The U.S. government has ordered diplomats and other federal employees to leave Saudi Arabia. It is also drawing down staff at other missions in the region.

Interviews and documents show a Russian energy giant secretly funded a U.S. firm. The deal has been discussed in talks to end the war in Ukraine.

President Trump told the Justice Department to intervene in the race, where polling shows Republicans at risk of losing a seat.

The Justice Department has opened an inquiry into Mr. Lewandowski. President Trump has not jumped to his defense.

911 EMERGENCY: An ambulance in New York City now takes an average of 13 minutes to reach someone in life-threatening distress.

That response time has risen five years straight and is up 41.2% from a decade ago, a city comptroller’s report revealed earlier this month. According to this year’s Mayor’s Management Report, which came out in September, ambulance response times to life-threatening emergencies shot up by almost 16% between fiscal year 2025 and fiscal year 2026 — the sharpest increase this decade.

A core part of the issue is that calling 911 does not necessarily mean an ambulance will be immediately dispatched. Callers are put in dispatch queues. If a higher-priority call comes through, the ambulance might be rerouted. And all of this happens behind the scenes — which means those experiencing medical emergencies have no idea when help will actually arrive.

Council member Joann Ariola, chair of the Fire and Emergency Management Committee, proposed a bill in August that would require the city to send New Yorkers broad notifications when the emergency response system is overloaded.

Now, the Queens Republican is pushing for these notifications to be completely personalized.

“The idea is that I would be able to track my ambulance in real time, just like you’re able to do for your bus, or your train, or your rideshare car,” she told Playbook.

If patients know how far away help is, they can make an informed decision to forgo an ambulance and instead pursue other means of transportation to a hospital, she said. That would also alleviate pressure on the already overloaded EMS system and potentially get callers the care they need faster.

The idea has support from a council member across the political aisle.

“We get live texts about everything under the sun, but for some reason, in our current system, we don’t get alerts about this,” Democratic Council member Harvey Epstein said. “If I’m waiting for an ambulance because my kid broke their leg, and I learn that it’s going to be half an hour, it’s smarter for me to just hop in a cab anyway.”

Ariola said she met with top FDNY officials — including Commissioner Lillian Bonsignore, Chief of Department John Esposito and Chief of EMS Paul Miano — ahead of Tuesday’s hearing to discuss the idea. All of them, she said, appeared more receptive to specific text alerts than to the broad notification system proposed in her initial bill.

Amanda Farinacci, an FDNY spokesperson, said the department is “considering and exploring all options that will help us respond to emergency medical calls quickly and keep New Yorkers informed.”

"We are exploring all our options, this included,” she said, referring to the live text-update model.

Ariola said she’s submitted the new version of the bill and is waiting to hear back from the legislative affairs committee.

The solution proposed by she and Epstein would address the public-facing side of the problem, offering relief to callers in emergency situations.

The root cause of the issue, though, is retaining EMS employees — a challenge officials and union leaders say stems from low pay for a high-stress job.

“This is not fixing the broken system,” Ariola said. “We are in a state of emergency right now. It’s a systemic problem with EMS because they cannot retain their members, because it’s not a career.”

Entry-level pay for emergency medical technicians is less than that of sanitation workers, firefighters, correction officers and police officers. Since 2019, about 4,300 EMTs and paramedics have left their titles, many for better-paying jobs elsewhere in the department. Last fiscal year, 58% of departing EMTs became firefighters.

The union representing emergency medical workers is negotiating a contract that lapsed in 2022, and it’s seeking pay parity with firefighters. But the comptroller’s report found that parity alone would raise EMS salary-related expenses by $184 million a year, a 66% jump.

“The City can reverse this dangerous trend by ensuring members of EMS are treated as equals to members of fire operations, and by providing EMS personnel with pay and benefit parity comparable to their firefighter counterparts,” Local 3621 President Vincent Variale and Local 2507 President Michael Greco said in a joint statement. “These actions would not only treat our EMS workforce respectfully and properly; they would save the lives of New Yorkers in peril.”

Response times to life-threatening emergencies saw the sharpest year-to-year increase of the decade between the last two fiscal years, a timeframe that straddles the Mamdani administration and the administration of former Mayor Eric Adams.

