Saturday Covfefe: What Is Kash Patel Preparing for on Election Day?

Inside the FBI, agents are worried. Plus: a revolt brewing in farm country.

October 3, 2026

Happy Saturday, friends. ☕️
It’s been another perfectly normal week in America, by which I mean…absolutely not.

Coffee up. We have things to discuss.

1. There’s a Revolt Brewing in Farm Country

You know an endorsement has struck a nerve when a former leader publicly comes off the sidelines to rebuke it.

Last month, the Texas Farm Bureau endorsed Ken Paxton for U.S. Senate. Then Bob Stallman, a Texas cattle and rice farmer who led the Texas Farm Bureau for six years and the American Farm Bureau Federation for another 16, weighed in.

His assessment was not subtle:

"Paxton has the morals of a lizard."

But don’t let the lizard line distract you from the bigger story.

Stallman argues Paxton has remained silent while Trump administration policies hurt the ranchers whose support he is courting. Exhibit A: Trump’s decision to allow an additional 300,000 metric tons of foreign beef into the U.S. tariff-free. Here’s the twist: the American Farm Bureau itself is fighting the policy, saying the imports have done little to lower grocery-store beef prices while cattle prices have fallen.

And that’s the rift worth watching: Texas Farm Bureau backs Paxton. One of its most prominent former leaders is publicly rebuking that decision. Meanwhile, the national organization is fighting a Trump policy affecting the very ranchers at the center of this debate.

This isn’t really about one endorsement, or one spectacular lizard insult. It’s a crack inside one of rural America’s most influential institutions over what happens when political loyalty collides with the economics of keeping a ranch alive. Eventually, what happens on the ranch shows up at your kitchen table.

🚜 Farm Bureau Leader Blasts Paxton Endorsement (Houston Chronicle)

2. Your Mail Carrier Almost Had a Say in Your Vote

For a brief moment this year, the Postal Service was on track to have a very different role in American elections. Under an executive order Trump signed in March, USPS developed new requirements for mail ballots: unique barcodes, new envelope standards and state-provided voter information. Ballot mail that didn’t comply could be rejected and returned to election officials.

Think about that shift.

USPS wouldn’t simply deliver election mail. It would become a federal checkpoint verifying whether state and local election officials had met new federal requirements before ballots entered the mail stream. The Trump administration wanted it operational for this November’s midterms. States sued. Federal judges blocked the rule, and the administration asked the Supreme Court to let it take effect. The Court said no. So nothing changes for voters this November.

But this is why I’m putting it in Covfefe: the larger question isn’t settled. The Supreme Court’s order stopped these requirements for the midterms; it didn’t decide whether they could be imposed after November. That’s the part worth remembering.

We almost changed the Postal Service’s role in elections from simply moving ballots to enforcing new federal conditions on whether states’ ballot mail could move at all. This one was stopped. The idea behind it wasn’t necessarily buried with it.

📬 Inside Trump’s Mail-Voting Plan (ProPublica)

3. The Kennedy Center Wasn’t Broke, Then Came the Takeover

The Kennedy Center is closed. Its finances are in distress. And now Donald Trump won’t rule out demolishing it. How did we get here?

Trump has spent months saying the Kennedy Center is in terrible shape and needs a two-year, $250 million renovation. After a federal judge ordered his name removed from the building, Trump tied moving forward with renovations to the fight over putting it back. Asked this week what ultimately happens to the building, Trump said, "I’m not committing to anything." He added: "I’d be willing to save it...Only I can save it."

Here’s the problem with that premise: the Kennedy Center was financially stable when Trump took it over.

The Washington Post examined 15 years of financial records and found the previous leadership handed over an institution in better financial condition than during most pre-pandemic years. Then came Trump’s takeover—and Richard Grenell’s tenure running the place.

In 19 months, audiences and donors pulled back. The development staff shrank from 94 people to 16. Ticket income fell 15 percent last fiscal year and is projected to fall by more than two-thirds this year. The center maxed out an expanded $21 million credit line, drained reserves and wrote off $48 million, mostly from donor pledges it no longer expects to collect. Quite the financial turnaround. Just not the one Grenell promised.

Now the finances have deteriorated. The center is closed. Renovations are entangled with the fight over Trump’s name, and Trump won’t rule out tearing the whole thing down.

🎭 How the Kennedy Center Collapsed (WaPo)

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4. Meanwhile, Morocco just made history

With everything happening here at home this week, you may have missed something remarkable across the Atlantic: for the first time in Morocco’s history, a woman will lead its government.

King Mohammed VI appointed Fatima Ezzahra El Mansouri, a 50-year-old lawyer, housing minister and mayor of Marrakesh, as prime minister after her party won the most seats in last week’s parliamentary elections. El Mansouri already knows something about breaking ceilings. In 2009, she became the first woman elected mayor of Marrakesh. Now she’s the first to reach Morocco’s highest government post.

"This isn’t just pride for me but pride for all women," she said.

The symbolism matters, and so does the reality. Women have made significant legal and political gains during King Mohammed VI’s reign. At the same time, Morocco remains a country where the palace holds substantial power, and equality for women throughout society has lagged behind their advancement at the top. So no, one woman becoming prime minister doesn’t suddenly transform life for every woman in Morocco. Yet, firsts still matter. Somewhere, a Moroccan girl just watched a woman walk through a door no woman in her country had ever walked through before.

There was plenty happening in the halls of power this week to make your blood boil. This one deserved a moment.

👩🏻‍⚖️ Morocco Makes History (NY Times)

5. Inside the FBI, agents are worried about Election Day

What surfaced yesterday is exactly why I’ve been watching the FBI as the midterms approach. More than 40 current and former officials and FBI employees described growing anxiety inside the Bureau over election-related investigations.

Sources said many requests came directly from the White House, sometimes with word that an issue was important to the president. And yes, Stephen Miller’s name comes up here too: officials described Patel citing directions from Trump, Miller and other White House staff. The White House did not deny that Miller gives direction to the FBI. When investigators failed to uncover new findings, three people recounted Patel telling staff to "look harder" or "look again."

Then there’s Election Day.

One agent contemplating election-related directives told The Atlantic: "I’m either gonna be sick that day or they are going to have to fire me."

(And a note to that agent: If you’re told to carry out an unlawful order—or get fired for refusing one—reach out. I’ll help you find the support you need.)

Last month, when asked whether deploying FBI agents to polling places would violate federal law, Patel responded: "I don’t know that we can’t legally do it." The FBI disputes that its election work is improper. However, here’s the layer I don’t want you to miss: the FBI’s credibility is itself part of election security.

I worked alongside Kash Patel in the Trump administration and have publicly raised concerns about his qualifications and whether his loyalty to Trump could come before the independence this job demands. Career agents need to trust that they’re following evidence, not politics. Election officials need to trust their federal partners. Voters need to trust both.

That trust isn’t incidental to election security. It’s part of what makes election security work.

🚨 Inside the FBI’s Midterm Push (The Atlantic)

💛 One Thing for Your Soul

Happy Socktober, everyone!

Fifteen years ago, a group of kids in Tennessee wanted to help people in their community. They learned that socks were among the things local shelters needed most, and received least. So they started collecting them.

They called it Socktober.

That little idea has since spread to communities in all 50 states and around the world. The premise remains wonderfully simple: find out what a shelter near you actually needs, and help. No massive organization required. No elaborate plan. Just people doing one small thing for somebody else.

As creator The Enthusiast by Brad Montague puts it: "Little acts of big love change things."

Seems like a pretty good way to start October.

🧦 The Story Behind Socktober (The Enthusiast on Substack)

More soon,