Bill Pulte, Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), seems to get along very well with President Donald Trump and that, reports The Daily Beast, is rattling MAGA Republican feathers. Pulte, writes Will Neal, "has reportedly made such a song and dance of pandering to the president that it’s starting to drive other aides insane." Pulte's stunts, he writes, "using 'Ghostbusters'-themed posters as props in exchanges" with Trump, his habit of publicly bashing Trump opponents, and his emulating of the president's propensity to go off on "bizarre tangents during meetings with others," has led insiders to refer to him as "Little Trump." Pulte made headlines most recently when he floated the idea of the federal government backing a 50-year loan program to address housing affordability. When news broke that a team of ethics and investigations watchdogs had been fired at Fannie Mae, a government enterprise that helps keep the U.S. housing market stable, it was reported that investigators were "probing whether Pulte had improperly obtained sensitive mortgage data on key MAGA enemies, including New York Attorney General Letitia James," Neal explains. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Pulte has done all he can to please Trump, including making a donation of "several hundreds of thousands of dollars to the MAGA cause both ahead of last year’s presidential election and in previous election cycles," Neal writes. Pulte was also seen supping with former Trump adviser Roger Stone late last year, and, Neal writes, "Pulte’s also been making an effort to get in Donald Trump Jr’s good graces." Neal notes that there are reports that Pulte's MAGA opponents are "gathering something of a dossier" on his "perceived missteps in office," and "officials have told staffers to keep an eye out for Pulte and ensure he doesn’t approach Trump unattended." Pulte isn't making many MAGA friends, Neal notes, pointing to the time he also got into a "tangle" with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent at a recent dinner, where, according to Politico, he said he "heard Pulte was badmouthing him to the president behind his back, and became so angry he threatened to punch Pulte 'in the f—— face'."

Every single one of those named above — and many more — is a victim of the largest abuse of the criminal justice system in our nation’s history. They are being targeted in ways we recognize from other countries, but too few are willing to admit that it is happening here. The Trump regime is intent on using the immense power of the state to intimidate and punish its opponents and critics. And let me be very clear: this is not a theoretical concern or a distant warning. It is happening now, in real time, in front of all of us. Each indictment, each leaked accusation, each orchestrated investigation is part of a deliberate campaign to make Americans question their own instincts about justice and fairness. The goal is to create confusion, exhaustion and resignation — to normalize political retribution as a natural part of our government. I have written repeatedly about the need to stand up against this threat to democracy. I have urged people to reject the charges without giving credence to statements made by a corrupt DOJ. I have begged everyone to support the victims of these abuses, regardless of whether you agree with them on other issues. I have had mixed success. Too many still credit allegations in indictments if made by “career” prosecutors. Too few are willing to accept that any prosecutor working on one of these cases has compromised themselves and no longer deserves our trust or the benefit of the doubt. We are only 10 months into Trump’s second term, and there are already so many who have been targeted. Reports suggest a massive investigation is being set up before a Florida federal grand jury to go after Trump’s opponents in a courthouse he believes favors him. If so, it could dramatically increase the number of victims. I started Democracy Docket in 2020 to expose what is happening to democracy in the courts. That has always meant covering voting and elections, and Republican efforts to undermine free and fair elections. More recently, it has also required reporting on what is happening in court to hold the Trump administration accountable to the Constitution and the rule of law. But, for me, it is also a vital platform to bear witness to these abuses and to support the victims. That is why I wrote this piece for a Sunday. It is why I will have to write it again soon and — if necessary — again after that. I will say the names of the victims without criticizing them or excusing the administration’s action. I hope all of you will hear my warning.

Wolf said now that the case is closed, he’s surprised there isn’t a louder public outcry — including from Republicans — to see the evidence. “If there’s uninvestigated possible criminal activity by Mr. Homan, I think that should be a matter of significant public concern. And if the tape recordings and other evidence indicate that he did not engage in any illegal conduct, I think he deserves to be exonerated in the court of public opinion,” Wolf said. “I don’t know why Republicans in Congress, as well as Democrats, don’t ask for that.” A White House spokesperson called the judge’s comments about Homan “hyper-partisan,” saying they “only further affirm Wolf’s decision to step down.” “The blatantly political investigation into Tom found absolutely no evidence of illegal activity. Judges that want to inject their own personal agenda into the law have no place on the bench,” spokesperson Abigail Jackson said. Wolf’s decision to speak out is also born of frustration with the Supreme Court’s overwhelming willingness to side with Trump despite the routine drubbings the president has taken in the lower courts. “When Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa all started hitting 60 home runs or more when no one in the history of baseball except Babe Ruth and Roger Maris had ever hit 60 home runs, there was reason to suspect something improper was going on,” Wolf said. “When the president wins 17 out of 20 cases decided on the shadow docket, to me at least it raises a concern about whether there’s a possible lack of impartiality.” Jackson said “the Trump Administration’s policies have been consistently upheld by the Supreme Court as lawful despite an unprecedented number of legal challenges and unlawful lower court rulings.” Wolf noted that Lamberth, Young and Coughenour’s comments about Trump all came in their written opinions or courtroom statements, the limited forums that judges have to give voice to their concerns. “My concern is that gets drowned out,” he said, suggesting that’s in part why he chose to step away from the bench to make his case publicly. “[Trump]’s got the bully pulpit and he’s got social media. The best response to bad speech is better speech.”

Woop, there it is!

Even though he doesn’t want you to think soIllustration by The Atlantic. Source: Andrew Harnik / Getty Sign up for Trump’s Return, a newsletter featuring coverage of the second Trump presidency. Updated at 12:27 p.m. ET on November 14, 2025 For a president who wants to project vigor and command at all times, Donald Trump made the worst possible spectacle of himself in the Oval Office last Thursday. It came in the form of two images captured during a press event to announce cheaper weight-loss drugs. The first materialized when a participant fainted and several officials on hand rushed over. Not Trump, however, who, after turning to look at the fallen man, stood a few feet away at the Resolute Desk with his back to the action, wearing an indifferent expression. This was pointedly reflected in news photos that instantly went viral. The second image, less noticed but possibly more damning, was memorialized just beforehand: As Mehmet Oz, the administration’s head of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, delivered remarks, Trump appeared to be nodding off at his desk. The Washington Post, in keeping with its dogged Watergate-era traditions, undertook a thorough “analysis of multiple video feeds” and confirmed that, indeed, the 79-year-old president had “spent nearly 20 minutes apparently battling to keep his eyes open.” “He put his hand on his temple,” the Post investigation concluded. “He slouched in his chair.” Brian C. Kalt: The solution to the third-term threat The White House denied that the president had been asleep, echoing Trump’s past sensitivities toward perceived somnolence. But there was something else going on here. The administration has sought to portray Trump as the main driver of all events at all times—potent, essential, and fully engaged. If there has been one unified message coming out of this White House, it’s been that of a presidency in perpetual motion. Yet Trump has looked much less daunting and invincible in recent days. He has been criticized for appearing checked out and oblivious to the economic hardships facing Americans, a sentiment reinforced by voters last Tuesday. Above all, Trump, who is not eligible to run for reelection in 2028—at least that’s what some people think—is loath to be seen as a lame duck. And yet, he is a lamer duck now than he was just a short while ago. Last week was rough for Trump in that regard. Republicans suffered election routs in the Virginia and New Jersey governor’s races, as well as in a statewide ballot initiative pushed by California Governor Gavin Newsom. It wasn’t only that Democrats prevailed by massive margins or that the results confirmed that Trump’s second-term act was playing terribly with a critical mass of Americans, including many of those who’d voted for him. The GOP’s losses suddenly made Trump look vulnerable. By my informal estimation (without the benefit of “multiple video feeds”), “lame duck” was applied more often to Trump last week than in any prior stretch of his second term. “Donald Trump Enters His Lame Duck Era,” declared one post-election headline in Politico. The accompanying article cataloged recent signs of Republican defiance of Trump. It led with a scene in which the president summoned Senate Republicans to the White House and demanded that they eliminate the filibuster. “Upon returning to the Capitol, the senators made it very clear: they planned to blow Trump off,” according to Politico. (Mike Rounds of South Dakota apparently “laughed out loud.”) No officeholder welcomes being labeled a lame duck. From its earliest adoption, the phrase has never been meant as a term of flattery. Senator Lazarus Powell of Kentucky was one of the earliest politicians to be quoted using the term, in 1863, when he rejected a colleague’s argument that the U.S. Court of Claims was, as Powell put it, “a receptacle of ‘lame ducks’” or “broken down politicians.” Over time, lame duck evolved into more of a time marker, referring to an elected official completing their final phase in office. That’s the clinical definition, at least. But lame duck also carries deeper connotations of diminishing cachet, relating to a leader’s lost status and creeping powerlessness. These notions are especially toxic to Trump. Since returning to the White House, he has governed with unchecked abandon, enjoying the total compliance and indulgence of his party. Nowhere has this been more evident than among Republicans in Congress, who have given every impression of living in abject fear of Trump, his loyalty enforcers, and his voters. It is not difficult to see how being discussed as a weakened short-timer would inflict particular psychic injury upon Trump. Such a status represents an intolerable affront not only to his own grandiosity but also to his political power. Trump and his allies have worked to foster a sense of unquestioned authority and even permanence. Whether or not he is serious about running for a third term, he has been happy to publicly entertain the prospect. “Most any Republican is too intimidated to suggest he might not run again,” Ed Rogers, a longtime GOP lobbyist and former aide to Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, told me. Having this unconstitutional gambit in circulation became a strategic taunt after a while, “to keep people glancing at each other, asking, ‘Could he do it?’” Rogers said. “This has caused a pause on the traditional creep of lame-duckedness.” Trump was more definitive when the third-term prospect came up last month, admitting that he wouldn’t be allowed to run. But Tuesday’s election results struck a blow against his sense of almighty armor. “Trump’s Superman mythology just had 100 pounds of kryptonite shoved down its throat,” Mike Murphy, a vehemently anti-Trump Republican media consultant, told me. Beyond the undertones of lost influence, being a lame duck can also suggest a president distracted, disengaged, and biding time. Again, these notions would seem anathema to everything Trump wants to convey. Theoretically, at least. Voters keep identifying the high cost of living as their chief concern. Trump, meanwhile, has displayed a Marie Antoinette–like indifference to the economic struggles that so many Americans keep mentioning. He has recently devoted time to overseeing the construction of a new White House patio and ballroom, hosting a Great Gatsby–themed party at Mar-a-Lago, and reportedly trying to have the future home stadium of the Washington Commanders named after him. “His gold-leaf excess and ‘Let ’em eat cake’ tone-deafness will likely wear ever thinner,” Mark Updegrove, a presidential historian and the head of the LBJ Foundation, told me. Updegrove, the author of a book titled Second Acts: Presidential Lives and Legacies After the White House, predicted that Trump would never “back off his ballroom ambitions,” regardless of how they might be perceived. Trump clearly enjoys the idea that he can build and adorn as he pleases. He will insist on these projects, Updegrove said, “like a toddler unwilling to surrender a lollipop.” Tom Nichols: A confederacy of toddlers Trump’s Oval Office photo snafu notwithstanding, even casual observers would expect that he will do everything possible to keep himself at center stage for as long as he can. Histrionics are definitely possible. “Like the mob boss with terminal cancer” is Murphy’s comparison, by which he means that Trump will be sure to make himself dangerous to anyone who questions his full authority and treats him as a lame duck. This almost certainly will extend to the 2028 campaign. Trump almost certainly will insist on full deference from any Republican hoping to succeed him. He almost certainly will devote zero energy to things like “building the Republican bench” or “grooming his successor” or “extending gracious gestures to his worthy Democratic adversaries.” And the term lame duck will almost certainly remain verboten around the White House until the minute Trump departs the premises for good—assuming that he ever does. This article originally credited Senator Lazarus Powell with the first political usage of “lame duck”; in fact, Powell used the term in response to a comment by his colleague John Hale, who had used the term earlier.

