donald trump

AG's 'dramatic u-turn' proves DOJ now fully owned by Trump: analyst

MS NOW producer Steve Benen argues Attorney General Pam Bondi’s reason for re-opening a case she personally closed could not be more obvious, or embarrassing.

“Maybe the attorney general wasn’t comfortable saying ‘I do whatever Trump tells me to do, regardless of merit’ during an on-camera press conference,” Benen said.

In July, Bondi’s very own Justice Department released a joint statement with the FBI declaring that after “an exhaustive review” of “investigative holdings relating to Jeffrey Epstein,” investigators had concluded the case closed. Based on all of the available information, Benen said the two departments agreed there was nothing to justify further inquiries into any of Epstein’s alleged connections or co-conspirators.

But last week, Benen said Bondi made “a dramatic U-turn,” reopening the case and tapping a federal prosecutor to continue the investigation that she had declared dead four months ago.

When asked by a reporter why she was rekindling the cold investigation Bondi replied, “Information. There’s information that’s new information, additional information.”

“As for what ‘information’ she was referring to, neither Bondi nor Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche would say,” Benen said.

“It’s certainly possible that the Justice Department’s and the FBI’s ‘exhaustive review’ missed important detail, which emerged four months later, but there’s a more logical explanation,” Benen said, and he cited President Donald Trump personally directing the Justice Department and the FBI to launch a new investigation into the case of the convicted sex offender and target it at Democrats.

“I will be asking A.G. Pam Bondi, and the Department of Justice, together with our great patriots at the FBI, to investigate Jeffrey Epstein’s involvement and relationship with Bill Clinton, Larry Summers, Reid Hoffman, J.P. Morgan, Chase, and many other people and institutions, to determine what was going on with them, and him,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

“Four hours later, Bondi did as she was told, discarding her own declarations from the summer,” said Benen.

“Thank you, Mr. President,” Bondi wrote in a post on X that included a screenshot of Trump’s request.

“The new line is that the series of events is merely coincidental. Sure, the president who has effectively taken control of the Justice Department barked a foolish order. And sure, his loyalist AG acted four hours later. But what really happened, according to Bondi, is that officials just happened to learn of new ‘information’ she wasn’t at liberty to share at the same time as Trump published a silly tweet telling the DOJ what to do,” Benen said.

Read the full MS NOW report at this link.

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'A bone saw happened': Morning Joe trashes Trump’s defense of Saudi prince

“Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough obliterated President Donald Trump’s Tuesday defense of Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

While meeting with the Saudi leader, Trump spoke with journalists in the Oval Office. And one reporter asked about the October 2018 murder of Washington Post contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi, who was killed by Salman’s henchmen at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey as his unsuspecting girlfriend waited outside.

The Turkish government had secretly bugged the consulate and Khashoggi's final moments were captured in audio recordings, transcripts of which were subsequently made public.

Despite the facts, Trump was dismissive of the assassination.

“A lot of people didn’t like that gentleman that you’re talking about,” Trump told the reporter. “Whether you like him or didn’t like him, things happen.” He then added that the crown prince “knew nothing about it,” contradicting U.S. intelligence.

Scarborough was infuriated by the soppy rationalization.

“Now get this, get this, get this: He's sitting next to a man who was responsible for the sawing up of a reporter, and then he calls an ABC news supporter, a reporter in subordinate. Think about that," Scarborough said.

“Morning Joe” co-host Jonathan Lemire was similarly horrified.

“There was a time when the American president, whoever it was, no matter which party, would try to be an example for the rest of the world in terms of human rights, in terms of freedom of the press. And that is something that this president has never been interested in doing,” Lemire said. “He's cozying up to power authoritarians and the like. And yesterday, his response to that ABC reporter was, as noted, ‘things happen.’ A bone saw happened. That's what happened to Jamal Khashoggi. He was chopped up with a bone saw with at least the knowledge and perhaps at the instruction of the crown prince of Saudi Arabia. [Trump] then went went on to say, there's ‘some people who didn't like Jamal Khashoggi,’ suggesting that maybe he had it coming, that some people disagreed with him.”

