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Republican says Trump DOJ's Epstein files dump 'grossly fails to comply' with his law

Both cosponsors of the Epstein Files Transparency Act (EFTA) are accusing President Donald Trump's administration of violating the law the president signed last month.

After the Department of Justice (DOJ) on Friday released its first tranche of several thousand documents and photos pertaining to convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein's two federal investigations, legal observers remarked that hundreds of pages of files were entirely redacted, while significant portions of other documents are also redacted. Many of the photos also include significant redactions.

While the EFTA gives Attorney General Pam Bondi final discretion over redactions in order to conceal victims' names and other identifying information — and also gives her the power to make redactions so as not to jeopardize ongoing investigations – Trump himself appears to be entirely scrubbed from the files despite his documented closeness with Epstein. Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who initially introduced the EFTA in mid-July, both sharply criticized the administration over the heavy redactions in Friday's release. In a video posted to X, Khanna noted that a 119-page New York grand jury testimony was completely redacted from top to bottom.

"Our law requires them to explain redactions. There's not a single explanation for why that entire document was redacted," Khanna said. "We have not seen the draft indictment that implicates other rich and powerful men ... who either watched the abuse of young girls or participated in the abuse of young girls and the sex trafficking."

"The reality is, Pam Bondi has obfuscated for months. She first said there were no documents to be seen, now she's admitting and releasing hundreds of thousands of documents, but it is an incomplete release with too many redactions," he continued. "Thomas Massie and I are exploring all options. It can be impeachment of people at Justice, inherent contempt, or referring for prosecution those who are obstructing justice."

Massie agreed in his own post, saying that Khanna was "correct" in his assessment.

"Unfortunately, today’s document release by @AGPamBondi and @DAGToddBlanche grossly fails to comply with both the spirit and the letter of the law that @realDonaldTrump signed just 30 days ago," Massie wrote, tagging the official X handles of Trump, Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche.

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Lawmakers confirm bipartisan effort to impeach Trump's AG over redactions in Epstein files

There is already a bipartisan push to impeach Attorney General Pam Bondi over her apparent flouting of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, according to one of the bill's authors.

During a Friday interview on CNN, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) told host Kaitlan Collins that he knew something was wrong with Friday's promised release of documents relating to Jeffrey Epstein's two federal investigations when he saw the scope of the Department of Justice's (DOJ) redactions. While Khanna maintained that neither he nor the bill's chief co-sponsor, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), had any issues with redacting information to protect Epstein's surviving victims and their families, he took umbrage with the DOJ's total omission of the 119-page grand jury document that preceded Epstein's "sweetheart deal" in 2008 and the 82-page document explaining why he should be charged.

"Neither of them are in the release," Khanna said. "And to the extent the drafters' intent of a law matters, Thomas Massie and I explicitly drafted it to cover those two documents. And you had three federal judges look at our law and say, 'release everything in terms of the grand jury.' You had judges saying, 'release it.' And then the Department of Justice is redacting it."

When Collins observed that the DOJ "made a pretty big show" of obtaining the 119-page grand jury document — which has been completely redacted from start to finish — Khanna said that redaction was "the red flag where I knew something was wrong."

"One of the things, unfortunately, we learned is that there are 1,200 survivors, according to the DOJ itself," Khanna said. "Think about it: If there are 1200 survivors, there was more than one person committing this abuse. And what I thought should not be redacted is information about politicians or powerful people who may have been implicated. The whole point, again, if you read the law, is to say embarrassment or reputational harm cannot be a reason for redaction. And yet it seems for everything that they've redacted and not produced that they are trying to protect people. They don't want people to be held accountable. And that's exactly what the survivors want."

At that point, Collins asked the California Democrat if he felt Bondi should be impeached over the redactions. Khanna confirmed that both he and Massie are "drafting articles of impeachment and inherent contempt," prompting Collins to say, "wow."

"We haven't decided whether to move it forward yet, but we're in the process of doing it," he said. "... The issue for her is not, are there going to be 212 Democrats who would support it. The issue for her is how many Republicans and MAGA supporters would support it."

"So my hope — because my hope has never been about Pam Bondi getting justice or Todd Blanche getting justice — my hope is she looks at this, she looks at the outrage that MAGA has, she looks at the disappointment that the survivors have, and she makes a decision over the next two weeks to actually start releasing these documents," he added. "Because she may lose more Republicans in the House than she anticipates."

Watch the segment below:


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Trump's heightened 'narcissism' hints at a worsening 'mental problem': conservative

Republican New York Times columnist David Brooks told PBS he worries about President Donald Trump’s declining mental deficiency, particularly in light of his recent public displays of self-aggrandizement.

“I worry about his moral acuity,” Brooks told PBS NewsHour anchor Geoff Bennett. “I mean, he is a narcissist. But the Rob Reiner tweet was — and I'd say the events of the whole week, to be honest, he takes his narcissism, which is normally at 10, and he moved up to 15 this week.”

“And so the Rob Reiner tweet was — to take a man who was murdered, maybe by his son, and to write a tweet all about yourself, he just cannot contemplate the pain of another family. And that's a mental problem. It's certainly a moral problem,” Brooks said.