President Trump called on the Department of Justice to probe late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein’s links to Democratic bigwigs and institutions like JP Morgan Chase – a request Attorney General Pam Bondi was ready to launch Friday. Bondi instructed the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Jay Clayton, to oversee an investigation, vowing it would be handled “with urgency and integrity.” “SDNY U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton is one of the most capable and trusted prosecutors in the country, and I’ve asked him to take the lead,” she wrote in a social media post. U.S. President Donald Trump speaks inside the Oval Office on Wednesday. REUTERS “As with all matters, the Department will pursue this with urgency and integrity to deliver answers to the American people.” Earlier Friday, Trump bunched former President Bill Clinton, ex-treasury secretary Larry Summers, and venture capitalist Reid Hoffman with Epstein as he insisted the convicted sex offender is more connected to Democrats than the GOP. “Now that the Democrats are using the Epstein Hoax, involving Democrats, not Republicans, to try and deflect from their disastrous SHUTDOWN, and all of their other failures, 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. “This is another Russia, Russia, Russia Scam, with all arrows pointing to the Democrats. Records show that these men, and many others, spent large portions of their life with Epstein, and on his ‘Island.’ Stay tuned!!!” President Trump said he is asking Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein’s links to prominent Democratic officials and banks like JPMorgan. AP Follow The Post’s live coverage of President Trump and national politics for the latest news and analysis The issue of Epstein, who killed himself while awaiting a federal sex trafficking trial in 2019, was pushed back into the national spotlight this week after a tranche of new documents connected to the disgraced financier was released by Congress as Democrats tried to highlight Epstein mentioning Trump in a few emails. Trump and Epstein were once friends years ago, but had a falling out. Trump claimed he booted Epstein from Mar-a-Lago for stealing young female employees from his club. One such former Mar-a-Lago worker and Epstein victim, Virginia Giuffre, said Trump wasn’t part of Epstein’s sex crimes and “couldn’t have been friendlier.” Pages of the book “Nobody’s Girl – A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice” by Virginia Roberts Giuffre, displaying photos of the former Mar-a-Lago worker and Epstein victim. AFP via Getty Images Clinton socialized with Epstein in the early 2000s, including flying on his private jet several times before Epstein’s legal trouble. Summers was also associated with Epstein and accepted donations from Epstein when he served as Harvard University president. Hoffman, a prominent Democratic donor and LinkedIn founder, has said he met with Epstein numerous times in professional situations. All three Democratic figures have expressed regret about having a relationship with Epstein. No credible evidence has surfaced that indicates any of them were involved in Epstein’s sickening actions. The Post has sought comment from representatives for Clinton and Summers. An email to the company Hoffman works for was not immediately returned. JPMorgan, which Trump also blasted Friday, paid $290 million in 2023 to some of Epstein’s victims in a settlement following accusations it ignored his sex trafficking. A person walks past a poster with a photograph of Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein in London, Britain, on September 3. REUTERS While the bank did not admit wrongdoing in the settlement, the deal came after disclosures showed the powerful bank overlooked internal warnings and red flags about Epstein because he was an important client. “We regret any association we had with the man, but did not help him commit his heinous acts,” JPMorgan said in a statement Friday to Reuters in response to Trump’s post. Ghislaine Maxwell watches as Jeffrey Epstein and US President Bill Clinton shake hands during a tour of the White House in 1993. William J. Clinton Presidential Library “We ended our relationship with him years before his arrest on sex trafficking charges.” The newly-disclosed emails from Epstein showed him talking about Clinton and also corresponding with author Michael Wolff and a then-New York Times reporter. In one email to Summers in 2017, he bashed Trump, which the Democratic National Committee bizarrely tried to promote Thursday. Jeffrey Epstein with Bill Clinton. The Department of Justice referred to Bondi’s social media post when asked for comment. There’s been an ongoing push from the public for years across the Biden and Trump administrations for officials to release more information about investigations into Epstein. While Bondi told Fox News in February the Epstein files were on her desk, she and FBI Director Kash Patel insisted over the summer there wasn’t more information to divulge. But Congress has continued to seek answers, including demanding Bill and Hillary Clinton come in for questioning and inviting Epstein victims back to DC next week before a vote demanding the release of the full DOJ files in the case. A spokesperson for the Manhattan US Attorney’s Office declined comment Friday afternoon. With Post wires.

