Push Notification

Even after rattling off various positive measures of Donald Trump's health in various press conferences, White House physician Dr. Sean Conley has been adamant about not answering one of the most vital questions facing those exposed to Trump in recent days: When was the last time testing showed Trump was not carrying the pandemic virus that would send him to the hospital only a day after the White House admitted he was sick?

That's important, because it would allow those who came into contact with Trump during last Tuesday's presidential debate to know whether they spent 90 minutes in an enclosed space with a COVID-19 carrier shouting at them for most of that time—one of the precise scenarios that experts warn is most likely to result in pandemic spread.

It's also important because all evidence so far points to the White House knowing of Trump's illness at least as of Monday, before the debate. And it's important because the pattern of infections coming out of the White House do not appear to correlate with people who attended the Rose Garden celebration the previous weekend. They appear to more closely correlate with people known to have spent significant amounts of time in proximity to Donald Trump himself.

On Monday, we were treated to a rare sight at the White House: An outdoor press briefing in which Trump spoke at a podium alone, while all other speakers at the pandemic-related briefing used a podium set up on a separate platform well-distanced from Trump's own.

Tuesday's debate featured another unusual sight: Melania Trump alone, among the Trump family, followed debate venue rules and kept her mask on during the full event—only removing it when approaching Donald at his podium for the usual post-debate family visuals. But the Trump family arrived at the debate venue too late to be given COVID-19 tests at the venue, debate moderator Chris Wallace said afterward. "There was an honor system when it came to people that came into the hall from the two campaigns."

There are reasons to believe the White House is lying about the outbreak timeline, and it is absolutely certain that they are hiding key elements of that timeline, as White House doctor Conley did yet again on Monday. The first known illnesses from the White House outbreak are, for the most part, those immediately surrounding Trump himself.

• White House adviser Hope Hicks and assistant Nicholas Luna

• First lady Melania Trump

• Trump's debate prep team member Chris Christie and Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien

• White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany and two assistant press secretaries

But what of the multiple Rose Garden guests who tested positive after the Saturday celebration held for Amy Coney Barrett, including Sen. Thom Tillis, Sen. Mike Lee, pastor Greg Laurie, Notre Dame president John Jenkins, and Kellyanne Conway?

All of them were seen in close proximity to Trump in the Diplomatic Room of the White House, during an indoors reception for Barrett that featured a much smaller group of people. Infections during the Rose Garden event were not, as far as we know, spread evenly throughout the outside crowd. They have appeared predominantly among the most important guests, the ones allowed to sit and the first few rows—and who were invited inside for a more personal meet-and-greet hosted by Trump.

The evidence, then, is that Trump himself may have been the source of infection for most of the COVID-19 cases in his orbit. Whether he was or wasn't, the outbreak was in full swing as of Saturday, during the Diplomatic Room event.

The White House, however, is flatly refusing to tell the public, the Biden campaign, the debate staff and others Trump met with when Trump, who is allegedly as president tested daily or near-daily, was last known to be free of the virus. They either don't know—because they haven't been doing the testing—or they're hiding it because they have a reason to hide it. The White House has also announced that it will not be doing contact tracing of Rose Garden guests, nor will they allow the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention to launch that effort itself.

They are quite insistent on not finding out either the true extent of the White House outbreak, or revealing its origins.

It's reasonable to question whether the White House knew Trump was infected, or suspected it, at least as of Monday, when Trump's press event was set up to have the unusual dual-podium arrangement. It's reasonable to question whether the Trump campaign avoided testing at the venue not out of lateness, but because they did not want testing to be done. It's not just reasonable to assume Trump, a malevolent narcissist, would willingly expose others to his illness for momentary gain: It's proven, both from Trump's pointless but self-celebrating joyride around Walter Reed, unnecessarily putting Secret Service agents in an airtight container with him at the likely height of his own contagiousness, and his immediate removal of his mask upon returning to the White House.

There are very good reasons to suspect that the White House knew or believed Trump to be infected with COVID-19 before the debate with Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden took place, and that the White House covered up his infection to allow the debate to go forward. It is possible that, had Trump not become so physically ill two days afterward as to require public acknowledgement, then hospitalization, the White House intended to hide Trump's infection from the public completely.

This would be unconscionable behavior by itself, but exposing a rival presidential candidate to a deadly disease on purpose brings it past unconscionable and into the realm of the unthinkable. But here we are.

This is not an idle, fringe supposition. Senate Democratic leaders are themselves demanding that the White House explain their secrecy around Trump's initial diagnosis, accusing the White House (correctly) of "deliberately" hiding this information. The press is focusing in on this question as well. It is entirely within the realm of possibility that this White House would cover up a presidential illness even if it caused the possible death of others, and even if it exposed Trump's immediate campaign rival to the same disease. On the contrary, it is the most plausible theory we have as to why the White House is refusing to clarify the timeline of Trump's illness.

