Saturday Covfefe: Who Do You Trust?

Trust is tanking. Your glasses are watching. And AI is getting smarter.

September 12, 2026

A quick thank you before we get started.

This week, I shared something I had carried with me for 25 years: how September 11th changed the course of my life. At the end, I asked you to share your own memories. So many of you did. You told me where you were, who you called, who you lost, what you remember, and how that day changed the direction of your lives. Thank you for trusting me with those stories. And thank you for the incredibly kind notes about mine.

Pour the coffee. ☕️ Here are five things worth knowing before the next outrage buries them.

1. America Has a Trust Problem

Start with this number: only 34% of Americans have a great deal or quite a bit of trust in the government’s certification of election results. That’s down from 40% in 2024. With the midterms approaching, nearly half worry the federal government could discredit or tamper with election results, or pressure state officials over certification. Quick refresher: certification is the official sign-off on the vote count, a process that has traditionally been routine. Since 2020, that process has become increasingly politicized.

But elections aren’t the only place trust is eroding. About 6 in 10 Americans have little or no trust in federal information on issues including foreign affairs, the environment, elections and politics, abortion and immigration. It gets worse. Only about 1 in 10 Americans say either party’s campaign messages are always or often factual. Even among partisans, only about a quarter say that about their own party.

We aren’t just arguing over what the facts mean. We’re increasingly questioning whether we can trust the facts at all.

📉 America’s Government Trust Problem (AP)

2. Wait, Who’s Watching Whom?

Police departments around the country have a new surveillance concern: your glasses.

Internal law-enforcement documents obtained by The Guardian show agencies from Maine to California warning about Meta’s camera-equipped Ray-Bans and other smart glasses. They look remarkably ordinary, but can record video and audio. Police worry they could be used to secretly film officers, detention facilities, camera locations and security routines.

This isn’t hypothetical. A man wearing Meta glasses secretly recorded a South Carolina detention center, including holding cells, showers and other detainees who apparently didn't know they were being filmed. There’s a national-security angle, too. The FBI says the attacker who killed 14 people in New Orleans on New Year’s Day 2025 wore smart glasses while biking through the French Quarter before the attack, activity authorities characterized as pre-attack reconnaissance.

Law enforcement agencies are increasingly using cameras, facial recognition, and other surveillance technology, while also warning about what happens when increasingly invisible cameras are pointed back at them. As government surveillance capabilities expand and the cameras available to ordinary people get smaller and harder to see, so do the questions about privacy, civil liberties and who gets to watch whom.

Welcome to the surveillance era, where apparently everyone is watching everyone.

👓 Police Have a New Surveillance Worry: Smart Glasses (The Guardian)

3. Meanwhile, in Dallas…

In a week filled with reflection on 9/11, Dallas offered a very different soundtrack.

Republicans held their first-ever national midterm convention, and President Trump had a message for November: "Pretend that I am running." The surprise? If Republicans keep control of both chambers of Congress, Trump said every adult citizen would get a $5,000 "Trump dividend." Price tag? More than $1 trillion. Details on how it would actually happen? Not many. Trump said the money would have to be spent in the United States.

Vice President JD Vance took the stage the following day. When a protester unfurled Mexican and Palestinian flags, Vance zeroed in on the Mexican one: "If you love Mexico so much, get your ass over there. I’ll buy you the plane ticket."

And while all that was happening in Dallas, the money was moving. Trump’s political operation has begun deploying its enormous midterm cash reserves, including tens of millions in advertising through the newly created No Going Back PAC and another $10 million from MAGA Inc. in the Texas Senate race.

November was ostensibly the point, but 2028 wasn't exactly hiding in the wings. The crowd chanted "JD, JD," some shouted for Vance to be the next Republican nominee, and Vance smiled and told them: "We gotta take care of business this November, then we’ll worry about what comes next."

Right…

🇺🇸 Inside the GOP’s First Midterm Convention (NYT)

4. Who Counts in the Census Could Change

The Trump administration is proposing a major overhaul of the 2030 Census that could exclude millions of noncitizens from the population count used to divide seats in Congress among the states. That includes undocumented immigrants, asylum seekers, and others without permanent status. However, this isn’t just about immigration. Who gets counted can change political representation.

The Census determines how the 435 House seats are divided among the states, and, in turn, each state’s Electoral College votes. Consider what that could mean: a 2020 Pew analysis found that excluding unauthorized immigrants from that year’s apportionment count would have cost California, Florida, and Texas one House seat each. That doesn’t necessarily predict what would happen in 2030, but it shows how changing the count can change representation.

It would remove questions about race and ethnicity from the decennial Census questionnaire. Race has been part of the Census in some form since 1790. The Census Bureau itself says those data are used not only for redistricting, but also for civil-rights policy and measuring disparities in health and environmental risks.

📋 Trump’s Census Plan Could Reshape Voting Maps (Axios)

5. An AI Insider Sounds the Alarm

Jacob Coxon has worked inside both OpenAI and Anthropic, two companies racing to build increasingly powerful artificial intelligence (AI). On Tuesday, he quit Anthropic with an extraordinary public warning: the AI race, he says, is moving faster than our ability to keep it under human control.

At the center of his concern is something called recursive self-improvement. Put simply: imagine an AI system capable of helping build a better AI system, which can then help build an even better one. Researchers haven’t reached the runaway version of that scenario, but companies are actively working on systems that automate more of AI research itself.

Yes, I know this is starting to sound like the part where someone mentions Skynet. Stay with me…

Even if one company wants to slow down and test carefully, what happens if its competitors don’t? Coxon says that’s the trap. He argues that competitive pressure could keep pushing companies forward even when people inside them are deeply worried about where the technology is headed. Anthropic itself says current models present low risk from recursive self-improvement, while acknowledging that capabilities are advancing.

His warning has now reached more than 100 million people online, and the debate isn’t staying inside Silicon Valley. Lawmakers from both parties are raising questions about AI safety following recent security incidents involving advanced systems.

Coxon’s post set off alarms and went viral.

Technology moves fast, but the guardrails rarely do. I watched government struggle to catch up with social media after the fact. With AI, we may not have that luxury.

🤖 Why an Anthropic Researcher Quit Over AI (Washington Sun)

✨ One Thing for Your Soul

For 25 years, retired New York City firefighter Rocco Fertoli rarely talked with his daughter about what he experienced on 9/11. He had been off duty that morning. After the second plane hit, he rushed to his firehouse and headed toward Manhattan. He watched the North Tower collapse from a bus carrying first responders, then spent weeks at Ground Zero searching through the wreckage. He lost more than 30 friends and colleagues.

This year, his daughter, NPR reporter Annmarie Fertoli, finally asked him to tell her what happened. He said yes, in part because he regretted never asking his own father enough about his service in World War II. Twenty-five years later, they retraced his path together.

Some stories take years to find their way home.

👨‍🚒 The 9/11 Story He Never Told (NPR)

Take care of each other this weekend.

-Olivia

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