GOP Effort to Bribe People to Attend Midterm Convention Has Huge Catch

The Republican Party’s expensive “Trump-a-palooza” is doling out some of its tickets for free—though the option doesn’t actually guarantee entry.

The bizarre affair, which will take place on September 9 and 10 in Dallas, does not have a single point of entry or a dedicated Texas delegation; House members have been asked to pay a minimum of $25,000 to get in the door with a guest. But that’s really the bottom of the barrel: Better packages have been priced closer to $100,000.

But wannabe ticket holders in the Lone Star State have found that there are a multitude of options to enter the Texas event, either by invitation or by a regional lottery. Tim Bates, a longtime Collin County Republican precinct chair, told The Dallas Morning News that he wasn’t going to pay $5,000 to enter the event. So when he received an email from the state Republican Party about obtaining a free ticket, he passed the information along to his fellow precinct chairs instead.

“More local people will be able to go to fill the venue,” he told the local daily.

But the ticket comes with a disclaimer: Entry is not guaranteed if the arena reaches capacity.

Most major party conventions are centered on a specific item of business, such as formally nominating a presidential candidate. But this function will offer no such line items. Instead, the event has been billed as a big Republican party, which has left the definition of who’s allowed to attend a lot looser.

It will be the first GOP midterm convention in American history. Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance are both expected to deliver speeches to the conservative assembly, though low party enthusiasm has threatened the optics of the event.

The unprecedented conference was thrown together at the eleventh hour in an attempt to boost Republican candidates ahead of a contentious midterm cycle, but dozens of Republicans have decided to forgo the gathering altogether, fearful that showing face at the event—which offers Trump yet another stage to say or do anything he desires—could blow up in their faces and damage their odds back home.

The whole ordeal could backfire on the president too. In 1978, a Democratic midterm convention that was intended to rally party support ultimately turned the party against President Jimmy Carter, offering a vehicle for then-Senator Ted Kennedy to announce his opposition to the president and his agenda.

“There was a lot of hostility to the president there,” Elaine Kamarck, who attended as a 28-year-old working for the Democratic National Committee, told The Guardian. “The Democrats have sworn ever since never to do anything this stupid again.”

Corey Lewandowski, former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s close adviser and rumored boyfriend, used his position at the department to attempt to make some money for himself.

The Wall Street Journal reports that while Noem was still part of President Trump’s Cabinet, Lewandowski took the opportunity to try and make side deals to personally benefit himself.

For example, Lewandowski approached representatives of Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, proposing that the governments could hire him on the side to help with any issues that the DHS handled concerning the two countries, such as visas. Officials from the two countries thought the idea was unusual, as they already had relationships with other Trump administration officials, and turned down Lewandowski.

Lewandowski’s proposal appears to have been a corrupt effort to sell government services for personal gain. He already was in a powerful position at DHS, overseeing the agency’s billions of dollars in federal contracts. He also had authority over tariff collection, and decision-making power over aspects of border security and immigration enforcement as a “special government employee,” which gave him some ability to engage in personal business.

Lewandowski denied any wrongdoing to the Journal, with one of his representatives denying that he “sought contracts with foreign governments.” The same spokesperson added that Lewandowski “adamantly denies ever demanding any payment or compensation from any potential, former, or current government contractor or seeking or soliciting or entering contracts with foreign governments while volunteering his time with DHS.”

Lewandowski was unpopular in DHS under Noem’s tenure, and appeared to stay on far beyond his allowance as a special government employee, with an extensive portfolio of responsibilities. His relationship with Noem was the worst-kept secret in Washington, and had its own set of possible ethical violations, which have come under scrutiny from Democrats in Congress. These latest revelations will only increase his corrupt reputation, as well as that of his paramour Noem.

President Trump has drawn the ire of Iceland after posting a map depicting the country as part of the United States.

Along with Iceland, the image also included Canada, Greenland, Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean draped in the U.S. flag. The Truth Social post, made on Labor Day, was captionless.

The post—paternalistic at best, colonial at worst—raised enough alarm in Iceland to lead the country’s foreign minister, Thorgerdur Gunnarsdottir, to summon U.S. Ambassador Billy Long. Gunnarsdottir later told RUV, Iceland’s national broadcasting service, that “it was made clear at the meeting that the post was completely inappropriate.” Other Icelandic leaders felt similarly, comparing their experience to that of Greenland, which Trump has threatened to annex since he returned to office.