Trump sent Republicans fleeing from reporters this week after he brazenly blamed the Hollywood director’s murder on “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” even though Reiner and his wife were allegedly killed by their adult son Nick, who had been diagnosed with schizophrenia. Brooks went on to criticize Trump putting his name on the Kennedy Center, which is a memorial to slain president John F. Kennedy.

“It is an assertion of power,” said Brooks. “You think, ‘who else has big porches themselves all over?’ Mao Tse-Tung. Stalin. Authoritarian leaders know that a certain part of the population likes it when they see the great leader idolized and venerated. I have a building right by my house on Capitol Hill, and it's Teddy Roosevelt and Donald Trump, gigantic portraits. And it does remind you of going back to the Stalin era.”

“It is a form of psychological amassing of power to turn yourself into a demigod,” Brooks said. “And I think, as sad and pathetic as he makes it, I think that's what he's trying to do.”

MS NOW show host Jonathan Capehart, who also sat for the PBS interview, said “if any other president had said what he had said or done what he had done, they would have been hauled out on the carpet, people asking questions, where are the doctors? Let's see his medical records.”

“We should be asking about the president's mental acuity,” Capehart said. “We should be asking, because he's 79 years old, ‘is he up for the job?’”

Read the full PBS interview at this link.

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Former US attorney says Trump DOJ's heavy redactions of Epstein files 'must be a cover-up'

One former federal prosecutor is asserting that President Donald Trump's Department of Justice (DOJ) is actively engaging in a "cover-up" due to significant redactions in Friday's release of Jeffrey Epstein documents.

During a Friday segment on MS NOW's "All In," Harry Litman — a former U.S. attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania — observed that the Epstein Files Transparency Act stipulated that the DOJ had 30 days to release all remaining Epstein-related evidence, with redactions allowed only to protect victims' identities and to protect ongoing investigations. He argued that the redactions seen in Friday's release go well beyond the legislation's boundaries.

"The law is the law. It's it's not a grand jury anymore," Litman said, stressing that the Trump administration was making redactions to lessen "reputational harm" of men named in the files.

"I just want to go to your upfront point about this. Could not be willy-nilly. It must be a cover up," he continued. "My 12-year old could do just the stats. You have one or two pictures or searches of Trump, over 100 of [former President Bill] Clinton ... Everything they say is to try to excuse the violation of law. No doubt about it."

Upon releasing the documents, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche (who is one of Trump's former personal criminal defense lawyers) said that there were more than 1,200 victims in the files, and that redactions were made not only to shield them but to also protect classified national security information and even attorney-client privilege. However, Litman maintained that the redactions were made to "control the narrative."

"I'm reminded a little bit of the [former DOJ special counsel Robert] Mueller report," he said. "They think ... the fronting of stuff involving Clinton and other people may obscure the stuff about Trump, but it's very, very far from what they're required to do."

Under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, the DOJ has two weeks to explain any redactions to Congress. Lawmakers have already left Washington D.C. for the holiday recess, and are not due to return until early January.

Watch Litman's segment below:


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'When I opened it I gasped': Legal analyst shocked at level of redactions in Epstein files

After studying the newly released Epstein files, MS NOW legal analyst Lisa Rubin quickly discovered that many file entries are nearly completely redacted by federal authorities, despite calls from critics and congressional Democrats to fully release the files.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) officially released hundreds of thousands of documents and photos pertaining to convicted sex-trafficker and child predator Jeffrey Epstein's two federal investigations. All of the new information can be found on the DOJ's website in its "Epstein Library," which features PDF links to documents and photos.

Many of the new materials are redacted in accordance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act's guidelines on protecting names and identifying information of Epstein's victims, but Rubin was frustrated that entire entries were blacked out.

“... [W]hen I opened it, I gasped because I thought we were going to see something, and what I saw instead was a 100-page document that says ‘grand jury of New York’ at the top of it. And that's the only text that you can see,” Rubin told MS NOW anchor Nicole Wallace.

“It goes on for 119 pages, where every single page of it is completely and 100 percent blacked out, but for the Bates — meaning how the department of justice has numbered these pages — it bears a stamp of EFTA, standing for Epstein Files Transparency Act and the number of the document that corresponds to it. But over 119 pages, 100 percent completely redacted,” Rubin added.

Logging onto the high-traffic DOJ site for the Epstein files may put you in queue, but a search for the word “Trump” in the resulting search box pulls up “no results found. Please try a different search.” Searches for “Maxwell,” the last name of Epstein’s convicted co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell, similarly pulled up no results on Friday night.

“The fact that ... great portions of it are redacted is very disheartening,” said Miami Herald investigator Julie K. Brown, who interviewed some of Epstein's victims .. “ … [W]e know the judges have ruled that they could release this material ... I think there's going to be a lot of people that are going to be angry and disappointed.”

Watch the segment below:

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Former pro-Trump UFC fighter trashes White House event over Epstein list

Donald Trump plans to hold a mixed martial arts event on the White House grounds next year, but one formerly diehard MAGA UFC fighter has opted out of the event, telling the president, "I'm good, dude," and referring to the potential crowd as the "Epstein list."

The event, tentatively known simply as "UFC White House," is set take place on the residence's South Lawn on June 14 of next year, a date meant to help it coincide with the United States’ 250th anniversary. The event was first suggested by Trump at a rally in July, and later finalized in late August by UFC CEO Dana White, a longtime MAGA supporter and friend of the president.