“This is something that each mayor inherited, but the new administration, it is now absolutely their issue,” Ariola said. “I’m hoping this is the administration that finally solves the retention problem. And the only way to solve that problem is to pay EMTs their worth and also recognize them as uniformed workers.”

The mayor’s office declined to comment on Ariola’s new proposal and referred to a comment from the fire department.

“The Department is currently engaged in a challenging period of increasing response times. We know this is unacceptable and we are working tirelessly to reverse this trend,” Farinacci said. “We will continue to take steps to improve response times and keep New Yorkers safe, including improving coordination with hospitals, enhancing efficiency in high-volume areas, and increased operational visibility to help return units to service quickly."  — Molly Reinmann

FROM THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL

A SUBURBAN ALARM: Suburban voters across the country are turning against President Donald Trump, according to a poll that amounts to a major warning sign for the GOP this election season.

The results of the National Suburban Poll by the National Center for Suburban Studies at Hofstra University paint a bleak picture for Trump and his party.

“Numbers that are concerning Republicans throughout the country become even more so when they show up in suburbs, which for years have been the ‘swing’ voting bloc that determines national and many statewide elections,” said Larry Levy, the center’s dean. “When a party’s or candidate’s numbers are weak in the suburbs, as we’ve found in many instances for Republicans, the situation goes from concerning to alarming.”

The survey found 33% of suburban voters approve of the president’s job performance. His approval rating in swing suburban House seats isn’t much better: 35%.

Just over a quarter of suburban voters nationally — 26% — are satisfied with the direction of the country.

Suburban voters by a margin of 50% to 42% prefer Democrats over Republicans in the generic Congressional ballot question. The GOP, though, is in a statistical tie with Democrats in suburban swing seats. In those districts, Democrats lead Republicans 47% to 44%.

Taken together, the numbers highlight the challenge Republicans face this year, especially in deep blue New York, home to several swing House districts in the New York City suburbs.

The most competitive race is in the Hudson Valley, where GOP Rep. Mike Lawler is fending off a challenge from Democratic opponent Cait Conley.

The survey included 1,500 people nationwide and was conducted in late September. It oversampled suburban residents who live in swing House districts. — Nick Reisman

SARATOGA FRESH: To get an idea of how much national headwinds might apply to the New York State Senate, look to Saratoga County.

Plenty of indicators suggest two factors will heavily influence the outcome: Voters are angry at Republicans and willing to oppose well-tenured incumbents.

That could be a double-barreled problem for Sen. Jim Tedisco, who’s running in a district where Donald Trump lost by 8 points two years ago. The Republican is now the dean of the state Legislature by a large margin: Tedisco came to Albany in 1983, the first year of Mario Cuomo’s time as governor. Only four other members who might be in office next year served in 1999.

“Jim Tedisco’s been in office for over 40 years, almost as long as I’ve been alive,” said Sarah Rogerson, Tedisco’s Democratic challenger. “People are ready for some fresh voices.”

Even if current assumptions about the electorate’s mood prove true, Republicans remain optimistic they won’t apply to New York. The GOP believes 2026 will be a repeat of 2022, when a lack of enthusiasm for the top of the ticket meant a good year for Democrats nationwide bypassed the Empire State.

“If there’s going to be a blue wave across the country, it’s probably going to miss New York, and it’s largely because of how deeply unpopular Kathy Hochul is,” Senate Republican Campaign Committee Chair George Borrello said.

Nobody’s predicting Republicans will retake the majority in a chamber where Democrats had a 41-22 edge this year. The main question now is whether Democrats can pull off a two-thirds supermajority of 42 or more members, a feat accomplished in 2020 and 2022 but not 2024.

READ MORE in POLITICO Pro from Bill Mahoney.

FROM CITY HALL

BILL SIGNING TIME: Mayor Zohran Mamdani will sign two bills passed by the City Council that come with significant transit and housing policy ramifications, his office confirmed today.

The first measure Mamdani plans to put his John Hancock on will abolish New York City’s horse carriage industry. The second will give nonprofit groups and local land trusts first dibs on buying distressed residential properties in their communities, with the idea that those regulations will protect affordable housing stock.