“It is not good to be an enemy of the United States, but it is even worse to be its friend,” alternate city councilor Stefán Pálsson told RUV. “What is shocking about the way Greenland has been treated is not really that the United States behaves like this towards another country, but simply that we are not used to it being done to us.”

“I hope, given how this took over the debate in Greenland, that we do not end up in the same place and that we do not allow Trump to set the agenda for the debate here,” Federation of State and Municipal Employees Chair Sonja Þorbergsdóttir said. “But of course this is disrespectful and this is not how civilized nations should behave towards one another.”

The post was yet another example of Trump’s recklessness eroding the seriousness and legitimacy of U.S soft power.

A Thursday report from the Inspector General states that former Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer went to a strip club while on the job, even forcing her driver to rain dollar bills on one of the dancers.

The report further details just how sloppy and reckless Chavez-DeRemer’s tenure as Labor secretary was until she stepped down in April.

“During Chavez-DeRemer’s April 15–20, 2025 personal travel to Oregon, she requested an off-the-record stop at an establishment that was determined upon entry to feature partially nude dancers,” the IG report reads, noting that Chavez-DeRemer made a point to bring her limousine driver inside with her.

“Chavez-DeRemer subsequently took money from her purse, gave the money to the driver, and directed him to give it to the performer. When the agent resisted and sought guidance from [Assistant Special Agent in Charge]1, ASAIC 1 instructed him to comply with Chavez-DeRemer’s requests,” the report continues. “Chavez-DeRemer then took additional money from her purse and asked the agent to drop the bills one by one onto the partially nude woman. The agent again hesitated and sought intervention from ASAIC 1, who told him to follow Chavez-DeRemer’s instructions. The agent complied against his wishes.”

This is the woman President Donald Trump handpicked—at the behest of Teamsters president Sean O’Brien—to lead the country’s Labor Department as part of a so-called “pro-labor” administration. And that strip club moment is just one of many ways in which she created what the IG report describes as a “toxic, intimidating, and humiliating” work environment.

The report also notes that while in Michigan, Chavez-DeRemer massaged ASAIC 1’s shoulders “while seated behind him in a vehicle after he completed a driving shift,” and asked if he was tired. ASAIC 1 told her he was “solid as a rock,” which witnesses interpreted as a sexual innuendo in reference to a massage-induced erection.

Chavez-DeRemer also reportedly discussed employees’ performance in front of them, including whether they had cried, and would drink during the workday. She and her aides would pressure other employees to join them and would mock them if they declined, witnesses said.

The dysfunction wasn’t just from Chavez-DeRemer. Her chief of staff Rebecca Wright screened Office of the Secretary applicants by race, weight, and sexual orientation—even moving someone’s desk because she didn’t want a “fat person” in her line of sight. She also told women in the office not to cut their hair too short to stop them from “turning into a lesbian.”

This is an update from the April allegations that led to Chavez-DeRemer’s resignation—that she had an affair with a member of her security detail, asked staffers to buy alcohol for her at various hours of the day, and used taxpayer funds to throw a birthday party for herself.

New details from Maria Bartiromo’s sudden firing from Fox News reveal internal upheaval that resulted in her being completely isolated at work, as her own staff was banned from speaking to her and her primary producer was fired alongside her. 

Puck News’s Dylan Byers reported that executive producer Patrick Ignozzi was fired from Bartiromo’s show on Thursday, following her out the door after she was sent packing for “betraying” Fox News by offering the Trump administration information on how the network was covering the president. 

On top of that, Fox News kept the Mornings with Maria host isolated from her colleagues for weeks, a move stemming from issues over the $787.5 million settlement Fox News was ordered to pay to Dominion Voting Systems in 2023 due to false claims of election fraud in 2020.  

“In order to talk to her, you had to go to management,” an anonymous source told Mediate. “[That’s how we] knew something was up.… Even her own staff had to go through management.… People were freaking out.” The source also noted that Bartiromo wasn’t even reachable over the phone, being completely iced out from the Fox News work environment. 

It’s unclear where Bartiromo will find herself next. 

Bartiromo’s lawyer, Bryan Freedman, contacted The New Republic claiming that reports of her departure from Fox News were “absolutely and unequivocally false”—even though the network itself had put out a statement announcing it on Thursday. 

“Make no mistake, we have the receipts and witnesses and they will come out whether through the courthouse or otherwise,” Freedman said in a statement. “Those reporting her firing or the incredulous facts supporting that fiction have exhibited a complete and utter reckless disregard for the truth.”

This story has been updated.