ONE OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY’S most prominent voter-registration activists has paid multiple people with criminal records to run get-out-the-vote operations in Pennsylvania since 2024.

Scott Presler, a key Trump-era GOP operative, hired as contractors a man who pleaded guilty to strangulation and a former nurse practitioner who falsified prescriptions for opioids and ran a million-dollar operation to distribute fraudulent COVID vaccine cards. These personnel, whose backgrounds were uncovered in an investigation by The Bulwark, were engaged through Presler’s super PAC, Early Vote Action.

Presler has had these people working for him, notably, even as he has spent time in the past month accusing a Democratic congressional candidate of employing a canvasser who was arrested for indecent exposure—an accusation that, upon closer scrutiny, appears untrue.

Presler and his political operation have already faced criticism this election cycle for their get-out-the-vote operations. That criticism has come even from within the Republican party. Earlier this year, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) called Presler—who backed Ken Paxton in this year’s Texas Republican Senate primary—a “grifter.” But these new revelations further call into question not only Early Vote Action’s hiring practices but also Presler’s own credibility.

A dive into Presler’s operations shows that

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LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, WE FOUND HIM: the Trumpiest congressional candidate in the country. As Donald Trump’s favorables have declined, putting previously untouchable seats in deep-red states into play, Republicans are quietly trying to distance themselves from the lame-duck president—even in places Trump carried by double digits. You’d think that would be the case in Upstate New York, too.

But New York’s 21st Congressional District, which Trump carried by 20 points in 2024, is not a done deal for Republican House candidate Anthony Constantino, who is seeking to replace the retiring Elise Stefanik. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has highlighted the race as one of the most competitive in the country, and for good reason. According to a new Siena Research Institute poll conducted in the district, Constantino, cofounder of the online custom printing and merchandise company Sticker Mule, trails his Democratic opponent, dairy farmer Blake Gendebien, by 4 points. To get a sense of just how bad an indicator that is, the same poll has Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman outpacing incumbent Gov. Kathy Hochul by 15 points in the dark-scarlet district. The poll also shows Trump’s approval rating cratering to just 45 percent in the district. And Constantino isn’t even reaching that level of support.

It’d be pretty hard for a guy whose rap album, Thank You President Trump, has ten tracks specifically dedicated to thanking Trump to disentangle himself from the Orange Man. But I’m not sure Constantino would even want to, he’s in so deep. Constantino has pledged total fealty to the president, even claiming that Trump can “control” him.

As Republicans in Kansas, Florida, Iowa, and beyond read the polls and carefully work to reposition themselves in relation to the increasingly unpopular president, Constantino claims to be “the Trump of Upstate New York.” This guy could be voting in the House next January. So come witness the crazy—starting with

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DONALD TRUMP’S NEW PRESS SECRETARY has had a sordid online history of spreading vaccine conspiracy theories, calling for the upending of constitutional norms, and encouraging the president to run for a third term in office—much of which she appears to have tried to expunge from the public record sometime before ascending to her new job.

The White House announced on Friday that Katie Zacharia would be the new press secretary, succeeding Karoline Leavitt, who served in the role until late August. While Zacharia was a dark horse candidate for the job, she comes to it with the sort of professional background you’d expect. She was a spokeswoman for then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, has appeared frequently on both Fox News and Newsmax, and was most recently a communications adviser to Trump Media and Technology Group.

In those roles, and in her personal capacity, Zacharia has often made public remarks and online posts that could create uncomfortable questions for her when she takes the podium in the White House press briefing room. For example, how committed is Zacharia to the rule of law? In a series of deleted tweets, she called for suspending habeas corpus, one of the oldest and most fundamental safeguards of individual liberty, in response to a tweet from White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller claiming sanctuary cities are a criminal conspiracy.

Or what about the constitutional standing of the states in our federal system? In a now-deleted tweet from June 2025 responding to Gov. Gavin Newsom, Zacharia argued that “The federal government under @realDonaldTrump should take over all of California because clearly you can’t be trusted to do a single thing.”

Zacharia’s posts also indicate deeply skeptical views about COVID, bordering on conspiracism. In August she reposted an article claiming that “8 in 10 women had a miscarriage after getting the COVID vaccine”—a statistic wildly at odds with actual scientific data. And in 2022, from a now-deleted Twitter account,1 she repeatedly accused Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates of being “a eugenicist” who “was pushing for everyone to get a toxic jab.”

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Her tweets are a grab bag of right-wing talking points. In September 2025, Zacharia accused “leftist transgender assailants” of being responsible for “at least a dozen” school shootings. Last month, she called Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed—who was born and raised in the United States—“an indictment of our immigration system under Democrats.” Last week, she charged Chief Justice John Roberts with being “not even that conservative” and said his opinion in the birthright citizenship case “should have gotten him a seat back at those lib-tables.”

And in a podcast interview last year she insisted that the abortion pill mifepristone was the same chemical used in Nazi Germany extermination camps. It’s not.

SUCH POSITIONS MAY PLACE ZACHARIA outside the political mainstream. But they likely will endear her to elements of the MAGA base, and be met with loud echoes from others in Trump’s orbit. So too will her over-the-top admiration for her boss, a personality feature that appears to be a prerequisite for a gig in this White House.