Mamdani had already voiced support for both pieces of legislation before the Council passed them yesterday. But his office hadn’t until today confirmed he would sign the bills, as opposed to letting them lapse into law.

Mamdani’s office did not immediately provide a date for when he plans to sign the bills.

The issue of signing bills came to the fore this week when the New York Post noted that Mamdani has only inked one bill since taking office. Ultimately, as long as the mayor doesn’t veto a bill, there’s no practical difference between whether he signs it or lets it lapse, as it becomes law regardless. — Chris Sommerfeldt 

IN OTHER NEWS

— IN THE SCHOOLS: New York City is considering closing a Harlem high school due to underenrollment, the first in what could be a growing number of school mergers and closures amid public school enrollment declines. (Chalkbeat)

— HOCHUL: The governor’s vision for New York is largely shaped by her upbringing in a small Rust Belt city in western New York and her family’s slow climb up the socioeconomic ladder. (New York Times)

— CORNELL 7: Attorney General Letitia James is asking a court to dismiss a request to remove her from the investigation into the alleged sexual assault at Cornell University due to impartiality concerns. (Times Union)

Missed this morning’s New York Playbook? We forgive you. Read it here.

The ruling, from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, sharply curtails the ability of judges to free undocumented immigrants.

An ad from the campaign of Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan in Alaska features a mother whose 22-year-old son died from fentanyl and who claims Democratic Senate candidate Mary Peltola took contributions from “liberals [who] opened our borders to the drug cartels” and then “voted with them against securing our border.”

But the ad leaves out several important points of context.

After saying that her son died from fentanyl, the mother, Sandy Snodgrass, says that “lower 48 liberals opened our borders to the drug cartels.” While the ad suggests a link between illegal immigration and her son’s death, experts — including government officials — say the vast majority of fentanyl coming into the U.S. is smuggled through legal ports of entry, mostly by American citizens.

As for Peltola voting with Democrats “against securing our border,” Peltola voted against a Republican bill in 2023 called the Secure the Border Act, which sought a return to many of the hardline border policies enacted by President Donald Trump during his first term. But the following year, Peltola was among a handful of Democrats who joined Republicans in support of a nearly identical bill. Setting aside the impact of either party’s border policies, Peltola often bucked her party when voting on immigration bills. 

Peltola, a former U.S. House member, is attempting to unseat Sullivan, the Republican incumbent. The Cook Political Report lists the race as one of seven toss-ups that will decide control of the Senate.

The ad features a direct-to-camera message from Snodgrass, whose son, Bruce, died from fentanyl in 2021. Since her son’s death, Snodgrass has become a dogged advocate for legislative policies aimed at fentanyl prevention and raising awareness of the dangers of fentanyl.

Sullivan was a co-sponsor of a bipartisan bill Snodgrass fought for called “Bruce’s Law” — named in honor of her son — which seeks to enhance fentanyl education and prevention strategies, including an interagency work group to improve the federal response to the fentanyl epidemic. Peltola, who came to the House the year after Bruce Snodgrass’ death, was a co-sponsor of that same legislation in the House. The law was folded into a bill that ultimately passed into law in 2025.

“My only child Bruce was killed by fentanyl,” Snodgrass says in the Sullivan campaign ad. “Lower 48 liberals opened our borders to the drug cartels. Now the same people want Mary Peltola to be our senator. Peltola’s taken their money and voted with them against securing our border. That is disgraceful and dangerous. Mary Peltola is liberal and weak. We cannot leave our children’s safety in her hands.”

As we said, the ad is missing important context.

When we asked the Sullivan campaign for backup for the ad, a spokesperson pointed us to Peltola’s 2023 vote against the Secure the Border Act, a Republican bill that aimed to implement many of the same border policies from Trump’s first term, such as restarting construction of border wall, increasing the number of Border Patrol agents, enhancing technology at the border to slow illegal immigration and ending the so-called “catch-and-release” policy whereby some immigrants caught in the U.S. without proper documentation were released back into the U.S. while they awaited an immigration court hearing (often to determine whether they qualified for asylum).

