TARGET 4

trump 2nd term 12 24

SEE FASCISM NSPM 7

see retaliation kash JUDGE DUGAN, KREBBS, REP MCIVER, COMEY...

SEE TRAITOR OBAMA TULSI 7 25

WEAPONIZ WORKING GP JARED WISE ED FUCKING MARTIN

SEE LAWFARE TRUMP DEEP STATE RUSSIAGATE

see press suppress

SEE LEGAL SUPPRESS

SEE DOGE bs SOC SAFETY NET FEMA CPPB USAID

SEE BLUE CITIES/ STATES see calif 3

MMA FTC RE MUSK

SEE ACAd suppress UNIVERSITIES HARVARD, LAW FIRMS

PRO GAZA FOR STUDENTS

X-X-X-

AN 7 26 // RR?

Over the weekend, President Donald Trump was hit with a CNN fact check that did not go in his favor. While Trump is known for making grandiose, exaggerated claims, according to CNN, a series of stories he’d just told were “completely made up.”

Trump was delivering remarks at the headquarters of the Environmental Protection Agency when he veered off-topic to delve into one of his oft-discussed obsessions: his hatred of wind turbines. He began by denouncing “the Green New Scam, where we were scammed,” before saying, “The whole country was – I wasn’t scammed. I got it right from the beginning; I got it from the first minute when I heard this crap. You know? They were saying wind was so wonderful, so wonderful, except you couldn’t watch your television. They wanted to watch the debate, Donald Trump against Sleepy Joe Biden. Nobody could watch it because the wind wasn’t blowing. Remember that? ‘Darling, we’d like to watch the debate tonight.’ ‘I’m sorry, the wind isn’t blowing.’”

The story, however, was entirely imaginary, and its underlying premise nonsensical, said CNN reporter Daniel Dale. In reality, a massive 51 million people watched the debate on television alone — including in Texas, the nation’s top producer of wind power.

“The president is making stuff up again,” Dale said. And as wind comes from a mix of power sources, with batteries storing wind-generated power for periods when the wind isn’t blowing, Dale noted that not only was the story itself “completely made up,” but the concept undergirding it was “completely made up by the President of the United States.”

According to the Daily Beast, “The president has harbored an irrational hatred of wind turbines ever since the Scottish government approved a wind project off the coast of Aberdeen within sight of his golf course more than a decade ago. For years, he has pushed bizarre theories about how wind turbines kill whales, cause cancer, and destroy property values, and has tried throughout his second term in office to block offshore wind projects.”

Trump made a number of other completely made-up claims at the event, asserting that “brownouts and blackouts every weekend,” which CNN described as “simply not true.” He also whined more than once that he gets “no credit” for the “$19.2 trillion” in investments the U.S. received during his first year back in office. According to CNN, “He doesn’t get such credit because the US hasn’t actually received anywhere close to $19.2 trillion in investment during this presidential term, let alone take in that much during the first year of the term; as we’ve repeatedly explained, Trump’s figure is a fabrication even the White House can’t substantiate.”

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MMA

July 27, 2026, edition of Sirius XM's The Megyn Kelly Show

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON (GUEST): Obviously, if you see from Fauci, he has an — I like the idea that we're all saying "files" now, because it's redolent of the Epstein files. That really bothers him, because that's —

MEGYN KELLY (HOST): Fauci hurt a lot more people than Epstein did. A lot more, amazingly.

HANSON: Oh, millions, millions, millions, millions.

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HASAN PIKER

5 25 26

INFLUENCER --> CHARGED/INVESTIGATED FOR STAYING IN FORBID HOTEL BUT NICK S ACTUALLY DID; FOOD AND MED SUPPLIES.

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an 3 26

Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson is being targeted by Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.), CNN reported Friday.

Loudermilk is known for being the lawmaker who gave tours to Jan. 6 attackers casing the U.S. Capitol ahead of the attack. After years of allegations against him, he was appointed chair of the Republican Party's investigation into the Jan. 6 committee.

Hutchinson was the aide who said that U.S. Secret Service agents faced off against President Donald Trump, lunging at the steering wheelof the security vehicle, trying to get them to take him to the Capitol to march with his MAGA supporters. Normally, the president rides in a limousine, but on that day, he delivered a speech from the White House Ellipse and rode in an SUV.