The newly released documents from Jeffrey Epstein’s estate show that the convicted sex offender appeared to be texting with a member of Congress during a congressional hearing with Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s former personal attorney and fixer, and that those text messages may have influenced the lawmaker’s questions of Cohen.Upgrade for 3 extra accounts to sharePremium comes with extra access for friends and family, plus more benefits.See more details In the texts, Epstein appeared to be watching the February 2019 hearing in real time and at one point informed the person he was texting — whose name is redacted from the documents — that Cohen had brought up former Trump executive assistant Rhona Graff in his testimony. At the time, Cohen was testifying before the House Oversight Committee against his former boss, alleging that Trump was racist, manipulated financial records and directed hush money payments to cover up his extramarital affairs — allegations Trump denied. The president said on social media that Cohen was “lying” before testimony began. “Cohen brought up RONA - keeper of the secrets,” Epstein texted the person, misspelling Graff’s first name. “RONA??” the person responded. “Quick I’m up next is that an acronym,” the person added, suggesting they would question Cohen soon. Follow Trump’s second term “Thats his assistant,” Epstein replied. The copies of the text messages were included in a trove of thousands of pages of documents containing Epstein’s emails and other communications released Wednesday by the House Oversight Committee. The messages show Epstein was invested in what Cohen was sharing about Trump, the financier’s former friend, during his testimony. Trump has provided different accounts about why he ended his decades-long relationship with Epstein and has tried to distance himself from the deceased sex offender, but he has previously denied knowing about Epstein’s abuse. “I had no idea,” Trump told reporters in July 2019. “I haven’t spoken to him in many, many years.” Though the name of Epstein’s texting partner is redacted in the documents, time-stamps on the text messages matched up with video from the hearing, as well as the messages’ contents, appear to indicate that Epstein was texting with Del. Stacey Plaskett, a Democrat who represents the U.S. Virgin Islands as its nonvoting delegate in the House of Representatives. Reached by phone Thursday, Plaskett declined to answer questions about the text messages and directed all inquiries to her congressional staff. Plaskett’s chief of staff, Angeline Jabbar, said Thursday she was “not in a position to confirm or not” whether the congresswoman was texting with Epstein at the hearing.Michael Cohen, former attorney to President Donald Trump, testifies at a House hearing in February 2019. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post) At around 10:40 a.m. Eastern time on the day of the hearing, a broadcast feed cut to Plaskett, showing her moving her mouth as if she were chewing something. At 10:41 a.m., Epstein sent this message to his texting partner: “Are you chewing” “Not any more,” the person replied. “Chewing interior of my mouth. Bad habit from middle school” At 12:50 p.m., Epstein asks his texting partner: “How much longer for you” “Hours. Go to other mtgs,” the person replied. The “Quick I’m up next” text to Epstein was sent at 2:25 p.m., minutes before Plaskett began questioning Cohen at 2:28 p.m. Epstein messaged “Good work” to his texting partner at 2:34 p.m., one minute after Plaskett finished her questioning of Cohen. The text messages indicate Epstein may have influenced what questions to ask Cohen. “Hes opened the door to questions re who are the other henchmen at trump org,” Epstein texted the unnamed person at 12:25 p.m. “Yup. Very aware and waiting my turn,” the person responded. When Plaskett questioned Cohen during the hearing, she asked about Trump associates that he had mentioned previously. “Are there other people that we should be meeting with?” Plaskett asked. “So Allen Weisselberg is the chief financial officer in The Trump Organization,” Cohen began to reply. “You’ve got to quickly give us as many names as you can so we can get to them,” Plaskett interjected. “Is Ms. Rhona, what is Ms. Rhona’s— …?” “Rhona Graff is the — Mr. Trump’s executive assistant … She was — her office is directly next to his, and she’s involved in a lot that went on,” Cohen replied. Though Epstein would not be charged with federal sex trafficking crimes until July 2019 — several months after the Cohen hearing — he was already a known convicted sex offender, having pleaded guilty in 2008 to state charges in Florida of soliciting prostitution from a minor. Under a plea deal, he spent only 13 months in county jail. In November 2018, the Miami Herald published an investigation into allegations of Epstein’s serial sex abuse and the handling of his 2008 sentencing agreement. Epstein was arrested in July 2019 on federal sex trafficking charges, accused of sexually abusing dozens of girls in his homes and paying his victims to bring him others. He pleaded not guilty and was found hanging in his Manhattan jail cell in August 2019, his death ruled a suicide. Epstein had deep ties to the U.S. Virgin Islands, where he formerly owned a pair of private islands, Great Saint James and Little Saint James. His primary residence was on Little Saint James, where, according to a settlement in a lawsuit brought against Epstein’s estate by the U.S. Virgin Islands, “many of his crimes occurred.” A 2023 Business Insider investigation showed that Epstein donated large sums of money to U.S. Virgin Islands politicians, including to Plaskett. After Epstein’s arrest in 2019, Plaskett’s office initially said she was unlikely to return her campaign donations from the disgraced financier, but reversed course after public backlash. In 2023, six Epstein accusers sued government officials from the U.S. Virgin Islands, including Plaskett, alleging that they helped and benefited from Epstein’s sex-trafficking enterprise in the U.S. territory. The lawsuit against Plaskett was voluntarily dismissed with prejudice earlier this year. In the motion to dismiss the lawsuit that was filed in July 2024, Plaskett’s lawyer wrote, “Epstein’s notorious crimes were reprehensible, and many women unquestionably suffered at his hands. Congresswoman Plaskett learned of Epstein’s crimes simultaneously with the rest of the country, when news of his arrest broke.” Jonathan Edwards contributed to this report.

Politics / November 11, 2025 Instead of caving on the shutdown, Democrats should have waited for the GOP to cave on Trump’s demand to scotch this antidemocratic tactic. Ad Policy Senator Tim Kaine, one of eight Democrats who voted to end the shutdow, speaks to members of the media on November 10, 2025.(Aaron Schwartz / Bloomberg via Getty Images) There were only ever two ways the government shutdown was going to end. Option one was for Democrats to cave in and give Trump and the Republicans everything they wanted. Option two was for the Republicans to kill the filibuster and get everything they wanted. Anybody who thought Republicans would compromise some of their positions for the good of the country was foolish. Republicans do not compromise; they do not care about the good of the country. Republicans break things and blame others for the mess they leave behind. That’s all they know how to do. 1/1 Skip Ad Continue watchingafter the adVisit Advertiser websiteGO TO PAGE Somewhat predictably, eight Democrats in the US Senate chose the former option and folded like cheap chairs. The statements drooling out of the mouths from these treacherous Democrats are beyond pathetic. Maine Senator Angus King said, “Standing up to Trump didn’t work.” New Hampshire Senator Jeanne Shaheen said, “Hopefully the Republicans may hear us.” I’m reminded of The Onion’s headline from Trump’s first term “GOP Lawmakers Watch Silently As Trump Strangles Each Of Their Loved Ones In Turn.” The current crop of Senate Democrats makes the Kardashians look like freedom fighters. On the surface, this latest Democratic capitulation feels like the normal level of political malpractice from a party that seems genetically incapable of fighting fascism. “Democrats Cave In to Republican Demands” is the “dog bites man” story of our broken politics. It’s not even news anymore. But at a more fundamental level, this catastrophe is born out of the Senate’s simple refusal to allow democracy to take place. It has been brought to us, at least in part, by the Democrats’ allegiance to the antidemocratic Senate filibuster. The filibuster allows any senator to extend debate on a bill, indefinitely, preventing it from coming up for a vote. To end a filibuster, the Senate must “invoke cloture” on a debate, and for that there needs to be 60 votes. The vote threshold to invoke cloture is not mandated by Article One of the Constitution. It is just some crap the Senate made up to enhance gridlock, avoid democracy, and make senators in the minority party feel like they are super-special snowflakes. I’ve written before about how the filibuster is antiquated and pointless. People say it’s there to protect the rights of the minority party, but the entire antidemocratic structure of the Senate already does that. The chamber is literally designed to give outsize power to low-population states. The filibuster just takes an antidemocratic body and makes it worse. I’ve also written about how the filibuster as currently practiced is the very worst form of the privilege. Back in the day, you could only filibuster by talking on the Senate floor until you were too exhausted to go on. Moreover, a filibuster used to shut down all other business in the Senate: Each filibuster stopped all 100 members of the Senate from debating or voting on any other bill until cloture could be invoked. Today we have what’s called the “procedural filibuster.” The minority party doesn’t have to hold the floor, and the Senate can continue with other business while a filibuster is ongoing. It makes the filibuster cheap. The minority party can always do it, and since its members pay no price for doing it, they almost always do it. It makes 60 votes the de facto requirement to pass a bill, instead of 51 votes as democracy intended. It is this archaic, antidemocratic, poorly instituted Senate tradition that the Democrats didn’t want to give up during the shutdown. The Republicans have 53 votes in the Senate, plus the senator from Copaganda, John Fetterman, who will vote however the fascists tell him. That is more than enough votes for them to pass whatever legislation and budget they want to without help from the Democrats. The only reason the Republicans needed Democrats to end the shutdown is because of the filibuster, and the Republicans could have gotten rid of the filibuster (via a simple majority vote) at any time they felt like it. Republicans have done it before. The filibuster can no longer be invoked for Supreme Court appointments. Mitch McConnell killed it (after Harry Reid killed the filibuster for lower-court appointments) to get Neil Gorsuch on the court in the seat McConnell stole from Barack Obama. If Republicans could see their way clear to ending the filibuster in order to give literal lifetime power to Republican operatives on the Supreme Court, they could surely do it to lift the shutdown. Indeed, Donald Trump ordered Republicans to kill the filibuster just last week. Republican Senators said “no,” because the filibuster is incredibly useful to them when their massively unpopular ideas land them in the minority, but how long would Republican senators have held the line against Donald Trump? Eventually, I believe, the Republicans would have broken. Republicans talk tough when Democrats are involved, but they’ve never stood up to Trump for more than a couple of weeks. Now we’ll never know. Now, instead of having the Republicans own every awful thing in their budget, Democrats have given them cover. Now, instead of Republicans having to show their belly to Trump, Democrats have once again shown their belly to him. I know some Democrats are worried about what Trump will do with a Republican Senate unrestrained by the filibuster. Those are legitimate concerns. One maxim I’ve internalized during the Trump era is: “It can always get worse.” Whatever I think the Republican Senate would do is not as bad as what they’d actually do. But the sad reality of our times is that Democrats would be better off, politically, if Republicans were free to do their absolute worst, instead of Democrats’ meekly running behind them trying to mitigate harm. That is because Democrats are fighting an asymmetric war. Again, all Republicans know how to do is smash things. They don’t need things to “work.” They don’t need to compromise. Republicans are not trying to build a house; they’re trying to burn one down. Ad Policy The Republican project is a lot easier to accomplish than the Democratic one, and the filibuster only serves to help them do it. When the Republicans have a majority, they can pass what they want with Democratic help—because there are always enough pathetic Democrats willing to play handmaiden to whatever awfulness the GOP can dream up—or they can do nothing and watch the world burn. When they’re in the minority, the Republicans can do nothing and watch the world burn, or they water down whatever Democrats try to pass and prevent them from actually fixing any of the problems the Democrats should be fixing. The filibuster is just a “win now” button for Republicans. It doesn’t force them to compromise, it instead rewards them for obstinance. Democrats would be better off without it—even when they are in the minority. Democrats are hanging on to an antidemocratic Senate tradition, and all they have to show for it is continually getting punked by Republicans every time it matters. Think of it this way: The shutdown ended, and eight useless Senate Democrats had to run onto TV and explain themselves in the most pathetic and ruinous ways possible. You know who didn’t have to run to the talk-box? Republicans. The 53 people who actually wanted to pass Trump’s budget didn’t have to go on TV and explain why and didn’t have to apologize to America for putting us all through their governing tomfoolery. They burnt down the house, and didn’t even have to own the ashes, because Angus King showed up to be a cowardly loser crying about how Donald Trump was just too strong for him. The filibuster needs to die. I was hoping Republicans would kill it, because I know that Democrats lack the willpower and vision to do what is necessary. But it turns out that Democrats don’t even have the strength to shut the hell up and let Republicans blow themselves up. Democrats are falling on a grenade for the Republicans, and telling themselves they had no choice. As Voltaire might say: If Democrats didn’t exist, it would be necessary for Republicans to invent them. Submit a correction Send a letter to the editor Reprints & permissions

