious test
25:51
in town-hall form,
25:52
and El-Sayed rightly said it implied "dual loyalties."
25:55
Nothing showcases legal expertise like cheering a religious test,
26:00
then deleting the applause the next day.
26:02
Grant Mercer: Sloane, seriously, the Muslim Brotherhood is a political organization,
26:06
not a religion.
26:07
Calling that question a religious test treats Islam and the Brotherhood as the same
26:12
thing,
26:12
which is the exact smear you're condemning.
26:14
Sloane Barrett: Wrong, Grant, the test isn't the organization, it's who gets asked.
26:19
Nobody demands an Irish Catholic nominee disavow the Irish Republican Army.
26:24
The question lands on El-Sayed because he's Muslim,
26:27
so the conflation is the questioner's, not mine.
26:31
Arthur Kline: Sloane says the bias lives in the asking, not the answer.
26:35
Defend the question or concede the double standard, Grant.
26:39
Grant Mercer: Arthur, Sloane's Irish Catholic test proves the opposite.
26:42
Candidates get pressed on extremists claiming their community all the time:
26:47
CNN's Jake Tapper famously pressed Donald Trump to disavow David Duke,
26:52
the former Ku Klux Klan leader,
26:54
and nobody called that a test of Trump's Protestantism.
26:57
A disavowal question lands on whoever the fringe claims, fair or not.
27:02
El-Sayed said "absolutely" on the spot, then challenged the premise.
27:06
That's a candidate handling a clumsy question well.
27:09
Crawford's sin was gloating, not the question.
27:12
Eli Navarro: Grant, seriously, David Duke had endorsed Trump; that's why Tapper asked.
27:17
The Muslim Brotherhood never endorsed El-Sayed.
27:20
Your analogy requires an endorsement; Tommy's question required only a last name.
27:24
Grant Mercer: Eli, nonsense.
27:25
Endorsements aren't the trigger.
27:27
Chris Wallace pressed Trump in a presidential debate to condemn the Proud Boys,
27:32
who never endorsed him.
27:34
Tommy's question was clumsy, not bigoted.
27:37
Crawford's victory lap was the scandal.
27:39
Eli Navarro: Grant's Proud Boys example cuts against him, Arthur.
27:42
Chris Wallace didn't single out the Proud Boys.
27:45
He asked Trump to condemn white supremacists and militias,
27:49
Trump asked whom to condemn, and Joe Biden supplied the name.
27:52
That question tracked groups already rallying on Trump's side.
27:56
The Muslim Brotherhood was nowhere near El-Sayed's campaign.
28:00
Tommy's evidence was a hunch and a surname.
28:02
El-Sayed said "absolutely" anyway.
28:04
Verdict: Crawford's self own, and CBS filed the paperwork.
28:08
Sloane Barrett: Eli, please, you just turned a religious test into a paperwork problem.
28:12
By your standard,
28:14
find one Brotherhood-linked donor and Tommy's question becomes fair game.
28:18
The flaw isn't missing evidence.
28:20
It's demanding a Muslim nominee prove his loyalty at all.
28:24
Eli Navarro: Sloane, wrong.
28:25
I didn't lower the bar, I located it.
28:27
An actual endorsement makes the question about the endorsement; with no link at all,
28:33
the only trigger left is his faith.
28:35
My standard doesn't excuse your religious test.
28:38
It proves it.
28:39
Nora Kessler: Eli's bar has a trapdoor, Arthur.
28:41
If an endorsement is what makes a disavowal question fair,
28:45
then any fringe group can manufacture that question by endorsing whichever candidate
28:50
it wants smeared.
28:51
The trigger should be the candidate's own conduct,
28:55
not his faith and not the fringe's choices.
28:58
The real scandal is the burden.
29:00
Branch Rickey asked Jackie Robinson, the man who broke baseball's color barrier,
29:05
to absorb every insult without answering back, and Abdul El-Sayed got the same deal:
29:10
flawless composure on a test nobody else sits.
29:13
He passed.
29:14
Jan Crawford flunked hers.