Hutchinson also witnessed former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows burning documents in his office fireplace. At one point, he was burning so many documents that Meadows' wife noticed a smell in his clothing and said it was costing them a hefty dry cleaning bill.

Loudermilk is demanding that the Justice Department bring charges against Hutchinson for lying to Congress about these incidents. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) signed off on the demand.

It will be a catch-22 for Loudermilk, however, because a trial claiming Hutchinson lied under oath would mean that Hutchinson would have access to information and witnesses who would be forced to answer questions under oath. She could call the Secret Service agents, Meadows and even Trump himself. Thus far, there has never been a trial for Trump on Jan. 6, only an investigation by the Justice Department. While there were charges ultimately filed, they were dropped after Trump won the 2024 election.

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has been concerned about Loudermilk's efforts, it was reported last year. He fears that subpoenaing Hutchinson could bring to light "embarrassing information" as well as sexually explicit text messages she allegedly received when she was working in the White House during Trump's first presidency.

For years, Republicans have alleged that Hutchinson lied about her account and in her book about what she experienced on Jan. 6 and beyond. Johnson has been the one worried about the can of worms it might open.

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an 2 26

President Donald Trump, in what appeared to be an attempt to pressure two major cable news networks, warned against booking two prominent former officials from his first administration.

Trump targeted CNN and MS NOW — formerly MSNBC, which he called “MSDNC” — while denouncing attorney Ty Cobb, a former member of the White House legal team who reported directly to the president, and former Department of Homeland Security Chief of Staff Miles Taylor.

The president called Cobb “one of the Worst Lawyers in Washington, D.C.,” and a “WHACKJOB, who I hardly knew,” and said Taylor is “another major Loser … who I have no idea who he is.”

He charged that both “make livings talking about me like they know me well.”

“So, when you watch these two guys on Television, which, fortunately, doesn’t happen often because there’s very little audience at either CNN or MSDNC,” he wrote, “remember, they know nothing about me — Just two DOPES trying to make a ‘buck’ by pretending to know something about someone who turned out to be very famous.”

Trump already was the president when they served in his administration.

“These two Networks are forewarned not to put them on the air again, because they have no knowledge or credibility with respect to anything have [sic] to do with DONALD J. TRUMP.”

Discover moreDiversity inclusion trainingRepublican Party newsLGBTQ rights updates

Last month, Cobb “claimed President Trump is experiencing a ‘significant decline’ in his mental faculties,” according to The Hill.

“I think the dementia and the cognitive decline are, you know, palpable, as do many experts, including many physicians,” Cobb said.

Trump’s social media post came just about the same time that he or someone with access to his social media account deleted what many, including several prominent Republicans, denounced as a racist meme that depicted former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama as apes.

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AN 1 26

After pledging to deescalate tensions in Minnesota, President Donald Trump kicked off Wednesday by taking aim at the mayor of Minneapolis, asserting — incorrectly — that declining to enforce federal immigration laws is unlawful.

Legal analysts and administration critics have warned that the moves the president made this week in the wake of the second deadly shooting of a U.S. citizen by federal agents were simply a change in tone — not in strategy or tactics, and not an actual pivot. Trump has recalled Greg Bovino, the head of Operation Metro Surge, from Minneapolis, and sent in border czar Tom Homan.

“Surprisingly,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, “Mayor Jacob Frey just stated that, ‘Minneapolis does not, and will not, enforce Federal Immigration Laws.’ This is after having had a very good conversation with him.”

“Could somebody in his inner sanctum please explain that this statement is a very serious violation of the Law, and that he is PLAYING WITH FIRE!” the president declared.

The president declared Frey’s stance is unlawful but legal experts note that cities and states generally cannot be forced to carry out federal immigration enforcement.

Former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance noted that “the feds can’t ‘commandeer’ state law enforcement resources to execute their policies.”

She also called the president’s statement, “More evidence Trump isn’t changing course on mass deportations.”

Politico senior legal affairs reporter Kyle Cheney offered some additional insight.

“Trump could not have designed a better statement to convince Judge Menendez that Operation Metro Surge is meant to coerce policy changes,” Cheney wrote.

He noted that courts have “ruled repeatedly” that the federal government “cannot coerce states to enforce federal law.”

“Nor is it illegal for states to decline to do so,” Cheney added.

“And the menacing ‘playing with fire’ is exactly the kind of statement (‘retribution is coming’) that worked against the administration in court earlier this week,” he added.