Sean Strickland, a highly-ranked former UFC Middleweight Champion with a 29-7 win-loss record, was also once a fervent supporter of Trump and known for espousing many right-wing cultural beliefs. Since Trump returned to the White House in 2025, however, he has gradually disavowed his past support, citing disagreements with Trump's pro-Israel stances, and saying that reelecting him was a "mistake."

Now, Strickland is speaking out against the UFC White House event and expressing opposition to appearing on the fight card, suggesting that it would be a performance for the "Epstein list" instead of MMA fans.

"If there was some kind of inclusion for fans I’d be more [inclined]," Strickland said in a mid-workout video interview shared to X. "But just to go hang out with the f—— Epstein list, I’m good dog. I’m good, dude."

Strickland also said that he was initially up for the idea until hearing about another unspecified fighter who "said he doesn’t really want to fight in front of billionaires."

"And I was like, ‘That makes sense, bro,'" he said.

The UFC White House event will not be open to the general public, leading to the perception by Strickland and others that it will be exclusively for the pleasure of Trump's wealthy associates, though it is also expected to be livestreamed on Paramount+. In a report about Strickland's comments, the Daily Beast summarized the event as being "perceived by some as a spectacle of gladiatorial bloodletting in [Trump's] honor."

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Fox News hosts blast Trump over 'repulsive' White House plaques

Donald Trump got a sharp rebuke from his Fox News on Friday as hosts decried the recent addition of insulting plaques about Democratic presidents at the White House as "trolling" and "repulsive."

While not the largest and eye-catching change Trump has made to the White House, his addition of a "Presidential Walk of Fame" has nonetheless made headlines for insulting jabs at his political opponents. When the feature was first introduced in September, former President Joe Biden was represented with a photo of an autopen instead of a portrait, referencing the tool for signatures which Trump has falsely claimed invalidates some of the executive orders and pardons that his predecessor issued.

More recently, reporters noticed the addition of new plaques beneath the photos of Biden, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. Under Biden's photo, the new plaque reads "Sleepy Joe Biden was, by far, the worst President in American History. Taking office as a result of the most corrupt Election ever seen in the United States, Biden oversaw a series of unprecedented disasters that brought our Nation to the brink of destruction." It also added references to Trump's long-debunked claim that Biden's win in the 2020 election was the result of widespread voter fraud.

The new plaque for Obama refers to him as "divisive" and attacks him for the passage of the "Unaffordable Care Act" and joining the Paris Climate Accords. It also repeated Trump's unfounded claims that the Obama administration spied on his 2016 campaign and fabricated claims that it colluded with Russia. While less directly insulting, Clinton's plaque was given a new note about his wife, Hillary Clinton, losing the 2016 election to Trump.

During a Friday broadcast, Fox News anchor Brian Kilmeade said that he was not in favor of these changes and suggested that Trump's two plaques add bits of mockery to balance things out.“

No, I’m not for this at all,” Kilmeade said. “So they’ve got to mock President Trump or put something on his plaque... I am not for the autopen. If [Trump] is going to do it outdoors, just put the profiles up there. I am not for dispelling or saying anything bad. Plus, a lot of presidents that people think were bad, ended up being looked at as great. I don’t think it’s going to happen with Joe Biden. But I am not for the trolling."

One of Kilmeade's co-anchors, Jessica Tarlov, agreed with his sentiments, calling the new plaques "repulsive behavior."

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MAGA influencer publicly accuses Steve Bannon of being 'PR flack for Jeffrey Epstein'

Turning Point USA's annual "AmericaFest" is officially underway in Phoenix, Arizona, and the first night of speeches was rife with MAGA celebrities taking public jabs at each other.

In his Thursday night speech, podcaster Ben Shapiro of the far-right Daily Wire took direct aim at the conspiratorial faction of the Republican Party, mentioning several leading figures by name. Shapiro specifically took issue with right-wing figures who trafficked in the "dual loyalty" trope — which the American Jewish Committee has described as antisemitic as it suggests Jewish Americans are more loyal to Israel than to the United States — and specifically named former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon.

"When Steve Bannon, for example, accuses his foreign policy opponents of loyalty to a foreign country, he is not actually making an argument based in evidence," Shapiro said. "He is maligning people he disagrees with, which is indeed par for the course from a man who was once a PR flack for Jeffrey Epstein."

At that point, the crowd is heard murmuring uncomfortably, to which Shapiro responded: "Check the record."

Shapiro was likely referring to photos showing Bannon and Epstein together that were recently released by Democrats on the House Oversight Committee. Bannon was making a documentary about Epstein at the time the photos were taken, though the approximately 16 hours of footage remains sealed in a vault and has yet to be publicly released.

Shapiro's speech stirred up shocked reactions on social media. Politico and Rolling Stone contributor Laura Jedeed wrote on Bluesky: "Conservative cold war just went hot at AmFest. Shapiro just came for Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson, and Steve Bannon HARD, not sideways or with caveats but head-on and furious."

"On the first night of Turning Point’s big conference, Ben Shapiro is going scorched earth on Candace Owens and Nick Fuentes — and fellow AmericaFest speakers Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon and Megyn Kelly," Arizona Republic reporter Stephanie Murray tweeted.

