The news that Rudy Giuliani is headlining a pro-Putin oligarch-funded conference in Armenia today made me think again of something that occurred to me yesterday when I was writing about the Turks, the Saudis and the Trump family: in a phrase, oligarch international relations.

In this case I don’t only mean Russian oligarchs. I mean oligarchs as they exist in many countries. Let’s define them as extremely rich individuals whose wealth either originated with or requires the continued assistance or forbearance of the government in power. With the Giuliani story, to a degree, Rudy’s just slimy. But I do think there’s lots of this stuff going on behind the scenes that we’re not hearing about. With the Rudy story, a source put me on to it. It’s not the hugest deal in itself. But I don’t think there’s been any other mention of it in the US press. I am pretty sure it’s just the tip of the iceberg of Russian and post-Soviet money ties to Trump and people in the Trump entourage.

As we try to wrestle all the information we can out of the run-up to the midterm election on November 6th, we have an Inside Briefing scheduled tomorrow with Neera Tanden, President of the Center for American Progress, at 1 PM Eastern. Next Wednesday at 1 PM we’re talking to Amy Walter, National Editor of The Cook Political Report. In both conversations we’ll dig into the latest happenings, trends, news and clues about the final days of what is truly the most important midterm election of our lifetimes.

Here’s the spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security using a public twitter account to try to defend the President’s racist conspiracy theories.

Citizens of countries outside Central America, including countries in the Middle East, Africa, South Asia, and elsewhere are currently traveling through Mexico toward the U.S.

— Tyler Q. Houlton (@SpoxDHS) October 23, 2018

Secretary of State announces that the Saudis actually implicated in killing Jamal Khashoggi won’t get visas to visit the United States. I would really think that people recently involved in targeted killings aren’t people we want visiting the country in general.

A TPM Reader wrote in on Friday and asked a simple, but for me, unexpected question: what do the fees for Prime pay for? Not in the sense of what do you get but what do we use the subscription fees for? This question caught me off-guard because to me the answer is obvious: everything. Prime today is the backbone of our entire business model, our largest single source of revenue and almost half of total revenue. But perhaps it’s not as obvious on the other side of the screen. So I thought I’d explain it all in a bit more detail. Some of this will probably seem like inside baseball. But you may find it interesting if you’re a Prime subscriber or if you’re interested in the economics of digital publishing or both.

Apparently off the radar of the US press, the President’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani is headlining a oligarch-funded conference in Armenia celebrating the so-called Eurasian Economic Union, a so far low-energy Russian-backed counter to the EU. Joining Rudy there is Sergey Glazyev, an adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin who was sanctioned in March 2014 for his role in the annexation of Crimea.

The Supreme Court weighed in last night on whether Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross can be deposed in a legal battle over a Census question that could change how political power is apportioned in America. Here’s more on that story and others we’re following.

Here’s the bottom line out today from The Cook Report, which has been a bit less friendly to Democrats this cycle than Nate Silver’s forecasting. “We continue to believe anywhere from a 20 to 40 seat Democratic gain is possible, but right now the likeliest outcome is a Democratic gain of between 25 and 35 seats.”

40 would be a great result for Dems. So would 30. Even 25 would be good enough. But these numbers are way too close for comfort with what’s on the line in two weeks.

Here’s a video clip of Steven Bannon doing a presentation in Staten Island. It’s like an informercial real estate seminar at the local Marriott. Sad.

Here’s a clip of Bannon on Staten Island. pic.twitter.com/bqybNHNVqW

— Josh Robin (@joshrobin) October 23, 2018

Across the country, Republicans are following Trump’s lead, closing with culture war themes, conspiracy theories and racist dog whistles. Cam Joseph has our story.