Since the Epstein Files were released in January, people have been poring through its millions of documents in an attempt to uncover the truth about a rumored secret cabal. Much that was previously unknown has come to light, and some mysteries have only deepened, but one thing is clear: many of those in Epstein’s orbit were more connected — and up to shadier business — than anyone previously realized.

To that end, one recently unearthed FBI document contains the shocking allegations that Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner is “the real brains” behind the Trump organization and presidency.

The file — an FBI Confidential Human Source (CHS) Reporting Document — makes wide-ranging assertions about Jeffery Epstein, attorney Alan Dershowitz, Jared Kushner and his brother Josh, Trump, and others in his orbit. It claims Dershowitz was an agent of the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, and that he once said Epstein “belonged to both U.S. and allied intelligence services.” It tied Trump and the Kushners to a number of dubious real estate deals, asserted that the brothers were students of Dershowitz, and linked them all to Russian collusion efforts that connected directly to Russian President Vladimir Putin. It even threw Henry Kissinger into the mix, claiming that the former Secretary of State had introduced the Kushner family to the Chinese ambassador, who may have helped Jared Kushner navigate a sketchy billion-dollar real estate deal, in which suspicions were raised that he traded influence for a financial bailout from Qatar.

While all of this is intriguing, it is not the first suggestion that Epstein, Dershowitz, Trump, and their associates are possible intelligence assets for the U.S., Israeli, and Russian governments. But it does appear to be the first evidence of a previously unreported dynamic between Trump and Kushner.

According to the document, the “CHS advised that this was a real collusion story — Trump has been compromised by Israel, and Kushner is the real brains behind his organization and his Presidency.”

That is no small claim, as it would mean that Kushner — who the President has tasked with everything from brokering peace in the Middle East to reforming the criminal justice system to spearheading COVID response to solving the opioid crisis — is in fact manipulating the presidency from behind the scenes. The FBI source suggested that Kusher is part of a Russian-linked organization that is “doing everything they can to co-opt the Trump presidency.”

The document contains nothing to imply that Trump realizes the extent of his son-in-law’s influence over the presidency, but implies that Kushner wields inordinate power within the American government, which he uses to further his own financial gain.

According to the file, the source was blunt in its assessment, urging that “the FBI should investigate Kushner's family charities to find evidence of corruption and money laundering.”

On Thursday, October 9, Fox News and CNN reported that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem plans to air a video at Transportation Security Administration (TSA) checkpoints in U.S. airports blaming Democrats for the partial shutdown of the federal government — which is causing flight delays and long lines.

In the video that travelers will be seeing, Noem declares, "It is TSA's top priority to make sure that you have the most pleasant and efficient airport experience as possible while we keep you safe. However, Democrats in Congress refuse to fund the federal government, and because of this, many of our operations are impacted, and most of our TSA employees are working without pay."

CNN reporters Pete Muntean and Aaron Cooper note, "TSA checkpoints often include videos featuring government officials welcoming travelers and explanations of procedures, but they usually do not contain political messages."

The video is receiving a lot of reactions on X, formerly Twitter.

Photographer Thomas Keepout commented, "Illegal as hell but Trump Republicans don't care about illegal."

Self-described "Gen-X advocate" Mike Young tweeted, "Everyone feels the sting of this shutdown. TSA officers are scanning bags without pay. Border agents are standing post on fumes and frustration. Their refrigerators are empty while they keep the country running. That is sacrifice. That is service. But instead of fixing it, Secretary Noem floods airport screens with a scripted attack on Democrats, as if finger-pointing is what taxpayers hired her to do."

Young continued, "Let us be clear. Republicans control the House, the Senate, and the White House. That is not gridlock, that is a trifecta. When one party holds every lever and still chooses stalemate, it is not obstruction, it is strategy. Calling this a blue-state problem is not leadership, it is misdirection. Blaming the minority while holding the majority is not patriotism, it is propaganda."

Democratic X user Val H. posted, "Trump is president and is 100% responsible for the shutdown."

Another X user, Damien Arnold, remarked, "Too bad it doesn't work when the entire country knows who controls the government."

X user Sander Hazewinkel wrote, "Because the GOP tries to push a terrible bill through their throat without any compromise and the Democrats in their right minds can’t take responsibility for the ugliness! That's why, it's extremely poor governance by the GOP! And again the weaklings they are is blaming the DEMs."

