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Can’t get over the fact that Zohran ran into Tim Robinson on Election Day

McFadden still hasn't been told when ICE agents are coming. "We don't have a timeline. We don't even have an arrival time. They said earliest is Saturday." Only ICE officials have contacted him, not Border Patrol, he said.

"We don't know what's going to happen next week," McFadden said. "But as of now, I got the calls that I asked for, I got the agenda that I asked for, and I have cooperation, collaboration and communication."

His playbook is to keep communication open with ICE, in hopes of de-escalating. "My goal is to personally invite them to my office and have a conversation ... If we can just have these conversations, we can maybe come to an agreement, or at least a better understanding."

“We're not going to do any enforcement with them. We're not going to assist them," he said. "We just told them that if there is civil unrest, and we have to respond to civil unrest, then we would be mindful of how that is approached.”

NEW: I just got off the phone with Sheriff Garry McFadden, who's expecting ICE agents in Charlotte tomorrow. He's prepared for a chaotic weekend: “A lot of people could be arrested, a lot of people could be hurt,” he said. “Or it could be a very organized peaceful operation” 🧵

Morris Katz, a senior adviser on Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral campaign and currently a senior strategist working on Graham Platner’s Senate run in Maine, says Democrats need more “reluctant candidates.” He explains what he means below👇 (via Crooked) @katz_morris | @alexwagner

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More: “While non-mainstream outlets may focus on important issues that matter to the American people, the White House is correct to highlight the biased coverage by the mainstream media and their focus on the Epstein hoax rather than accurate coverage of the Democrat shutdown.”

The White House pushed back on the analysis. “This data — which features many outlets that are not considered mainstream media — totally debunks the argument the Obama Pod Bros are trying to make,” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson told What A Day.

The Epstein emails represent one major development, Dwyer explained, while the shutdown involves countless moving parts, from federal workers to agencies to political negotiations, that generate more stories.

“I was struck by how much less coverage major news organizations are giving the Epstein story compared to the federal shutdown, but it makes sense when you think about it,” Molly Dwyer, director of insights at PeakMetrics, told What A Day.

The data, collected by @peakmetricsapp, also shows that mainstream outlets tweeted about Epstein 157 times, versus 260 for the shutdown. The data looked outlets including CNN, the New York Times, Politico, Breitbart, Daily Caller, the Washington Examiner, and 80 others.

Exclusive: The White House claims mainstream media is focusing more on Epstein than the shutdown. Data tells a much different story. “Epstein” was mentioned in 381 stories, compared to 2,266 “shutdown” mentions in past 24 hours, according to data obtained by @RealCrookedNews.

On his spicy panel at Crooked Con, w/ @Timodc and @JessicaTarlov: "I have a difference in opinion with everybody on the panel, my bad. But, you know, I have an ideological position that I am not going to compromise on. I have values that I won't compromise on."

Is he hopeful for Democrats' future? "Unless they actually say we are going to do class-first politics ... we're constantly going to lose.”

Why Tucker Carlson and not JD Vance? "I think Tucker Carlson presents instability in the same way that Trump did. It's very obvious that the base is more receptive to that than they are to a guy who's just faking it, because JD Vance is faking it."

Does he think Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene could be a viable 2028 presidential candidate? "I don't think it'll be Marjorie Taylor Greene. Maybe it'll be Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Greene, I can see that. But I think it's Tucker. It's not JD Vance."

What does he think about the "affordability" buzzword? "It's not necessarily bad, because if the Democrats do abide by that, then I think that they will end up winning elections. But it's, I think, beyond what you do with the affordability."

On Tuesday's elections: "Hopefully Democrats decide: Do they want to win and win convincingly with a value first campaign, or do they want to abide by the James Carville strategy of just being the anti-Trump pick? Because that's not going to take us very far."