Watch the clip of Shapiro's speech below:

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Jake Tapper slams Trump for 'flouting basic decency' — and calls out GOP's 'crickets'

CNN host Jake Tapper took several minutes out of his Thursday show to condemn President Donald Trump's behavior, and questioned his mental health. He also chided Republicans for remaining largely silent.

Tapper began his monologue by breaking down how the president spent much of his Wednesday address telling "lies" that had already been proven wrong repeatedly. But he later pivoted to asking his audience if they thought Trump would be delivering a "random primetime, pre-Christmas, rambling hype speech" if he thought he was "winning politically," and noted that many conservatives — like RedState founder Erick Erickson – were "underwhelmed."

"[Trump's] fans were not as enthusiastic about the speech," Tapper said. "They need an incentive to vote GOP and they didn't get it."

The CNN host argued that Trump's speech was far from the only concerning thing the president did this week, asserting that Trump's insult of acclaimed actor-director Rob Reiner after he and his wife Michele were murdered last weekend was also beyond the pale. Tapper lamented that Trump took a tragic event and "crassly made it about himself."

"Look, let's just call it as it is: That is not how a normal, mentally healthy person responds to news of a horrific tragedy," the CNN host said. "Trump's remarks on Reiner did draw a widespread bipartisan criticism, including from some of his biggest fans. But Trump still stood by his remarks later that day."

Tapper also acknowledged that Trump added plaques to his West Wing exhibit of past presidents, and that the plaques including insulting language about former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden. He likened the president's behavior toward Obama and Biden to the movie "Mean Girls," when Lindsay Lohan's character added photos of girls she hated to her "burn book."

"These insults were put on plaques and hung on the wall of the White House — as conservative commentator Guy Benson tweeted — 'petty and ridiculous.' Again, these are conservative, Trump-voting commentators," Tapper said. "This behavior is not normal. Not in a mayor, not in a governor, not in your boss, not in your mom or your dad or your friend."

"Never before in the history of our country have we had a president who acted this way," he continued. "The president has been flouting the hallmarks of basic decency. And while there have been a few of his supporters and a few members of his party — and some in the conservative media — willing to call him out on some of this, for the most part, let's be honest. It's been crickets. There appears to be no one in his White House or the Trump administration willing to say anything to him."

Watch the segment below:


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'How stupid he sounds': Trump official mocked after Fox host confronts him on 'hyperbole'

Even Fox News is skeptical of claims coming from President Donald Trump's administration, according to one recent exchange on the conservative network.

During a Thursday interview with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Fox host John Roberts pointed out that Trump's claim during his Wednesday night address that he had lowered prescription drug prices by up to 600 percent was "mathematically impossible."

"If you cut something by 100 percent, the cost goes down to zero. If you cut it by four [hundred], five or six hundred percent, the drug companies are actually paying you to take their products," Roberts said as Lutnick laughed. "So it raises the question, how much of last night's speech was hyperbole, and how much was fact?"

The commerce secretary pushed back, giving a hypothetical example of a drug that previously cost $100 dropping to $13, and saying that while that is an 87 percent drop, it could also be understood that the drug would have to increase in price "by 700 percent" in order to return to the old price.

"It all depends on how you look at it," Lutnick said. "Basically what he's saying — and we all know what he's saying — is we are hammering the price of drugs down."

Lutnick's explanation didn't go over well on social media. Journalist Greg Sargent of the New Republic observed that "Lutnick actually laughs at Trump's math here before quickly catching himself."

"I’m glad this is on record so Lutnick can look back at how STUPID he sounds," tweeted actor D.K. Uzoukwu.

"A middle school student should be kicked out of class for the ridiculous explanation," wrote management consultant Eric B. Lewis. "There is a literal war on education."

Tahra Hoops, who is the director of economic analysis at the Chamber of Progress, took issue with Lutnick saying "we all know what he's saying," countering "no we do not!"

"It is not normal for the president to fabricate, to hyperbolic percentages, the amount he would be able to bring down a specific price!" Hoops exclaimed.

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Republican ties himself in knots as CNN host grills him over controversial Trump policy

Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio) faced off against CNN's Brianna Keilar as he tried to spin President Donald Trump's claims, then tied himself in knots trying to defend the president's language he'd just said was incorrect.

Probed on the issues Thursday, Davidson was faced with the high costs of fuel, clothing, groceries, heating and electricity across the U.S. New inflation numbers out for November prompted economists to scratch their heads as they noticed that key data points were missing from the Bureau of Labor Statistics' report. Meanwhile, jobless numbers are up and manufacturing dipped, despite Trump's tariffs.

"So he trumpeted real wage increases in his speech last night," Keilar said about Trump's national address on Wednesday. "But we know that not all Americans are seeing them. Lower and middle-income wages, so, you know, most of America, they're not outpacing the increase in what people are paying for things. So, if their bank accounts say one thing and the president is saying another, who are they going to believe?"

Davidson conceded that people will likely believe their own experiences over Trump's claims. He cheered Vice President JD Vance instead, saying that he made it clear that the "top 10 percent of Americans are driving the economy," and it will trickle down.

"So, you know, this is coming," said Davidson. "You're going to see it. It's already been done, but you're going to see it in the year ahead."