Indeed, ABC News interviewed the president on Tuesday and reported that Trump was suggesting federal agents would take a “more relaxed” approach in Minnesota after the two deadly shootings.

Trump said, “we can start doing maybe a little bit more relaxed,” and, “we’d like to finish the job and finish it well, and I think we can do it in a de-escalated form.”

ABC called it “a shift in tone.”

The New Republic’s Greg Sargent wrote on Wednesday, “The media narrative that Trump is ‘pivoting’ and ‘deescalating’ on his ICE raids … is wildly overstated. As long as the military occupations and the treatment of US cities as enemy territory continue, there’s no pivot. It’s that simple.”

“Trump wants to appear eager to minimize clashes between his govt militias and protesters. But he doesn’t want them to stop doing the things that are causing the clashes in the first place,” he continued. “There’s no Trump ‘pivot’ until we see real investigations into the government’s killings and real accountability for them.”

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AN 1 26

A Reagan-appointed judge just shot a warning flare up into the night

:{Thom Hartmann January 21, 2026

Nebraska mom Jamie Bonkiewicz filmed her interaction with Secret Service agents and police who came to her door because of a tweet.

“The Secret Service came to my door today because of a tweet. No threats. No violence. Just words. That’s where we are now.”

Meanwhile, the Justice Department is going after multiple Democratic members of the House and Senate, the governors of two states, the mayor of Minneapolis, and any Republican who speaks against Trump or his lickspittles:

Jerome Powell, Lisa Cook, Mark Kelly, Elissa Slotkin, Jason Crow, Chris Deluzio, Maggie Goodlander, Chrissy Houlahan, Adam Schiff, Eric Swalwell, Chris Christie, Jack Smith, Christopher Krebs, James Comey, Letitia James, John Bolton, Tim Walz, Jacob Frey, Miles Taylor…

Are we really losing our fundamental freedoms under Donald Trump?

Back in 1994, I was invited by a parents group in Singapore to speak about education and ADHD; my book on the topic had just made the cover of TIME magazine. I flew in, they put me up in the city/state’s fanciest hotel, and late the following afternoon I gave my speech. When, during the Q&A afterward, somebody asked me how best to institute the public school reforms I’d suggested, I said words to the effect of, “Get politically active, get your politicians involved, as they control and fund the schools.”

The room went completely quiet, which I thought odd, but then the conversation moved on and I didn’t think about it again until a few hours later when I arrived back at the hotel. My room had been ransacked. The bed was askew, drawers emptied, my suitcase all over the floor, even my toiletry kit spread across the bathroom floor.

When I called down to the hotel’s switchboard to let them know what had happened, the manager came up to my room and carefully told me that the police had visited my room while I was out.

“You must have done or said something suspicious,” he told me. That’s when I remembered the eerie silence in response to my suggestion that people get politically active.

America isn’t Singapore. Yet.

Or Russia, where even standing in the street with a blank sign will get you prison time. Yet.

Or Hungary, where posting on Facebook against Viktor Orbán will get you thrown into jail. Yet.

But we’re sure as hell moving in that direction.

Retired professor Barbara Wien stood outside Stephen Miller’s home passing out “No Nazis in NOVA” [North Virginia] fliers with his picture and the slogan, “Wanted for crimes against humanity.” Three weeks later, she was visited by agents of the FBI, the Secret Service, and a Virginia state policeman, because Miller’s podcaster wife had reportedly called them.

In addition to intimidating Wien, they had a search warrant signed by a judge and took her phone. The New York Times notes:

“The activist … has not been charged with any crime, though the Virginia State Police still have her phone. The investigation remains active, leaving it unclear whether law enforcement has since gathered additional evidence.”

Her lawyer told the Times about his client and the activists who’d been distributing similar flyers in town:

“They were speaking truth to power, and that is really at the core of our Constitution. It’s a principle and a right that our country was founded on.”

True, but the Trump regime doesn’t care about the law.

Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson had been reporting on Trump’s corruption and reorganization of our government, so FBI agents showed up at her home and took her phone, her laptop, and her sports watch, which had a record of everywhere she’d visited for the past few weeks. They were apparently looking for the names and locations of the federal employees she may have interviewed. As theTimes reported:

“It is exceedingly rare, even in investigations of classified disclosures, for federal agents to search a reporter’s home. A 1980 law generally bars search warrants for reporters’ work materials, unless the reporters themselves are suspected of committing a crime related to the materials.”