U.S. President Donald Trump's schedule, on Tuesday afternoon, October 14, included a meeting with visiting Argentine President Javier Milei in the White House.

The Trump Administration is giving Argentina, whose currency, the peso argentino, has suffered major problems in recent years, a $20 million bailout.

The Associated Press (AP) reported, "Experts say Milei comes to the White House with two clear objectives. One is to negotiate U.S. tariff exemptions or reductions for Argentine products. The other is to see how the United States will implement a $20 billion currency swap line to prop up Argentina's peso and replenish its depleted foreign currency reserves ahead of crucial midterm elections later this month."

Here are five of the wildest moments from Trump's Tuesday afternoon at the White House.

1. Trump angrily attacked ABC News reporter.

When an ABC News reporter tried to ask Trump a question, he angrily responded, "After what you did with (George) Stephanopoulos to the vice president of the United States, I don't take questions from ABC Fake News."

Trump was referring Stephanopoulos' interview with Vice President JD Vance, which went downhill fast when Vance refused to directly answer a question about border Czar Tom Homan.

2. Trump chastised 'nasty' Stephanopoulos for Vance interview.

Trump went into detail about Stephanopoulos' interview with Vance, telling reporters, "JD had a very nasty person interviewing him, and we can't let that happen. It's just inappropriate to cut off a highly respected vice president of the United States, mid-sentence. I guess it's one way to win an argument."

3. Trump joked about visiting the beach in South America.

When a reporter asked Trump if he wanted to visit Argentina, he joked about his weight and responded, "My body is a little bit larger than [former President Joe Biden’s]. I'm not sure it would be appreciated on the beach."

4. Trump vowed to keep supporting Argentina.

When a reporter asked Trump for his message to Argentina, he responded, "We love them. We will be there for them."

5. Trump praised Argentina president as a 'very great leader.'

Trump has had volatile relations with some of the United States' allies, including Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (who he berated during one White House meeting but was much friendlier to during a subsequent one). Trump, however, didn't hesitate to praise Milei on October 14. When a reporter asked for his views on the right-wing Argentine president, he praised him as a "very great leader."

As more of the Epstein files are released, reminding us of President Donald Trump’s close association with Jeffrey Epstein and the young people he abused and trafficked, as well as the president’s ongoing array of misogynist insults and actions (like calling journalist Catherine Lucey “piggy” and name-calling Marjorie Taylor Greene to the point where she jumped ship), what keeps coming to my mind are the sexual exploits of authoritarians throughout history. As a scholar of the New Testament and the origins of Christianity, I have a special interest in the lives of the Roman emperors—in particular, the notorious Emperor Nero.

According to historians of antiquity (trigger warning here!), Emperor Nero was known to use and abuse many people, especially women, allegedly murdering two of his wives and his aunt while sleeping with a Vestal Virgin and—yes!—his mother before he killed her. Roman politicians and historians held back remarkably little when considering Nero’s excesses. Perhaps the most famous of those writers, Tacitus, shared how Nero “polluted himself by every lawful or lawless indulgence.” Cassius Dio, author of 80 volumes of Roman history, describes Nero skulking around Rome at night “insulting women,” “practicing lewdness on boys,” and “beating, wounding, and murdering” others. And Suetonius, the most famous biographer of the Caesars, claimed that Nero had invented a perversion all his own. At public games he was hosting, he would put on an animal skin and “assail with violence the private parts both of men and women, while they were bound to stakes.”

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While such vivid horrors may be particular to Nero (and his own sense of depravity), Donald Trump’s posture on gender and sexuality does all too grimly echo that of many powerful men throughout history, including those Roman emperors. His sense of comfort in objectifying and demeaning women, whether through his “p----” dig from the 2016 election or his comments about his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, who “likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side,” is definitely well-documented.

As Soraya Chemaly, feminist writer and author of All We Want Is Everything: How We Dismantle Male Supremacy, pointed out at Salon: “Right after the grab ‘em by the p---- tape, we should have [had accountability]… and that’s not what happened. And then after the more than two dozen women came forward with detailed stories that were similar, we should have seen it grind to a halt. But the fact is we don’t care about that kind of predation… we just don’t care. And that’s a function of sexualized violence as a tool of male supremacist oppression in the home, in the street, in politics.”

Sex and Authoritarianism

The behavior of Emperor Nero and President Trump may be reminiscent of each other (and, for that matter, of so many other kings and tyrants throughout history) because using and abusing sex by those in power has been a pillar of past authoritarian systems. Full stop.