White House physician Dr. Sean Conley is explicitly hiding this information—and endangering lives. This is not tenable. If the press cannot scrape an answer from him, Vice President Biden's Secret Service detail might need to go question him directly.

WASHINGTON — Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-San Antonio, dropped out of his primary runoff Thursday, heeding calls from House Speaker Mike Johnson and other GOP members to end his reelection bid amid revelations that he had an affair with an aide who died by suicide.

“After deep reflection and with the support of my loving family, I have decided not to seek re-election while serving out the rest of this Congress with the same commitment I've always had to my district,” Gonzales said in a statement posted on social media. “Through the rest of my term, I will continue fighting for my constituents, for whom I am eternally grateful.”

The third-term congressman admitted the affair on Wednesday, the day after he finished second to challenger Brandon Herrera in the Republican primary for Texas’ 23rd Congressional District. Gonzales initially denied rumors of the affair, and resisted calls to drop out or resign after the San Antonio Express-News published a text in which the aide acknowledged the affair. Explicit texts between Gonzales and his then-aide came to light soon after, showing the congressman asking for a “sexy pic” and persisting despite her assertion he had gone “too far.”

The House Ethics Committee is investigating whether Gonzales “engaged in sexual misconduct towards an individual employed in his office” and “discriminated unfairly by dispensing special favors or privileges.”

Gonzales’ departure from the runoff means Herrera, a gun rights activist and YouTuber challenging the more moderate incumbent from his right, will be the Republican nominee in the sprawling border district. Herrera ran against Gonzales in 2024, forcing a runoff that he lost by less than 400 votes.

This time, Herrera went into the runoff in first place. While Gonzales received more early and absentee votes, according to unofficial returns, Herrera outperformed Gonzales on election day, suggesting that news of the scandal was resonating with voters.

A Navy veteran from San Antonio, Gonzales was first elected to the House in 2020 in a close race against now-San Antonio Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones. While a reliable conservative, Gonzales is regarded as the most moderate Republican member of the Texas delegation, having voted to certify the 2020 election, establish a January 6 Commission and codify federal recognition of same-sex and interracial marriage.

Gonzales also voted for a bipartisan gun safety bill in the wake of the 2022 school shooting in Uvalde, which he represents; that vote has been a flashpoint in each of the last two primaries, with Herrera criticizing the vote and vowing to take a hard line on preserving gun rights if elected.

He had been an outspoken voice in the Republican conference on border security and immigration, representing a significant swath of the border. He helped organize support for the successful push to impeach former Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas during the Biden administration.

But he has at times cautioned the Trump administration to keep its deportation focus on hardened criminals. In 2024, he referred to some of his fellow Republicans as “scumbags” and klansmen. And he’s sparred with some of the furthest-right members of the conference, including Rep. Chip Roy, R-Austin, over hardline immigration proposals.

Gonzales initially had the support of House GOP leadership in his reelection bid, as well as that of President Donald Trump, whose endorsement he did not have in 2024. But Johnson, R-Louisiana, and other high-ranking House Republicans, including National Republican Congressional Committee Chair Richard Hudson, called on Gonzales to withdraw from the runoff Thursday.

Trump has not weighed in on the 23rd District primary since news of the scandal broke. He congratulated Gonzales during a rally in Corpus Christi days before the primary — without specifying what he was congratulating him about — and omitted Gonzales when he reposted all of his endorsements in Texas’s congressional primaries that same day.

Numerous members of the Texas delegation had called on Gonzales to drop out of his race, including GOP Reps. Monica De La Cruz, Brandon Gill and Chip Roy. Neighboring Rep. Veronica Escobar, an El Paso Democrat, had called on Gonzales to resign.

But Gonzales has said he intends to stay in Congress, arguing that his vote is too important to the work of the Republican majority, and Trump’s agenda, to lose. Republicans currently maintain a 218-214 majority in the U.S. House, meaning they can only afford to lose one Republican on any given party-line vote with full attendance.

De La Cruz has also called on Gonzales to step down from his chairmanship role of the Congressional Hispanic Conference, of which they are both members.

The situation has a recent analogue in Texas political history. In 2022, then-Rep. Van Taylor, R-Plano, was headed to a runoff after finishing with 49% of the vote in his primary. But the next day, he withdrew from the race, admitting to an affair that had been revealed in Breitbart News the day before the primary. Second-place finisher Keith Self became the nominee and has represented the district since 2023.

Democrats have been eyeing the 23rd District, which is majority-Hispanic and voted for Trump by a 15-point margin in 2024, especially as the scandal around Gonzales has intensified. But they see an opportunity to pick up the seat regardless, as signs abound of Latino voters souring on Trump and the Republican Party after shifting dramatically to the right in 2024.

