In today’s edition … the second night of the GOP’s midterm convention … football vs. politics … but first …
The post-9/11 wars changed politics, but not everyone who served agrees on how
Today, I published a story about two veterans in Congress — Reps. Jason Crow (D-Colorado) and Troy Downing (R-Montana) — and how their enlistments after Sept. 11, 2001, changed them in notably different ways.
Their stories begin somewhat similarly. Crow, then a senior at the University of Wisconsin and a member of the institution’s ROTC program, “was angry” and wanted to “fight back.” Downing, who was older and coming off the success of starting a web-based calendar company that eventually merged with Yahoo in the late 1990s, felt a “sense of violation” and wanted to be the “tip of the spear” in the country’s military response.
Downing said it caused him to “wake up” to the nation’s greatness, while Crow said the terrorist attacks altered “the entire trajectory of my life.”
They both eventually found their way to Congress, inspired by their service and the lessons they took from it.
But that is really where their similarities end, and the two expressed markedly different views about war in separate interviews, especially the ongoing conflict in Iran.
The interviews and the piece highlight how the terrorist attacks that sparked wars in Iraq and Afghanistan changed the nation’s politics but did not leave its leaders with monolithic views — or a unified approach to policy.
We have seen that play out throughout the past 25 years.
Democrats and Republicans in Congress authorized military force in Afghanistan and Iraq. But as the wars dragged on and the intelligence underpinning the conflict in Iraq proved untrue, Democrats began to sour on the prolonged entanglements, sparking a fervent anti-war, anti-intervention movement that saw Democrats take control of Congress in 2006, and that helped send Barack Obama to the White House in 2008.
Anti-war sentiment later began to creep into the Republican Party, culminating in 2016, when Donald Trump pledged to end foreign entanglements and lambasted George W. Bush and Barack Obama for their handling of the conflicts during their presidential terms. Trump, however, has now overseen multiple new foreign interventions, most notably the ongoing war with Iran, a conflict that has undercut his pledge of “no new wars” and created tension with the Republican Party’s more anti-war factions.
Crow strongly opposes Trump’s war. He has called it “a reckless war of choice,” and said that standing up to the president on Iran, in part because of his service, is something he will do “with every ounce of my being.”
Downing, by contrast, is a proponent of the conflict with Iran and called the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 under President Joe Biden “a stain on America that’s going to take a long time to overcome.”
There are a few thoughts that didn’t make it into the main story that I wanted to share with you here:
- Crow argued that the response to the terrorist attacks on 9/11 should have centered law enforcement: “Had we taken a law enforcement approach to 9/11, rather than a military approach, I think the world and the way it played out would have been very different,” he told me. That stood out coming from someone who played a role in America’s military approach.
- Downing cast the conflict with Iran as one dating back nearly 50 years: “Anybody saying that this is something new is not looking at that whole history because that has been going on.” Downing said that the United States “did not pick this war” because Iran, since the 1979 Iranian revolution, has “been fighting us … and there’s dead Americans because of it.”
- Crow seemed genuinely angered when I asked about Trump’s desire for military solutions to problems despite his lack of service. “The guy’s a five-time draft dodger, and I’ve never seen anybody who loves to pound his chest and act tough [as much as Trump],” he said. “He’s a prime example of someone who’s cavalier with other people’s lives.”
There is a lot more in the story, including how the Republican Party has shifted on war and the fascinating story of how Downing was one of the last people on Earth to learn about the terrorist attacks.
You can read it all here.
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Our picks
- GOP secretaries of state ask Supreme Court to block Trump mail-in ballot rule, from Violet Jira.
- In posts attacking ChatGPT, Katie Miller didn’t disclose her stake in its rival, from Cat Zakrzewski and Aaron Schaffer.
- Republican skepticism arises after Trump’s pledge of $5,000 payouts tied to GOP wins, from Jarrell Dillard, Mariana Alfaro and Steve Thompson.
- RFK Jr. uses military aircraft as he campaigns for GOP in midterms, from Rachel Roubein, Dan Diamond and Andrew Ba Tran.
- Jimmy Kimmel says he dropped Talarico interview from broadcast after FCC pressure, from Amy B Wang.
What we’re watching
Republicans at the party’s two-day convention in Dallas seemed determined to nationalize the midterms. Vice President JD Vance, according to a report from NBC News, even advocated for that strategy explicitly at a closed-door breakfast yesterday.
And that is more than okay with Democrats.
“Oh no, please don’t nationalize the race,” Dan Pfeiffer, a former top aide to President Barack Obama, wrote sarcastically. “What will Democrats do when they have to run against an incumbent President who is 30 points underwater and mired in an unpopular, costly war?”
Trump clearly wants to make the midterms about himself and his record. “I’m not on the ticket. You’ve got to pretend,” Trump said late last night in a speech that was part rundown of his first nearly two years in office, part musical interlude. “You’ve got to do this for me. You’ve got to pretend I am on the ticket.”
Some of the most embattled Republicans in the nation, however, would rather not do that and are instead focusing on hyperlocal issues.
“I am going to be in my district,” Rep. María Elvira Salazar (Florida), a Republican who represents a congressional district that includes Miami and some of the city’s suburbs, told CBS. “I have to be campaigning. No one votes for me in Washington or in Dallas. I have to be in Miami.”
For the second night in a row, Trump’s convention was also up against a National Football League game, raising the possibility that the convention might be drowned out by America’s most popular sport.
You can read Isaac Arnsdorf, Anna Liss-Roy and Natalie Allison’s takeaways from the two-day convention here.
In your local paper
Nevada Current: The top teachers union in Nevada is urging state lawmakers to stop pushing a ban on data centers, arguing that the state needs the revenue from the projects to ensure the future of public education there.
Missouri Independent: The U.S. Supreme Court again rejected a Missouri official’s request to use a gerrymandered map that could have given Republicans one additional House seat in November.
Tampa Bay Times: Nearly 250,000 children in Florida have lost food stamps since the passage of Republicans’ One Big, Beautiful Bill Act in 2025. Total enrollment in the state has fallen more than 20 percent, the paper found.
From you
President Donald Trump was clearly sensitive about his midterm convention going up against the first NFL game of the season.
“It was really something, streaming all over the place, and really big numbers, despite going up against the NFL,” he wrote yesterday morning.
We asked you what you watched on television this week, and very few of you said the convention.
“I watched the US Open and NFL. Did not watch convention at all,” wrote Eileen Kennelly.
“Without hesitation, I watched the NFL,” added Jim Whelan.
Kenneth Burleson wrote that he watched the Philadelphia Phillies beat the Houston Astros.
“I’ll be watching the Phillies again tonight and another episode or two on Netflix or Prime,” wrote Burleson. “The Republican midterm convention is the same-old-same-old. It never changes. Maybe the midterm elections will change all of that, I hope?”
An email from Tori Vollbrecht is probably most worrying for Republicans.
“We watched the NFL game … and we’re Republican,” wrote Vollbrecht. “We didn’t even know about the convention.”
Send a reply
Today is the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Where were you on that day? How did you learn about the attacks? And what are your reflections on that dark day 25 years later? Let me and your fellow Early Brief readers know at [email protected].
Thanks for reading. You can follow me on X at @merica.
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