Bring up the way sexual predators tend to act with impunity, and you don’t have to go far to find examples. In recent years in the US, there was the genesis of the #MeToo movement—the sexual harassment perpetrated by those in the entertainment industry, higher education, Supreme Court justices, and politicians. And such leaders have learned from the best of them. Scratch under the surface of any authoritarian ruler, in fact, and you’re likely to find cases of harassment and abuse.

Rather than condoning the actions of any tyrants, including the man who today is eager to be one in Washington, DC, the Bible talks about pulling them down from their thrones and lifting up the lowly.

For Rome, those in power dominated the people and nations they subjugated not just economically, militarily, and politically, but sexually, too. Rape and prostitution were central aspects of what it meant to be conquered by Rome. And just as that empire used sexuality (depicting in public art and monuments distinctly gendered conquered nations) to expand its control and territory, the Caesars themselves regulated the sexual behavior of those they had already conquered as a way to further consolidate power. They passed or upheld marriage laws, naming and regulating who could (and could not) marry whom in an effort to promote what they considered proper social order. Although Nero himself broke some of those laws (especially when he castrated someone enslaved to him and proceeded to marry that person, and when he dressed as a woman and married a freedman, violating laws against men marrying men and anyone marrying someone of lower status), it was clear that such laws were easily circumventable by those in power, even while still being fiercely enforced for Roman subjects. (Doesn’t such a double standard still hold true?)

Indeed, in the ways that an emphasis on morality and family values as an ideology helped establish and maintain the social climate and political and economic order of the Roman Empire (while those in power often acted so differently), there are uncanny parallels to the United States today.

Fiddling While America Burns

Sex and sexuality are important ways to understand both Nero’s and Trump’s uses and abuses of power, but the parallels (and the abuses) don’t stop there. Nero is infamous for burning Rome to make way for new building projects and blaming the fires on a marginalized population of his time (Christians) in what may be one of the earliest recorded forms of scapegoating. In Trump’s case, you hardly need look far to find poor and marginalized communities he’s scapegoating: immigrants, trans youth, the unhoused, and the list goes on (and on and on).

Back to Rome, though. Accounts tell us that, while the city burned, Nero sang. (From that, of course, came the phrase that classically describes people in power abdicating all responsibility for helping others in the midst of a crisis: “fiddling while Rome burns.”) While I haven’t heard of Donald Trump singing or playing an instrument recently, certainly destroying the East Wing of the White House to build a “presidential ballroom” while cutting tens of millions of people from food assistance could be considered a modern equivalent.

And a charge against that particularly corrupt emperor that has stood the test of time is that the reference to 666 (sometimes known as the devil or the anti-Christ) from the Book of Revelation is actually a code for Nero, indicating that in biblical lore he was a central adversary of the Jesus movement. Therefore, when President Trump or any of the Christian nationalists in power today try to liken themselves to the protagonists in biblical stories, we should stop in our tracks and remember that, if there are such parallels, it’s certainly between the Caesars and Trump, the emperors and tyrants of thousands of years ago and today’s all too rich and ever more authoritarian ruler.

After all, rather than condoning the actions of any tyrants, including the man who today is eager to be one in Washington, DC, the Bible talks about pulling them down from their thrones and lifting up the lowly. Have you seen the T-shirts at some of the Chicago immigrant-justice protests in recent weeks with quotes from Mary’s Magnificat, that hymn of praise from the gospel of Luke? They’re amazing! (And their quotes from sacred texts and traditions to call out the powerful and defend the immigrant, heal the sick, and feed the hungry are historically and contextually aligned with the arc of the Bible.)

What the Bible Says About Sexuality

Bishop William J. Barber II poses this powerful question about the use and abuse of religion in our day: “Why is it that some who call themselves Christians are so loud about things that the Bible says so little about and so quiet about the things the Bible says so much about like justice and kindness?” Indeed, Jesus and the Bible really had very little (in some cases nothing) to say about issues like same-sex marriage and abortion. It is a fact, however, that when there is a message in the Bible’s text about sex and sexuality or gender expression and moral values, that message is always about justice, inclusion, and love.