Herrera, backed by the hard-right House Freedom Caucus’ political arm, has a history of controversial behavior and edgy humor. In 2024, Jewish Insider reported that he had included Nazi imagery, songs and jokes on his YouTube channel. And the outlet also reported he was a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, which promotes Lost Cause ideology.

Herrera has said it is “obvious” he is not a neo-Nazi, while Gonzales has referred to him as a “known neo-Nazi.”

This article first appeared on The Texas Tribune.

President Donald Trump fired Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Thursday — and now his fellow Republicans exult at the idea that her alleged lover and aide, Corey Lewandowski, is on the way out along with her.

“The end of Corey Lewandowski’s reign represents a return to responsible and accountable governance,” an anonymous administration official told The Post. “The nation welcomes Senator [Markwayne] Mullin’s nomination.”

Another White House official said they believe Lewandowski will lose his job once Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Ok.) replaced him, explaining that they “don’t know who would want him.”

Lewandowski is rumored to have been in a long-term affair with Noem, including living with her and serving as a power behind the throne in the department. He controlled contract approval, made critical staffing decisions and was widely reputed to be vindictive and ruthless. Lewandowski himself says he does not know his future at the White House.

“I haven’t made that decision,” Lewandowski said when asked about his career plans.

Asked earlier this week about the alleged affair with Lewandowski, Noem did not outright deny it but said the question was offensive.

"Secretary Noem, at any time during your tenure…have you had sexual relations with Corey Lewandowski?" U.S. Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-CA) asked Noem.

Noem replied, "That is garbage and it is offensive that you have brought that up.”

Kamlager-Dove responded, "It is about your judgment and decision-making.”

Trump himself was allegedly aware of the affair, as he is reported to have “frequently” told people he saw Noem and Lewandowski drink from the same soda can.

"You can’t do that, it’s pretty obvious!” Trump remarked. “You can’t do that, everyone’s going to know!" Trump reportedly said.

He added, “That’s his go-to story. He says that frequently about them.”

The two have been rumored to be involved in an affair for years before joining the Trump administration. According to the Daily Mail, Noem “won the governorship in 2018 promising to uphold the wholesome family values that she said South Dakotans have ‘long embraced.’ Defending ‘traditional marriage’, which she defined as ‘a special, God-given union between one man and one woman’, was particularly important to her,” and “was the foundation for her beliefs, policy priorities and the ideals she lives by, said Noem, who has a son and two daughters with her husband Bryon who she married in 1992.”

According to NBC News, Noem was not fired for any one reason but due to a number of reasons.

"An administration official told NBC News that the president decided to fire Noem due to 'a culmination of her many unfortunate leadership failures including the fallout in Minnesota, the ad campaign, the allegations of infidelity, the mismanagement of her staff, and her constant feuding with the heads of other agencies, including CBP and ICE," NBC News reported.

President Donald Trump is a Republican and Colorado Governor Jared Polis is a Democrat, but it looks like Polis is bending to Trump’s pressure that Polis commute the sentence of an election denier — and members of both parties are furious at Polis

"Justice in Colorado and America needs to be applied evenly, you never know when you might need to depend on the rule of law," Polis wrote on the social platform X about the possibility of pardoning or commuting the sentence of former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters. "This is the context I am using as I consider cases like this that have sentencing disparities."

Polis argued in his post that Peters’ sentence is analogous to that of a former state lawmaker recently sentenced to probation and community service after being convicted of one of the same crimes. Yet as journalist Jordan Rubin pointed out at MS NOW, those two cases were very different in important ways.

“Jaquez Lewis was convicted of one count of attempting to influence a public servant and three counts of forgery,” Rubin wrote, explaining that Lewis forged letters to refute allegations she was mistreating her staff and expressed remorse. By contrast, Peters has never expressed remorse for much more serious crimes — per the state conviction, “While serving as the Clerk and Recorder of Mesa County, Ms. Peters deceived county employees to obtain credentials that allowed an unauthorized person to access Mesa County’s voting system after the 2020 election.” He added “even after her conviction, she reaffirmed her position that her conduct was justified by her conspiracy theories about the 2020 election.”

Judge Matthew Barrett, who sentenced Peters, said “this case was about your corrupt conduct and how no one is above the law.” He added, “I consider deterrence in sentencing that is both general and specific that the sentence I impose must deter Ms. Peters from engaging in similar conduct in the future, but it also must deter others generally from engaging in this type of conduct.”

Peters was convicted of three counts of attempting to influence a public servant and one count each of conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation, official misconduct, violation of duty and failing to comply with requirements of Colorado’s secretary of state. She allowed QAnon conspiracy theorists to access sensitive voter information in the hope to find evidence of voter fraud, which whenever produced.

“The suggestion that everyone convicted under the same statute should receive the same sentence overlooks why the legislature created a [sentencing] range in the first place: no two crimes and no two defendants are the same,” said Dan Rubinstein, the Republican prosecutor who worked to convict Peters. He added that modifying her sentence “would be a gross injustice to the affected citizens I represent.” In addition to being tried by a Republican prosecutor, Peters is in a county that Trump won by 28 percentage points.