“And then to set him at another opulent state dinner last night, described as the glitziest event that he has thrown for any leader so far this year, the most lavish event the White House has held so far this year. [And all] in the honor of, of MBSm” Lemire continued. “… [A]gain, this president is using a moment with the eyes of the world on him to turn away from what would be considered traditional values of the office.”

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CNN host rolls the tape on Trump’s decade-long failure to fix healthcare

CNN anchor Dana Bash found it interesting that Republicans have managed to evade devising a replacement for The Affordable Health Care Act (Obamacare) since President Obama signed the plan into existence in 2010.

“It's kind of amazing that we're still talking about Obamacare. And it is also amazing that Republicans still — even though they don't like it — don’t have an alternative. We're going to go to break. But before we do, I want to go in the CNN inside politics wayback machine. Ten years ago, it is the Republican primary, one of the Republican primary debates. I'm asking then candidate Donald Trump (for his first term run] about his health care plan.”

“Will you talk a little bit more about your plan [for replacing Obamacare]?” Bash asked candidate Trump in the old footage.

“There’s going to be many different plans, because there's going to be competition,” Trump answered.

“Can you get into anything specific?” Bash pressed.

“There's going to be competition. There is going to be competition among all of the states and the insurance companies,” Trump repeated. “They're going to have many, many different plans.”

Unconvinced, Bash asked Trump if “there anything else you would like to add to that?”

“No, there's nothing to add. What's to add?” Trump asked impatiently.

“He's not alone,” Bash told the CNN panel after ending the clip. “Republicans have not come up with an alternative for Obamacare in, what, 15 years? So that is part of the story here.”

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'Have I sold my soul to the devil?' Fox News employees' dread revealed in survey

Legal filings resulting of a defamation lawsuit reveal Fox News employees were wringing their hands over their company’s fawning support of President Donald Trump and the Republican Party.

The Guardian collected employees’ statements from a 771-page filing released last week, made public as part of a defamation lawsuit filed against the network by voting technology company Smartmatic. The comments came from an anonymous internal survey of 1,040 employees conducted between August 2020 and early September 2020.

According to the Guardian, one employee said Fox should “change the misogynist, racist, rightwing content”, adding: “Fox News is a propaganda machine for the Republican party NOT a news organization and should be acknowledged as such. It is embarrassing to tell people that I work here as even conservatives know [Fox News Channel] and [Fox Business Network] are biased information sources — not news.”

Other employees complained the news content at the company is “hateful and has made the world a more divided and angry place.”

“I sometimes go home fighting back tears,” another employee said. “This network made me question my morals. Have I sold my soul to the devil?”

Still another employee pointed out that the network should “get out of Trump’s pocket” and realize that its most prominent hosts, Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity, “are a total embarrassment, peddling BS and conspiracy theories.”

“Many days I feel like I am part of the problem and FNC is contributing to hatred in this country,” the anonymous contributor added.

The complaints of rampant bias continued with another employee ranting: “This company aligns itself with the current administration and has lost its integrity.”

A different survey respondent complained, “I wish there was purpose for what we do other than pushing the brand, ideology and political will of [the president].”

Other employees wished management would crack down on “conspiracy theories and hateful rhetoric” spewed by opinion hosts like hosts like Jeanine Pirro and Lou Dobbs, while one asked management for “a commitment from opinion hosts/producers to only tell viewers the truth, and to bolster their arguments with hard, proven facts given in full context, rather than spin or reckless conjecture that causes harm to real people.”

Smartmatic’s lawsuit against Fox claims Fox “lied and knowingly spread falsehoods about Smartmatic’s role in the 2020 U.S. presidential election.” The company told Guardian reporters that it believes the employee criticisms provide evidence that Fox executives were on notice of internal concerns about what the network was airing. The company has also argued that Fox’s board of directors failed to act on the results of the survey, which it said provided a “stark warning” about the network’s programming.

Newsmax has already settled a similar defamation suit with Smartmatic over the 2020 election.

Read the full Guardian report at this link.