To be clear, while the bill sought to crack down on illegal immigration, opposition was not a vote for “open borders,” as text in the ad states.

The Secure the Border Act passed the House almost entirely along party lines (of those who voted, all but two Republicans voted for it; every Democrat, including Peltola, voted against it). But victory in the Republican-majority House was largely symbolic, as the bill never came up in the Democratic-controlled Senate.

However, through the remainder of her term in the House, Peltola proved to be anything but a reliable Democratic vote on border security and immigration issues.

Indeed, the following year, on April 20, 2024, when Republican leadership again attempted a similar bill to the Secure the Border Act, Peltola was among five Democrats — and every Republican present — who voted in favor of it. The End the Border Catastrophe Act was proposed through a fast-track procedure that required a two-thirds majority to pass. It failed, 215-199.

“No one can deny we face an ongoing crisis at our Southern border,” Peltola said in a press release at the time. “Currently, fentanyl flows across it and all the way up to Alaska, where it continues to tear families and communities apart. We must take real action to address our ongoing border crisis – that’s why I voted to pass this measure and stop cartels in their tracks.”

That same day, Peltola voted along with majorities of both parties in support of the 21st Century Peace through Strength Act, which, among other things, declared the international trafficking of fentanyl a national emergency and took measures to prevent its transport into the U.S.

Peltola also broke ranks with a majority of Democrats on border/immigration issues when she:

• Voted along with five other Democrats on Nov. 30, 2023, for the Protecting our Communities from Failure to Secure the Border Act, which sought to block the Biden administration from using federal lands as migrant camps for immigrants in the country illegally.

• Voted on Jan. 17, 2024, along with 13 other House Democrats and every Republican, in favor of a nonbinding resolution denouncing the Biden administration’s border enforcement efforts, and “urg[ing] President Biden to end his administration’s open-borders policies.”

• Voted on March 7, 2024, in favor of the Laken Riley Act — which required the federal detention of immigrants in the country illegally who are accused of theft, burglary, larceny or shoplifting.

• Voted on May 15, 2024, with 53 other Democrats in support of a bill that would mandate the Department of Homeland Security to take custody of and deport any immigrant in the country illegally charged with assaulting a law enforcement officer or other first responder.

• Voted on May 15, 2024, along with just 14 other Democrats in favor of a nonbinding resolution condemning the Biden administration’s border policies.

• Voted on Sept. 20, 2024, in support of the No Bailout for Sanctuary Cities Act, which sought to cut off some federal funds for so-called sanctuary cities that limit cooperation with federal immigration enforcement.

“Time and time again, Mary was one of few members in her party to call out Joe Biden for his failures at the southern border,” a spokesperson for the Peltola campaign told us.

As we have written, illegal immigration surged to historic highs during Biden’s presidency. In June 2024, Biden announced a series of emergency policies designed to curb “substantial levels of migration” due to “global conditions.” Illegal immigration dropped dramatically for the remainder of Biden’s presidency.

At the time of Biden’s announced crackdown on illegal immigration, Peltola and three other Democrats in the House released a statement calling Biden’s orders “an overdue step,” and urging the president to do more.

“We’ve long demanded President Biden change course and empower the Border Patrol, and he’s finally acting and listening to the law enforcement agents in the field, like we’ve been telling him to do,” the statement reads.

The four Democrats implored Biden to return to the Trump policy of requiring immigrants to wait in another country while their immigration cases are pending in the U.S. And they called on Congress to pass legislation to reinstate the use of Title 42, a public health law invoked by Trump during the pandemic that allowed border officials to immediately return many of those caught trying to enter the country illegally, even those who sought asylum.

Fentanyl Smuggling

The ad ties Bruce Snodgrass’ death to the issue of migrants smuggling fentanyl across the border — it says “liberals … opened our borders to the drug cartels.” But experts say the vast majority of fentanyl coming into the U.S. is smuggled through legal ports of entry, mostly by American citizens.