True, but the Trump regime doesn’t care about the law.

Meanwhile, a Reagan-appointed federal judge in Boston just said out loud what millions of Americans are feeling in their gut. U.S. District Judge William G. Young, hardly a lefty firebrand, looked at the evidence in front of him and concluded that the Trump administration is using the machinery of the state to punish speech it doesn’t like.

“I find it breathtaking,” Young said, that he was forced to conclude that “high-level officers of our government — cabinet secretaries — [were] conspiring to infringe the First Amendment rights of people with such rights here in the United States.”

Young was presiding over a case involving the arrest and threatened deportation of non-citizen college students and scholars who spoke out on Palestine. What troubled him wasn’t just the individual cases, but the pattern. The brown-nosers around Trump, he said (without using that word), appeared to be deliberately chilling dissent by turning immigration enforcement into a political weapon.

“The record in this case convinces me,” Young said, “that these high officials — and I include the president of the United States — have a fearful view of freedom. A view that defines the freedom here in the United States by who’s excluded.”

In other words, free speech for those who agree with Trump, Miller, Vance, Noem, et al, but fear, harassment, and punishment for those who don’t.

Then Young went farther, in a way judges almost never do. He openly described Trump’s governing style as authoritarian:

“It’s fairly clear that this president believes, as an authoritarian, that when he speaks, everyone — everyone in Article II — is going to toe the line absolutely.”

When a Reagan judge with impeccable conservative credentials and four decades on the bench is sounding alarms about authoritarianism and the collapse of First Amendment norms, it’s not partisan noise. It’s a warning flare shot up into the night.

But, of course, the Trump regime doesn’t care about norms or the Constitution. And if what’s going on isn’t clear enough, Stephen Miller posted last night about Minneapolis:

“Local and state police have been ordered to stand down and surrender.”

I spent decades doing international relief work in some of the worst places on the planet. I’ve had government soldiers threaten my life, police put automatic weapons in my face, and government ministers on three continents solicit bribes from me and my organization.

I’ve met with political prisoners and families whose members were murdered by the state for simply having the wrong political view. I’ve held children as they stopped breathing from starvation and had an aid worker shot to death in front of me.

This is the road to third-world-style-governance that our corrupt felon of a president has put America on. He justifies the execution of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis, sets his rabid mobs on judges who don’t rule the way he wants, intimidates reporters and sues news outlets to shut them up, and is now threatening to deploy the full force of the federal government to silence dissent, criminalize protest, and punish individual speech he finds inconvenient.

He’s destroying our European alliance to the benefit of his friend and mentor Vladimir Putin, writing to the Norwegian Prime Minister as if Trump alone can determine American foreign policy like some sort of emperor or America’s mad king:

“Dear Jonas: Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace…”

He’s dragging this country step by step toward the sort of strongman state like the ones I used to work in, where loyalty matters more than the law and fear crowds out personal freedom. He’s overseeing a rapid and radical transformation of America from a democratic republic into a strongman oligarchy where billionaires like him, Elon Musk, the 13 billionaires in his cabinet, and the 140 billionaires who supported him in 2024 run the show.

He’s turned America into an oligarchy, in other words. Rich people buy pardons, corporations buy regulations and subsidies they want, and average people are screwed, particularly if they complain too loudly.

But history teaches us that oligarchies are unstable systems of government.

They typically either collapse from their own internal rot (as happened here in 1932 when the Republican Great Depression brought down the oligarchs of the Roaring Twenties) or get overthrown by their own people (as happened here in the 1860s when the fascist Confederate system that had taken over the Old South was destroyed by the Civil War).

And when oligarchies don’t collapse or get overthrown, they morph into tyranny; usually that happens within a single generation.

That’s what happened in Russia. It went from the chaos of the 1990s oligarchy to Putin’s authoritarian state in less than 20 years. It’s also what happened in Hungary, where Viktor Orbán took a newly-liberated democracy and turned it into an authoritarian state in less than a decade. It’s also what’s happening right now in Turkey, the Philippines, Brazil, India, and multiple other countries around the world.