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'So disingenuous': CNN panel pounces GOP strategist's denial of Trump's history

CNN’s “Table for Five” panel pressed Republican strategist Scott Jennings to admit President Donald Trump’s contribution to a decade’s worth of inflammatory rhetoric.

“I'm pretty tired of conservatives gaslighting about the current political environment and Donald Trump's rhetoric when all of this escalation can be traced back to his entrance into American politics,” said Meidas Touch Gen Z writer Adam Mockler. “His claim to fame was saying that Obama wasn't born in America. He was the first presidential candidate to have his crowd chant, ‘lock her up’ about a political opponent. … I've spent all of my formative years throughout high school, throughout college, looking to the president — who I'm supposed to be able to look up to — and seeing somebody who's trying to place blame on the left, who's ramping up the rhetoric constantly.”

“Trump first ran ten years ago. And you’re connecting that to a guy, ten years later, shooting up an ICE facility? Can't you just take responsibility for it on the left?” Scott said, also referencing the assassination of MAGA influencer Charlie Kirk and left-leaning protests against Israel genocide in Palestine. “The left has radicalized to the point of saying, ‘we're done talking, and we're going to start shooting.’”

“I said Donald Trump created this environment over the past decade. You sit here and say, ‘I need to take responsibility.’ I'm a 22-year-old YouTuber. You hold me to a higher standard than the president vomiting vitriol out of his mouth about how the other party is weak and evil.” Mockler said. “He just [called us], the party of hate, evil and Satan. You blind yourself to that, and you're focusing on a 22-year-old YouTuber.”

“There is no evidence whatsoever that the Democrats want to cool anything off since Charlie,” Jennings argued. “They don't vote that way. They don't talk that way. We have people tweeting out here that ‘we're going to deport the CEO of Sinclair [Broadcast Group]’ and ‘we're going to put Elon Musk in prison.’ It is honestly wild out there on the left.”

“Scott, that is so disingenuous,” said CNN commentator Alyssa Farah Griffin. “I have received threats from the right and from the left. The president of the United States would do well to echo [Charlie Kirl’s widow] Erika Kirk, who showed a message of grace and of unity in a moment that called for it. You know that [Mockler’s] generation has never even seen normal politics [thanks to Trump].”

- YouTube youtu.be

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'Quackery': Critic blasts Republicans for now ‘picking winners and losers’ among companies

Washington Monthly writer Bill Scher said conservatives used to despise Democrats when they “picked winners and losers.” But now their U.S. president is doing it.

“Taking Tylenol is not good. I’ll say it,” President Donald Trump announced at a Monday press conference (perhaps unwittingly courting a lawsuit), according to Scher. “Don’t take Tylenol.”

“When Democrats made arguments for environmental or health regulations based on rigorous science, Republicans went to enormous lengths to challenge the science and resist government action,” said Scher. “But now we’re living in the upside-down. Republicans apparently believe that the President of the United States and the Secretary of Health and Human Services should use the power of their offices to kneecap individual companies based on science that’s half-baked at best.”

“Republicans have filed for divorce with the free market, in favor of a threesome with authoritarianism and quackery,” said Scher, citing President Donald Trump directing the federal government to “tar” Tylenol as the cause of autism and initially driving Tylenol’s stock price to a record low.

And he’s doing it because he appears to believe "the survival of his MAGA coalition requires accommodating all of America’s strains of conspiracy theorists, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr.," Scher said. Trump also loves declaring he’s done something, even if that means pretending to declare victory over autism.

Trump and Kennedy’s Department of Health and Human Services are seizing upon a recent scientific review into the effects of acetaminophen use by pregnant women, where slightly more than half of the studies reviewed showed a connection between acetaminophen use and risk of autism in offspring.

But the lead researcher told The Washington Post that “acetaminophen is associated with a higher risk, but not causing it. Those are very different things.” Sanjay Gupta, CNN Chief Medical Correspondent, told CNN on Tuesday that Tylenol usage during pregnancy has actually gone down over the last few decades, while autism rates have gone up.