Government shutdowns are awful. People get laid off or lose critical services, citizens with questions about their tax refunds or Social Security benefits can’t get answers, air traffic grows chaotic and potentially even dangerous, and the economy suffers. It’s the responsibility of the president and Congress to do everything they can to avoid shutdowns — or if we are in one, to get out quickly. That’s why, after 38 days of mounting economic pain, risks to Americans’ safety and no clear end in sight, I joined the bipartisan group initiated by Senators Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire and Angus King of Maine, who had been working with Republicans to find a deal to end the latest government shutdown. I understand the earnest criticism from those who say that extending the shutdown, which began Oct. 1, would have forced Republicans to offer more concessions to Democrats on critical issues such as health care. But I was at the negotiating table, and I believe the chances of that were near zero. Every day we refused to acknowledge what it would take to strike a deal, the riskier continuing the shutdown became — for both Americans and their government institutions. Subscribe to The Times to read as many articles as you like.

The Weekend Read / November 8, 2025 I was one of the senator’s most dedicated consultants—until I saw a side of him that made me sick. Ad Policy US Senator John Fetterman speaks during the grand opening of The Altneu Synagogue.(Lev Radin / Getty Images) Who is John Fetterman? A senator, a father, a husband, a stroke survivor, a hoodie-clad body double, an oaf, and recently, a Zionist who has cemented his name as a preeminent American mouthpiece for Israel’s genocide in Gaza. For a very short period of time, on a very small number of platforms, I was also John Fetterman. Or at least, I was one of the people writing in his voice and pressing “Send” from his campaign-side social media accounts. I only met the senator in person once or twice. I corresponded much more frequently with his wife, Gisele, whose warmth and sunny personality made her feel like a friend. By the end of my time working for Fetterman’s communications firm, the dregs of those warm feelings would be gone, replaced by a resentment so palpable that it drove me out of politics altogether. But in the early days, I saw something in him that excited me: a candidate fluent in the informal parlance of the Internet; a man who flouted DC’s fancy suits and traditions; a politician who openly called for universal healthcare and labor rights on a national stage. For a year, it was a dream come true; the realization of a progressive, idealistic fantasy. I was 24, a young speechwriter, and I’d landed a job making memes, dunking on conservative chuds, writing statements about immigration and racial justice. Was there anyone luckier? When Fetterman checked into the hospital to get treatment for his depression, my team and I were moved. We spun out a story about a vulnerable hero; a gentle giant breaking the stigma surrounding mental health treatment for American men. When conspiracy theories popped up online claiming that he was using a body double, we trolled them by selling T-shirts that read “John Fetterman’s Body Double” and “I Vote in This Hoodie.” And when all of this went live on social media, I was typing it out from my phone, from my laptop, on the subway, in the back of the bar, outside Lincoln Center, from the waiting room at the dentist. Back then, I could be John Fetterman at any moment, at the drop of a hat. Signal became my own personal Bat Signal. In my diary on Saturday, September 16, 2023, I wrote with enthusiasm: “Woke up and posted some UAW stuff for John—he’s heading to Detroit to join the picket line! Then mom and I worked out for a bit before we went to a sidewalk sale at the boutique Dress.” How embarrassing, in retrospect, to be so proud of so little. Five decades before I wrote that entry, the real John Fetterman was born in Reading, Pennsylvania—a city best known for bringing the world Taylor Swift. He grew up in the suburbs of York, where he played football well enough to go DIII at Albright College down the road. It was an idyllic, All-American upbringing; in typical aw shucks fashion, Fetterman describes his younger self as a six-foot-eight “football-playing meathead.” Then his life changed. In 1993, when he was 24, his best friend was killed in a car accident while on his way to pick him up. He decided he needed to turn his life around, to do something more meaningful in what he realized was a short time on earth. He joined Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, then Americorps. He got a masters degree from Harvard, then moved back down to his native Pennsylvania to set up shop in Braddock—the old, deindustrialized steel town which would in 2005 elect him mayor. Fetterman’s 13 years as mayor of Braddock—and subsequent runs for lieutenant governor and the senate—turned him into something of a folk hero on the national scene. He had all the lore to suit the narrative: He turned around a rough-and-tumble town in the Rust Belt; he didn’t own a suit and tie; he lived in a converted car dealership; his wife ran a “free store,” redistributing goods to people in need. In 2018, The Washington Post ran a story singing “The ballad of Big John Fetterman,” a song whose lyrics laud him as “half Pete Seeger, half Metallica.” He spoke in charming Pennsylvania witticisms: “that winds my clock,” “jagoff,” “Yinz and Youse.” Soon he was on The Colbert Report, getting written up in New York magazine, eating with Anthony Bourdain, and campaigning on CNN. By the time he went up against Dr. Oz for the Pennsylvania Senate seat in 2022, he was a national sensation. He ran as a progressive on a platform of raising the minimum wage, Medicare for All, criminal justice reform, and marijuana legalization. But he refused to perform the neoliberal formalities that seemed to signal “elite” to a growing number of voters. He was gruff; he wore Dickies and his trademark hoodie. He loved The Simpsons and the campaign ran with it, using it to bully Oz into cowering submission. Even Fetterman’s stroke in May of 2022 could not stop the victory train. He won the Senate race by five points that November, turning a formerly red seat blue. Folk hero or not, he became a hero to many folks watching the campaign from afar—including me. I was primed to be a Fetterman fan. A few states south, in North Carolina, where I grew up, I had been knocking doors since I was 12 years old. While Fetterman was turning Braddock into America’s comeback kid, I was canvassing for Obama’s second campaign, then for the North Carolina midterms and special elections against Amendment 1: a proposed change to the state Constitution that would codify marriage as a union “between one man and one woman.” By the end of college, I’d found my weird hyperfixation: a desire to become a speechwriter, a Sam Seaborn–style flack. For a serious, politically motivated young person who loved to write, there seemed to be no better fit. Sure, by now these were the Trump years, and things looked grim—but if there was a place left to fight, I would find it, and I’d wield my pen like a sword. I read every memoir, every guide, every item on the list that my mentors called “The Speechwriter’s Bookshelf.” I spent a summer on Counselor by Ted Sorensen, a thick brick of a book about his years working for JFK, and annotated my copy with sticky notes and red pen. Sorensen typified a relationship that feels as quaint as his haircut: a life in service of his best friend and personal hero, where total loyalty and clear conscience were one and the same. After JFK’s assassination, Sorensen was adrift. “Jackie once told a reporter that I was like ‘a little boy in so many ways. He hero worships Jack,’” he wrote. “She was right; he was my hero. My loyalty was often called single-minded, and the most frequently quoted quip in the press was ‘When Jack’s injured, Ted bleeds.’” I couldn’t imagine anything more romantic. All I needed to become a knockoff Sorensen was to find a personal hero worthy of such dedication, a progressive rather than a feckless lib, and off we’d go, into the sunset to change the world. Of course, political hero worship was always a liberal fantasy. For every JFK, there is a Vietnam; for every Sorensen, a dozen people of conscience who turned against their own savage empire. Under Kennedy, Sorensen helped wage a Cold War that terrorized the Third World and kept capitalist puppet regimes in power for their own geopolitical gain. He and his boss were openly antagonistic to the civil rights movement. They were enemies of revolutionaries in Cuba under a doctrine of so-called “Pro-Peace.” In April 1961, Kennedy deployed 400 Special Forces troops to South Vietnam—their presence would escalate to more than 3 million by the war’s end. One former Kennedy staffer, the speechwriter Richard Goodwin, who went on to write LBJ’s “We Shall Overcome” speech, resigned from the White House in 1966 in opposition to the American atrocities in Vietnam. Almost immediately, he joined the anti-war movement and started speaking out. He wrote a book on the matter, Triumph or Tragedy, and published essays in The New Yorker, The New York Times, and Time “We are buried in statements and speeches about negotiation and peace, the defense of freedom and the dangers of Communism, the desire to protect the helpless and compassion for the dying,” Goodwin is quoted in a 1966 New York Times article I have saved in my phone. “Much of it is important and sincere and well-meaning. Some is intended to deceive. Some is deliberate lie and distortion.” Fetterman’s Vietnam came swiftly, over a period of days in October 2023 that set him on a collision course with history and left his entire staff ricocheting out in its wake. In the more than two years since October 7, he has become one of the most vocal supporters of Israel in any faction of American politics—ardently cheerleading Israel’s ensuing genocide in Gaza like an overgrown coed with a set of blue pom-poms. Every member of his team—chief, comms director, digital director, deputy comms—and a full roster of longtime advisers have deserted him at some point along the way. But to the best of my knowledge, it started like this. On October 9, 2023, my coworkers and I woke up to a statement released from the Senate Office that junior staff on the campaign side had not seen. It ended with a line that continues to resound against the walls of my brain, even all this time later: “I also fully support Israel neutralizing the terrorists responsible for this barbarism.” I remember reading the dog whistles “neutralize” and “barbarism” and feeling the room spin around me. Something in the tone had shifted; set me on edge. It sounded like a call to arms, a post-9/11 fervor. It was only set to get worse over the following week, as Fetterman did press