In testimony presented to the Senate on Nov. 17, 2021, Diane Sabatino, deputy executive assistant commissioner for U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Office of Field Operations, said, “Most illicit fentanyl is synthesized in Mexico and like other illicit drugs, including cocaine and methamphetamine, large volumes are encountered and seized at our southwest border ports of entry. It is brought in by privately owned vehicles, concealed within commercial vehicles, and even on pedestrian travelers. Although much less frequently now, we also encounter fentanyl and other synthetic opioids in international mail and express consignment shipments.”

“Our investigations do tell us that the vast majority of fentanyl is coming in the ports of entry,” Anne Milgram, then administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration, said in Senate testimony on Feb. 15, 2023. (At the 1:25:35 mark.)

According to a Government Accountability Office report on Sept. 4, 2025, “[M]ost of the fentanyl, chemicals, and equipment used to make it are coming in from Mexico or China. About 80% of fentanyl was seized in the southwest border region. Most of the illicit drug is coming across U.S. borders in passenger vehicles. The chemicals used to make fentanyl are largely being transported via commercial vehicles like cargo trucks, ships, and planes. And nearly half of the equipment used to make fentanyl pills is being sent by mail. “

According to an analysis by the American Immigration Council, “There is little evidence to suggest migrants are bringing fentanyl across the border on foot—or that migration is linked to fentanyl at all. While some have speculated that high levels of irregular migration provide an opportunity for drug smuggling (on the logic that border agents are distracted), the data provides no support for this theory. Migration has risen and fallen with no correlation between drug seizures.”

Citing data obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, the report states that “the majority of fentanyl smuggled across the southern border enters not on the backs of migrants crossing the border on foot, but in the vehicles and on the bodies of U.S. citizens and other lawful entrants seeking admission at land ports of entry.”

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The post Alaska Ad Missing Context in Attacking Peltola’s Border Votes appeared first on FactCheck.org.

The move was announced by Senator Susan Collins, a Maine Republican who faces a tough re-election fight amid rising prices.

Senior Democrats are tempering their expectations about how big of a House majority they might win, as both parties see a tightening battlefield.

The latest rounds of internal polling from both parties from the middle of October show GOP candidates gaining ground in the Midwest and narrowing races in a key Colorado seat and elsewhere, according to six people familiar with the data who were granted anonymity to discuss it. Republicans’ deluge of money also seems to be helping shore up some imperiled Florida seats even as they face serious problems in North Carolina and Texas. The GOP gerrymandered those three states in their favor in the Trump-induced round of redistricting following the 2024 election.

Now, Democrats on Capitol Hill are starting to privately caution some of their bolder colleagues that it seems very possible they don’t hit the 235-seat height of their majority following the 2018 elections, according to one of those people and two others with direct knowledge of the conversations.

“I don’t think anyone ever believed we were going to have 2018 numbers,” one House Democrat said. “I honestly think the results are going to be all over the place. Caution seems smart to me. But, optimistic is also a good place to be.”

That’s a notable change from the tune some Democrats were singing just earlier this month: Brooke Butler, political director for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, had predicted that their majority this cycle could reach 240 seats. “Anywhere between 218 and 240 feels very viable,” she told POLITICO earlier this month in announcing the DCCC’s plans to target new districts deep in GOP territory.

Some Democrats feel their own internal polling is over-indexing their strength in some cases, according to two other operatives working on competitive races, granted anonymity to speak candidly. But the party is still confident they’ll win the majority and are eager to keep Republicans spending to defend once-safe red seats.

Before the all-out GOP panic started in late September and boosted many Democrats’ bullishness, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries predicted House Democrats would win 220 seats.

“Given the mountain of outside, billionaire-backed cash being dropped in competitive House races across the country and the seemingly never-ending schemes by Republicans to try to rig the midterms — we’ve always known that the majority-making races would come down to the wire,” DCCC spokesperson Viet Shelton said in a statement. “We’re clear-eyed that House Democrats are poised to win the majority, and it will take running flat out until Election Day.”

Still, the tightening in the core House battleground districts that were identified as battlegrounds early on means a slew of those races are currently within the margin of error, or Republicans in some cases are running just a few points behind, according to the six people with knowledge of the internal Democratic and GOP polling. That includes the race for Michigan’s 7th District between GOP Rep. Tom Barrett and Democrat William Lawrence.

