Vladimir Putin is wanted by the International Criminal Court. There's an arrest warrant out for him over the deportation of Ukrainian children. And right now, the president of the United States of America is doing more to help him than almost anyone else on the planet.
Overnight, Russia fired 16 ballistic missiles at Kyiv. Ukraine says it got no warning from the United States before the first wave hit. More than half a million homes lost power. Multiple people died. And at the same time, Putin is now floating a summit with Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping to decide Ukraine's future. Only issue: Ukraine will not be in the room.
Here at home, early voting is shattering records. A Republican election official says she's under federal investigation for protecting your private data. And Trump is calling a federal judge a crazed lunatic. It is increasingly becoming difficult every single day in Ukraine, and I'm getting live updates for you from folks on the ground, including family there and others. And I will not stop. Not now. Not ever. And subscribe, support this work. We're now two weeks away from the midterms, and it's full steam ahead. Like, comment, share. The more you do, the more people see.
And right now, the president of the United States and the American government is facing a crossroads domestically and internationally. Domestically, you're seeing early voting trends surge. This morning, literally in the past 15 minutes of me recording this video, early voting in Travis County, Texas, is surpassing numbers that we saw in 2024, as Democrats are smelling blood in the water right now. A lot of people say polls don't vote, people do, which is true.
Well, right now, people are voting, and it has sent the White House and Republicans in Congress into a bit of a doom spiral in a way. They are seeing early voting trends in reliably red areas flipping in a year that they did not want that to happen. And so, right now, that's happening domestically.
Internationally, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that Putin proposed a three-way summit with Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine. He reportedly raised it during his October 9th phone call with Donald Trump. It's the same phone call that produced Donald Trump's diesel deal with Russia. And now this morning, the Kremlin has confirmed it. Dmitri Peskov says that three leaders could meet next month in Shenzhen, China, during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit. Marco Rubio says that there have been talks of a meeting. Trump says he's open to anything that could end the war, but the problem is, look who would be at the table.
Donald Trump would be at the table, China would be at the table, Putin would be at the table. Ukraine, the country that was invaded, would not be at the table. Zelenskyy would be left out entirely. And while that's being discussed, Russia pounded Kyiv overnight. 16 ballistic missiles, nearly 270 drones attacked the Ukrainian people overnight, and the Ukrainian people had no recourse to stop it, essentially. Why? Because early warnings that typically provide Ukraine with, 'Hey, heads up, it's coming, it's coming,' never actually came. And as a result, this is what we're seeing right now in Ukraine: homes being destroyed, residential being destroyed, and more.
And President Zelenskyy this morning is calling out the American president, saying, quote, 'Another Russian ballistic attack came in several waves overnight. And once again, there was no early warning from our partners.' Quote, 'They again targeted energy facilities and infrastructure, but a medical clinic, a school, a metro center, and ordinary residential buildings were also damaged. In total, the Russians launched 16 ballistic missiles in a deliberate attack on Kyiv and the Kyiv region. The Russians also launched more than 200 drones of various types, including jet-powered Shaheds, with attacks spanning from Kharkiv to Dnipro regions to the Volyn, Rivne, and Odessa regions. Sadly, there were casualties. Overnight and this morning, Russia attacked energy facilities, and as a result, 10 energy facility infrastructure is damaged. More than 550,000 families are currently without power.'
Ukraine relies on US intelligence to spot those ballistic missiles. Only the United States has that capability. Ukraine is running low on Patriot interceptors, so they stopped releasing interception rates. Residents who say they used to hear air defenses firing back, now they just hear explosions. That's what's happening in real time, and it's all happening as there is increased federal pressure on our elections.
Here in the United States of America, early voting is off to a record-breaking start. Georgia saw a 40% jump in first-day turnout compared with 2022, more than double its 2018 opening numbers. Early ballots are up 38% in North Carolina and Maine. Iowa is up 61%. In-person early voting has more than doubled in Ohio, and Virginia is seeing nearly twice the turnout of the last midterms.
Democrats currently hold an early voting edge in North Carolina, Iowa, Pennsylvania. Now, early trends don't always predict election day results, but the energy is real. Meanwhile, there is one thing to watch: mail voting is moving the other way. It's down 58% in Georgia, falling in Florida as polls show declining confidence in the Postal Service's ability to deliver on time.
And that matters right now because 60 Minutes has just aired a report showing federal pressure on our elections in a way we've never seen before. Utah's Lieutenant Governor Deidre Henderson is a Republican in one of the reddest states in America. She told 60 Minutes that the threats to elections used to come from outside the country, but now, in her words, they're coming from within our own government. The Justice Department demanded voters' private data from nearly every state: social security numbers, birth dates, driver's license numbers. Henderson refused. And now, she's under criminal investigation.
The administration claims, without evidence, that 278,000 non-citizens are registered to vote. Henderson found just 52 questionable voters out of more than 2 million in Utah alone. And the Justice Department has charged over 100 citizens with illegal voting — just over 100 citizens with illegal voting during Trump's entire second term.
In Georgia, a Fulton County Commissioner says she never imagined the FBI would raid her county, and yet that's what happened. And right now, the Trump administration is ramping up efforts to interfere with the upcoming midterms just two weeks before.
Now, in Washington this morning at 6:00 a.m., Trump went after Federal Judge Anna Reyes without naming her. He called her a, quote, 'crazed lunatic who may be insane.' Why? Because she's preventing him from building his golf course, his prized golf course that he wants to build right now in Washington, D.C. And later this morning, Trump attorneys are going to be in the courtroom in front of Judge Reyes right now, after he called her a crazed lunatic, having to defend the president's position in the courtroom.
The Justice Department asked her to step aside from this case. She said no, writing that it's easy to weaponize selective quotes, but much harder to meet the legal standard as a lawyer. Here's why this matters: Trump's own lawyers keep telling the court no final plan exists. Trump keeps announcing that plan on social media, and now he says the work is going to start immediately in the face of a court order. Watch what the administration says today. We're going to probably have some fireworks in the courtroom in front of Judge Reyes.
And so, here's where we are right now. We have Trump aiding Russia abroad. We have Americans voting at a faster clip than we've seen in a long time here at home, which is sending some shockwaves among Republicans across the country because they know that the voters that are energized right now are Democratic voters. The voters that aren't energized are Republican voters. So, we will see what ultimately happens next year. Make sure to subscribe, support this work, like, comment, share, and I'll have another update for you very soon.