junket after press junket defending Israel’s incessant rain of bombs, the collective punishment levied against a civilian population of Palestinians. If on the outside, his statements sounded bleak, the picture on the inside was even worse. Our team was in disarray. “I worry it’s a ‘read the room’ moment,” I texted my boss after being asked to post photos of John at a labor event, or about the Menendez gold bars—his other obsession of the season. The air strikes on Gaza were increasing in frequency and severity. Residential buildings were being razed to rubble. “I don’t think it’s off,” she replied. I sat at the other end of the keyboard, waves of nausea crashing through my screen. As a Fetterman voter I’m absolutely disgusted by the senator’s words against a ceasefire in Gaza. Sad to see my senator advocating for more bloodshed… Every morning I was waking up—if I slept at all—to a wall of notifications like this one, from Instagram, Twitter, and Tiktok. The colors of each app whirred together like a pride flag from hell. I thought of the photos I’d posted of John and Gisele at Central Pennsylvania Pride just a few months earlier, smiling and draped in color. Now John was wearing the blue-and-white of the Israeli flag the same way, hanging it over his shoulders like a cape. That old meme of two war planes came to mind, one “Republican” and one “Democrat,” identical but for the latter’s rainbow decals. What could I say? I was forbidden from replying to the messages; an e-mail came down from the Senate side reminding us of our obligation as staffers and consultants. You might disagree with his stance, the memo said, but “you cannot use your status as a current Fetterman staffer to undermine John’s positions or otherwise make a public statement that is inconsistent with John’s views.” Need I recount the atrocities for you? Need I reduce them to crude legibility? The children giving a press conference in English, begging not to die; the boy gathering his brother’s limbs in a backpack; the father sobbing over his entire family’s shrouded bodies; a little girl passing down her accessories in a handwritten will; a tiny voice crying on the other end of the Red Cross line. What use were all those words about progress if they could do nothing to stop this? In fact, in a sick twist of irony, those words had enabled and legitimized this genocide by putting the obscene weight of a “mental health hero” behind it. Today, nearly half of Gaza’s children are suicidal; 96 percent say death feels “imminent.” Mental health, I thought to myself on the worst days. What a joke. After a week, the situation seemed irredeemable. Fetterman had swallowed some awful blue pill, and suddenly he was asking staff to make Drake memes about rape. On October 16, 2023, I wrote in my diary: “Slept for a couple hours on the bathroom floor. Took the day off. I had a fever and was so depressed. I feel so at sea. Couldn’t keep anything down.” October 17, 2023: “Back to work. So beyond depressed. Completely, utterly… A hospital in Gaza got bombed to the ground.” October 18, 2023: “Everything changed today. Had a bunch of dumb meetings, was up late writing and early doing Nida [Allam] op-ed… Then John put out a statement that was so vile. ‘Now is not the time for a ceasefire.’ Awful… I tried to be normal but by end of day it hit me so hard and I couldn’t stop crying. I can’t be complicit in this. I can’t…. I’m done.” I looked around at my colleagues, wondering who was writing these statements. Every single one of them became a suspect, a conspirator in this grand operation to betray voters, to spend their money on blowing up a hospital based on the ludicrous idea that Hamas was somewhere in the IVs. Fetterman aside, these were not stupid people. I knew some of my colleagues were against those early days of collective punishment. But I knew others were fueling the fire, pushing for pro-Israel statements to pick up perceived political points. My bosses took on his stances for the sake of loyalty, propriety, staff allegiance to principal, even their own personal beliefs. Those bosses remain important people in the Democratic Party—trusted advisers and thought leaders with senior titles and high hourly rates. I’m sure many of them will scramble now to rid themselves of Fetterman’s residual “genocidal stench,” as one of my friends recently put it. They will claim, with all the comforts of hindsight, that it was impossible to see clearly how bad it would get. But they will be lying. It was clear to some of us from the very start. Around October 19, former campaign staff put together a letter addressed to John. “These are not the values that we believed you to hold, and these are not our values,” they wrote. “On the trail, your overarching promise was to ‘Forgotten Communities’—people and places that get overlooked, written off, and left behind. You can’t be a champion of forgotten communities if you cheerlead this war and the consequent destruction of Palestinian communities at home and abroad. We are speaking out now because we played important roles in electing you. We cannot in good conscience stay silent at this moment.” October 20, 2023, from my diary again: “I want to fucking die. I’m gonna quit. Frazzled! Fiona came over. Hadn’t eaten or showered. I looked awful. We ate and got groceries.… I’d rather lose my money than my conscience.” I wrote my resignation letter. I gave my notice. I had no other job lined up. At home, Ted Sorensen glared at me from the shelf. Ad Policy Since early 2024, Fetterman has publicly expressed disdain with “disgruntled former staff” who “hide behind unnamed sources in articles.” “Let’s get back to killing,” he has reportedly said of the genocide. “Kill them all.” I am not an important person—I was junior staff at a third-party communications firm, replaceable in the most concrete way. I was not a visible appointee like Lily Greenberg Call or Craig Mokhiber. But there are hundreds like me—nameless young nobodies who assumed the identities of more powerful people until we couldn’t hold our noses any longer. Hopeful strivers who refused to submit to the banality of evil. Did it work? Did it make any sort of tangible difference, to throw this tiny wrench in a machine? For two years, I’ve repeated the beats of taking, working, and quitting this job in my head, wondering if I could have done more, sooner, to change the awful trajectory of Fetterman’s descent, and that of his progressive-except-for-Palestine peers, other clients of ours across the Democratic Party. I’ve gaslighted myself, told myself again and again that I must be a “quitter,” a naïve putz like most of my generation apparently is, incapable of withstanding hard things. Zoomers have been called “Generation Quit,” after all; I told myself that I was just another dimwitted example. Didn’t all the evidence point that way? Fetterman’s former chief of staff Adam Jentleson all but said so in the pages of The New York Times, where he bemoaned a “polluted” talent pipeline deluded enough to think that we could “change the system when it produces results [we] don’t like.” “Call for a ceasefire,” a Twitter user replied to Jentleson in October 2023; “no,” he replied, all lowercase, with no punctuation. I hated the idea that I was somehow proving him right. But looking back, thinking of Goodwin, and my peers around the world fighting for a free Palestine, I know I wasn’t naïve. I was under no illusions that politics would be perfect, that I would never have to compromise. I was willing—happy, even!—to work long hours and weekends for pay that only went so far in New York City. I knew I’d never agree with every politician on everything. They were politicians, of course, narcissistic enough to subject themselves to the level of scrutiny required to run for office. But my red line was genocide. There’s nothing naïve about that at all. As I no longer work for Fetterman, I’m no longer able to read his communications, but I am certain the DMs from his disenchanted voters have not stopped. Clearly, I am not the only person to find herself disillusioned with Fetterman, even if not on such intimate terms. The intensity of this disgust extends beyond one man or one office; it affects a generation of political talent that thought we could do things differently, that believed we were there to buck the establishment, only to find out that there were limits to the revolution we imagined—that progressivism, for most of the Democratic Party, was more posture than praxis. And so we suffer, the world over, the consequences of a lazy and self-absorbed Democratic party dead-set on “playing dead.” Elected officials who would rather become the villain than take off the cape altogether. When Kamala Harris lost the 2024 election, I was not surprised in the slightest. After all, who was left but the hacks, centrists, and grifters to work her campaign? The rest of us, “the groups” as Jentleson nebulously put it, the “magical thinkers,” the purists who simply could not stomach slaughtering 66,000 and counting were told, in so many words, to put up or shut up. The Fettermans of the world have cut off their own feet, and then gleefully rolled about on the floor, wondering why on earth they cannot walk. The trouble for him is, I’m not a foot any longer—and what’s more, feet are not a renewable resource. The old politics of cynicism, complicity, and unyielding hierarchy are dying; a new left is rising, insurgent, in their void. Look no further than Zohran Mamdani’s historic win to see proof that one need not sacrifice Palestinians or trans people at the altar of political expediency; that one can be a proud, self-identifying Democratic Socialist and pull off the greatest political upset in a generation not in spite, but because of it. In fact, contrary to the stagnant center-right philosophy of complacency, the only way to sustain political faith is by being for something in the first place. “This new age,” Mamdani roared Tuesday night in his victory speech, “will be defined by a competence and a compassion that have too long been placed at odds with one another.” If Fetterman and the rest of the Democratic establishment are to recover a semblance of oppositional power under Trump, it will be by embracing the very duality they’ve long denied—though, honestly, I’m not holding my breath. Half a year after I quit working for Fetterman, in June of 2024, he would compare himself to The Joker in a conversation with The New Yorker’s Benjamin Wallace-Wells. “It’s like in Batman—the original one, with Jack Nicholson,” he said. “I’ve already been dead once. It’s very liberating.” It’s tempting just to leave it there. But I know better now. I would never let a villain get the last word. Submit a correction Send a letter to the editor Reprints & permissions Leah Abrams is a speechwriter, critic, and host of the Limousine podcast and reading series. Her debut novel, Dated, will be published by Harper in 2027.