Another marquee battleground in Wisconsin’s 3rd District has tightened a few points since last month, as Republicans pour in millions of dollars more in ad spending. Democrat Rebecca Cooke is running 1 percentage point ahead of GOP Rep. Derrick Van Orden in a multi-candidate vote, 47% to 46%, according to an internal Cooke campaign poll from mid-October obtained by POLITICO. "Wisconsin is always close and hard-fought — especially in a district Trump won decisively,” a Cooke campaign aide said. “Our working class message is connecting, but we need the resources to make sure it's heard."

In Iowa, Republicans still feel they’re likely to lose Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks 1st District. But they’re cautiously optimistic about Rep. Zach Nunn in Iowa’s 3rd district and Joe Mitchell in Iowa’s open 2nd District, where President Donald Trump is set to hold a rally on Nov. 1.

“Any Republican in Iowa in a neck and neck race ends up winning on Election Day,” said one GOP operative working on House races, who was granted anonymity to discuss the landscape.

Top GOP staff and officials still believe it’s more likely than not that they lose the House majority, but they’re hopeful they can limit Democrats’ margin.

The new polling is helping them see they might avoid some of the deep hemorrhaging, especially in the Midwest, that they feared in late September and earlier this month. That region has been hit hardest by Trump’s tariff agenda and rising diesel costs resulting from an unpopular Iran war — something the White House has seemed to acknowledge, with Trump promising $8 billion to farmers hurting from high fuel prices.

“Democrats spent months measuring the drapes, and now they’re scrambling to lower expectations before a single race is called,” National Republican Congressional Committee spokesperson Mike Marinella said. “Republicans have been laser-focused since day one and built our operation to win the races that will get us to 218.”

Trump is also personally working to shore up at-risk Republicans in his home state of Florida with a visit Friday to rally GOP voters.

Republicans in the last few days started to pile money into a series of once-safe GOP seats there, including Rep. Anna Paulina Luna’s Gulf Coast seat. Republicans are also racing to save several open seats, despite redrawing the districts in their favor, where the GOP is struggling. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise is in South Florida to boost GOP Rep. Maria Salazar on Friday and campaigned on Thursday for Republican Dan Green in the redrawn seat against Rep. Darren Soto, who should be toast under the GOP gerrymander in most political environments.

Senior Republicans believe the money bomb is starting to help shore up some Florida seats, though they still have more work to do.

South Texas remains one of the worst spots on the map for House Republicans, after the top House GOP super PAC cut off spending for one of their star recruits — Tano Tijerina, who is challenging Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar — to help other imperiled GOP candidates. Some at-risk Republicans in the area, like Rep. Monica De La Cruz, should’ve been safe in a recently redrawn seat.

In North Carolina, Republicans are facing some dire fallout across House seats after the implosion of Republican Michael Whatley’s Senate campaign and top Senate GOP groups cutting off spending in the state. Top House GOP groups and Trump’s political operation have already cut off spending in North Carolina’s open 11th District, where Democrat Jamie Ager is challenging Republican Jennifer Balkcom.

The charges intensified the administration’s efforts to go after the law enforcement and intelligence personnel who cast doubt on unsubstantiated claims that Joseph R. Biden Jr. engaged in corrupt dealings in Ukraine.

The donations from James Blair and Chris LaCivita were revealed after the president expressed pique over their consulting work for Republika Srpska.

In late August, Democrat James Talarico said that he had told “every … wealthy person” that “if you are OK with getting taxed more, if you’re OK with me limiting your influence in politics, you are welcome to join this movement that we are building.” But an ad from his Republican opponent, Ken Paxton, skips the part about wealthy people and influencing politics to brand Talarico as a proponent of raising all kinds of taxes.

Polling shows Talarico, a former Texas state representative, and Paxton, the state’s attorney general, locked in a tight battle for the open Texas Senate seat.

The Paxton ad, which has primarily aired on broadcast television over the past week, according to the ad tracking service AdImpact, takes other quotes from Talarico out of context and claims he “voted for an income tax” in the state and is “pushing higher property taxes.” It ends by saying, “Texans can’t afford Talarico’s radical agenda.”