For instance, the Apostle Paul’s letters are often used these days to prop up homophobia and misogyny—messages like good Christians aren’t LGBTQIA or don’t enjoy sex or that people are all too often poor because they’ve had too many babies, or that they’re lazy or drug-addicted, and so are sinners. As it happens, though, what’s truly sinful, according to such Biblical passages, is not homosexuality, or being transgender, or having consensual sex, but greed and exploitation, the unholy alliance between the wealthy and those who make laws to deny people their rights. Yes, Paul’s letters are indeed among a few biblical texts often quoted to condemn abortion or deny the rights and bodily autonomy of people. So, consider it a distinct irony that, at the core of Paul’s writings aren’t the behaviors of the poor or women or LGBTQ people, but the vices of empire.

Indeed, if there is a biblical critique of sex and sexuality, it’s one to be levied against the wealthy and powerful, the Trumps and Epsteins of this world.

One Greek word the Apostle Paul is concerned with is sarkas, usually translated as “works of flesh.” Paul defines such fleshy “works,” however, as: sexual immorality, lewdness, idolatry, hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, envy, gluttony, and the like. At first, it may indeed sound like a list of personal behaviors and characteristics. But notice that idolatry, hatred, discord, and gluttony are not just individual behaviors, especially not those of the poor and powerless. Instead, they are acts of an unequal and exploitative world that actually uses and abuses the poor and marginalized.

Indeed, if there is a biblical critique of sex and sexuality, it’s one to be levied against the wealthy and powerful, the Trumps and Epsteins of this world, not teenagers and their families seeking gender-affirming care, women seeking abortions, or transgender people seeking a place in sports or the military. And it’s surely not a polemic with same-gender loving couples or poor trans love.

Trump’s Distorted Morality

Since taking office (and as part of what catapulted him into the White House in the first place), President Trump has been continually raising alarms about the supposed moral crises besetting this country and the need for a strong man to resolve them. In this, he’s been following in the path laid out by the Nero-like authoritarians and tyrants of history. He’s been issuing regular executive orders aimed at doing everything from banning transgender women in sports and transgender troops in the military to punishing the unhoused and immigrants, while cutting families in need off from lifesaving food.

And his executive actions are only the tip of the spear of a significantly larger legislative attempt to target and scapegoat others (while distracting attention from the Epstein files and other controversies surrounding him). This year, 1,012 anti-trans bills have been introduced in American legislative bodies at both the state and federal levels. Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” cut millions of dollars in food and healthcare, but included $45 billion to detain adult immigrants and their families, as well as an additional $32 billion for immigration agents to pursue enforcement and deportation policies.

Trump’s attacks on abortion, same-sex marriage, and trans youth in the name of family values and “morality,” his efforts to cut welfare, healthcare, wages, and other life-sustaining programs, and his emphasis on policing and militarizing communities (allowing guns to proliferate) while talking about peace and security, may be covered by Christian nationalism but they are not in any sense biblical.

After all, the Bible’s authors, living through the world of imperial Rome, agreed that there was a moral crisis occurring. People were losing their land, had turned away from the God of liberation and justice, and were generally complying with a system of subjugation and oppression. Meanwhile, the emperors were trampling on all too many of their hopes and values, including by sexually exploiting them. And none of that was to be tolerated.

There is a similar moral crisis occurring today, and Donald Trump is at its very heart. Jackson Katz, creator of the 2024 film The Man Card: 50 Years of Gender, Power, and the American Presidency, raises the ultimate “moral” question about Trump’s complicity in sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein’s abuses and what will come of his own sexual predations, then and now. He writes, “It’s still far from clear whether Trump ultimately will be held accountable for his actions—or inactions—over the course of his long friendship with the convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, our era’s most notorious and prolific sexual abuser of girls. Will this finally be the moment when Trump pays a real price for his misogyny?”

If we are to channel the Apostle Paul and the message of Jesus, time’s up. As the gospel tradition makes all too clear for Emperor Nero (aka the anti-Christ or Satan), President Trump, “Your kingdom must come down!”

After meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Anchorage, Alaska on Friday, August 15 and with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the White House Oval Office three days later, U.S. President Donald Trump talked foreign policy during a Tuesday morning, August 19 appearance on Fox News' "Fox & Friends."

Although Trump is suing Fox News/Fox Business owner Rupert Murdoch for defamation over a Wall Street Journal article, he still has a lot of cheerleaders at Fox News and Fox Business — including the hosts of "Fox & Friends."

Discussing the Ukraine/Russia War, Trump told the hosts, "If I can save 7,000 people a week from being killed, I think that's a pretty — I want to try and get to heaven if possible…. I'm hearing I'm not doing well. I hear I'm really at the bottom of the totem pole. If I can get to heaven, this will be one of the reasons."