Keilar pressed that Trump "promised" prices would "decrease quickly" when speaking on the campaign trail in 2024. She quoted the numbers showing that the opposite has been the case, pointing out that wages are not increasing more than inflation.

Davidson claimed that's why it was so important for them to pass the huge tax cuts to the wealthy, so it would trickle down. He then pivoted to blame former President Joe Biden for the Inflation Reduction Act, which he said increased demand for oil and gas while reducing production. He complained that they have a lot of solutions that have passed the House, but the Senate won't vote on.

Keilar then pressed him on Venezuela, saying that it appears the administration is trying to wage war against the country without congressional authorization.

Davidson said he's been assured there will be no war with Venezuela, and that he's received such assurances from Secretary of State Marco Rubio personally.

"He has said no less than 17 times in recent months that land strikes could be coming soon," Keilar said, quoting Trump.

"Yeah, well, I'm just telling you, the briefings we've got," Davidson responded.

Less than an hour later, Trump announced "it's been proven" that he doesn't have to ask Congress to approve strikes.

Keilar then questioned Davidson, noting his attack on the use of the word "blockade" regarding Venezuela.

"What people are calling a blockade is really more of — it's targeting sanctioned oil ships," Davidson said. "It's not like we're blocking all shipments going in and out of Venezuela."

"What do you mean by people? Do you mean Trump because he called it a blockade?" Keilar pressed.

The CNN host continued to ask Davidson whether the use of that word was "wrong," putting the Ohio Republican in the awkward position of whether to defend his own words or Trump's.

Watch the exchange below:

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'Did you say that?' MAGA senator grills Trump judicial nominee over bigoted statements

Talking Points Memo writer Kate Riga reports a loyal ally of President Donald Trump appears to be turning on one of the president’s judicial nominees.

“Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), usually a fairly reliable Republican foot soldier, grilled a Trump judicial nominee Wednesday about his bigoted preachings,” Riga wrote Wednesday.

Trump nominated attorney Justin Olson to be a U.S. district judge for the Southern District of Indiana. But Olsen has been active in anti-trans litigation, leading a case to have transgender female athletes stripped of their NCAA awards.

Kennedy appeared to take issue with statements Olson made about marriage rights.

“During that sermon you said that marriage was not intended for all people, including — and I’m gonna quote your words — ‘our handicapped friends or our persons with physical disabilities that might prevent the robust marriage that we’re called to.’ Did you say that?” Kennedy asked during the Senate Judiciary hearing.

Olson confirmed that he did, and Kennedy then asked whether he believes that “folks with handicaps and physical disabilities should not be able to marry?”

“No, senator — I was explaining the meaning of Christ’s words that some, to use Christ’s terms, are eunuchs by birth, and explaining that the meaning of that verse in the context of those who are called to singleness and that there are various reasons why individuals don’t get married …” Olson replied, before Kennedy cut him off: “Yeah, but what about folks who are handicapped or who have developmental disabilities?”

Riga said Olson insisted he was using an “illustration” of why some might choose not to marry, not that they “couldn’t or shouldn’t.” But Kennedy went on to pull quotes from Olson’s other public remarks, quoting a 2022 sermon in which Olson claimed “‘transgenderism, homosexuality, fornication, and all sorts of sexual perversions’ was a form of hypocrisy from ‘shame on the inside.’”

Olson claimed these were his religious views, that “as a judge sitting here today my obligation is to apply the rule of law.” But Kennedy replied: “I understand that but my obligation is to try to understand you, because this is a lifetime appointment.”

Kennedy then went on to cite Olsen’s claim that “Christian marriage provides that women have to be subservient to their husbands.”

“Those are not my words,” Olson said, saying he was quoting the Bible.

“You said them, do you believe them?” Kennedy asked.

“Senator, I believe every word of the Bible,” Olson said.

Read the Talking Points Memo article at this link.

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'Total fiction': CNN fact-checker demolishes 8 'wild exaggerations' in Trump's speech

President Donald Trump delivered a nationally televised address carried by all major networks, and repeated many claims that have already been widely debunked.

On Wednesday, CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale singled out eight of the president's most obvious lies in what he characterized as a "half-asleep kind of presidential speech." He began by breaking down Trump's claims about having "stopped" inflation, pointing out that inflation was still ongoing. He then said that Trump's claim of inheriting record-high inflation was false, and that at the time former President Joe Biden left office, inflation was at three percent, which is where it was in September (the most recent month of data available).

Third, Dale pivoted to Trump's claim about lowering drug prices "by 400 to 600 percent," and described the statement as "mathematically impossible."

"If you cut it by more than 100%, people would get paid to get their medications, which of course is not happening," Dale said.

Dale acknowledged that while Trump's claim of overseeing a decrease in the price of eggs was true, his claim that "everything else is falling rapidly" was not. He pointed out that when looking at grocery prices, "far more products have increased in price this term than have decreased."

The CNN fact-checker then asserted that Trump's claim of securing "$18 trillion in investment this year" was "total fiction" and a "wild exaggeration," telling Collins that "even the White House website uses a figure of $9.6 trillion" which is based on "vague promises" and "not-even-promises."