“Far more study is needed to prove causation, but waiting doesn’t serve Trump’s ribbon-cutting impulses,” Scher said.

“Republicans of the past — the very recent past — routinely slammed Democrats for ‘picking winners and losers’ when pursuing government subsidies, tax incentives, or regulations designed to promote renewable energy,” said Scher. “But Democrats were driven by an overwhelming scientific consensus that the world needs to slash carbon emissions, and government action was needed so low-carbon and zero-carbon energy sources could compete with long-standing (and often, government-supported) fossil fuel industries.”

Scher said if Republicans truly want to adhere to their principles they would also have to apply them to the health care industry, including when a Republican controls the White House.

“If there are any principled conservative Republicans left, here’s your chance to prove it,” wrote Scher.

Read the Washington Monthly report at this link.

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'Paralyzed': Here's how Trump is so effective against a 'weakened' Hollywood

Journalist Gabriel Sherman, who wrote the film “The Apprentice,” tells the New York Times that the Hollywood entertainment industry may be too weak to battle an autocrat willing to use the levers of government against it.

“Hollywood is no longer protected by its glamour and profit margins,” said Sherman. “It’s still reeling from the collapse of traditional business models — box office, cable fees, advertising — and the aftereffects of pandemic shutdowns and writer and actor strikes. Entertainment companies, up against tech behemoths with endless resources and an algorithmic sensibility, are desperate to consolidate. They have shed tens of thousands of jobs under pressure to make money-losing streaming businesses profitable. And that’s before A.I. makes these upheavals seem quaint. In this weakened state, the entertainment industry simply can’t afford to fight.”

These are no longer the days of powerful organizations with imperious public relations departments, said Sherman, who watched his well-reviewed “The Apprentice” project fall off the radar after Trump campaign spokesman, Steven Cheung, called it “malicious defamation” and Trump threatened to sue the producers and any company that released it.

“Going into the festival, my producers had lined up screenings with every major studio and streamer. There was tremendous interest from buyers. When Mr. Trump’s campaign attacked the film, the radio went silent,” said Sherman. “Every major Hollywood studio and streamer passed.”

Eventually, independent distributor Briarcliff Entertainment bought the film, which went on to receive two Oscar nominations. But Sherman said Trump’s pressure campaigns are delivering their intended effect.

“Hollywood is paralyzed creatively. In meetings, studio executives say they don’t want projects that are political or could be perceived as anti-Trump. They seem genuinely afraid of an audience that they no longer understand and that may not share their progressive values,” said Sherman. “… The decision by Disney, ABC’s owner, to pull the late-night host Jimmy Kimmel off the air ‘indefinitely’ for comments he made after Charlie Kirk’s assassination feels like a dark turn.”

Before Kimmel, Sherman said CBS’s owner, Paramount, settled Trump’s “bogus lawsuit” against “60 Minutes” and canceled Stephen Colbert. And Trump is now demanding NBC drop late-night hosts Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers.

Will Hollywood draw a line? Sherman is skeptical.

“One talent manager texted me that Mr. Kimmel’s ouster could be when Hollywood is finally galvanized to push back,” recalled Sherman, “The manager then cited Hollywood’s “truth to power” fils, like “All the President’s Men,” “Good Night, and Good Luck,” and “Spotlight.”

But those films were released during a time of healthy box office sales in a culture that hadn’t gone fully berserk with social media, Sherman warned.

“Today’s Hollywood faces a bleaker reality,” he said. “We all do.”

Read the New York Times report at this link.

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'Hard to overstate' how 'shaken' Trump is after Kirk murder and 'threats on his life': Haberman

Mediaite reports the assassination of MAGA influencer Charlie Kirk appears to have President Donald Trump worrying about his own life.

Responding to a question about "the thing" taking up "headspace" at the White House, "CNN commentator and New York Times White House correspondent Maggie Haberman told CNN host Kasie Hunt that Trump was “shaken” by the Kirk killing, and fearing for his safety.