READ MORE: 'Complete 180' and 'hot mic moment': Brutal CNN supercut reveals how Trump got played by Putin

Trump's comments are receiving a lot of discussion on X, formerly Twitter.

Retired attorney and self-described "Never Trumper" Barry Phillips tweeted, "I've heard the same thing: YOU’RE NOT DOING VERY WRLL, DONNY. You have a lot of repenting to do if you hope to get to heaven."

Business consultant DeSoto Wilson joked, "Shave off Trump's hair or remove his wig or whatever, and one might just discover the number 666 etched on his scalp."

U.S. Navy veteran Ron Markham posted, "Is it possible? Trump finally said something truthful!"

READ MORE: 'Texas Republicans have lost their damned minds': Outrage as GOP employs 'Jim Crow playbook'

Photojournalist Steve Rhodes commented, "Trump has cheated on all three of his wives which should make it difficult for him as well as @PeteHegseth & @RobertKennedyJr to get to heaven."

X user Michael Patrick wrote, "If he gets into heaven then I’ll know it’s not a real place. It's not, BTW. Unfortunately neither is Hell."

READ MORE: Buckle up: Former Trump attorney Alina Habba may be in office for awhile

Watch the video at this Daily Beast link (subscription required).

Video of the husband of a Republican U.S. senator rebuffing Vice President Kamala Harris' attempted congratulatory handshake during the lawmaker's swearing-in ceremony went viral Monday, with observers calling the move "classless" and "exactly what is wrong with American culture right now."

Bruce Fischer, husband of third-term GOP Sen. Deb Fischer of Nebraska, dodged Harris' outstretched hand during Friday's swearing-in at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., offering a mere nod and curt "thank you" in return after his wife took the oath of office.

"It's OK, I won't bite... don't worry," Harris said in response to Mr. Fischer's apparent reluctance to even stand close to her.

Liberals—and some Republicans—dragged Fischer's departure from decorum, which came just weeks before Harris and President Joe Biden leave office and Republican President-elect Donald Trump and J.D. Vance, his vice president, take the reins.

"Bruce Fischer is exactly what is wrong with American culture right now," filmmaker Princella D. Smith said on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. "We have put civility on the shelf."

The group Republicans Against Trump also took to X, calling Fischer's move "truly classless."

Former longtime CNN host Don Lemon called Fischer a "racist piece of s---" in a video posted on TikTok.

Liberal social media personality Xander Xjork Anderson called Fischer a "classless a--hole" adding, "Vice President Kamala Harris has more dignity and class than every MAGA Republican asshole combined."

"America really screwed up," Anderson added. "Enjoy Trump making America a laughingstock again."

Recently, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos used in in-vitro fertilization (IVF) have the same legal rights as living, breathing, flesh-and-blood children.

Concerned about the impact of the ruling, Alabama Republicans scrambled to pass a law giving legal immunity to IVF providers in the state.

The immediate problem was resolved, but the theocratic thinking behind the court decision is widely shared in conservative areas of the United States.

One in four states have fetal personhood laws. Oklahoma, Mississippi, South Carolina and Alabama incarcerate women who are found to have used illegal substances while pregnant.

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Roughly two-thirds of American women between the ages of 14 and 49 use birth control, but six Republican states — Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, Missouri, Tennessee and Wyoming — have laws that limit contraception.

The 15 states with the most restrictions on reproductive freedom all voted for Trump by double-digit margins in 2020, except for Texas, which has a ban on abortion after six weeks.

The rationalization for these laws is the belief that life begins at conception.

But federal-level Republican officials — most of whom are men — consistently prioritize forced births over opportunities for children outside the womb.

This is the case despite clear evidence that investment in children pays for itself.

This turn to cruelty began when Republican Ronald Reagan assumed the presidency in 1981. Armed with the simplistic slogans of a former ad man (“government is the problem, not the solution”), Reagan proposed steep cuts to social services in his first budget — in the midst of high unemployment and a grinding recession. He even precipitated a government shutdown in 1982 when Democrats wouldn’t go along with the cuts.

While sticking it to the poor, Reagan increased defense spending to unprecedented levels and brought the top tax rate down from 70 percent to 28 percent.

This template — fiscal austerity for the poor (poor children especially) alongside lavish, taxpayer-funded subsidies for defense contractors and the wealthy — has been standard Republican fare ever since.

