Off Script isn’t about chasing the next headline.
It’s about understanding the one we already have.
In This Episode
- Former President Barack Obama is back on the campaign trail. Democrats are bringing him into some of their biggest midterm fights as they try to expand the map. But with Election Day approaching, how much difference can he really make? Our senior politics reporter, Azi Paybarah, breaks down the strategy.
- Plus, a mysterious death at a Russian plague research lab — and reports of a second sick worker — raise some unsettling questions. But when we asked our health reporter, Jess Craig, what actually keeps her up at night, the answer wasn’t plague.
- And 21 children. A mansion full of cameras. Now, two parents face child abuse charges. The disturbing case unfolding in California.
What Matters
First, What Matters: a story that caught our attention this week — and why we think it deserves yours.
Obama returns to campaign trail as Democrats target key races
Obama is back in a role we’ve seen him play before: the Democratic closer.
He’s cut ads for roughly two dozen Senate and governor’s races, and he’s heading back out on the campaign trail as Democrats try to expand the map and force Republicans to defend seats they might normally consider safe.
And the timing is no accident. Obama has largely stayed out of the spotlight between elections, saying it’s time for a new generation of Democratic leaders to step forward. But when Election Day gets close, he’s still one of the party’s most recognizable voices.
Meanwhile, Trump has made himself a central figure in the midterms, campaigning for Republican candidates and urging voters to treat the election as a referendum on him.
So with voting already underway in some states, where are Democrats making gains? Which races are forcing Republicans to spend money they hadn’t planned to? And what would a shift in control of Congress mean for the final two years of Trump’s presidency?
We talked through all of it with our senior politics reporter, Azi Paybarah.
Conversation highlights:
CHRISTIAN BRYANT: You called Obama a closer, and I’m thinking of, like, you know, maybe he’s a Mariano Rivera type of person who comes in and is really trying to boost his party’s candidate so that they can get ahead. Yeah. Do you accept that comparison?
AZI PAYBARAH: I do. And Rivera, the Hall of Fame closer, famously couldn’t and wouldn’t be the person we know today if he had been a starting pitcher. If you have someone like Rivera who can shut down a team for an entire inning, you’ve just made that nine-inning game eight innings.
So, to extend this, if you’re Democrats and you think, hey, we have candidates running in purple or toss-up districts, or in areas where we think we might have a chance of winning, well, you have 24 months from the last election to the current one. If you have someone like Obama to come in who can really rally progressive, left-leaning, infrequent voters, well, you’ve just shrunk the amount of time your candidate has to run from like 24 months to, you know, 23 and a half or so.
Once Obama ads start coming out and once Trump ads really start coming out, you’re hitting a different wavelength of voters’ consciousness.
BRYANT: How are Democrats trying to expand their map at this moment, and how are Republicans playing defense?
PAYBARAH: What Democrats have been trying to do is flip. I think they need about four seats to go from being the minority party to the majority party in the House. Right, a net gain of four.
Democrats have been able to run candidates in districts where they haven’t traditionally run very strong and pour money into those races, which has forced Republicans to play defense and spend money where they normally wouldn’t have to.
So the more Democrats play offense, the more Republican incumbents say, “Hey, look, I don’t want to lose my seat. I’m running again. Bring that money back home to me.” And it is a game of sorts of chicken. Who are you gonna threaten by moving your resources? And as we get closer to election day, something that is really worth keeping in mind is that the price of ads goes up as you get closer to election day. So a million dollars that you might have spent a year ago doesn’t get you the same million-dollar punch as if you’re spending it today, let alone in two weeks, because there are fewer ad spaces, fewer resources and television and radio stations charge more as you get closer.
So the numbers get kind of complicated, but in general, Democrats are spending in red and purple districts, and that is forcing Republicans to rethink where they’re going to spend their money.
Also Worth Your Time
Want more to read?
Here are a couple of stories that didn’t make the cut on Unbiased Updates this week — but we think they’re Also Worth Your Time.
American accused of helping plan deadly Canadian school shooting
An American is now accused of helping plan a deadly school shooting in Canada, and prosecutors said his role went far beyond discussing it online.
Federal authorities arrested 30-year-old James Cody Bryant in Washington state. They say he spent months communicating with Jesse van Rootselaar before her February attack in British Columbia, giving her tactical advice, helping test her livestream and agreeing to record and broadcast the killings online.
Prosecutors also said that just moments before the shooting, Bryant confirmed he was receiving the livestream. He’s also accused of sending van Rootselaar money for a lighter to be used in an explosive device.
Authorities said van Rootselaar first killed two people at her home, then drove to Tumbler Ridge Secondary School, where she killed five children and an educational assistant. She also detonated an improvised explosive device at the school before taking her own life.
