Midterms Meltdown Swamp
Welcome to Midterms Meltdown, a special pop-up newsletter from The Swamp—bringing you up to the minute with the secrets the politicians don’t want you to know about the race to November 3.
It is the most consequential election campaign since 2024, and the nooze will be oozing around the nation to shape D.C. for the next two years and beyond. Our David Gardner, Farrah Tomazin, Sarah Ewall-Wice, and Laura Esposito, are getting down and dirty with the inside stories from the battlefields every Monday and Friday.
Melting down in The Swamp today are: Sydney Kamlager-Dove, Sky Roberts, Donald Trump Jr., Marco Rubio, Ken Paxton, Hakeem Jefferies, John Fetterman, Madeleine Dean, Shauna Wiersum, Steve Scalise, Harlan Crow, Steve Moore, (Prince) Plain Old Andrew, CJ Pearson, James Fishback, Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Chris LaCivita, Fidel Castro, Mao Zedong, JD Vance, Jeffrey Epstein, and Marlboro Man.
Fyre Sale at Trump’s Last Merch Stand in MAGA Wild West
It’s never a good sign when the vendors offer cut-price merch before the headliner has left the building. Especially when the event wasn’t sold out as claimed. Sell out Republicans have finally seen the writing on the wall. They either stayed away from Donald Trump’s self-promoting midterm convention in Dallas or headed early for the exits in the hope of salvaging their political careers by November 3.
Some convention t-shirts had their prices reduced by half Day 2 of the convention. Elephant pins were slashed from $20 to $10. And one vendor outside the American Airlines Center offered The Swamp three Trump hats for the bargain basement price of $50, or a bejeweled $300 gun-shaped purse, with a MAGA cap thrown in for free.
However, $47 white shirts, featuring a younger, slimmer looking version of Trump dressed like the Marlboro Man on the back wearing a cowboy hat and riding boots while perched on a horse, were quick to sell out at the official RNC merchandise store inside American Airlines Center on Day 1 of Trump-a-palooza. They can always be turned inside out and used as flags of surrender if the president’s popularity continues to plummet.
The Trump Marlboro Man shirts were the best official selling merchandise at the convention, The Swamp’s Sarah Ewall-Wice was told. Staffers ended up taping paper signs to the store walls directing people to order them instead online. The pins and beverage coolers of the prez as the cigarette-puffing cowpoke were also sold out. Health warnings not attached. (Perplexingly, Trump has previously advised people against smoking.)
Thirst was encouraged. Water bottles at the convention cost more than $9. A stale-tasting hotdog (reminiscent of the infamous cheese sandwich from the real Fyre Festival) and some syrup-filled cola cost The Swamp $25. (Dry) chicken tenders and fries were $17. And a small pre-packed basic salad—not a big seller in MAGA world—was $12.
So much for the affordability “hoax.”
From the number of empty seats at the American Airlines Center over the two nights, Trump must have been relieved he didn’t get his first choice venue, the Cowboys Stadium. The AA Center fits about 20,000—way smaller than the 80-000-capacity home of the Dallas Cowboys.
On day one, the floor seats were filled and much of the lower level but there were still entire rows unclaimed while other Trump supporters were scattered throughout the upper levels mixed in with the media. On night two, the floor and lower levels were filled in, but the upper level was completely empty as if attendees were urged to pack in the sections below. But Trump demanded MAGA not believe what could be easily seen with one’s own eyes: that the arena was not at capacity as he insisted it was filled to the rafters.
Gamblers got no real clues to the party’s 2028 nominee (although some smart money is going on Trump for a third term!). If there was any inclination that the contention convention would shed some light on who would be the heir to the MAGA movement, it was not to be. The “Trump 2028” hat was the most popular in the crowd. JD Vance, Don Jr. and Sen. Ted Cruz, who was appearing in his home state, all won large standing ovations. Absence from the 2026 campaign stage didn’t seem to hurt Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who was also touted by some MAGA fans. “I really like Marco Rubio,” said Shauna Wiersum, a Texas native now living in Brooklyn. “I like his story. I think he’s even keeled. He seems balanced.” But he has no merch… not even at half price.
MAGA’s Night in the Garden of Evil
The real action has always been away from the convention floor, in private dining rooms and hotel suites where Republican powerbrokers have been eating, drinking–and most importantly, raising money.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise headlining one of the week’s more fascinating fundraisers this week at the Highland Park home of billionaire mega donor Harlan Crow.
Guests paid between $10,000 and $100,000 for the privilege of seeing Scalise host a fireside chat in Crow’s mansion, which is akin to a private museum with its thousands of rare books and manuscripts, along with a sculpted garden known as “the Garden of Evil” with statues of Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Fidel Castro, Mao Zedong among others.
Nothing says Republican fundraising like a garden full of dead dictators.
Vice president JD Vance had his own donor circuit hours before taking the convention stage, decamping to the Ritz-Carlton in Uptown, Dallas, for a $75,000 a head roundtable, with a photo of the vice president costing another $35,000.
The Swamp hears Vance was upbeat at the event (touching on the same themes and jokes as he did during his Thursday night speech) although it wasn’t lost on anyone that Ted Cruz, another presidential hopeful, also worked the Ritz circuit the day before, hosting a fundraiser for embattled Senate candidate Ken Paxton.