The Week Washington Tried to Outrun the Truth—and Tripped Over Everything Instead

Epstein files erupt, Trump allies split, the Pentagon rages at contractors, China’s new carrier rises, Taiwan rearms, and Conway torches DOJ.

In text messages sent in 2017, disgraced financier and registered sex offender Jeffrey Epstein appears to position himself as a middleman between President Donald Trump’s administration and Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates, even seemingly representing himself as passing on information directly from Trump to Gates through an intermediary. The messages, which the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform released on Wednesday, originated with the Epstein estate. They begin on January 27, 2017, years after Epstein had already pleaded guilty to state prostitution solicitation charges. In them, Epstein purports to show intimate awareness of Trump’s plans for domestic and global public health policy, and to be directly familiar with the president’s thinking. Trump has continued to claim, as recently as this summer, that he stopped speaking with Epstein around 2004. The messages are among those in dozens of files that show Epstein texting with prominent figures. According to metadata in the files, the texts were sent using iMessage and then backed up to an Apple computer. Throughout the exchange in question, Epstein is apparently talking to a longtime associate, physician Melanie Walker, who, according to an online biography at one time, worked for what was then known as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. She subsequently worked as an adviser to Gates at bgC3, the entity that would become Gates Ventures. The Gates Foundation and Gates Ventures did not respond to requests for comment. (The metadata does not name Melanie Walker as the sender of the messages. At one point in a continuous conversation carried on over a period of months, though, the person Epstein is texting with identifies herself as “Melanie” and gives him a new phone number, which is associated with Melanie Walker in public databases. Additionally, the person he’s texting with at one point situates herself at Harborview, a Seattle hospital to which Walker has ties. Melanie Walker did not respond to emails, a phone call, or a text message seeking comment.) In the first text in the files, Melanie asks Epstein for advice. “I'm seeing BG tmr. He will be in DC for the Alfalfa dinner but he's got mtgs most of the day including w Jared Kushner. Should I ask him to discuss surgeon general or mention it or wait? Not sure kushner cares about that stuff.” (The Alfalfa Club hosts an annual banquet in DC where political elites and high-powered businesspeople dine and network that Gates did attend in 2017. As they are throughout this article, the text messages here are presented as they appear in the Oversight Committee release.) Epstein tells her that Kushner wouldn’t care. “ask him if he will see tom barrack,” he writes. “thats the most important.” Epstein appears to be referring to the chairman of Trump’s inaugural committee in 2016 and current US ambassador to Turkey; at several points in the conversation he refers to Barrack as one of the people Gates should talk to if he wants to make things happen. The State Department did not reply to a request seeking comment from Barrack. Melanie should, he instructs her, tell Gates he’s free to call any time for “inside baseball.” “He wants to talk to you but his wife won’t let him,” Melanie replied. “He loves you.” Fifteen seconds later, she added, “he says hi.” Bill and Melinda French Gates finalized their divorce years later in 2021; Melinda went on to say that their split was due in part to Bill’s involvement with Epstein. A representative for her did not reply to a request for comment. Epstein and Melanie would subsequently discuss different plans to get Melinda Gates to soften her views of the registered sexual offender, including arranging a meeting between her and Kathryn Ruemmler, the former White House counsel in the Obama administration whose friendly messages with Epstein have appeared throughout the recent document dump. (“She would love to sit with Melinda and give her the other side of jeffrey,” Epstein writes on January 27 about Ruemmler, who did not reply to a request for comment.) The next morning, on January 28, discussion between the two turned to Trump. Throughout his messages, Epstein appears to imply specific and detailed knowledge of Trump’s personal interests and plans. “New medical group to be announced to study va,” Epstein writes to Melanie. “Mayo Cleveland involved.” “Trumps health guy is Moscowitz z palm beach,” he continues, in an apparent reference to Bruce Moskowitz, a Mar-a-Lago member who took a special interest in the Department of Veterans Affairs during Trump’s first term. “Not my interest at all it's Donald's,” Epstein writes. “He thinks vets should get at least as much as everyone else . Some hospitals do not have computers.“ The two discuss the potential power a surgeon general could wield before Epstein abruptly asks Melanie, “Did you fuck,” before clarifying that he meant to ask whether she had slept with “Bill.” “No,” Melanie replies. “Members of his henchman team hovered outside the door for the full few hours Instead We went crazy on the whiteboard and a lot to talk about.” “Every half hour they would bring him coffee or a croissant or a. Newspaper or message etc,” she continued. “Very closely watched.” “He was Complaining about being too old,” she wrote, “and I said he was still a little too young for me.” On February 18, the conversation resumed. “GENIUS IDEA Now to convince bill,” she writes; the context for this is not clear from the messages published by the Oversight Committee. “Do you think there is a way to do this really well and also get something for BG? Like if we say do this and the admin will keep PEPFAR or something like that.” “Yes and more,” Epstein writes. “its a deal” “Thats what he likes,” he continued. The “he,” subsequent texts make clear, is Donald Trump: “he said malaria and polio not an american problem. climate change and eboloa not a american problem nor is clean water or genital mutilation. he thinks bill should stop trying to scare people .ike chicken little,” Epstein wrote. (In October, Gates released a memo downplaying the impact of climate change. Critics noted Gates’ abrupt about-face, citing his previous philanthropic work and the book he published four years ago titled How to Avoid a Climate Disaster. Al Gore, the climate activist and former vice president, has wondered if Trump was bullying Gates.) “OK let's keep thinking BG likes deals too,” writes Melanie, musing that the PEPFAR program, which originated under George W. Bush as a government initiative to combat HIV/AIDS globally, was popular among Republicans. “If he could be convinced to keep PEPFAR as is in exchange for cyber i think we would all win.” “bill needs to focus on american problems first and foremost,” writes Epstein. “if he wants deals. he can also portray certain worldwide iniativies as buying american drugs etc. IT MUST have an american component. donald says it is childish to count the lives at risk in africa and make believe you are doing something for america. or pakistan afhhntan, etc. he points to 8500 killed in chicago vs 2500 killed in afganistan over the past 10 years.” Melanie says she “understands,” and notes that Gates’ team at the foundation is pushing “in other direction.” “I sent bill a note to suggest he talk to lauder,” writes Epstein, possibly in reference to billionaire GOP donor Ron Lauder or his brother Leonard. Epstein goes on to imply that he is in close communication with Trump and in a position to pass on messages from the president to Gates. “donald also thinks bill wants not to help america first , he should use his own money, and even that is wrong as it was made here. just transmitting.” The White House did not reply to a request for comment. Melanie and Epstein continued to go back and forth about the best way to proceed. She suggested Trump “should enforce tax laws” as a way to police the Gates foundation’s expenditures. “Number of lives saved per dollar amount is not in donalds mind, it must be american lives saved, and yes, good idea on tax,” replied Epstein. Melanie went on to share details about how, she alleged, the foundation took advantage of regulatory loopholes. “Understood I am good at that,” writes Epstein, “however bill should be careful very careful as donald could make an example of him using american dollars to help other than america which really needs it. careful” “Understood,” writes Melanie. The next day, she sent Epstein a link to an article in Commentary about Trump’s election and the American economy. “Good article for trump to see,” she wrote. On March 4, Melanie messaged Epstein. “Bg meets w trump march 20/21,” in apparent reference to Gates. (Gates did indeed meet with Trump at the White House on March 20, 2017. Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, said the meeting was about combatting disease outbreaks around the world.) “A waste of time,” replied Epstein. “he should meet with barrack,” in an apparent reference again to the current US ambassador to Turkey. On March 6, Epstein and Melanie continued messaging about Trump and Gates. “Israel - tell bill Paris week of 21,” Epstein wrote, in apparent reference to a supposed peace meeting regarding the situation in the Middle East. “Peace mtg? W Jared and Tony Blair and all those folks? Not sure bg interested in peace process mostly technologies,” replied Melanie. “He says he speaks to Jared a lot” “No peace boring and not happening. GROW UP,” Epstein replied. (While there didn’t appear to be a peace meeting in Paris in March 2017, on March 10, days after these messages were sent, Trump had his first ever phone call with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and invited him to visit the White House.) In their messages on March 6, Melanie reminded Epstein that the meeting was taking place between Gates and Trump later that month. Epstein appeared to then claim a meeting was taking place at his house to discuss a myriad of issues related to Israel, including, he said in a message to Melanie, “Money surveillance, offense. It’s at my house so I would know.” It’s unclear if the meeting took place, or who attended if it did. “Omg INVITE ME,” writes Melanie. “Can try to invite bg depending on guest list etc - Larry told him he couldn't have contact w you so would have to manage that carefully.” (This is an apparent reference to Larry Cohen, Gates’ longtime associate. Cohen is the CEO of Gates Ventures and did not reply to a request seeking comment.) “Not a problem for me,” writes Epstein. “I like bill . He gets more from me than I get from him. He should grow some balls and start to love.”