Rubin himself wrote, “Still, as with another of Trump’s pardons for 2020 election–related crimes, the legally limp move sent a strong signal that the president supports the subversive behavior taken on his behalf and, as importantly, that he’ll continue to support such behavior in the future however he can.”

Sen. Michael Bennet, a Colorado Democrat, said on Thursday that he shares Rubin’s concern.

“Tina Peters knowingly broke the law, undermined our elections, and was rightfully convicted by a jury of her peers,” Bennet said. “At a moment like this, we can’t capitulate to a lawless Administration.”

By contrast Peters’ lawyer Peter Ticktin insists that “(Peters) has been made to stay in prison because people are afraid of what she would say.” He also described her as a “political prisoner.”

President Donald Trump’s White House is deflecting criticism from one of former President Bill Clinton’s top economic advisers, Dr. Robert J. Shapiro, regarding the comparative relationship that Trump and Clinton had with the late convicted child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

“Just as President Trump has said, he’s been totally exonerated on anything relating to Epstein,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson told AlterNet in a statement. “And by releasing thousands of pages of documents, cooperating with the House Oversight Committee’s subpoena request, signing the Epstein Files Transparency Act, and calling for more investigations into Epstein’s Democrat friends, President Trump has done more for Epstein’s victims than anyone before him.”

Jackson concluded, “Meanwhile, Democrats like Hakeem Jeffries and Stacey Plaskett have yet to explain why they were soliciting money and meetings from Epstein after he was a convicted sex offender.”

The statement was sent in response to AlterNet’s question about a quote by Shapiro. Speaking to AlterNet last week, the economist said that “no one believes that President Clinton was anything more than an acquaintance of Jeffrey Epstein, all before Epstein was convicted of prostitution with a young girl in 2008.”

He added, “President Clinton knew him in the same way many, many others did—as part of a large social network of wealthy acquaintances.” After pointing out that not even the Republicans asking Clinton questions suggested the two men were close friends or discussed young women, “as Epstein and President Trump did,” Shapiro added Trump was accused of “forcing himself sexually on a young teenager.”

”The hearing today is nothing more than political theater likely mounted to draw the public attention away from the tens or hundreds of thousands of instances in which President Trump is named in the Epstein files, even as the Justice Department has held back a reported 3 million pages from the files,” Shapiro concluded.

While the Trump team has tried to distract from the accusations against the president by making unfounded or exaggerated accusations against Democrats, the iPaper reported Friday that Dr. David Andersen, an associate professor of U.S. politics at Durham University, believed forcing Clinton to testify might boomerang against Trump.

“Having them forced to testify now sets a dangerous precedent for the future that is going to put Trump in jeopardy,” Andersen said.

He added, “If and when Democrats recapture the House, they will certainly use this as a precedent to compel Trump, Melania, and the rest of the Trump family to testify before them, particularly after Trump leaves office.”

Indeed, critics like conservative commentator William Kristol have argued that if the truth comes out about Trump, it will reveal that he and many of his close advisers are part of the “Epstein class.”

“Trump is saddened by any embarrassment to the royal family,” Kristol argued in February for The Bulwark about Trump’s response saying he was saddened by the then-recent arrest of former UK prince Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. “And there is no evidence the Trump administration has any interest in seeing justice done, or any intention of having the truth come out. We have an executive branch that is on the side of the Epstein class, not the Epstein survivors.”

President Donald Trump may say his recently-fired Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem “had numerous and spectacular results,” but a pro-Trump newspaper begs to differ.

“While Mr. Trump praised Ms. Noem’s ‘spectacular results,’ there’s no mistaking this move as anything other than a fed-up President cutting loose an aide who made herself into a serious liability,” wrote The Wall Street Journal’s Editorial Board. They praised Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) for asking Noem about spending $220 million on television advertisements that prominently featured her, asking whether Trump previously approved these commercials. Although Noem insisted Trump had approved, Kennedy later said he had spoken to Trump and “his recollection and her recollection are different.”

According to CNN political reporter Aaron Blake, Kennedy set a trap for the increasingly-unpopular Noem that the former South Dakota governor walked right into.

"John Kennedy was basically laying a bunch of traps around Noem and waiting for her to walk into one," Blake posted to X. "Judging by this report, it worked." Congressional reporter Benjamin S. Weiss argued in his own post that it “seems the questioning from Noem’s [Senate Judiciary Committee] hearing that most hurt her standing with the president came not from a Democrat but from a Republican.”

In addition to Kennedy’s questions about her expensive advertising campaign, Noem also faced tough queries about her alleged extramarital affair with aide Corey Lewandowski, which she denied, and border agents’ killings of protester Alex Pretti and civilian Renee Good. Noem defended the killings by describing them, inaccurately, as domestic terrorists.

