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Letters from an American
Heather Cox Richardson
Heather Cox Richardson's narrated newsletter about the history behind today's politics. heathercoxrichardson.substack.com
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Mixed80% confidence6 sourcesOct 27, 2026Donald Trump claimed in a social media post that a CNN poll showed him with 98% to 99% support within the Republican Party.The sources confirm Trump posted that a CNN poll showed him at 98 and 99% support within the Republican Party, so the act of claiming is supported. However, the poll content is contradicted: CNN's latest poll put his approval among Republicans at 74%, and the 98–99% figures appear to come from a different poll or clip about self-identified MAGA Republicans, not the Republican Party as a whole. The passage's wording matches the post, so the extraction does not add anything.Mixed50% confidence6 sourcesOct 27, 2026Investors have lost 4.8 billion dollars in crypto deals involving Donald Trump.Said by APublic Citizen's August 2026 analysis estimates investors lost at least $4.7 billion in Trump crypto ventures, close to the claimed $4.8 billion, but Reuters' June 2026 investigation found net investor losses of $2.3 billion across four businesses through April, roughly half the claimed figure. The claim's figure matches one estimate and conflicts with the other, which measures losses differently, so it is only partly supported as of 2026-10-27.Reported in the post, not stated as its own.Mixed60% confidence7 sourcesSep 15, 2026Umar Kremlev spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on the wedding of Donald Trump Jr. and Bettina Anderson in May 2026.Said by AProPublica reported, and Reuters, NBC, AP and ABC repeat, that Kremlev paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for wedding-related expenses and festivities in May 2026, and the couple confirmed he paid for two post-wedding nights. The couple and Reuters stress the payment covered after-parties, 'not the wedding itself', while ProPublica says 'wedding expenses', so the 'on the wedding' element is disputed. Snopes says the sum is undetermined and the matter is still under investigation.Reported in the post, not stated as its own.Mixed70% confidence5 sourcesSep 13, 2026The United States Postal Service rejected mailed ballots from Leon County, Florida, because the words 'return service requested' were 0.236 inches from the return address, while the required distance was a quarter inch.Said by AThe 0.236-inch spacing and the quarter-inch requirement are well supported, but the sources say USPS rejected Leon County's envelope design on Sept. 2 before any ballots were mailed, and it was accepted on appeal, so 'rejected mailed ballots' overstates what happened.Reported in the post, not stated as its own.Mixed60% confidence5 sourcesSep 13, 2026The Supreme Court has an injunction blocking the USPS from implementing new rules.As of 2026-09-13, a preliminary injunction blocking USPS from enforcing its new mail-ballot rule was in place, but it was issued by U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani in Boston, not by the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court had not yet ruled on the government's stay request (it denied the stay on 2026-09-14), so the claim's attribution to the Supreme Court is wrong even though the injunction itself exists.Mixed80% confidence8 sourcesAug 2, 2026Jeanine Pirro, the US Attorney for DC, and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum claimed that vandals were responsible for the problems with the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.The record supports the claim that Interior Secretary Burgum blamed vandals for the pool damage, but contradicts it for Pirro: her office's July 31 filing concluded the damage came from a botched installation, not vandalism, and she moved to drop the charges. Pirro's office did initially bring the vandalism charge on information from Interior, which is the only partial support for her element.