She once demanded that Time should be “forced” to publish a heroic-looking Trump photo after the president complained the magazine published a picture he found unflattering. Just last month she posted to X that “President Trump does not need a spokesperson. He is his own best Press Secretary.”

Her professed fealty to Trump includes a commitment to his Big Lie: Zacharia has insisted that the 2020 election was stolen. And she has repeatedly encouraged Trump to run for a third term as president in 2028—despite the Constitution explicitly prohibiting his election to another term.

Perhaps the one thing that could cause Zacharia problems with her new colleagues is her occasional lack of rah-rah spirit. Namely, her skepticism about Republicans’ chances in the upcoming midterm elections. In a deleted tweet responding to Pizzagate promoter Mike Cernovich last December, she warned that the midterms would be a “bloodbath if [Republicans] don’t shift course now.”

The White House did not respond to The Bulwark’s request for comment before the time of publication.

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PENNSYLVANIA REPUBLICAN BRIAN FITZPATRICK is growing desperate. Facing strong national headwinds and a top of the ticket dominated by the popular incumbent Democratic governor—and with the Cook Political Report shifting his race from “Likely Republican” to “Lean Republican” just this morning—Fitzpatrick has resorted to an unprecedentedly deceptive campaign strategy.

Last week, Politico reported that Fitzpatrick’s campaign has been running ads attacking his Democratic opponent, Bucks County Commissioner Bob Harvie, by claiming Harvie is under investigation by the FBI. There’s no evidence of that.

It turns out Fitzpatrick’s attack ads cite articles from Patch, a hyperlocal news platform that encourages members to self-publish on their local Patch page. The posts are not written by journalists employed by the media outlet. Nor were they fact-checked. In fact, all of them were written by an individual with close personal and financial ties to Fitzpatrick.

The man behind the posts is former journalist and convicted turtle-smuggler Dave Sommers, 72, of Levittown, Pennsylvania. Sommers appears to be a family friend of Fitzpatrick’s. Between 2010 and 2022, Sommers received thousands of dollars in payments and reimbursements from Brian Fitzpatrick’s campaigns as well as the campaigns of his late brother, Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick. The payments stopped the same year Sommers was charged with stealing a campaign sign belonging to Brian Fitzpatrick’s primary opponent.

That charge didn’t end the relationship between Fitzpatrick and Sommers, though. This past summer, Sommers attended Fitzpatrick’s wedding to Fox News White House correspondent Jacqui Heinrich, posting pictures with the bride to his Facebook and Instagram accounts. And in another video posted to Sommers’s Facebook page, he sports a tank top that reads “TEAM FITZ”—the name of Fitzpatrick’s joint fundraiser for his campaign and leadership PAC.

Sommers is one of only 141 people whom Brian Fitzpatrick follows on his official Instagram page. (Fitzpatrick’s own wife is not even on that list.)

Sommers also seems to have been close to Fitzpatrick’s older brother, Mike, who died in 2020. In a 2023 post on Instagram, Sommers called Mike Fitzpatrick his “brother.”

More broadly, Sommers’s Instagram features multiple photos of Fitzpatrick and other Bucks County Republican officials.

A deep search of Sommers’s social media accounts reveals a disturbing pattern of sexist, racist, and Islamophobic posts. So who exactly is this guy who has been publishing lies that his friend Brian Fitzpatrick has been campaigning on?

Let’s get into it.

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CASEY ASKAR IS A MILLIONAIRE BUSINESSMAN running as a MAGA Republican in one of this cycle’s newest tossup House races. Campaigning in Florida’s 22nd Congressional District, he has presented himself as “a true Trump conservative” who supports the president unconditionally and backs the MAHA—Make America Healthy Again—agenda associated with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

It’s a profile that Askar hopes can win him enough MAGA voters to secure victory in a newly redrawn district stretching from Naples to western Broward County. Trump won the district by 10.5 points in 2024, but polling and ratings agencies suggest this race is now a tossup.1

But is Askar as redpilled as he claims?

A series of deleted tweets, originally posted in 2021, paints a wildly different picture of Askar: someone who once found Trump’s conduct repugnant and was even drawn to the woke politics of the Biden era.

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DAYS AFTER DONALD TRUMP BANNED CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from the White House, his communications team announced a new, 24/7 livestream channel on YouTube: Trump TV. It’s a taxpayer-funded . . . um . . . state-programmed streaming channel? About the president? I guess?

Who could possibly want this thing, I don’t know. But unfortunately for me, one person was very interested: my editor. He told me to watch six straight hours of Trump TV and report back on what it was. And so I did. Well, I almost did. I didn’t quite make the full six hours. (Sorry, Sam.)

In the course of my normal work, I have watched hundreds of Trump’s speeches, interviews, and rallies—along with countless events featuring Trump White House personnel. Whatever one thinks about Trump, he is an entertainer, and I do admit to frequently laughing during his events—most of the time at him, though occasionally with him. However, despite the White House’s content-free hypeposting on X about the new channel, the premiere of Trump TV arrived without humor. Or, really, any entertainment, or even basic interest. Want to know what it’s like to struggle to remember the sound you make when you laugh? Come along with me to see what happens when you hook yourself up to Trump TV.

7:40 p.m. — I started my six-hour Trump TV adventure with a surprise: Donald Trump wasn’t actually there. When I turned on the stream, I found myself dropped into

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