“The empowering of border czar Tom Homan amid the Minneapolis mess was a good step for Mr. Trump, since Mr. Homan is a professional who talks about prioritizing public safety and conducting ‘targeted’ ICE enforcement against known illegal aliens in a humane fashion,” the Journal wrote. “If Mr. Mullin is confirmed by the Senate, he can help the President by following the Homan approach and explaining it consistently without the political melodrama.”

According to an exclusive NBC News report, “the president decided to fire Noem due to 'a culmination of her many unfortunate leadership failures including the fallout in Minnesota, the ad campaign, the allegations of infidelity, the mismanagement of her staff, and her constant feuding with the heads of other agencies, including CBP and ICE.” Despite this private frustration, Trump publicly lauded Noem’s tenure.

"The current Secretary, Kristi Noem, who has served us well, and has had numerous and spectacular results (especially on the Border!), will be moving to be Special Envoy for The Shield of the Americas, our new Security Initiative in the Western Hemisphere we are announcing on Saturday in Doral, Florida,” Trump posted on his social media platform, Truth Social. “I thank Kristi for her service at 'Homeland.'"

The rumor mill was spinning fast on Thursday as news reports from multiple outlets revealed President Donald Trump was considering firing Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. Within hours, he did, announcing the nomination of U.S. Senator Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) as her replacement.

Some critics pointed to Noem's damaging testimony before Congress this week, when she declared that President Trump had approved her spending $220 million in an ad campaign that, as one GOP senator said, boosted her name recognition. On Thursday, Trump told Reuters, "I never knew anything about it."

The Wall Street Journal reported that the "final straw for Trump was Noem’s combative hearing Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee. The president watched the testimony and was apoplectic about her performance, telling advisers that evening he would remove her from the job, according to people familiar with the matter."

But according to NBC News, Noem was not fired only because of her testimony.

"An administration official told NBC News that the president decided to fire Noem due to 'a culmination of her many unfortunate leadership failures including the fallout in Minnesota, the ad campaign, the allegations of infidelity, the mismanagement of her staff, and her constant feuding with the heads of other agencies, including CBP and ICE,'" the news outlet reported.

The allegations of infidelity were in full swing during her congressional testimony, as U.S. Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-CA) grilled the DHS chief.

"Secretary Noem, at any time during your tenure…have you had sexual relations with Corey Lewandowski?" the Congresswoman asked.

"That is garbage and it is offensive that you have brought that up," Noem responded..

"It is about your judgment and decision-making," Kamlager-Dove replied.

Lewandowski, according to Fox News, is also expected to exit DHS.

FOX: Corey Lewandowski expected to leave with Kristi Noem pic.twitter.com/jA4uzFxxNX
— Acyn (@Acyn) March 5, 2026

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) walked through all of the details that connect trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and Russian intelligence. Those connections also link President Donald Trump.

According to Whitehouse, the pathway goes through Ghislaine Maxwell's father, which the senator read from his MI6 file that Robert Maxwell was "a thoroughly bad character and almost certainly financed by Russia."

Whitehouse walked through all of the relationships that Epstein had with international assets, including Israeli and U.S. intelligence. Recently released files prompted Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk to announce they would do a wide-ranging investigation into Epstein's possible links to Russian intelligence.

One of those was Epstein's relationship with Oleg Deripaska, who also had a close relationship with Trump's campaign chairman Paul Manafort.

The Senator walked through a number of documents and emails in the Epstein files showing that Russian girls were part of his recruitment for the men that he sought to manipulate.

Whitehouse cited one communication from French model scout Jean-Luc Brunel to Epstein saying he found "a teacher" to help Epstein with his Russian. "She is 2 times 8 years old and not blond," he said.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. identified more than $1 billion in suspicious transactions that it flagged to the U.S. government. The big bank identified about 4,700 transactions, saying that "they were potentially related to reports of human trafficking involving Mr. Epstein," reported The New York Times.

It also mentioned Epstein’s wire transfers to Russian banks, even referencing “his relationships with two U.S. presidents.”

Epstein also maintained connections with Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), a close friend of Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner.

"After Epstein's arrest in 2019, officials also discovered that he held an expired Austrian passport from the 1980s with his picture and a false name, which listed his residence as Saudi Arabia," CBS News and the New York Times reported.

Whitehouse cited one ex-girlfriend who recalled Epstein telling her, "I collect people. I own people. I can damage people."

Virginia Giuffre wrote in her book that Epstein had a "huge library of videotapes and a room in his home where monitors displayed in real time surveillance footage from his properties."

"He explicitly talked about using me and what I'd been forced to do with certain men as a form of blackmail so these men would owe him favors," she wrote.

She also recalled one instance in which he walked through his mansion and pointed out where all of the pinhole-sized cameras were. Epstein boasted that they recorded everything.