Tyranny doesn’t typically pop up fully formed and all at once. It comes incrementally, moving step by inexorable step, until it hits a tipping point where it can no longer be stopped. Even days before that tipping point is reached, most people still think the system will correct itself, that once everyone figures out what’s happening, things will go back to normal.

They’re almost always wrong.

America is now in that dangerous zone between oligarchy and tyranny. Because of the corrupt Supreme Court Citizens United decision and its 1978 parent Bellotti, our nation’s oligarchs have controlled our politics for a solid 40 years.

They own the media, have captured the courts, and have bought most of Congress. The question for today is whether they’ll be satisfied with their comfortable oligarchy or whether they’ll join Trump and the GOP’s push for America’s final transition to outright dictatorship.

Steve Bannon told us what the goal was: “Deconstruct the administrative state.” That’s tyrant-speak for dismantling the institutions that might dare or have the ability to constrain oligarchic power.

As a result, we’re in a race against time and the window for successful action is narrowing. Every week that the Trump regime isn’t seriously challenged in the states, courts, the press, or at the ballot box, America’s oligarchs tighten their grip. Every election they buy makes the next election easier to purchase. Every judge they install makes the next judge easier to intimidate or buy off.

This isn’t alarmism: it’s the historical pattern, repeated across dozens of countries and thousands of years. I’ve seen it, repeatedly, with my own eyes.

Oligarchies either collapse or they become tyrannies; there’s no third option.

Thus, the only real question now is whether enough of us will recognize what’s happening while there’s still time to stop it. Republics like ours die — like Russia and Hungary did — when ordinary people convince themselves that the warning signs aren’t real. At least until the knock on the door comes for them.

And then, of course, it’s too late…

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AN 1 26

Officials in President Donald Trump's administration have accused both Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz of "domestic terrorism." One legal expert says is arguing that phrase is being used for a specific reason.

In a Tuesday interview with Slate legal writer Mark Joseph Stern, Julia Gegenheimer — a former attorney in the Department of Justice's (DOJ) Civil Rights Division who is now a special litigation counsel at the Georgetown University Law Center – said the Trump administration's use of the word "terrorism" is done with intent to cause harm to leading Democrats in Minnesota.

"It is profoundly disturbing. And the reason why this feels different to you is that it is a bit of a different flavor," she said. "It’s pitting the federal government against the states and creating tension where it doesn’t need to be. And frankly, it’s implicitly encouraging acts of political violence against these elected officials by turning them into the enemy."

The Trump administration has so far issued subpoenas to both Frey and Walz along with Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her, alleging that they conspired to impede law enforcement operations. Stern remarked that the Trump administration was not only "falsely accusing" Frey and Walz of committing political violence, but effectively sowing the seeds for violence to be committed against them. Gegenheimer agreed and asserted this was part and parcel of Trump's agenda in Minneapolis.

"We’ve seen this throughout history, even recent history: When you put people in opposition like that — when you portray them as the enemy, when you describe them as kind of threatening a person’s way of life or things that they hold dear — that creates the conditions under which people are more likely to resort to political violence, and it becomes more and more the norm," Gegenheimer said.

Stern reminded readers that the Trump administration has taken numerous actions to antagonize residents of blue states, along with those states' leaders, in an effort to frame them as the "enemy of the federal government and even the American people." Gegenheimer pointed to the administration's deployment of troops in Washington D.C. and Chicago, Illinois as further illustrations of what she characterized as a politically motivated retribution campaign against people who didn't vote for him.

"It doesn’t take too much reading between the lines to see that that’s what’s going on," she said.

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an 12 25

an in-depth report published by the Washington Post on Tuesday offers new details about the damage being done to the Social Security Administration during President Donald Trump’s second term.

The Post, citing both internal documents and interviews with insiders, reported that the Social Security Administration (SSA) is “in turmoil” one year into Trump’s second term, resulting in a customer service system that has “deteriorated.”

The chaos at the SSA started in February when the Trump administration announced plans to lay off 7,000 SSA employees, or roughly 12% of the total workforce.

This set off a cascade of events that the Post writes has left the agency with “record backlogs that have delayed basic services to millions of customers,” as the remaining SSA workforce has “struggled to respond to up to 6 million pending cases in its processing centers and 12 million transactions in its field offices.”

The most immediate consequence of the staffing cuts was that call wait times for Social Security beneficiaries surged to an average of roughly two-and-a-half hours, which forced the agency to pull workers employed in other divisions in the department off their jobs.

