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I think I finally understand why Fox News pays Jesse Watters the big bucks. The network star, famous for hot takes like men shouldn’t “eat soup in public”, has an incredible talent for inserting misogyny into absolutely any news story.
Take, for example, Donald Trump’s ludicrous announcement on Wednesday night that he will give every American adult $5,000 if Republicans retain control of the US Congress in November’s midterm election. That’s a story about apparent bribery, right? A story about fiscal recklessness and empty promises. A story about how the president, whose popularity is plummeting, is so out of ideas that he’s resorted (yet again) to dangling cash in front of voters.
Actually, says Watters, it’s none of the above; it’s just Trump behaving like a woman.
“That $5,000 check, Dana, that’s not a bribe,” Watters told Fox anchor Dana Perino on Thursday. “We’re calling it an enticement … It’s like a woman. Sometimes a woman can entice you, OK? Maybe – it doesn’t mean you’re going home with her, but it keeps you interested. It keeps you intrigued and wanting more. That’s what this is about.”
Perhaps the Fox News host isn’t completely wrong. After all, I am a woman and I am about to entice you to look up the story about how Watters courted his much younger second wife. It’s very intriguing.
But back to this definitely-not-a-bribe $5,000 payment which the president calls a Trump “dividend”. I wouldn’t start spending it now, if I were you. The president, like his right-hand man Elon Musk, has a habit of making grandiose promises he doesn’t keep. Remember the Doge dividends floated last February? Those haven’t materialized. Nor have the tariff dividends that Trump made so much noise about. “People that are against Tariffs are FOOLS!” Trump said in a Truth Social post last year. “We are taking in Trillions of Dollars and … A dividend of at least $2000 a person (not including high income people!) will be paid to everyone.” Almost a year after that post, nobody has received a tariff dividend. However, it has been estimated by the Joint Economic Committee – Minority that the average American family will pay more than $2,500 in tariff costs this year.
I feel pretty confident saying there is a 0.00001% chance that anyone is going to get a $5,000 Republican celebration check. But let’s just play along for a minute and pretend that Trump isn’t a fabulist. Let’s pretend that the president is a serious man who makes thoughtful policy proposals, rather than an opportunist who says whatever inane thing happens to pop into his brain in the moment. Isn’t it a bit reckless to be giving all this money away, a total that exceeds $1tn, when the US national debt recently surpassed $40tn for the first time? As Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, said in a statement, that debt “doesn’t exist solely on the government’s ledgers”, it is shouldered by everyone. “The more we borrow, the more we exacerbate inflation, squeeze out other priorities in the budget, and leave ourselves vulnerable to emergencies at home and turmoil abroad.”
Don’t worry about all that, says the commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick. “It’s not tax money,” Lutnick told NBC News on Thursday. The Trump administration is going to earn that money from various moneymaking endeavours like the Trump Platinum Card, which allows wealthy people to pay up to $5m to extend their US visas. JD Vance, meanwhile, has suggested that the money might come from US tariff revenues, even though economists have pointed out the $125bn in tariff revenues wouldn’t come close to covering the costs.
The president himself, meanwhile, doesn’t seem keen to elaborate on his cunning plan to win friends and influence voters. When the ABC reporter Rachel Scott asked him about the rationale behind the $5,000 checks on Thursday night, he said it was a reward to Americans for putting up with Joe Biden. After Scott tried to ask a follow-up question, Trump lunged at her and said: “Your network … you’re the worst.” Which is very on-brand for the president. He can’t seem to handle being asked tough questions by anyone, but gets particularly nasty when those questions are posed by a woman.
While Trump doesn’t want to get into the details of his dividend, the proposal reflects how the president is looking at some very unconventional ways to sway the midterms. He may not end up issuing people celebration checks, but he has already gutted election security programs and attempted to limit voting access. The real story here isn’t $5,000 cheques, it’s the fact that America’s self-styled king seems intent on meddling with the election, and no meaningful checks and balances are stopping him.
Ectopic pregnancy deaths in the US have nearly doubled
A ProPublica analysis found almost 200 women died after an ectopic pregnancy from 2020 to 2025. That’s compared to about 100 in the previous six years. To nobody’s surprise, mortality is worse in states with strict abortion bans. “While they cautioned that abortion bans alone can’t explain the national rise, maternal health experts said any examination of the spike should include the documented delays in care caused by the laws, including for ectopic pregnancies,” ProPublica notes.
Sudanese refugees are being forced into sex work
Sudan’s civil war, which started in 2023, has created the world’s worst displacement crisis. Now, many of the women who fled to Egypt are being sexually exploited.
What’s happened to Pete Hegseth’s testosterone screening guidance?
The Pentagon published a guidance document on 2 September outlining a new mandatory testosterone screening process to create a “High-T military”. However, the very next day it was withdrawn from the public domain for reasons that remain unclear. Maybe someone in the Pentagon came to their senses.
Secret systems used by Israel in mass killings of Gaza civilians revealed
Naza, a highly-feted new film from the Oscar-winning Israeli directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor and produced by the Guardian, reveals the secret systems used in mass killings of civilians in Gaza. “Several interviewees worked in a secret intelligence unit that reports directly to the office of Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu,” the Guardian writes. “[O]ne said their mission was to ‘thwart peace’.”
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Why does the hard right shrug off domestic abusers in their midst?
The short answer is because they are misogynists who cynically weaponize women’s rights to advance their agenda. But do read Zoe Williams, who has a longer and more eloquent answer, following on from the attack on a female protester at the Reform UK conference.
The Republican convention showed an image of Hasan Piker in his underwear
They seem to think showing photos of a buff podcaster in his underwear demonstrates that the left are scary “radicals”.
The rise of hairy young women
Phoebe Bridgers’ unshaven legs at her Venice film festival debut sparked a flurry of headlines. But, says Leah Harper, Bridgers’ “au naturel look may signal that attitudes are changing – particularly among younger generations”.
Emma Bonino, feminist Italian politician, dies aged 78
Bonino got involved in politics after she had an abortion (then illegal) at age 26 and said she decided that “never, never, never again should anyone have to suffer this humiliation”. She handed herself in to the police as an act of protest, leading a campaign to eventually legalize abortion in 1978.
Princess Diana’s ‘revenge dress’ is going up for auction
Diana famously wore the fitted black dress on the same night that Charles admitted to his infidelity on TV in 1994. It will be auctioned off in December.
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Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist
