Good morning, it's Sunday, Oct. 18. President Trump promised Kentucky a $100 million drug plant if Republicans win, and the company behind it has a history with Washington that makes the condition stand out.

Also in today's issue: The cost squeeze widens, Alberta votes Monday, A GOP abortion retreat.

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If you live in central Kentucky, President Trump promised your region a $100 million drug plant on Saturday. The catch had nothing to do with the plant itself.

"If the Republicans win," Trump told a rally crowd in Highland Heights, the Department of War will invest $100 million in Antheia, a California company, "to revitalize [a] gigantic drug manufacturing facility in Winchester, Kentucky." The Department of War is the name the administration now uses for the Pentagon. No one has said how the money would be paid, when, or what the plant would make. And the company's history with Washington makes the condition stranger, not more ordinary.

The promise was a local version of a much bigger one. Trump also repeated his pledge to send $5,000 to every adult citizen if Republicans keep both the House and the Senate. For a married couple, that's $10,000. The plan would likely cost more than $1 trillion and need a vote in Congress, the AP noted, on top of a federal deficit near $1.8 trillion a year. Voters seem unsure about it. In an Economist/YouGov poll, 57% said they doubt the checks will ever arrive.

So how does federal money normally reach a factory? Congress decides how much each agency can spend. Agencies then hand out grants and contracts through set programs, judged on need. One of those programs, under the Defense Production Act, pays to build up U.S. supplies of things the country can't afford to run short of, like key drug ingredients. Election results are not part of that formula.

Now the company. Antheia is not new to federal money. It makes the raw building blocks of medicines, including thebaine, which goes into drugs for severe pain, overdose reversal and addiction treatment. In March, a federal health agency gave it $9 million to expand that work, and it earlier won an agreement worth up to $12 million under the Defense Production Act (Newsweek). In other words, the government has already decided this work is worth funding, with no vote attached.

Supporters have a fair point. Making medicine ingredients at home, instead of relying on foreign suppliers, has drawn backing from both parties since pandemic-era shortages. Trump says Democrats "wouldn't be able to do it." In his view, he is simply describing what his agenda delivers.

Critics see a pattern. This month, more than 20 million seniors are getting $90 checks toward Medicare premiums, and nearly 1 million Affordable Care Act enrollees are getting $500 checks. Now a factory is tied to a party's win. If a project is worth funding, they ask, why should it depend on who controls Congress?

Watch the timing. If the Pentagon moves on the Winchester money before Nov. 3, the condition was mostly campaign talk. If nothing happens until the votes are counted, the bigger question is whether federal grants now come with a scoreboard.

Seven in 10 Americans now call gasoline unaffordable, according to an ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll released early Sunday, up from 28% in February, before the Iran war drove fuel prices up. The squeeze reaches past the pump: 65% say the same about health care and 57% about home energy and utility bills. Nearly half, 48%, say they're worse off than when Trump took office, a high across both of his terms. His approval fell to 33%, below the 38% he hit after the Jan. 6 Capitol attack. Midterms often work as a verdict on the president, and likely voters favor Democrats for the House, 52% to 44%. Still, 79% of Republicans approve of Trump. The poll surveyed 2,545 adults Oct. 9–13.

Alberta votes Monday on whether to stay in Canada or start the legal process toward a binding referendum on leaving. It is not a vote on independence itself, and advance voting closed Saturday. Premier Danielle Smith called the vote but backs staying, and says support for the separation path, around 23% in a recent poll, is "still too high for my liking." The U.S. angle is real. Separatist leader Jeff Rath says his group met State Department officials three times, and a possible pipeline through the U.S. to the Pacific came up. The State Department says the vote is a decision for Albertans. Americans have a stake too: Alberta sends about 90% of its crude oil exports to the U.S.

Republicans running for governor are backing away from abortion bans they once supported, The 19th reported Saturday. Wisconsin Rep. Tom Tiffany, who co-sponsored a six-week ban three years ago, now calls the state's 20-week limit "settled law." Michigan Rep. John James, who once opposed abortion in all cases, now calls the issue "decided." Pennsylvania's Stacy Garrity says she would "respect" her state's 24-week law. None of the three campaigns answered questions. A KFF pollster said the shift may aim to take the issue off the table and lower Democratic turnout. Anti-abortion groups, meanwhile, are still running ads calling Democrats extreme. The stakes are concrete: governors can veto abortion bills and appoint the judges who rule on them.

That's the share of Americans who now call their rent or mortgage unaffordable, up from 37% in February, in the ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll. Housing is the biggest monthly bill for most families, which shows how far the cost squeeze has spread.

P.S. Should federal grants ever depend on who wins? Hit Reply — one word is enough.