Sixth, Dale focused on Trump's claim of lowering gas prices to $1.99 per gallon, telling CNN viewers that the lowest state average is currently around $2.40 per gallon. And according to Gasbuddy, only an estimated 100 gas stations out of 150,000 nationwide have gas prices below $2 per gallon.

At one point in Trump's speech, the president said "an army of 25 million people invaded the country" under Biden's presidency. Dale said the number of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. is closer to 11 million, and that figure includes "millions of people who were rapidly expelled from the country."

Finally, Dale insisted that Trump "has not settled eight wars," and that Trump's list of conflicts he supposedly ended "includes various wars, various situations that were not even wars and some conflicts that have not actually been resolved."

"I could go on. I don't have time," Dale said.

Watch the segment below:


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Leaked Republican memo reveals GOP's strategy ahead of Epstein files release: CNN

CNN host Erin Burnett reports Republicans are already shaping up talking points to respond to the looming release of all remaining evidence pertaining to convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

“We've obtained a leaked Republican memo that has the talking points on the Epstein files that I guess they're supposed to use when they're talking about it,” Burnett said, adding that the memo makes clear “that Republicans are supposed to deflect attention away from any mentions of Trump and instead focus on Democrats’ handling of the Epstein probe.”

The memo, from “Oversight Committee Republican Staff” accuses Democrats of “beclowning themselves” by sensationalizing elements of the report indicating President Donald Trump’s close personal relationship with the convicted sex trafficker, and likely in a position to have knowledge of Epstein’s underage sex-trafficking ring.

Speaking with U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), who is the top Democrat on the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, Burnett pointed out that the memo instructs Republicans to “accuse oversight Democrats of misrepresenting witness testimony” and “selectively leaking cherry picked documents and manipulating emails and images to fabricate yet another politically motivated hoax.”

“I mean, these are incredibly serious things, congressman. I mean, yes, they're talking points, but they're saying that you manipulated emails and images. These are very serious accusations,” Burnett told Garcia.

“I wish the Republicans put [the] energy they put into trying to conceal and hide and cover up … that they put into demanding the president release all the files,” Garcia responded. “The reality is, the president could end this all tomorrow — tonight — by releasing every single file.”

“[T]hey have tried everything they can to stop or slow this investigation down. And it’s unfortunate that now they are trying to deflect from the president — who his own chief of staff said … he's in the files. So give me a break. Let's get to the truth. Let's release the files and do so immediately.”

Watch the segment below:

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'This is extortion': Social media erupts after Trump admits US may go to war for 'oil'

Social media piled on President Donald Trump’s admission that his mounting aggressive action against the nation of Venezuela is about mineral resources.

"Getting land, oil rights, whatever we had -- they took it away because we had a president that maybe wasn't watching,” Trump told reporters on Wednesday. “But they're not gonna do that. We want it back. They took our oil rights. We had a lot of oil there. They threw our companies out. And we want it back."

“This is extortion,” said actor Jon Cryer on Bluesky. “This is the president of the United States admitting he is extorting another country.”

Critics at the conservative National Review called Trump’s reasoning a “sprinkle [of] lots of crazy on top of legitimate allegations.”

“Presumably … the president is talking about the American oil companies that developed Venezuela’s rich oil resources until a series of Venezuelan regimes first nationalized the oil industry and eventually expropriated the property of American and other corporations,” wrote National Review Institute senior fellow Andrew McCarthy, who added that “U.S. oil companies were compensated” during the nationalization process.

Zak Taylor, a professor of public policy at Georgia Tech echoed Cryer’s sentiment, posting: “So this is just conquest? Nothing to do with gangs or drugs after all?”

“What corrupted version of the history of US-Latin American relations did Stephen Miller slip in front of Donald Trump?” demanded American University Assistant Professor David Ryan Miller.

National Security Reporter Zach Dorfman posted, however, that “This kind of statement would once be made inside the most rarified councils of state, some ultra-limited Special Group, wherein POTUS and his most trusted advisors would commit to never putting anything in writing yet some handwritten archival scrap excavated 50 years later would reveal the truth.”

Iraq veteran Alex Wright posted on Bluesky that “I thought we didn’t go to war over oil?”

MS NOW anchor Chris Hayes, like Wright, also noted Trump’s drastic turn from Republican policy, posting: “I guess I'll say, for someone of my age, it's wild to see a Republican president just come out and say we're going to wage war for oil.”

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'Answer the actual substance of the question': CNN host corners GOP rep in heated exchange

Former Department of Justice (DOJ) special counsel Jack Smith forcefully defended his criminal investigation of President Donald Trump in his Wednesday opening statement before Congress, though one Republican member of the House of Representatives was slow to answer questions about Smith's probe into lawmakers.

Committee member Rep. Ben Cline, (R-Va.) refused to answer questions regarding Smith’s investigation of members of Congress caught up in the investigation during a Wednesday interview with CNN host Boris Sanchez. Cline argued the special counsel and his team were spying on lawmakers by investigating conversations the president and his allies had with members of Congress at the time Trump’s was attempting to delay the certification of the Electoral College vote in Congress. Smith and his team collected phone numbers in the days of early January 2021.

“I believe that the copying, the taking of those numbers, the monitoring of those conversations was a violation not only of speech and debate clause, but also of the separation of powers. And so we do have issues with the methods in which Jack Smith underwent his investigation,” Cline said in the segment “We believe that he violated the norms and procedures of the department of justice, as well as potentially the laws in the Constitution of the United States.”

