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Republicans are counting on the president to be generous and think about someone other than himself. Become a member to share 10 free articles a month. Welcome to this week's edition of the Surge, Slate's politics newsletter that has no time for a joke right here because we have important business to discuss. Starting next week, the Surge is going to look different: sleeker and fresher but still phenomenally trenchant. Alongside a refreshed design, the Surge will break down the news of the week into three categories: What you need to pay attention to now, what you need to keep an eye on, and which story is a bunch of nonsense you should ignore.

Waffle House Teleporter Gregg Phillips Is Still on the Trump Administration's Payroll In June, a FEMA official infamous for claiming to have teleported to a Waffle House was reportedly ousted. He's still employed by the government, though--and meeting with a Trump fixer. Gregg Phillips, an election denier who once claimed he teleported to a Waffle House, says he is still working in the Trump administration, after he was reportedly removed from his influential role overseeing the Federal Emergency Management Agency's emergency response efforts in June. While it remains unclear what Phillips has been working on in the administration since stepping away as head of the Office of Response and Recovery, on Sunday he wrote on Truth Social, "I have been in the admin since last year. I'll be leaving soon to rejoin the fight."

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True the Vote is working with a Detroit pastor to produce a new documentary called, based on claims that have already been thrown out in court. True the Vote, the election denial group responsible for the debunked film that falsely alleged election fraud in the 2020 election, is preparing to release a new movie. As President Donald Trump continues to threaten the midterms, the new film is set to relitigate the 2020 election, making allegations about systemic election fraud in Black communities--allegations that have already been dismissed by multiple courts. True the Vote appears to be working with Lorenzo Sewell, a pastor from Detroit who spoke at Trump's inauguration last year . Sewell told WIRED the documentary, which he has not seen yet, is called --"because people are trapped"--and will be released "in the next month or so."

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Who will win the World Cup? Who will win the 2026 FIFA World Cup? Here's what AI predicts As the 2026 FIFA Men's World Cup enters its final stages, AJLabs asked nine leading AI models to predict the tournament's final podium based on all available data for each team, including: France emerged as the favourite to lift the trophy, receiving five (Gemini, Grock, DeepSeek, Le Chat and Qwen) of the nine champion votes. Argentina, the defending world champions, received the remaining four votes (ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot and Meta AI). Predictions for the runner-up were more divided: France and Argentina each received three votes, followed by England with two and Spain with one. Spain was the clear favourite to finish third, receiving six of the nine third-place predictions, while England and France each received fewer votes. The predictions reflect a broad AI consensus around the four remaining contenders, France, Argentina, Spain and England, but also highlight differences in how leading language models weigh recent performances, squad depth and tournament momentum.

"We have more people voting on the app than we do in many political elections taking place across the country," says the show's executive producer. Walls of cameras so millions of Americans can watch your spicy summer flings happen in real time? The app, where levels of viewer engagement are so high that it crashed during the first vote. Fans of the real-time dating show relish controlling the action through their in-app votes, helping decide who couples up and who gets dumped. Fan votes happen around five times during each season.

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