However, the Post‘s sources said these employees “were thrown in with minimal training... and found themselves unable to answer much beyond basic questions.”

One longtime SSA employee told the Post that management at the agency “offered minimal training and basically threw [transferred employees] in to sink or swim.”

Although the administration has succeeded in getting call hold times down from their peaks, shuffling so many employees out of their original positions has damaged the SSA in other areas, the Post revealed.

Jordan Harwell, a Montana field office employee who is president of American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) Local 4012, said that workers in his office no longer have the same time they used to have to process pay stubs, disability claims, and appointment requests because they are constantly manning the phones.

An anonymous employee in an Indiana field office told the Post that she has similarly had to let other work pile up as the administration has emphasized answering phones over everything else.

Among other things, reported the Post, she now has less time to handle “calls from people asking about decisions in their cases, claims filed online, and anyone who tries to submit forms to Social Security—like proof of marriage—through snail mail.”

Also hampering the SSA’s work have been new regulations put in place by Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency that bar beneficiaries from making changes to their direct deposit information over the phone, instead requiring them to either appear in person at a field office or go online.

The Indiana SSA worker told the Post of a recent case involving a 75-year-old man who recently suffered a major stroke that left him unable to drive to the local field office to verify information needed to change his banking information. The man also said he did not have access to a computer to help him change the information online.

“I had to sit there on the phone and tell this guy, ‘You have to find someone to come in... or, do you have a relative with a computer who can help you or something like that?’” the employee said. “He was just like, ‘No, no, no.’”

Social Security was a regular target for Musk during his tenure working for the Trump administration, and he repeatedly made baseless claims that the entire program was riddled with fraud, even referring to it as “the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time.”

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an 12 25

Donald Trump's Department of Justice is getting in on the push to force diversity programs out of American businesses with a "novel" interpretation of an 1863 fraud law, but an analysis from MS NOW found that this new "bullying" tactic amounts to "a complete waste of resources."

According to a recent report from the Wall Street Journal, the DOJ is now attempting to use the 1863 False Claims Act to go after companies that receive government money through federal contracts to make sure they do not have "diversity, equity and inclusion" programs in place. The report specifically singled out Verizon and Google's parent company, Alphabet, as some of the initial targets.

Trump issued an executive order in March calling for the end of all DEI initiatives in the federal government. His administration has also been aggressive in targeting such programs at private businesses with any means available to it, and major companies like Amazon, Target and Paramount opted to roll them back in response.

Examining the new legal tactic at the heart of this push, MS NOW's Hayes Brown explained that the False Claims Act was first introduced to take on defense contractors attempting to bilk the Union government for more money during the Civil War. Recently, it's mostly been used to go after healthcare companies suspected of overcharging the federal government.

This new intended use of the law by the Trump administration, holding companies liable and potentially leveling fines against them for having DEI programs in place while taking government money, would be a "novel" interpretation, Brown wrote, and one that "hasn’t been tested in court and could easily fall flat." Still, he argued, "the mere fact that DOJ is pursuing this route is chilling in and of itself."

Brown also noted that, by utilizing this novel approach to the False Claims Act, the Trump administration is shifting responsibility for its anti-DEI crusadeonto the DOJ from the department's civil rights division to its fraud division, which has been ordered to "aggressively" pursue the matter. Aside from being "clear politicization of the legal system," Brown also argued that it represents "a major waste of resources" for the DOJ, which has recently "been struggling with its workload" under Attorney General Pam Bondi's remaking of the department.

"Even if the cases go nowhere, or don’t result in charges, businesses with less money than Google may step up efforts to roll back their diversity programs," Brown concluded. "MAGA pours a lot of resources into achieving its goals, but it prefers that its targets for bullying comply in advance."

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MMA

As Trump threatens regime change in Venezuela, right-wing media embrace opposition figure María Corina Machado

Conservative pundits have given Machado a platform to agitate in favor of Trump’s aggressive military campaign, while she’s given them fuel for discredited conspiracy theories

Written by John Knefel

Research contributions from Alex Kaplan, Sophie Lawton, Monica Rodriguez & Ben Van Bloem

Published 12/03/25

Right-wing media figures have spent the last year championing Venezuela opposition figure María Corina Machado, who has supported President Donald Trump’s threats of regime change in her home country.