Florida police found two small cameras in clocks in his Palm Beach home, Whitehouse said.

He also said that former prosecutor Alex Acosta was quoted as saying that Epstein "belonged to intelligence" and that the decision to let him off easy in 2008 was made "above his pay grade."

Epstein's mentor, Steven Hoffenberg, told The National Enquirer in an account published three years after his death, "Wherever Epstein was entertaining, he and Ghislaine were taping." The report was released in the summer of 2025, alleging that more than two dozen people connected to Epstein have died under mysterious circumstances.

The Enquirer said that Epstein was running a honey-trap, taping videos of sleazy VIPs with underage girls for blackmailing them.

The same assessment came from an intelligence source who spoke to the Daily Mail, saying the operation was "the world's largest honeytrap operation" run for the KGB. Epstein would "procure" young women for his associates and then film their interactions.

He added that Epstein was a liar and a criminal who would exaggerate his own power and influence.

"The Epstein files need to be viewed through that lens," said Whitehouse.

There are still many unanswered questions, he said, but there are many very powerful men who were "very mixed up with Epstein at various times, and Epstein was very mixed up with Russia."

He closed by blasting the Justice Department and its ongoing efforts to conceal connections between these powerful men and Epstein.

- YouTube www.youtube.com

President Donald Trump is currently warring with AI companies that refuse to do his bidding without question — and one of his former Big Tech pals, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, is apologizing to his own workers for his “opportunistic and sloppy” siding with Trump.

“OpenAI believes elected officials, not technology company executives, should ultimately determine the limits of how artificial intelligence can be used in national defense, Chief Executive Sam Altman said at an investor conference Thursday,” reported The Wall Street Journal. Adding that AI companies should “trust in the democratic process,” he advocated for AI CEOs to abide by the humanistic principles preferred by the general public. Despite this statement, both OpenAI and its rival AI company Anthropic had been fighting with the Defense Department about the ethical use of AI, and Altman recently finalized a deal with the Pentagon to use its models in classified settings.

“This process is messy,” Altman said. “This process has some deep flaws, but it is better than all other systems. If we start abandoning that process and our commitment to it because, you know, some people don’t like the person or people currently in charge, that is challenged no matter what. I think it’s bad for society no matter what.”

Acknowledging that the maneuver looked “opportunistic and sloppy,” especially given that Anthropic allowed the Pentagon to break their contract for ethical reasons, Altman added to his employees that “I feel terrible for subjecting you all to this.” Nevertheless, he insisted that the Defense Department had been “extremely understanding” about the need to prevent harmful uses of the technology, concluding that “I think one of the civil liberties of this country that’s most important is the government does not spy without, you know, warrants and good legal process on its own citizens. The definition of what that is going to mean needs to change with technology.”

The Wall Street Journal has criticized Trump for firing Anthropic, arguing last week that doing so was not in the public interest.

“President Trump on Friday banned Anthropic and its AI products from all government contracts, and the Communists must be cheering in Beijing,” wrote The Wall Street Journal’s Editorial Board. “The Administration is making what is a modest dispute over the military uses of AI into a self-destructive show of brute political force that will hurt the U.S. military and the rest of the government.”

Adding that Anthropic’s models are “cutting-edge” and agreeing with their demand that the models not be used for “mass domestic surveillance” or “fully autonomous weapons that strike without a human in the decision loop,” the Journal insisted that “Anthropic doesn’t lack for patriotism. The company says it has left revenue on the table by cutting off firms linked to the Chinese Communist Party. It’s no small matter that a technology company has been willing to help the U.S. military in combat, a change from a decade ago when most of Silicon Valley viewed Pentagon contracts as complicity in imperialism.”

Disclosure: AlterNet, alongside Raw Story and The Intercept, sued OpenAI in February 2024, alleging unauthorized use of their copyrighted journalism to train ChatGPT. The lawsuit claims OpenAI violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) by removing Copyright Management Information (CMI) from articles. The lawsuit seeks damages and an injunction against using their content.

President Donald Trump's announcement that Republican U.S. Senator Markwayne Mullin will become the new Secretary of Homeland Security — replacing embattled Kristi Noem — is drawing mockery.

CNN's Kaitlan Collins reported that "Trump loves watching Mullin on TV and often praises him, which was a factor in this decision."

Calling him "erratic" and "unstable," California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom slammed Mullin's nomination.

"Markwayne Mullin could not remember if we were at war THIS WEEK," he said. "His state has one of the highest crime rates in the country — with a murder rate 40% higher than California’s. He literally tried to fight union workers during a hearing and told them to 'shut your mouth.' And said 'I don’t want reality' at a Senate hearing about race."

The president may have another challenge ahead of him.

After dodging increasing calls for Noem's impeachment over her controversial congressional testimony on Wednesday, he wrote that Mullin will be the new DHS Secretary as of March 31. Politico's Kyle Cheney notes there are other factors at work.