An ad from Talarico counters that he “brought both parties together” in the statehouse “passing the largest property tax cut in Texas history,” among other legislative efforts. He voted for the tax cut, which passed with very little opposition. It’s unclear what role he played in shepherding the legislation through the statehouse.

We’ll go through the quotes the Paxton ad uses and the various claims about taxes.

‘Join This Movement’ Quote

The Paxton ad begins by showing Talarico saying, “If you are OK with getting taxed more, you are welcome to join this movement.” But that misrepresents Talarico’s remark.

On Aug. 29, during an interview alongside businessman Mark Cuban, Talarico said that he had told that to “every wealthy person I come across in this race.” He wasn’t talking about taxing everyone more.

Talarico began by referring to Franklin D. Roosevelt and Bobby Kennedy, saying they were “billionaires of their day” and “they used their wealth to help working people and not just through charity but by changing the systems that make charity necessary.” He then praised Cuban’s work in healthcare policy. Cuban founded Cost Plus Drugs to offer medicines at lower prices. Then, Talarico made his comment about wealthy people paying more in taxes.

“I’ve told every, you know, wealthy person I come across in this race, if you are OK with getting taxed more, if you’re OK with me limiting your influence in politics, you are welcome to join this movement that we are building,” Talarico said. “And we’re thankful to have Mark Cuban as part of this.”

Income Tax and Tips, Overtime, Social Security

The ad goes on to say that Talarico “voted for an income tax and supports taxing tips, overtime and Social Security.”

Talarico didn’t vote for an income tax. Rather, he opposed a 2019 joint resolution in the Texas Legislature calling for a constitutional amendment to prohibit an individual income tax. Texas doesn’t have such a tax.

Before 2019, the constitution prohibited an individual income tax without voter approval, and stipulated that if a tax were to be approved, the revenue would go to education and reducing schools’ local taxes. The 2019 proposal made implementing an income tax more difficult, and dropped the specification about where any potential revenue could be directed.

Voters approved the 2019 amendment, which now can only be changed with a two-thirds vote in the Legislature and approval by voters. Before, only a majority vote in the Legislature could have sent an income tax referendum to voters.

At the time of the votes in the Legislature, some Democrats expressed concern that the wording in the measure could lead to a legal challenge of existing business franchise taxes that fund public schools.

Asked about his vote against the joint resolution in a CBS News Texas interview that aired Sept. 5, Talarico said the state income tax was “already banned.” Reporter Jack Fink replied, “But this would have banned it permanently. It was, there’s already a high bar.”

“We need to bring bills to the floor that that are actually solving problems,” Talarico said. “Putting in a ban on an already existing ban is just duplicate government overreach at its worst, and it’s why we need legislators who are focused on solving real problems, not just trying to grandstand on an issue.”

He added that the measure “did nothing,” saying that “I’m against an income tax in Texas, always have been.”

As for the claim that Talarico “supports taxing tips, overtime and Social Security,” that’s a misleading reference to his opposition to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which Trump signed into law in July 2025. This has been a common Republican attack line in midterm campaigns.

As we’ve written before, Talarico’s campaign said that he supports the law’s tax cuts for the “middle class,” including changes to taxes on tips, overtime pay and for seniors. Talarico has called for repealing the law’s “tax breaks for the top 1%.”

In its support for the ad, the Paxton campaign also cited a September news interview that indicated Talarico opposed the cuts to Medicaid in the OBBBA.

More Context Needed

The Paxton ad uses two other quotes from Talarico that need context. The first is: “Well, I don’t care where you get the revenue. I don’t care what taxes you have to raise.” Talarico said that in 2020 about Republicans potentially wanting to cut education and health funding when facing a budget shortfall and Democrats taking a stand against that.

His comments were theoretical. On Aug. 2, 2020, Talarico spoke during the COVID-19 pandemic in a virtual townhall organized by Texas Rising, a liberal group supporting young voters. He mentioned cuts in Texas to education funding in 2011, after the Great Recession, and then said the state could be facing a budget shortfall in the coming year “unless there is overwhelming federal aid, which I don’t know if we can count on.”

He said budget cuts could be “a lot greater” than in 2011 and went on to talk about opposing funding cuts to education and healthcare.