“But if days before that, you had the president of the United States … on tape suggesting to the Georgia secretary of state that he should ‘find him some 11,000 votes,’ you don't think there's sufficient cause for someone to investigate whether the president was doing that with sitting members of Congress?” Sanchez countered.

“Jack Smith is a political hack,” Cline said. “He was involved in the weaponization of the Department of Justice against the president and against members of Congress ... He has a history of failure and a history of politicization of his job. And he's a weasel.”

“I didn't hear you answer the actual substance of the question,” Sanchez said, interrupting.

Cline was equally adamant that he did not want Smith taking or answering question publicly, despite Trump calling for the hearing to be made public.

“Have you seen how the Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee operate? They don't focus on the facts. They focus on emotion and excitement, and whatever gets them attention from the media,” Cline said.

Smith maintains his team “developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that … Trump engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and to prevent the lawful transfer of power." He is giving his deposition behind closed doors before the House Judiciary Committee.

Watch the segment below:

- YouTube youtu.be

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Republican accuses Trump of going to war for 'oil and regime change' in fiery speech

U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) delivered sharp criticism of President Donald Trump’s policy of using military force to destroy vessels the U.S. Department of Defense believes are smuggling illicit drugs, including fentanyl, to the United States.

Critics have called the strikes illegal, murder, and war crimes. Earlier this week, President Trump signed an executive order designating illicit fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction.

“The framers understood a simple truth,” Congressman Massie said on the House floor on Wednesday. “To the extent that war-making power devolves to one person, liberty dissolves. If the president believes military action against Venezuela is justified and needed, he should make the case, and Congress should vote — before American lives and treasure are spent on regime change in South America.”

The U.S. Constitution vests the power to declare war in Congress.

“Let’s be honest about likely outcomes,” Massie continued, “Do we truly believe that Nicolás Maduro will be replaced by a modern-day George Washington? How did that work out? In Cuba, Libya, Iraq, or Syria?”

“Previous presidents told us to go to war over WMDs,” he said, referring to weapons of mass destruction, the alleged reason President George W. Bush took America to war against Iraq. “Weapons of mass destruction that did not exist.”

“Now, it’s the same playbook, except we’re told that drugs are the WMDs,” Massie explained.

“If it were about drugs, we’d bomb Mexico, or China, or Colombia. And the president would not have pardoned Juan Orlando Hernández,” he said, the former president of Honduras serving time in a U.S. prison after having been convicted of drug trafficking.

Massie also issued a warning: “This is about oil and regime change.”

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'Negative across the board': CNN data guru says Trump facing bleak midterm prospects

Can President Donald Trump break a pattern held by several of his predecessors — rebounding into a positive net approval rating by next year’s midterm elections?

It will be challenging but not impossible, says CNN forecaster Harry Enten, who noted that if he doesn’t, it could spell trouble for congressional Republicans on the November ballot.

“I would say the report card is negative,” Enten said on Wednesday. “It’s minus. It’s no good.”

Enten then shared a critical statistic.

“Every single day since March 12th, Trump has been in the red. Negative. That is days in row, 281. He has spent more time underwater than Jacques Cousteau, for goodness’ sake.”

“The bottom line is this, the American people don’t like what Trump’s doing, and they haven’t liked what Trump’s doing for a long period of time: 281 days,” he explained, noting that his net negatives are on “all the key issues.”

“He’s underwater across the board.”

“Immigration, a key issue for him: underwater by six points. Foreign policy, which has been one of his better issues, underwater by 14 points. Trade and tariffs, of course, this has been a key component of Trump’s presidency: underwater by 15 points.”

“The economy, the reason Trump got elected to a second term, underwater by 16 points, and the Epstein case — which I think will be talking a lot about going into the latter part of this week — underwater by 29 points. Negative, negative, negative, negative, negative,” he exclaimed.

Enten noted that there are still ten and a half months until the midterms.

“But if history is any guide, it’s not a good one for you, because take a look at your term two, negative net approval ratings at this point, when positive by the midterm, well, we have three examples: Richard Nixon, he was forced out of office, of course. He never went positive. George W. Bush, he never saw positive territory again. Barack Obama earlier this century, he did not go positive by the midterm.”

And now, “It’s just negative across the board for the president of the United States. He is, again, gonna have to break history. He has done it before, but he’s really gonna have to do it if he really wants to give his Republican Party much of a chance come the 2026 midterms, because if the numbers look like this and look like this, well, this will become another X.”

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FCC scrubs website of 'independent agency' claim after Trump chairman clashes with senators

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), established by Congress in 1934 as an independent agency to regulate a wide swath of communications, is not an independent agency, according to its Trump-appointed chairman, during a raucous debate on Capitol Hill.

The FCC has jurisdiction over radio, broadcast television, satellite, and cable communications, and oversees licensing of broadcasters, with some authority to revoke licenses for regulatory or technical violations.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly called for the licenses of outlets he has criticized to be revoked.

In a heated debate, U.S. Senator Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) challenged FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, a Project 2025 author, over the agency’s independence.

