October 26, 2026 - Obama and Trump Collide in Midterms

Let me be the first to tell you about a movie that’s going to be a hit. It’s called The Mosquito Bowl. This weekend I watched an advance of the film directed by Peter Berg and based on the book of the same name by Buzz Bissinger. It had its Hollywood premiere last Thursday. It opens in theaters on Friday and comes to Netflix November 25.

I first heard the story in September 2022, when Bissinger was my radio guest at the time of the book release. I’d read and loved it, and as we wrapped up, I told him I could easily see it on a big screen someday. Buzz and Berg are cousins. Berg directed the film of Buzz’s Friday Night Lights, which was about much more than football. So too The Mosquito Bowl.

The book tells the story of a tackle football game played on Guadalcanal on Christmas Eve 1944 between two Marine regiments, the 4th and the 29th. Many of the 65 men on the field had been college stars. Within months they were on Okinawa, where 15 of them were killed. Both the book and the movie follow four of those players, a tribute to the Greatest Generation. I also remember speaking with Buzz about another of that era.

Near the end of that conversation, I asked Buzz about his father. Harry G. Bissinger was drafted out of Dartmouth in 1944, at 19. He never talked about the war in any substance. When it came up, he’d go outside to smoke a cigarette. Buzz respected that. “That was his private zone.”

Early in his research, Buzz pulled his father’s muster rolls. There was the name they shared, listed with the 4th Regiment, one of the two teams. “The odds are he’s probably at The Mosquito Bowl,” Buzz told me, “because he loved to gamble, he loved to drink... and he loved sports.”

Then he paused, choked up. “I’m so proud of him, but he’s been gone for 20 years. And I could never convey that to him, even with a hug.”

Today Buzz joins me in studio to talk about one of the greatest stories nobody knew, until he wrote it.

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Barack Obama and Donald Trump returned to the campaign trail ahead of the midterm elections, trading attacks over the Iran war, rising costs and competing visions for America as their enduring political rivalry highlights the challenges facing both parties in finding a new generation of leaders.

CNN

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a vocal critic of U.S. President Donald Trump, won reelection with 51.8% of the vote, defeating far-right challenger Flávio Bolsonaro by nearly 4.4 million votes in a polarized runoff, while Bolsonaro rejected the results and called for the election to be annulled.

Associated Press

Attorney General Todd Blanche clashed with CNN’s Dana Bash over the Justice Department’s lawsuit challenging Alaska’s Senate race certification, angrily rejecting her suggestion that President Donald Trump could be laying the groundwork to overturn the 2026 election results.

Mediaite

Democratic strategist David Axelrod panned President Trump's Georgia rally boast that he doesn't "give a damn" about high gas prices because oil producers are "making a freaking fortune," with the national average hitting $4.29 a gallon as the Iran war drags on.

The Hill

At a Michigan rally for GOP Senate nominee Mike Rogers, President Donald Trump intensified his anti-Muslim attacks against Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed, questioning his loyalty to the United States and linking him to terrorism without evidence of ties to extremist groups, prompting condemnation from a former Arab American ally as the contentious race could help determine control of the Senate.

NPR

Diego Sarabia, one of seven Chi Phi members accused in a civil suit by a former Cornell student known as Jane Doe, has moved to dismiss her claims against him, arguing the allegation against him amounts to a forced kiss barred by a one-year statute of limitations.

ABC News

As final screen tests begin for the next James Bond, frontrunners Jack Lowden and Callum Turner face competition from other contenders, but producers are weighing more than acting ability and star power, prioritizing professionalism, public image and the ability to commit to a franchise that could span a decade or more.

The Hollywood Reporter

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro is cruising toward a second term and eyeing a 2028 presidential run, but strategists in both parties warn he's never faced a well-funded opponent or a barrage of negative ads — raising doubts about how he'd hold up in a bruising Democratic primary.

Axios

Peter Berg’s 'The Mosquito Bowl' tells the harrowing true story of four college football stars who enlist in the Marines after Pearl Harbor and face the brutal Battle of Okinawa, delivering a visceral, deeply moving antiwar film that explores the bonds of brotherhood, the devastating loss of young lives, and the human cost of war.

Deadline

One hundred years after Harry Houdini died at age 52, a new book by surgeon Larrian Gillespie argues the legendary escape artist was actually killed by an intestinal blockage and a covered-up surgery — and may have died on October 30, not Halloween as long reported.

CBS News