“... I think if you had asked that question a couple of weeks ago, the Epstein story would have been it,” Haberman said on Wednesday’s edition of CNN’s “The Arena.” “Right now, it is the concerns about threats to the life — the lives of people around the president. And the president’s own, you know, two assassination attempts on his life, one of which was a near miss last year.”

Haberman went on to describe Trump’s willingness to engage in “crackdowns” on left-leaning organizations in the aftermath of Kirk’s murder. Trump and other administration officials, including Vice President JD Vance, are claiming left-leaning groups are inciting violence. The Hill reports administration officials have namedropped George Soros’ Open Society Foundations, Tides Foundation and the Ford Foundation as threats, despite the absence of evidence.

“He has insisted that political violence is only initiated by the political left, as opposed to against it. That’s just not true, in terms of attacks on the left and we, you know, we saw that with the Democratic lawmakers in Minnesota, for instance, we saw that with Nancy Pelosi’s husband,” Haberman said. “But he has made clear that he’s not accepting that, and he is moving forward.”

However, even as Trump vows retaliation against organizations with flimsy evidence and threatens to litigate “antifa” — which has no leadership or government body — Trump himself is rattled.

“It is really hard to overstate how shaken the White House and the president was and were by Charlie Kirk’s assassination,” Haerman said. “A lot of people in the White House were very close to Charlie Kirk, or knew him or admired him, and President Trump was also close to him, but also sees this in terms of the threats on his life. And so, I think that’s what you’re seeing is a primary driver right now.”

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'Don’t fool yourself': Ex-Memphis commissioner unveils 'tacit' motivation behind Trump’s TN troops

President Donald Trump recently confirmed that he changed his mind on sending troops to Chicago and is instead sending them to Memphis. And former Memphis Board of Commissioner Mike Carpenter Tells USA Today that it’s all a show.

Carpenter said the maneuver lets Trump “tacitly” support the gubernatorial campaign of U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn without officially endorsing her over another Trump loyalist, U.S. Rep. John Rose.

Trump was already having a hard time choosing between them, with USA TODAY Washington correspondent Joey Garrison tweeting: “President Trump says he hasn't decided who he will endorse between @MarshaBlackburn and @JohnRoseforTN in the TN governor's race. Trump says both are “‘fantastic.’”

Garrison also reported Trump adding: “I'll probably be forced to do it. I wish I didn't have to do it. But you know, I'll probably be forced to do it.”

“A National Guard presence at Blackburn’s behest will be shouted from the rooftops in heavy-GOP primary voting enclaves in the state," Carpenter said. "The action allows Trump to markedly assist the front-running Blackburn while officially claiming to remain neutral – for now."

Carpenter also said Trump prefers easy victories with minimal work, and moving troops into Memphis is easier than putting them in blue cities with Democratic governors. California’s Gavin Newsome and Illinois JB Pritzker pushed back too hard at Trump’s troops for his comfort. But Tennessee’s Republican Gov. Bill Lee is a Trump ally, and Memphis mayor Paul Young is in no position to fight, Carpenter said.

But “don’t fool yourself into believing it is about safer communities,” said Carpenter, pointing out that crime is down in Memphis, with the local police department having announced rate reaching a 25-year low. Mayor Young has been touting weekly reductions in crime, backed up by the city's Safer Communities database, for more than a year.

“It allows the president to declare victory when crime continues to fall,” Carpenter said. “Trump has already taken credit, claiming the declines are the result of additional FBI and other federal resources he dispatched to the city."

“Just as with every decision made by this administration, the purpose is not in the policy, but in the politics,” he added.

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'Last thing' we need: Inside this Trump ally's quest to build a new right-wing media empire

The New York Times reports Larry Ellison is already a major stakeholder in CBS and Paramount, but now he’s angling for the massive empire of CNN and HBO, as well as a major share of TikTok.

“If all goes as anticipated, this tech billionaire, already one of the richest men in the world and a founder of Oracle, is poised, at 81, to become one of the most powerful media and entertainment moguls America has ever seen,” writes Puck cofounder William D. Cohan.

The move has echoes of Rupert Murdoch buying up Fox News a generation ago and giving the Republican Party an exclusive platform to pipe its talking points directly to U.S. viewers.