According to Cheney, "it's not clear how Trump can simply announce this is effective on March 31. Mullin is not Senate-confirmed and not eligible to become acting secretary under laws governing cabinet-level vacancies."

If it's a matter of getting enough Democrats to support Mullin, Trump can already count on the Senator from Pennsylvania.

"As a member of the Homeland Security Committee + Ranking Member of Subcommittee on Border Security: I’m not sure how many fellow Democrats will vote to support our colleague @SenMullin as the next DHS Secretary, but I am AYE," Democratic Senator John Fetterman wrote.

Meanwhile, critics continued to express opposition to the decision to hand the reins of the more than $100 billion federal agency to Mullin.

"Firing Noem to hire Markwayne Mullin is the definition of going from bad to worse," declared Democratic strategist Max Burns.

Some pointed out that Mullin is the only current U.S. Senator to not hold a bachelor's degree.

Others noted that he is "the same guy who was hiding from MAGA rioters during the January 6th insurrection."

And some pointed to reports "showing him in violation of the STOCK Act."

The progressive social media account The Tennessee Holler called Mullin "one of the biggest Trump sycophants in Congress."

The Atlantic's Norman Ornstein added, "That Markwayne Mullin is the dumbest member of the Senate was a qualification for Trump to choose him to head DHS."

Image via Reuters

Joe Walsh, a former Republican congressman who said during the 2016 presidential election that he would “grab his musket” if Donald Trump lost to Hillary Clinton, is now so opposed to Trump’s policies he says “I feel like I grab my musket” and is “at war” all the way “from eight in the morning till eight or nine at night.”

In a Substack post shared on Thursday, Walsh recalled how in 2016 he tweeted “if Trump loses, I'm grabbing my musket.” Then he continued “every day, I feel like I grab my musket and I walk out to that battlefield out there. And from eight in the morning till eight or nine at night, I'm just at war.”

Walsh observed that this takes a toll on his health: “I'm not a kid. It's exhausting. I'm tired every night.” Yet after supporting both the far right Tea Party movement and the far right Trump presidency, both of which were “very divisive,” Walsh said that “part of me feels like this is my mission. I've got to, until I drop, I've got to do something about the divide in this country. So it's kind of a cause for me. And maybe it will kill me. It's tiring.”

Earlier this week, Walsh spoke with filmmaker Mark Vicente about his upcoming documentary about narcissism, “The Narcissist’s Playbook,” and used that opportunity to describe how Trump’s narcissistic traits encourage cult-like behavior in his followers.

“I often hear from people I engage with, in this case, Trump supporters, when they are able to see the truth and get out of that, so many of them, Mark, will ask me, ‘Joe, why the f—— didn't I see what was going on?’” Walsh recalled while speaking to Vicente. “How did I not see what he was doing?”

Vicente replied cult members can be eased out of their delusions if they are reminded of the positive things that drew them to the cult in the first place.

“You want to change the world and the person says, ‘You know I'm going to help you do that because that's my mission,’ and there's a surge in your chest because your whole life, if you're politically active or whatever, you care about the world, you want that,” Vicente said. “So you become enamored with somebody that's offering you back your values. You're so attached to that that you can't see what's really going on. And you explain away. You take all the red flags and you turn them pink.”

Earlier in February, Walsh applied this logic to his analysis of the Trump movement. Describing the president’s belligerent actions toward Denmark, Venezuela and Iran, Walsh said Trump supporters who backed him to end all wars are behaving like “a cult” for still standing by him.

“I thought you wanted him to end wars all over the world,” Walsh wrote on his Substack. “You said you wanted him to end American entanglement in conflicts and wars around the world. America shouldn’t be involved in these wars, you said. That’s why you’re voting for Trump, you said.”

He later added, “And you don’t like when people call you a cult, Trump voters? What else are people to think when you voted for Trump to get us the hell out of wars around the world, and instead he gets us involved in wars around the world and starts new wars, and you still sing his praises and support him? What are we to think, MAGA, but that you are a cult?”

Speaking to this journalist for Salon shortly before the 2020 presidential election, Yale psychiatrist Dr. Bandy X. Lee predicted he would reject the result if he lost to Joe Biden because of his narcissistic personality. Furthermore, Lee anticipated that Trump would encourage many of his supporters to join him precisely because of the cult-like hold he holds over them, such as described by Walsh.

“Those with pathological narcissism are abusive and dangerous because of their catastrophic neediness,” Lee said. “Think of a drowning person gasping for air: a survival instinct just may push you down in order to save one’s own life. In the manner that the body needs oxygen, the soul needs love, and self-love is what a toxic narcissist is desperately lacking. This is why he must overcompensate, creating for himself a self-image where he is the best at everything, never wrong, better than all the experts, and a ‘stable genius.'”

