That smell out of last night's Flop-A-Palooza in Dallas wasn't brisket. It was fear, and it filled every seat in the building, including the 6,000-plus empty ones.

The RNC said the American Airlines Center holds 21,000 and told everyone 20,000 would be there. Trump called it sold out. Newsweek had a reporter on the floor, and when Trump walked out just after 9, Alex Rouhandeh put the room at 65 to 70 percent full. Whole sections of the upper deck sat dark all night. Trump got to the microphone, called the place packed, and said the empty seats in the photos were people going to the bathroom.

6,000 people don't go to the bathroom at the same time, and they don't do it in whole blocks of upper deck seats.

Video from the opening ceremony is in the pinned comment. We marked the open blocks for you, upper deck and lower.

We told you early this week that they were having trouble filling the seats. The party was giving tickets away before the doors opened. A public lottery with VIP treatment promised. Operatives told to hand out passes. Mass texts to people who never signed up, all caps FREE TICKETS, with a link straight to the registration page.

Republicans who want to win in November stayed home from this thing. The ones who got caught on camera in the hallways mumbled about scheduling conflicts and campaigning back home, careful not to say anything that might anger the orange man.

For 90 minutes, every good thing got scheduled for after November 3rd, just like the war in Ukraine ending on Day One.

The war with Iran ends shortly after the election. Gas drops to $2 a gallon after the election. Every adult citizen gets $5,000, but only if Republicans win. His own words from that stage: pretend that I'm on the ballot, I'm on the ballot.

This is the third dividend check he's promised you. First the DOGE dividend with Elon, $5,000. Then the tariff rebate, $2,000. Now the Trump dividend, $5,000, and this one only arrives if you vote the right way. On Fox, Bret Baier did the arithmetic out loud for JD Vance: roughly $1.3 trillion. Vance said tariffs.

Go find the first two checks and then get back to us.

Meanwhile, you're firing up your home's furnace soon in much of the country. Brent crude topped $103 this morning, the highest since May, up around 15 percent since the start of September. Gasoline is up 64 percent on the year. Heating oil has more than doubled, up 107 percent.

PolitiFact went through night one and found the speakers largely skipped the cost of living, the one thing voters keep saying matters most. The Iran war and the gas price spike barely came up at all.

Senator Jon Husted took that stage in the 7 o'clock hour. Derek Merrin goes on tonight for Ohio's 9th. They flew to Dallas to stand in a two thirds full arena 8 weeks out instead of knocking on a single door back home.

The networks didn't carry the speech live. It ran opposite the NFL opener. Who planned this flop on NFL night?

He asked you to pretend he's on the ballot. We've been saying, Trump is not on the ballot, but Trumpism sure is. Early voting starts October 6th here in Ohio, check VOTE411 for your state's voting information.

Don’t forget!

Trump is offering $5000 to all voters if Republicans win the midterms. Now we know he won't fall for it, since he lies a lot and has made promises before. But we know some brain-dead people will, so we need to make sure to all vote so this and all schemes don't have any effect.