Trump, meanwhile, had his own money-making itinerary: a MAGA Inc gathering at a private roundtable at the Rosewood Mansion on Turtle Creek. The price of admission: $250,000. A photo with the president to prove you were there? Another $88,600.
So while the convention floor at the American Airlines Center offered plenty of Trump, the real business of Trump-a-palooza was happening elsewhere–and it came with a hefty cover charge.
Let’s Not Do This Again…
For all the Trump-a-palooza theatrics, few Republican operatives expect this week’s Dallas convention to move the needle in November. “I don’t know much about the attention it’s going to get in the ‘real’ world,” veteran GOP consultant Christopher Nicholson told The Swamp’s Farrah Tomazin. “I just don’t see it being a huge factor in the midterms one way or the other.”
Watching the event unfold on conservative TV, another veteran Republican strategist confirmed suspicions that battleground candidates would have done well to stay away as the president’s remarks included a ballroom brag, rant about empty seats, and bizarre pledge to the “greatest president in the history of the United States.”
Trump die-hards, on the other, were optimistic about the midterms… sort of.
“It’s going to be fantastic,” insisted Melissa Cole from Oklahoma, donning a gold sequined MAGA jacket.
Really? Despite the president’s approval rating at record lows?
“It has to be fantastic,” she said, suddenly sounding less sure of herself. “We’re in a war between good and evil.”
Remembering Virginia (Todd, Take Note)
While Republicans gathered a few miles away for the MAGA Fyre Fest, the family of Jeffrey Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre was in Dallas too–standing inside an Epstein “reading room” surrounded by a display of the 3.5 million files held by the Justice Department.
The Swamp spoke with Giuffre’s brother, Sky Roberts and sister-in-law Amanda Roberts at the pop-up museum, which also features artwork by survivor Maria Farmer of the man Guiffre accused of abusing her: the former Prince Andrew. The title of the piece: “Upside Down Emperor (The Pervert Formally Known As Prince).”
The Epstein Reading Room showed up in Dallas as a counter-program to the GOP convention, giving the family a front row view to watch Attorney General Todd Blanche talk up his former defense client-turned-boss on night one of the confab.
For Sky Roberts, the symbolism was hard to miss.
“It shows you where his priorities are right now,” he said. “The files are just footsteps away from him (and he’d rather be sitting in a room advocating for the president of the United States.
Amanda struck a more hopeful note. “I think there’s a movement that’s happening within the country,” she said. “People are just so desperately wanting humanity back.”
What Democrats are saying…
The people who once went door-knocking for Sen. John Fetterman to help him get elected are livid with him, according to Pennsylvania Rep. Madeleine Dean, who was part of the Democratic House contingent in Dallas as her party pushed back on Trump. She said she was “gravely disappointed” with her state’s Democratic senator cutting a video for Trump-a-palooza, calling it a stunt. “We can see in his worth ethic that he’s just not present,” Dean fired back.
But among the MAGA crowd, there was talk at the convention among attendees that they hoped Fetterman would run for president. It was not that they would ever vote for him, but they described him as the only not crazy Democrat left. It was a far cry from when they raged about his hoodie attire in the halls of Congress, and Don Jr. called him “brain dead” during his 2022 campaign. But then again, Fetterman vowed on the jumbotron to work with Trump. When Trump ran in 2015, Fetterman referred to him as a “jagoff.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries dispatched a group of Democratic Reps. Robert Garcia, Jason Crow, Sydney Kamlager-Dove and Dean to Dallas to push back on the GOP convention and challenge Republicans over affordability, but he also dropped a digital ad meant to get millions of impressions online throughout the day targeting sports related audiences, a staffer told The Swamp, as Trump’s convention was timed to compete with the season opener of NFL football with the Rams versus the 49ers game Thursday streaming on Netflix as the president appeared for a second night.
THE BIGGEST LOSER
Ken Paxton…. Just as Republicans were flocking to his state, top Trump pollster Tony Fabrizio with Bob Ward dropped a poll for AARP that shows James Talarico leading Paxton in Texas 48 percent to 44 percent among voters. And then Trump dismissed his clothing choices (see below).
SPOTTED AT MAGA FYRE FEST: Trump met privately with MAGA Inc. donors and JD Vance, Don Jr. and Sen. Ted Cruz at the Ritz Carlton. Ex-Trump fixer Michael Cohen, Sen. Roger Marshall (even though he wasn’t speaking), failed Florida candidate James Fishback, Chris LaCivita, Steve Moore, CJ Pearson, Margo Martin, Erika Kirk, Rep. Greg Reschenthaler, Lizzy Benichou, Tiffany Marie Brannon, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, Rep. Brandon Gill, Lydia Shaffer, Newt Gingrich, Preston Meyers, Mark Lamb, Scott Presler, Daniel Turner, Laura Loomer.
WHAT TRUMP IS SAYING:
“Some may not like the way he dresses. I don’t.” Trump on Texas Senate candidate Ken Paxton.
WHAT GOV. JB PRITZKER IS SAYING:
“I’m running for re-election as governor, and I do want to serve as governor of the state of Illinois, and any decisions that get made after that are going to be about whatever’s best for the people of our state.” (So, he will be running for president, then?)
AND FINALLY…PLACE YOUR BETS:
What they’re saying on Kalshi:
Which Party Will Win the Senate?
Republicans (52 percent)
What they’re saying on Polymarket:
Which Party Will Win the Senate?
Republicans (53 percent)