29:16
Sloane Barrett: Nora, please— your own analogy breaks.
29:18
El-Sayed didn't absorb anything in silence, he challenged the premise out loud.
29:24
Robinson's silence was a bargain he struck to get on the field.
29:28
Article VI exists so no candidate has to strike one.
29:31
Nora Kessler: Sloane, you're grading the wrong half.
29:34
He said "absolutely" first, swallowing the insult before he answered it,
29:39
and that's the burden my analogy named.
29:41
Nobody chooses that bargain; it's imposed.
29:44
And Article VI binds governments, not town-hall questioners.
29:49
Arthur Kline: The chief legal correspondent rendered her verdict Saturday and reversed herself on
29:54
appeal Sunday.
29:55
Swift justice, at least.
29:58
Arthur Kline: ISSUE FIVE — LIGHTNING ROUND — McConaughey pitches independents.
30:03
On October 18,
30:04
Matthew McConaughey posted a six-minute video on X urging voters to consider
30:09
independent candidates in the 2026 midterm elections.
30:13
In that video,
30:14
McConaughey said he was endorsing "fairness and reality," rather than a candidate or
30:20
party.
30:21
He cited a figure that 87 percent of U.S.
30:24
House seats in 2024 were effectively decided in party primaries by 7 percent of
30:29
eligible voters.
30:31
Grant, Matthew McConaughey says he's endorsing "fairness and reality," not a party.
30:37
Real reform, or a very handsome shrug?
30:40
Grant Mercer: Neither, Arthur.
30:41
He's got the right diagnosis and the wrong cure.
30:44
If a sliver of voters picks most House members in primaries,
30:48
as McConaughey's figure says, that's a rules problem,
30:51
and an independent on the November ballot doesn't change the rules.
30:55
He usually splits the vote and hands the seat to the primary winner.
31:00
Fix the primary instead: open it to every voter,
31:03
or use ranked-choice voting so a spoiler can't spoil.
31:06
I'm a center-right guy on a lonely bar stool, his exact target audience,
31:11
and even I want a bill, not a voiceover.
31:14
Arthur Kline: Right diagnosis, wrong cure, says the man whose party wrote the rules.
31:19
Sloane, is Grant right that primaries need new rules, not movie-star independents?
31:25
Sloane Barrett: Grant's cure runs straight into the First Amendment, Arthur.
31:29
In California Democratic Party v.
31:31
Jones, the Supreme Court struck down California's blanket primary,
31:35
holding that forcing a party to let nonmembers choose its nominee violates its
31:40
freedom of association.
31:42
And look again at McConaughey's figure.
31:44
That 7 percent of eligible voters didn't seize the primaries;
31:48
they're simply the people who showed up.
31:50
Bold plan, rewriting the rules because everyone else stayed home.
31:54
That's a turnout problem, and no statute legislates away apathy.
31:58
Eli Navarro: Sloane, hang on.
31:59
In Washington State Grange v.
32:01
Washington State Republican Party,
32:03
the Supreme Court upheld Washington's nonpartisan top-two primary.
32:08
Jones blocks one design, not reform.
32:10
And safe seats manufacture apathy.
32:12
Low turnout isn't the cause; it's the symptom.
32:15
Sloane Barrett: Eli, seriously—
32:16
Washington State Grange upheld top-two because it doesn't pick party nominees at
32:21
all.
32:22
That isn't reforming primaries, it's abolishing them.
32:25
And safe seats come from voters sorting where they live, not from rules.
32:30
Eli Navarro: Abolishing?
32:31
Washington still holds a primary, Arthur.
32:33
Voters still cast ballots in it,
32:35
and the parties remain free to anoint whomever they like at a convention.
32:40
What changed is that a party's base no longer sets the November menu,
32:44
and Justice Scalia's majority opinion in California Democratic Party v.
32:48
Jones flagged exactly that nonpartisan design as constitutional.
32:52
As for Sloane's sorting, voters choose where they live,
32:56
but legislators draw the district lines around them.
32:59
Nobody moves into a gerrymander on purpose.
33:01
Nora Kessler: Eli, honestly, nobody gerrymandered Wyoming.