Lee then added, “Just as one once settled for adulation in lieu of love, one may settle for fear when adulation no longer seems attainable. Rage attacks are common, for people are bound to fall short of expectation for such a needy personality—and eventually everyone falls into this category. But when there is an all-encompassing loss, such as the loss of an election, it can trigger a rampage of destruction and reign of terror in revenge against an entire nation that has failed him.”

Indeed, just as Trump refused to accept the result of the 2020 presidential election when he lost, he has already said he will not accept the result of the 2026 midterm elections unless Republicans retain control of both chambers of Congress (which is exceptionally unlikely because incumbent parties usually do poorly during midterm elections).

“What do you call someone who is at war with our elections process?” Walsh asked on a podcast last month on the subject. “What do you call someone who tries to delegitimize America's elections? What do you call someone who tries to sow distrust in our elections? What do you call somebody who f—— with our elections?”

As conservative commentator George F. Will wrote for The Washington Post last month, Trump continues to push the lie that he won the 2020 election even though the matter has been thoroughly litigated and he decisively lost in court.

“Someone should read to him ‘Lost, Not Stolen,’ a 2022 report by eight conservatives (two former Republican senators, three former federal appellate judges, a former Republican solicitor general, and two Republican election law specialists),” Will wrote. “They examined all 187 counts in the 64 court challenges filed in multiple states by Trump and his supporters. Twenty cases were dismissed before hearings on their merits, 14 were voluntarily dismissed by Trump and his supporters before hearings. Of the 30 that reached hearings on the merits, Trump’s side prevailed in only one, Pennsylvania, involving far too few votes to change the state’s result.”

Will added, “Trump’s batting average? .016. In Arizona, the most exhaustively scrutinized state, a private firm selected by Trump’s advocates confirmed Trump’s loss, finding 99 additional Biden votes and 261 fewer Trump votes.” Therefore he wrote of Trump, “The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.”

In Texas' 2026 Democratic U.S. Senate primary, voters had a choice between a centrist — State Rep. James Talarico, a Presbyterian seminarian — and a liberal/progressive firebrand: Rep. Jasmine Crockett, who is quite popular on the left wing of her party. Lone Star Democrats went with Talarico, who will go up against either incumbent Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) or far-right Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton after Republicans choose their candidate.

Conservatives are taking Talarico seriously. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) believes that the state lawmaker is capable of winning in November if Cornyn isn't the GOP nominee. A Talarico victory in the general election would be a political bombshell, as Texas hasn't had a Democratic U.S. senator since 1993. MS NOW's Chris Jansing is reporting that President Donald Trump plans to endorse Cornyn, not Paxton.

In a Substack column published on March 5, liberal economist Paul Krugman emphasizes that if Democrats are going to start winning statewide races in Texas again, they will need a thorough understanding of the state's economic complexities. And he believes that the MAGA movement is vulnerable in the Lone Star State.

"Talarico, a virtual political nobody six months ago, appears to have a good chance of winning that contest," Krugman explains. "But why has Texas been such a Democratic disappointment for all these years? And what do those disappointments portend for Talarico? Let's begin by understanding that a state's politics often follow economics…. Texas' economic growth is a major reason Democrats perennially hope that they will someday turn the state blue. For in modern America, rich states tend to vote Democratic, while poor states vote Republican: Think Massachusetts versus Mississippi."

Krugman adds, "So as Texas grows richer and more sophisticated, won't it eventually free itself of rabid, backward-looking Republicanism?"

The economist's answer to that question is: not necessarily.

"My initial thought was that economic success might indeed cause Texas to flip politically," Krugman writes. "But the more I look at it, the less convincing I find that case. Why? Because Texas' economic story isn't what many people — including Republicans who boast about it — think it is. And that's an important point even aside from politics. Why has the economy of Texas grown more rapidly than the US economy as a whole? Conservatives like to attribute growth to low taxes. But the claim that low taxes lead to rapid economic growth has been more thoroughly tested in practice than any other proposition in economics, and has failed every time."

Krugman continues, "What Texas does do right, however, is let businesses build stuff, especially housing, in stark contrast with the regulations and multiple veto points that strangle construction in many blue states…. The same openness to building that has held the cost of Texas housing down has also helped the state become by far the nation's largest producer of wind energy. Don't tell Trump."

Krugman is skeptical about Texas becoming a full-fledged blue state anytime soon, but he believes it could evolve into a swing state if Democrats understand its economy and play their cards right.

"So the point here is that while Texas could be shifting towards the blue zone, it won't come easily," the former New York Times columnist argues. "It won’t be a simple matter of a state becoming more progressive as a result of economic progress. In other words, Texas is not about to become New Jersey, or even Colorado. But with the right Democratic candidates, who can straddle the divide between urban Democrats and non-urban Republicans, it could become Georgia. And maybe, just maybe, Texas could blaze the trail for Democrats in other deep red states."