Upon taking control of Congress in 1995, Republicans pushed big cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and other programs designed to help the poor and vulnerable. When President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, refused to sign the budget, Republicans shut down the government.

Republican President George W. Bush signed tax cuts in 2001 and 2003, which gave $570,000 windfalls to the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans, while the Republican house in 2003 voted for steep cuts to Medicaid, food stamps and other programs that help disadvantaged children.

In his 2014 budget, 69 percent of Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan’s proposed budget cuts targeted low-income Americans. His 2018 budget — drawn up when Republicans controlled the White House and both houses of Congress — took the same tack.

Decades of Republican indifference shows. A 2021 UNICEF study, for example, placed the U.S. 40th in the world in childcare policies, based on measures of paid parental leave, quality, affordability and access.

So much for “America First.”

Failing our children

Prodded by Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, the U.S. addressed this shortcoming with COVID-era funding, which lowered the child poverty by 40 percent — only to lose that progress when Senate Republicans (and Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin) blocked increased childcare funding during the 2021-2022 American Families Plan negotiations. (This move also torpedoed universal preschool, paid leave for parents with infants, and funding for low-wage childcare workers.)

House Republicans recently signed on to a bipartisan bill that reduces the child tax credit, but it has far less effect than Pelosi’s measures. There’s also no guarantee it will overcome a potential Republican filibuster in the Senate.

Lack of childcare assistance is just one of many ways in which America fails its children.

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Child poverty rates in the U.S. are twice those of Canada, higher than every Western European country except Spain, and two-to-six times higher than Scandinavian countries.

According to the Children’s Defense Fund, one in six American children under five years old lives in poverty, the highest ratio of any age bracket in the United States. Poverty rates for Black, Hispanic and Native American children are far higher.

Of the 11 million American children living in poverty, 5 percent have no healthcare coverage, with Texas leading the way at 11 percent.

Nine million American children struggle with hunger. The key federal programs serving this population are the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and the Women, Infants, and Children Program (WIC) — frequent targets of congressional Republicans.

According to the World Bank, the U.S. was 43rd in infant mortality rates in 2021 and didn’t make the top 50 in under-five mortality rates.

America’s broadscale ratings are the shame of the developed world.

The UN development report from 2022, described as “a summary measure of average achievement in key dimensions of human development,” ranked the U.S. at No. 20, behind Canada, Singapore, the U.K/Ireland and most of Western Europe.

America finished 35th in a 2020 World Bank study of the Human Capital Index, described as the measure of “the amount of human capital that a child born today can expect to acquire by age 18, given the risks of poor health and poor education that prevail in the country where she lives.”

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A 2020 UNICEF report card on well-being outcomes for children listed the U.S. as 32nd in mental health, 38th in physical health and 36th overall, placing us behind former Soviet satellite states such as Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Estonia and Romania.

With some of the worst results for children among advanced economies, one might think that America would consider investing in future generations.

If Democrats hold the Senate, the White House, and win the House back, President Joe Biden is highly likely to do just that with increases in Medicaid funding and eligibility, increases in prenatal care, early childhood education, WIC, SNAP and childcare subsidies for struggling families.

By contrast, child poverty appears nowhere in the “Agenda47” tab or the “Issues” tab on Donald Trump’s campaign website.

There is a page about fighting chronic childhood illnesses, but Trump has lately veered into the realm of vaccine skepticism.

Biden, meanwhile, has already funded children’s healthcare at high levels and nothing concrete is being proposed by Trump other than a commission — which is a common D.C. tactic to pay lip service to an issue.

Given this absence, the GOP’s history, and the 2025 House Republican Study Committee budget, if Trump wins the presidency and Republicans take control of Congress, it’s likely that funding for most (or all) of these programs will be on the chopping block.

Multiple emails (soliciting information about any GOP proposals to address child poverty in 2025) to Trump campaign spokesman Stephen Cheung, Trump’s press office, the Republican Study Committee and the Republican Senate policy committee went unanswered.

This ghosting is representative of the GOP’s neglect of our most vulnerable citizens for the past four decades.

The 2024 presidential election will determine if America tries to fulfill its moral obligation to coming generations, or becomes a deadbeat dad rolling the dice with our future.

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Dan Benbow has been an online political features writer since 2003. His work has appeared at Raw Story, the Miami Herald, the New York Daily News, Salon, Truthout and the Progressive. He is currently seeking representation for his first novel and can be reached at benbowauthor@gmail.comor followed @danbenbow on X.