33:05
It has one statewide House seat, no lines to draw,
33:08
and it's as safe as any seat in the country.
33:12
Sorting is real.
33:13
Fix the maps, sure, but that's half the cure.
33:16
Eli Navarro: Nora, Wyoming is your counterexample?
33:19
A statewide seat is the exception, not the House,
33:22
and legislators draw nearly every other district.
33:25
And a safe seat with no map to blame is exactly where an open primary matters most.
33:31
Arthur Kline: So the villain is the cartographer, not the primary.
33:34
Grant, is Eli right that the map rigs the race before anyone votes?
33:39
Grant Mercer: No, Arthur,
33:40
because Eli's claim that legislators draw nearly every district isn't true.
33:45
California, Arizona,
33:46
Michigan and Colorado hand the pen to independent citizen commissions that keep
33:51
legislators out of mapmaking,
33:52
and those maps still produce plenty of safe seats,
33:56
because Democrats and Republicans increasingly live in different neighborhoods.
34:00
Even a saint with a ruler can't draw a competitive district through a cul-de-sac
34:05
where everyone agrees.
34:07
But Eli's last line makes my whole case: where the map can't be blamed,
34:11
fix the primary.
34:12
Welcome aboard, Eli.
34:13
Sloane Barrett: Grant, your commission maps just proved my sorting point.
34:17
Open a primary in a sorted district and the same like-minded neighbors still choose
34:22
the winner.
34:23
You can't redesign a ballot into a swing district.
34:26
Turnout is the cure.
34:27
Grant Mercer: Sloane, sure, the same neighbors, but all of them, not the base.
34:31
In a sorted district,
34:33
an open primary lets independents and the minority party choose which majority-party
34:38
candidate wins.
34:39
Different electorate, different winner.
34:42
You wanted turnout.
34:43
I'm sending invitations.
34:45
Arthur Kline: Enough theory.
34:46
Nothing tonight got settled, so now each of you stakes a reputation on a date —
34:51
out loud, where it can be held against you.
34:56
Arthur Kline: One forecast apiece.
34:57
Specific, falsifiable, with a date or a number attached.
35:02
No hedges; a "possibly" is just a waiver clause, and we saw tonight how those end.
35:08
Go.
35:08
Arthur Kline: Grant Mercer.
35:10
Grant Mercer: Here's mine, Arthur: on December 15, when Rubio's sixty days expire,
35:15
Executive Order 14436 will still be in force,
35:18
and not a single Graham Act sanction on Russia or Iran will have taken effect.
35:24
The study will be ongoing.
35:26
Studies always are.
35:28
Arthur Kline: Sloane Barrett.
35:29
Sloane Barrett: Sticking with the phantom donation, Arthur.
35:32
By December 31,
35:33
White House Counsel Will Scharf's review of the Habba–Grenell accusations will not
35:38
have been referred to the Justice Department,
35:41
and no grand jury subpoena will have reached Ric Grenell or Turhan Mildon.
35:46
The desk drawer always wins.
35:48
Arthur Kline: Eli Navarro.
35:50
Eli Navarro: My call is on Iran, Arthur.
35:52
By December 31,
35:53
neither the House nor the Senate will hold a recorded floor vote authorizing or
35:57
blocking military action against Iran,
36:00
even after Trump's October 18 Truth Social vow to "finish the job."
36:04
Congress will declare exactly what it declared tonight: nothing.
36:08
Arthur Kline: Nora Kessler.
36:10
Nora Kessler: Turning to Israel, Arthur.
36:12
After the October 27 election, no government, Netanyahu's or anyone's,
36:17
will win a confidence vote in the Knesset, Israel's parliament, by December 31.
36:22
Trump's endorsement will have bought exactly what his sanctions waiver bought:
36:28
a long wait.
36:30
Arthur Kline: Grant bets on the study, Sloane on the drawer, Eli on silence, Nora on deadlock —
36:36
inertia, it seems, has a quorum.
36:39
I'm Arthur Kline.
36:40
THE AGORA IS ADJOURNED.