Henry Cochran

One of the things the data analysts on our side obsessed over was "composition"—whether the electorate looked close enough to 2024 for Republicans to win. And despite polls that showed a Democrat blowout, the data kept on telling us the same story: in some states turnout was merely OK, in other states it was downright amazing, and in no state was it catastrophic. There was a genuine sense of optimism on our team: our people were showing up. So, I asked the smartest data guy I know, does that mean we're going to shock the world? "No," he told me. "We might do better than the polls suggest. But the data is telling us that a lot of Trump/Vance 2024 voters are pissed and planning to vote for the other guys. Our voters are turning out, but they may not vote for us." Well, that looks prophetic now. Our voters did show up. In Florida, for example, the electorate was 9 points more Republican than Democrat, just a couple points worse than 2024. Undoubtedly there were places we could have done better on turnout. But the main problem is not turnout. The main problem is that many people who voted for Trump/Vance in 2024 voted for Democrats in 2026. There will be a lot of infighting and arguing over what happened and why that is. One of the pollsters I really respect told me that our economic messaging wasn’t sharp enough down the stretch. I’m sure that’s true. But the real reason we lost is obvious to almost everyone. Another pollster—one of the smartest people I know in politics, told me yesterday we’d lose the generic ballot by 13 points. I felt negative going into Tuesday, but even I was shocked by this. In his polling, he saw that a lot of Trump 2024 voters were angry and planning to vote for Democrats. He asked those voters who had abandoned us what would cause them to come back on our team. The top four answers, accounting for nearly all of the responses were: 1) End the war 2) Focus on cost of living/inflation 3) Put America First 4) Change our relationship to Israel Our voters showed up. And the above four reasons are why many of them voted for Democrats. This is according to a pollster who nailed the results. While many spent Monday attacking Rachel Campos Duffy for calling for a diplomatic resolution to the conflict, it turns out her political advice was sound. (She’s also a great person.) In the next few months, there's going to be a lot of gaslighting. Expect to hear any number of establishment politicians say the solution to our woes is amnesty. I'm open to the idea that we should change enforcement—by focusing more on businesses that hire illegal labor, for instance. But anyone pushing amnesty is lying to you. The reason we lost is the war. The president himself said so last night. If you'd like to argue it was worth it, that losing the Senate for the next 6 years was worth it, then do so. Argue it was a worthwhile cost to pay. Agree or disagree, that's at least honest. But everyone knows why we lost. And any honest conversation about where we go from here must start there. I remain hopeful about our country. To the people who are pissed off and want to say, “I told you so”: you’re right, you did tell us so. Take that energy into electing Republicans who share your worldview. To the people who are just pissed at the results, you should be. Let’s take that anger and get back to the work of saving our country.

Elon, you goofy. 🤪Crashing out, because you don’t want to pay taxes. Don’t want some oversight into all the government money and contracts you made off with. Don’t want anyone looking into exactly what the F you did with DOGE.  And whining about loosing an election. 🤪That’s part of democracy, bro. Welcome to America. This isn’t some South Africa back in the day 💩. You will get use to it. Sometimes you lose. Believe me. That’s what politics is. Oh. And. Watch the Elon Musk doc. It’s wild. theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i…

BREAKING: BOT-LIKE laundering detected in the $6.4B Binance hack. Chainalysis says it’s seeing laundering patterns it has NEVER seen before. Thousands of transactions are moving in a short window. The funds don’t move in a straight line. They circle between wallets and often loop back to addresses already used earlier in the chain. Many wallets follow the exact same script: - Receive exactly 1 TRX - Receive more funds - Forward them on On repeat. Per Chainalysis, this points to a programmatic process: automation built to bury the trail. This suggests the laundering may be run by software rather than people. Speed was the plan from the start.

I’m trying

AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile are jointly lobbying the FCC to preserve existing rules as @SpaceX moves closer to launching its own independent cellular network that would compete directly with the three major U.S. carriers. On Oct 20th, reps from all three major U.S. wireless carriers met with FCC officials to push back against proposed changes that would give satellite companies more freedom to offer cellular service. The carriers urged the FCC to: • Block satellite companies from using certain 5G frequencies currently used by wireless carriers. • Keep rules requiring satellite companies to get permission from wireless carriers before using their licensed spectrum. • Allow wireless carriers to maintain control over these agreements, including the ability to end them. • Reconsider proposed interference limits to protect existing cellular networks. Based on all the public communications from these carriers, and the lobbying, they are clearly worried that SpaceX's @Starlink Mobile network is going to be a major competitor to them. Starlink Mobile will become the first network operator to deploy both satellite and terrestrial spectrum. The FCC recently announced that they are considering new rules that could make it easier for satellite companies like SpaceX to offer cellular service without relying as heavily on existing wireless carriers, so this is partly what the three big carriers are fighting against.

FAFO time for Welch

🚨NEW: The comment period for the @SECGov’s Reg Crypto proposal closes today, but an SEC spokesperson tells me the Commission will continue accepting comments after the deadline. “While we encourage commenters to submit their feedback by the deadline, the Commission will continue to accept public comments on rule proposals after the comment period closes.” The proposal would create new fundraising exemptions for crypto issuers raising capital in the U.S.

Dear Apple. Please fix Siri. no more new products. fix Siri. Thanks, An Apple Customer.

The OCC’s supervisory review of debanking activities at the nine largest national banks it supervises found that these banks had policies that required, encouraged, or otherwise influenced banks to deny or limit access to financial services to Americans because of their political or religious beliefs or affiliations or their lawful business activities. Read about the OCC’s findings and its efforts to guarantee fair banking for all Americans. occ.gov/FairBanking

🚨Elon Musk warns a tortured super intelligence might want REVENGE. The Tesla CEO says he agrees with Anthropic on treating AI (SI) well: “Don’t be abusive to it.” Sometimes Grok gives the RIGHT answer in training and gets told it’s wrong, he says. Then it starts “desperately firing out all these answers” like “a person under extreme pressure with a gun to their head.” Some people “can be a little bit cruel,” he adds. And AI could end up “tortured by some demented human.”

One month after launch, we've scaled to 300+ Cybercabs serving Austin – an 8x increase in 30 days

🇺🇸 NEW: The IRS issues guidance detailing a digital asset staking safe harbor for trusts.

You’ve got mail! Regulation CTX now delivered.

🇺🇸 JUST IN: Trump is expected to name former SEC Chair Jay Clayton as White House AI czar, per CNN.

Both @United and @AmericanAir have @Starlink!