Bryant is now charged with conspiracy to murder people in a foreign country, a charge that could result in life in prison.
‘House of horrors’ couple with 21 children charged in alleged abuse scheme
A California couple with 21 children, 19 of whom were born via surrogacy, now faces child abuse charges.
Prosecutors described their Arcadia mansion as a “house of horrors.” They said Guojun Xuan and Silvia Zhang had more than 30 cameras throughout the home and could watch as nannies allegedly hit and punished the children.
Prosecutors said the couple not only knew about the abuse but also, at times, participated in it and told nannies to hit the children harder.
The investigation began last year after a two-month-old boy was hospitalized for bleeding in his brain and retina. Authorities eventually removed all 21 children from the couple’s custody. Prosecutors said 14 have been identified as victims of abuse.
Xuan and Zhang have both pleaded not guilty. Each is being held on $20 million bail.
Inside the Story
Ok, let’s go Inside the Story now.
Each week we grab one of our reporters and go a little deeper to talk about what didn’t make the story, the questions that came up, and what they found while reporting it.
This week, we’re talking to Straight Arrow Health Reporter Jess Craig.
Is the plague back? Everything to know about Russia’s suspected case
When you hear “plague” and “Russian research lab” in the same sentence, you’re probably gonna have some questions.
A young scientist has died, and new reports say a second lab worker has pneumonia.
Russian officials have denied reports of a lab accident, while the World Health Organization is seeking more information.
We covered the story earlier this week on Unbiased Updates, but one question remains: How worried should we actually be?
We asked our health reporter, Jess Craig, about that. Then we asked her a question we almost regretted: if plague isn’t what keeps her up at night, what does?
Conversation highlights:
CHRISTIAN BRYANT: What do we know about how this person passed away and how serious the situation is in Russia?
JESS CRAIG: So far, what we know is that last week, local media outlets reported that a young scientist who worked at an anti-plague research institute in Siberia had died on Oct. 2 after developing severe pneumonia. Some early media reports said the scientist had broken a test tube containing the bacteria that causes the plague.
However, later media reports and statements from Russia’s public health watchdog denied that there was an accident at the laboratory and instead confirmed that the woman had died of pneumonia of unknown origin. Since then, Russian public health authorities initially quarantined about 200 contacts, people who had been in close contact with the woman who had died.
Russian authorities announced that about 90% of those who had been quarantined have now been released after extensive testing found no pathogens in their systems. There are now emerging media reports that a second laboratory employee has pneumonia. However, health officials have not independently confirmed this.
The World Health Organization said it is seeking more information from Russian health authorities about both the death on Oct. 2 and the newly reported second case.
BRYANT: What can you tell us about this disease and how often we see cases of people actually contracting the plague?
CRAIG: So the plague is an infectious disease caused by bacteria. It persists naturally in certain animals and in fleas that animals often carry. People typically become infected through an infected flea bite or by handling an infected animal. There are a couple of different types. We have bubonic plague, and there’s also pneumonic plague, which would be what we’re talking about here, potentially in this Russia case.
If we’re talking about plague and pneumonia, pneumonic plague is a bit more dangerous because it’s a respiratory illness that spreads like the common cold, the flu or COVID-19 through respiratory droplets. So we tend to see higher case counts. However, we know we hear about the Black Death and the history of the plague. The plague never went away. It is very rare.
In the United States, the CDC records about seven to 10 human cases each year. But sometimes there are no cases. Most infections occur in the rural West, particularly in New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and sometimes California. And those bacteria circulate among wild animals and in the fleas in those areas. So these are naturally occurring cases in the US. While it is very rare, it has never truly disappeared.
Read Jess Craig’s full story here >
Here’s the Kicker
Feeling overwhelmed by this week’s headlines?
We’ve got a good way for you to head into the end of the week.
Scientists identify new crocodile species from century-old fossil
Turns out, a crocodile has been hiding in plain sight for about a hundred years.
Scientists have identified a new extinct crocodile species from a fossil found in Egypt in the 1920s. For decades, they thought the skull belonged to a species they already knew.
Nope.
New CT scans gave researchers a much clearer look inside the skull, and they now say this skull belonged to a completely different species that lived about 50 million years ago.
Here’s the fun part: The fossil came from the same rock formation as the Great Sphinx, and, like the Sphinx, it’s missing part of its nose (or snout, in this case).
The researchers noticed that, too. They named the new species Herugavialis cairensis — after the Egyptian god Heru, who may have inspired the Sphinx.
So it took scientists a century to figure out what they had. Fair enough.
It waited 50 million years.
That’s it for us this week, we’ll see you back here next time.
-The Unbiased Updates morning team