China’s efforts to blunt American maritime power in the Pacific, a region the United States has long considered its domain, received a major boost this month with the official launch of its third — and most advanced by far — aircraft carrier, the Fujian.Get concise answers to your questions. Try Ask The Post AI. The 80,000-ton supercarrier, which can accommodate about 60 aircraft and will be accompanied by as many as 10 warships, will dramatically narrow the naval capability gap between the U.S. and China, according to American, Japanese, Taiwanese and Chinese analysts. It will also enable Beijing to further intimidate rivals in the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait. “We’re really entering a new era here,” said Lyle Goldstein, an associate professor at the Naval War College. The impact of China's new Fujian aircraft carrier The Fujian will help China’s goal of expanding from a coastal navy to a Pacific power. The impact of China's new Fujian aircraft carrier The Fujian will help China’s goal of expanding from a coastal navy to a Pacific power. China was already a significant adversary: It has the world’s largest navy by number of ships, biggest arsenal of ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles, and largest active military service, with a standing army of 2 million soldiers. But China has lagged the United States in aircraft carrier technology. Now, the launch of the Fujian will bring Beijing closer to its goal of eroding U.S. maritime primacy in its backyard, not least because the warship uses electromagnetic catapults to launch planes, making China the only the country, after United States, to have developed and built this technology. “It’s not a small jump,” Goldstein said of the Fujian’s catapults. “It’s literally doubling or tripling — maybe even quadrupling — the combat lethality.” Underscoring how central the Fujian is to this goal, state broadcaster CCTV last week reported that Xi “personally” made the decision to adopt electromagnetic catapult technology. During the launch ceremony on the southern military stronghold of Hainan, Xi — dressed in a green military shirt — pressed the catapult button and sent the launch shuttle forward “like an arrow leaving the string of a bow,” CCTV said. The carrier fulfills multiple goals for Chinese military strategy: Its strike group — comprising fighter jets, stealth fighters, surveillance planes and cruisers laden with anti-ship missiles — will bolster Beijing’s intimidation of rival claimants in the disputed waterways of the South China Sea. But the U.S. projects its power around the world, while Beijing can concentrate on Asia. That makes the military balance in the region look far more precarious than before, said Toshi Yoshihara, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a Washington-based think tank. The speed of Chinese progress has been dramatic. When China commissioned its first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, in 2012, it was widely dismissed as an outdated Soviet design retrofitted from a secondhand hull. Its next attempt, the Shandong, in 2019, was built in China but based on the Liaoning. Now, Beijing has unveiled a domestically designed supercarrier with electromagnetic catapults. This launch system uses rapidly moving magnetic fields to accelerate aircraft along a track and fling them into the sky, enabling the Chinese military to launch heavier planes and at a far faster rate than before. Only one U.S. carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, which was commissioned in 2017, uses this technology. But concerns about the reliability of its systems have led President Donald Trump to suggest that future carriers should return to steam-powered catapults. China, however, claims to have mastered the electromagnetic catapult. State media in September broadcast footage of fighter jets and surveillance planes being launched from and landing back on the Fujian’s flight deck during sea trials. Chinese military experts claim that the three catapults of the Fujian can launch as many as 300 aircraft a day, on par with the most advanced U.S. carrier — although that may be an exaggeration. The layout of the Fujian’s flight deck makes it difficult to launch and land aircraft simultaneously, military analysts say. Still, its launch rate will be far higher than China’s two older carriers. Even allowing for the hyperbole of Chinese propaganda, the Fujian is shaping up to be a “completely different beast” from its predecessors, said Joaquin Camarena, a former U.S. Marine Corps intelligence officer who tracks China’s military modernization. China’s carrier program is focused on mastering revolutionary technologies that can modernize the country’s entire navy, said Tian Shichen, a retired People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy captain. “It’s like the Apollo program,” said Tian, who is now president of the Global Governance Institution, a Beijing-based think tank. “Its value wasn’t the footprint on the moon but the overall technological leap required to make it possible.” The Fujian has a significantly enhanced ability to detect enemy targets and act as a floating command center and air base. This will help deny adversaries access to the seas and skies in a potential conflict in the South China Sea or over Taiwan. The carrier’s catapults make it the only ship in the Chinese navy capable of launching the KJ-600 early-warning aircraft, dubbed the PLA Navy’s “brain in the sky” by local media. This plane, China’s answer to the U.S. E-2 Hawkeye, made its debut during a grand military parade in Beijing in September. Its extended radar range — at least double that of the helicopters used on China’s older carriers — enables the KJ-600 to look over the horizon, gather real-time information and relay commands, boosting the carrier’s ability to conduct complex defensive operations and offensive strikes far out at sea. “They have bridged that gap with the U.S., at least in theory,” said Collin Koh, an expert on the Chinese military at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore. “That certainly expands the PLA Navy’s far-seas combat capability.” The Fujian will be a force amplifier that brings together several advances in Chinese air and maritime combat power. Its strike group is expected to include Type 055 stealth guided-missile cruisers armed with an array of ballistic missiles designed to overpower the air defenses of U.S. naval vessels. It is nicknamed the “carrier killer” in Chinese state media and is thought to carry the latest YJ-21 hypersonic anti-ship missiles. One of the most formidable warships afloat, it was “built for the purpose of protecting carriers,” said Goldstein. The air wing will include upgraded J-15 fighter jets with inbuilt, electronic-warfare capabilities and next-generation J-35 stealth fighters. A single aircraft carrier cannot upend the regional security balance, said Li Da-jung, an expert on the Chinese military at Tamkang University in Taiwan, but the Fujian is a milestone that cannot be ignored. “If I were the U.S.,” he said, “I would treat this with great seriousness.” Countering American carrier dominance in the Asia-Pacific region has been an obsession for Beijing ever since the 1990s, when a crisis over Taiwan led the U.S. to send multiple aircraft carriers through the Taiwan Strait — infuriating Beijing over what it deemed an “internal” affair. That display became a “major catalyst for China’s naval modernization,” said Edward Sing Yue Chan, a postdoctoral fellow at Australian National University. It led Beijing to see carrier capabilities as “essential for any country aspiring to great-power status,” he said. Decades later, Beijing has hailed the arrival of the Fujian as evidence it can effectively challenge U.S. naval dominance across critical maritime domains in the Pacific. The U.S. had relied on geographical lines to contain China during the Cold War — mainly the first and second island chains, which run south from Japan, forming maritime chokepoints to access the Pacific Ocean. “China wants to push U.S. forces out from inside the first island chain and then be able to operate freely within the second island chain,” said Moriki Aita, a research fellow at National Institute for Defense Studies, a Tokyo-based think tank under Japan’s Defense Ministry. In May and June, China’s two older carriers held simultaneous drills in the Western Pacific near Japan’s outlying islands, with their associated aircraft conducting over 1,100 sorties, in a display of Beijing’s growing confidence. Chinese state media has hailed the Fujian’s even greater ability to operate near the second island chain as a way to deter Taiwan from moving toward formal independence. Beijing has long used its military to intimidate Taiwan but has contained its activity to the island’s east coast, just 100 miles from China. In recent years, it has increasingly been encircling Taiwan in an effort to test the island’s defenses. Taiwanese defense experts fear that campaign will only intensify with the Fujian. “We once assumed the east coast was relatively safe,” Ding Shuh-fan, an expert on the Chinese military at National Chengchi University in Taipei. “Now,” Ding said, “every corner of Taiwan is threatened.” Xi has made China’s “unification” with Taiwan a top priority — even though the Chinese Communist Party has never ruled the island. Some U.S. officials — including former CIA director William J. Burns and the former Indo-Pacific commander, retired Navy admiral Philip Davidson — have said Xi wants the Chinese military to be prepared to invade by 2027, if he deems force necessary. Any Chinese invasion is unlikely to be led by an aircraft carrier strike group, analysts say — it would probably rely on rocket bombardment, and amphibious and airborne assaults. But carrier strike groups could be an important component of China’s other critical objective: Keeping the U.S. and its allies from coming to Taiwan’s aid. In an escalating conflict, China would probably send carriers and destroyers out past the first island chain in a bid to “delay, disrupt and degrade U.S. capabilities,” said J. Michael Dahm, a retired U.S. Navy intelligence officer now at George Washington University. The Fujian has only just been commissioned, but China might be working on its next aircraft carrier. Construction is underway at a dry dock in China’s northeast on a huge ship that some analysts believe will become a fourth carrier. Whether or not the vessel becomes a next-generation supercarrier, there is little doubt that Beijing wants its next iteration to be even bigger than the Fujian — and to rely on nuclear propulsion, like American carriers. U.S. warships use pressurized water reactors to travel long distances and operate power-hungry catapults and radars for decades without needing to refuel. Developing these reactors has eluded Beijing. But in late 2024, analysts at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in California concluded, based on satellite images, that China had built a prototype of the kind of reactor needed to power large warships in the southwestern province of Sichuan. The PLA Navy wants to match the U.S. Navy’s carrier capabilities within a decade. Already, Dahm said, they’re “ahead of where they need to be.” Data from U.S. and Taiwanese military analysts, Chinese state media reports, the Japan Joint Staff Office and the U.S. Defense Department. Rudy Lu in Taipei, Taiwan, and Chie Tanaka in Tokyo contributed to this report. Editing by Anna Fifield, Adrián Blanco Ramos, Joseph Moore, Natalia Jiménez and Luis Velarde. Copy editing by Melissa Ngo.