Ellison is up to something very different from millionaires buying up the Washington Post and Time Magazine, said Cohan. Ellison wants to be a media magnate.

“Along with his son, David, he could soon end up controlling a powerful social media platform, an iconic Hollywood movie studio and one of the largest content streaming services, as well as two of the country’s largest news organizations,” Cohan wrote. “Given Mr. Ellison’s friendship with, and affinity for, Donald Trump, an increasingly emboldened president could be getting an extraordinarily powerful media ally — in other words, the very last thing our country needs right now.”

Cohan said Ellison and his son were serious about making Paramount Skydance a major new media force within weeks of buying it, and the “Ellisons have also made no secret of their intention to move CBS News to the right.”

“They are negotiating to acquire The Free Press, a heterodox publication co-founded by Bari Weiss that prioritizes criticism of “woke” culture, and put Ms. Weiss in a senior position at CBS News. The Ellisons also hired as the CBS ombudsman Kenneth Weinstein, the former chief executive of the conservative Hudson Institute. See where this is going, and fast?” asked Cohan.

“No matter their motives, two independent journalistic voices, CBS News and CNN, could soon be combined into something potentially almost unrecognizable, something way too close to what is served up on a daily basis by the Murdochs,” said Cohan.

“And that will put yet another chink in the fragile armor that is America’s democracy.”

Read the New York Times report at this link

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'Increasingly senile wackjob': Expert says Trump too broken to destroy democracy on his own

Comparative politics professor Lee Morgonbesser tells the Bulwark that Trump’s opponents need to understand the how President Donald Trump does so much damage to democracy while also seemingly losing so much of his mind.

“A decade into the Trump era, there remains a fundamental tension in the way critics and opponents think, write, and talk about Donald Trump,” said Morgonbesser. “He is alternately a conniving destroyer of republican institutions or a mentally and emotionally debilitated, increasingly senile wackjob. Both accounts have much to recommend them. There is evidence to support both, and each helps explain the man and his effect on American politics and policy.”

It's “flattering” to say Trump is implementing the so-called “authoritarian playbook” in his second term by firing inspectors general, appointing unfit loyalists and launching investigations into his political opponents. This would put him in the field with Russian leader Vladimir Putin and India Narendra Modi. But Morgonbesser is confident Trump is more in the “mad king” classification comparable to Caligula, Charles VI, Henry VI and Peter III.

“There are plenty of reasons to give credence to this theory, too,” said Morgonbesser, referring to Trump’s weird fade-outs at campaign events where he repeatedly paused rallies for twenty minutes or more just to listen to piped-in music as the crowd waited awkwardly.

“He regularly confuses the names of places (for example, conflating Afghanistan with Alaska and then Alaska with Russia) and people (‘Tim Apple’ for Tim Cook and ‘Kristi Whitmer’ for Gov. Gretchen Whitmer).”

Morgonbesser also cites Trump claiming on numerous occasions that he had run or was running against Barack Obama for president, and asserted, erroneously, that his uncle had taught the Unabomber.

“His speech patterns have become so obviously nonlinear that he himself nicknamed his style ‘the weave.’ He has spent an inordinate amount of time and attention on the Kennedy Center,” Morgonbesser adds.

Resolving the contradiction between the “wily authoritarian” and the “mad king” means understanding that Trump’s fading mind must rely on administers and advisors to continue his march to American authoritarianism.

“The ‘personal Trump’ spends much of his time on social media, calls in to cable news shows on a whim, watches unhealthy amounts of television, and is often seen with flagging energy,” said Morgonbesser. “The collective Trump, including his staffers, allies, informal advisers, and appointees, can together tirelessly do a significant amount of work.”

But “time may not be on Trump’s side,” added Morgonbesser.

“He is already 79, showing signs of deteriorating health, and liable to be under considerable stress for the foreseeable future. And he does not seem mentally robust, which is too bad for him and too bad for the United States,” Morgonbesser said, while adding that even a deteriorating ‘mad king” … can wreck just about everything they touch.”

Read the Bulwark report at this link.

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