Talarico, Aug. 2, 2020: In my experience in politics, the folks who win the argument are the ones who talk first and say their message the most consistently and the loudest. And so, I’ve been trying to talk to as many education advocates as I can about how do we start now by drawing a line in the sand and saying we’re not going to accept cuts to health or education in the next session, no matter what the budget shortfall looks like. And that’s sometimes you get the reaction in the Capitol and the 10 blocks around the Capitol that that’s an unreasonable position to take.

But the other side of the aisle has already taken revenue increases off the table. They’ve done a good job of making certain options taboo. So I think our coalition, not just Democrats but progressives and anybody with a functioning heart, should be able to make cuts to health and education taboo. Take them off the table. I don’t care where you get the revenue. I don’t care what taxes you have to raise, but you’re not going to make our students and our teachers, you’re not going to make the sick and the elderly pay for this pandemic. We are not going to balance our budget off of the most vulnerable people in this state. And that kind of line in the sand needs to be drawn now, not in January, not in February, not when the first drafts of the budget come out. We need to be pressuring lawmakers today to commit to pledging that they will not sacrifice our students and our teachers and our nurses in the next budget cycle.

Another Talarico quote in the ad is simply: “Raise local taxes.” He said those words in January 2019 when speaking about Julián Castro at Castro’s presidential campaign launch event. Castro, when he was mayor of San Antonio, had called for a tax increase to pay for a citywide prekindergarten program.

Talarico told the crowd that he used to teach middle school and he displayed photos in his classroom of “leaders who were never afraid to stand up and speak out,” one of whom was Castro.

“And I told my students that the mayor is an example, not because he’s successful or because he’s famous, but because he always has the courage to do what is right,” Talarico said. “In my first year of teaching, Mayor Castro staked his entire political career on a proposal to raise local taxes in order to fund full-day pre-K across the city of San Antonio. A proposal to raise local taxes — they teach you that that’s a no-no on your first day of politician school, but the mayor did it anyway. He did it anyway, and that’s why I told my students to be like the mayor and to let their own light shine, no matter the consequences.”

San Antonio voters approved the pre-K program, and the small sales tax increase to fund it, in 2012. The sales tax went up by 1/8th of a cent per dollar. Voters reauthorized the program in 2020 for another eight years.

Property Taxes

The Paxton ad says that Talarico is “even pushing higher property taxes,” while Talarico says in an ad of his own that he helped pass “the largest property tax cut in Texas history.” So which is it?

The Paxton campaign cited Talarico’s vote against a 2019 bill to limit any increase in local property taxes to 3.5% in a year. An increase higher than that by cities or counties would have to be approved by voters. The bill passed and became law that year.

The Texas Tribune reported that this was a “controversial provision,” saying that “[m]unicipal officials have repeatedly said the 3.5% election trigger will hamstring their budgets and hamper their ability to provide public safety and other local services.” Prior to this law, localities were limited to an 8% increase in property taxes, and if voters wanted to stop it, they had to petition to get the matter on the ballot.

In his ad, Talarico says he “brought both parties together to make life more affordable” by, among other things, “passing the largest property tax cut in Texas history.” He did vote for two bills in 2023, companion legislation that was described in news reports as the largest property tax cut in the state’s history. In the final House vote, only four or five lawmakers opposed the bills, which were introduced in the Senate by a Republican. Talarico wasn’t a co-sponsor on the similar bills introduced in the House.

We asked the Talarico campaign how he “brought both parties together” to pass the tax cut, but we didn’t get a response to that question.

The campaign pointed to other tax cut measures Talarico supported. He sponsored a 2023 bill to create a property tax exemption for childcare facilities. The identical Senate version was signed into law by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott. In 2025, he voted for three bills that provided more property tax relief, including for elderly and disabled homeowners, and Abbott also enacted those.

On his campaign website, Talarico calls for cutting taxes on the “middle class” and paying for that by raising taxes on billionaires and corporations. Paxton’s campaign website says he will “fight to cut taxes” and that he supports “Trump’s legislative priorities,” including on taxes.

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The post Paxton Ad Takes Talarico Taxes Comments Out of Context appeared first on FactCheck.org.

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