Skip to content Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche on Thursday blasted conservative attorney George Conway online for calling into question Blanche’s interview with Ghislaine Maxwell, the convicted associate of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Conway wrote that Blanche’s July questioning of Maxwell “was either (a) completely incompetent; or (b) intentionally crafted not to elicit facts incriminating Trump,” Conway wrote on the social platform X. “Either way, he is not fit to serve as Deputy Attorney General of the United States,” his post concluded. Blanche told Conway in a response on Thursday that “you’ve never been confused for a trial lawyer, and these kinds of posts explain why.” “When I interviewed Maxwell, law enforcement didn’t have the materials Epstein’s estate hid for years and only just provided to Congress,” Blanche wrote in his repost. “Stop talking. It’s unbecoming.” “Dude,” Conway responded hours later, “you didn’t even come close to asking a decent follow-up question of Maxwell. And I saw you at your boss’s criminal trial, you know, the one where he was convicted on 34 felony counts: You couldn’t cross-examine your way out of a paper bag.” Blanche, who previously worked as President Trump’s personal attorney, met with Maxwell on July 24 and 25. She told Blanche that she “never saw” Trump “in any inappropriate setting,” that Trump and Epstein were not “close friends” and that she never saw Trump in Epstein’s home. “I actually never saw the president in any type of massage setting,” she added. “I never witnessed the President in any inappropriate setting in any way. The president was never inappropriate with anybody. In the times that I was with him, he was a gentleman in all respects.” The Department of Justice released the transcripts of Blanche’s interview with Maxwell as part of a series of documents from the Epstein files given to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee in August. Maxwell was convicted in 2021 on sex trafficking charges and sentenced to 20 years in prison. Earlier this year, Maxwell urged the Supreme Court to review her case. The Justice Department had pushed the court to reject that appeal. On Wednesday, House Oversight Democrats released three email exchanges from Epstein as he corresponded with Maxwell and author Michael Wolff. The exchanges say Trump “spent hours” at Epstein’s home and “knew about the girls.” That evening, House Democrats and four Republicans issued a discharge petition to force a vote on having the Justice Department release all files on Epstein. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said the House will vote on it next week. Trump urged Republicans not to engage with anything about Epstein, blaming Democrats for promoting “the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax” as a deflection from the government shutdown. “Only a very bad, or stupid, Republican would fall into that trap,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday. “There should be no deflections to Epstein or anything else, and any Republicans involved should be focused only on opening up our Country, and fixing the massive damage caused by the Democrats!” Add as preferred source on Google Tags Donald Trump George Conway Ghislaine Maxwell Jeffrey Epstein michael wolff Mike Johnson Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

WASHINGTON, Nov 13 (Reuters) - The U.S. approved the sale of fighter jet and other aircraft parts to Taiwan for $330 million on Thursday, marking the first such transaction since President Donald Trump took office in January, drawing thanks from Taipei and anger in Beijing. "The proposed sale will improve the recipient's capability to meet current and future threats by maintaining the operational readiness of the recipient's fleet of F-16, C-130," and other aircraft, the Pentagon said in a statement. Make sense of the latest ESG trends affecting companies and governments with the Reuters Sustainable Switch newsletter. Sign up here. Washington has formal diplomatic ties with Beijing, but maintains unofficial ties with Taiwan and is the island's most important arms supplier. The United States is bound by law to provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself. Taiwan's presidential office, noting the arms sale was the first announced by the current administration, thanked the U.S. government for continuing the policy of regularized arms sales to Taiwan and supporting Taiwan in enhancing its self-defense capabilities and resilience. "The deepening of the Taiwan-U.S. security partnership is an important cornerstone of peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region," presidential office spokesperson Karen Kuo said in a statement. The sales were expected to "take effect" within one month, Taiwan's defense ministry said in a statement. The provision of the parts will help maintain the air force's fighter readiness and bolster air defenses, strengthen defensive resilience and enhance the island's ability to respond to China's "gray-zone" incursions, the ministry said. China's military stages regular missions into the waters and skies around Taiwan, which the government in Taipei terms "gray-zone" activities designed to pressure the island but which stop short of actual combat. China expressed anger, as it always does with U.S. arms sales to Taiwan. "The Taiwan question is the core of China's core interests and the first red line that must not be crossed in China-U.S. relations," foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian told reporters in Beijing. China claims democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory and has not ruled out the use of force to take control of the island. Taiwan's government strongly objects to Beijing's sovereignty claims and says only Taiwan's people can decide their future.Trump says Chinese President Xi Jinping has told him he will not invade Taiwan while the Republican leader is in office.The announcement of the possible arms sale comes after Trump and Xi met late last month in South Korea in an effort to secure a trade deal. Ahead of the meeting there was a fear in Taipei that there could have been some sort of "selling out" of Taiwan's interests by Trump to Xi. Reporting by Kanishka Singh and Ismail Shakil; Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in Taipei and Joe Cash in Beijing; Editing by Himani Sarkar and Kate Mayberry Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab Kanishka Singh is a breaking news reporter for Reuters in Washington DC, who primarily covers US politics and national affairs in his current role. His past breaking news coverage has spanned across a range of topics like the Black Lives Matter movement; the US elections; the 2021 Capitol riots and their follow up probes; the Brexit deal; US-China trade tensions; the NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan; the COVID-19 pandemic; and a 2019 Supreme Court verdict on a religious dispute site in his native India.

Item 1 of 2 A Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter flies past the Washington Monument on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., U.S., June 11, 2025. REUTERS/Al Drago [1/2]A Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter flies past the Washington Monument on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., U.S., June 11, 2025. REUTERS/Al Drago Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab WASHINGTON, Nov 14 (Reuters) - Large defense companies have "conned" the U.S. military into buying expensive equipment when cheaper commercial options would have been available, U.S. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll said. Government accountability advocates and some lawmakers have long argued that defense contractors have overcharged the military. But Driscoll's comments were unusually blunt for a sitting government official speaking out against companies that supply the largest military in the world. Make sense of the latest ESG trends affecting companies and governments with the Reuters Sustainable Switch newsletter. Sign up here. "(The) defense industrial base broadly, and the primes in particular, conned the American people and the Pentagon and the Army," Driscoll told reporters, referring to prime contractors that work directly with the government. He added that, in part, it was the government's fault for creating incentive structures that encouraged companies to charge astronomical prices.Large weapons makers provide the U.S. military with all types of systems, from Lockheed Martin's (LMT.N), opens new tab F-35 fighter jets to missile defense systems from companies like RTX (RTX.N), opens new tab, Northrop Grumman (NOC.N), opens new tab and Boeing (BA.N), opens new tab. Previously, the Army has said that a Lockheed-owned Sikorsky Black Hawk helicopter screen control knob that costs $47,000 as part of a full assembly could be manufactured independently for just $15. "The system has changed. You will no longer be allowed to do that to the United States Army," Driscoll said.The Army is launching an initiative to streamline its acquisition process. It is part of an overall effort by the Pentagon to allow the military to more rapidly acquire technology amid growing global threats.Reuters reported last week that the U.S. Army is aiming to buy at least 1 million drones in the next two to three years and instead of partnering with larger defense contractors, it wants to work with companies that were producing drones that could have commercial applications as well.Democratic U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren this month escalated pressure on the defense industry to stop opposing military right-to-repair legislation. Reporting by Idrees Ali; Editing by Jamie Freed Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab National security correspondent focusing on the Pentagon in Washington D.C. Reports on U.S. military activity and operations throughout the world and the impact that they have. Has reported from over two dozen countries to include Iraq, Afghanistan, and much of the Middle East, Asia and Europe. From Karachi, Pakistan.