“Yes or no, please, yes or no?” Senator Luján asked Carr during a Commerce Committee oversight hearing on Wednesday. “Is the FCC an independent agency?”

When Carr immediately declared, “I think that…” Luján pulled him back.

“Yes or no, is all we need, sir. Yes or no, is it independent?” the New Mexico Democrat asked again.

“Well, there’s a test for this in the law, in the key portion of that test,” Carr replied.

“Yes or no, Brendan,” Luján again asked.

“So just so you know, Brendan,” the senator continued, “on your website, it just simply says, man, the FCC’s independent. This isn’t a trick question.”

“Okay, the FCC is not…” Carr began.

“Yes or no?”

After more back and forth, Carr ultimately declared, “the FCC is not an independent agency.”

The Bulwark reported that in 2021 Carr declared that the FCC is an independent agency.

The Bulwark’s Sam Stein reported early Wednesday afternoon, “FCC folks have been frantically scrubbing their website to remove reference to it being an ‘independent’ agency now that Carr this morning said it’s not.”

An archived version of the FCC’s website reads: “An independent U.S. government agency overseen by Congress, the Commission is the federal agency responsible for implementing and enforcing America’s communications law and regulations.”

That page now calls it a “U.S. government agency overseen by Congress.”

Axios’ media correspondent Sara Fischer on social media declared, “This is INSANE. I took this screenshot of the @FCC website at 11:52 a.m. ET where it explicitly states the FCC is an independent agency. 25 minutes later, it has been removed following Carr’s comments during this hearing!”

“This, combined with SCOTUS appearing poised to uphold POTUS firing of FTC commissioners,” Fischer added, “shows how effective Trump has been in diminishing the independence of federal agencies that are supposed to regulate the media/ad/tech industries.”

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Jack Smith testifies: 'Trump engaged in a criminal scheme'

Former special counsel Jack Smith spoke to the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday after many House Republicans made public allegations about him and his work investigating President Donald Trump.

In an effort to set the record straight, Smith said he would testify and answer questions before the committee, but only in a public hearing. Republican committee leaders refused to allow for this, instead holding the hearing behind closed doors.

New York Times reporter Glenn Thrush posted on X that Smith, in his opening statement, said, “The decision to bring charges against President Trump was mine, but the basis for those charges rests entirely with President Trump and his actions…”

“Our investigation developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and to prevent the lawful transfer of power," Smith continued.

Smith worked on two main cases. First, the allegations that Trump stole documents from the White House upon leaving office, including classified materials, and refused to return them. The second case involved investigating Trump for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

Smith told the members that he gathered “powerful evidence” for the classified documents case from Trump's Mar-a-Lago country club in Palm Beach, Florida. He also said that he uncovered evidence showing efforts to obstruct that investigation as well.

“I made my decisions in the investigation without regard to President Trump’s political association, activities, beliefs, or candidacy in the 2024 election,” Smith said, according to the AP. “We took actions based on what the facts and the law required — the very lesson I learned early in my career as a prosecutor.”

If asked whether he would “prosecute a former president based on the same facts today, I would do so regardless of whether the president was a Republican or Democrat," said Smith.

Trump told reporters at the White House, “I’d rather see him testify publicly. There’s no way he can answer the questions.”

According to CBS News reporter Scott MacFarlane, Smith also stated, "Exploiting that violence, [President] Trump [and] his associates tried to call Members of Congress in furtherance of their criminal scheme, urging them to further delay certification of the 2020 election. I didn’t choose those Members; President Trump did”

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'He betrayed you!' CNN analyst says Trump world still beholden to the elite

President Donald Trump's chief of staff Susie Wiles is still mitigating fallout after her profile in Vanity Fair. Speaking about it on CNN one commentator said that it's clear Wiles is trying to do damage control after she and the White House "betrayed" the MAGA base.

During a panel discussion Wednesday, Democratic strategist Julie Roginsky said "nothing is going well for" Trump this week.

"And the biggest issue here that I think is not going well for him is that Vanity Fair is the epitome of the coastal elites that he has been deriding for his movement for the last ten years. And if you're some MAGA person who believed in Donald Trump and thought that Donald Trump was standing up to the MAGA elites for you," she began telling Trump followers.

"What you realize after reading that article is that every single person in Donald Trump's inner orbit rushed to pose for Vanity Fair, rushed to talk to Vanity Fair, rushed to suck up to Vanity Fair the same people that host the Oscar parties, the same people that lunch at Michael's, the same people who have no time for your typical MAGA adherent," she continued.

Looking directly into the camera, Roginsky told Trump's followers, "He betrayed you, MAGA. Like — he betrayed you. Look at me. He only wants to get in with the same coastal elites that he derided. And you saw that when you saw all of these people posing for these flashy, wonderful, Oscar-worthy photographs like they were George Clooney and Amal Clooney. It's a joke."

Political commentator S.E. Cupp explained that for Wiles, every moment she and the team spends with a reporter is another chance for them to "step in it."

"We can remember this doesn't usually work out well, because every second you spend with a reporter is another opportunity," Cupp said, noting the more comfortable a subject becomes the more likely they are to let their ego fly free.

"It's hubris. It's feeling like I'm smarter and I can control this narrative, not in 11 interviews. You can't," Cupp said.

- YouTube www.youtube.com

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