The relationship between Machado and conservative media is mutually reinforcing: She provides right-wing outlets with inflammatory claims about President Nicolás Maduro — including exaggerated or false accusations of tampering in U.S. elections and running narcotics enterprises — and in return these outlets provide her with a platform to agitate for his ouster. As The New York Times reported, Machado recently endorsed the debunked conspiracy theory that Venezuela interfered in the 2020 U.S. election, further ingratiating herself to MAGA by adopting one of the movement’s core tenets. She has also claimed without evidence that Maduro is the leader of two drug cartels, one of which doesn't even exist as a discrete or coherent organization, according to many experts.

Since early September, President Donald Trump has ordered airstrikes on at least 21 boats, killing at least 83 people, in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean — part of a larger pressure campaign aimed at removing Maduro from office. In October, the administration ended diplomatic outreach to the country, though Trump and Maduro reportedly spoke over the phone in late November. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a key Machado-backer, has been pushing for Maduro’s ouster for months with what some believe is an eye toward eventually collapsing the government of Cuba as well.

Right-wing media responded to Trump’s escalation by defending the extrajudicial boat strikes and pushing for even greater incursions into Venezuela, including toppling Maduro’s government. Many in conservative media have told their audiences that regime change in Venezuela would be easy, despite all evidence to the contrary.

### Right-wing media celebrate Machado

Right-wing coverage of Machado often relies on a blurry distinction between supporting Machado and cheering the removal of Maduro on the one hand while misleadingly claiming to oppose U.S.-led regime change on the other — arguably a distinction without a difference. Sometimes Machado employs this sleight-of-hand rhetorical device herself, seemingly to assure her audience that attacking Maduro’s government would not result in a replay of George W. Bush’s unpopular forever wars.

Fox News’ Rachel Campos-Duffy is perhaps Machado’s most significant ally in right-wing media, having interviewed her in both English- and Spanish-language media. Campos-Duffy’s colleagues at Fox have also praised Machado, as has Donald Trump Jr. on his Triggered podcast. Other conservative figures celebrated her even prior to Trump’s election in November 2024.

In July 2024, Sebastian Gorka discussed Machado on hisAmerica Firstshow with a guest who said Machado “has been the real leader of Venezuela for years.” Guest Joseph Humire was, at the time, executive director of a think tank focused on national security issues and now serves as deputy assistant secretary of war for Western Hemisphere affairs, according to his LinkedIn page. A later analysis of Humire’s think tank found that it spread false information about Tren de Aragua, a criminal organization in Venezuela. Gorka, now a counterterrorism adviser to Trump, and Humire were discussing the recent election in Venezuela, in which Maduro claimed victory despite international observers determining the election did not meet democratic standards. Salem Media Group, *America First with Sebastian Gorka*, [7/29/24; LinkedIn, accessed 10/7/25; C-SPAN, 8/21/25; The Carter Center, 7/30/24; The Guardian, 8/13/25]

- In January, just days before Trump’s second inauguration, Campos-Duffy said Machado is “considered Venezuela’s liberator” and floated the possibility of regime change within the year. Campos-Duffy then paraphrased Trump’s approach to the Western Hemisphere, saying, “We will control our backyard, our neighborhood. And that is what you’re seeing play out right now.” She continued: “Venezuela couldn’t be happier that Donald Trump won, but it’s going to be difficult to take this dictator out of power. It’s going to be a very interesting year for Venezuela.” Fox News, *Fox & Friends*, [1/10/25]

- In March, Donald Trump Jr. interviewed longtime U.S. mercenary and Blackwater founder Erik Prince, who said the Maduro government is “going to have to be pushed out. And it doesn’t require U.S. military — it can be covert action from the intelligence community or covert action from Venezuelan patriots helped by outsiders.” Earlier in the interview, Prince said: “María Corina Machado is a brave woman and deserving of our help and our support. And they did to her what they tried to do to your dad.” Prince added that “the Maduro regime” is “effectively a narco-state,” and accused it of “exporting leftist, communist money to all the other political parties all across the continent.” Earlier, in February, Trump Jr. gave Machado a friendly interview on his program as well. Rumble, *Triggered*, [3/17/25, 2/26/25; The Wall Street Journal, 8/16/25]

- Trump Jr. returned to the subject in April in an interview with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, during which Trump referred to Machado as “clearly the choice of the Venezuelan people.” Rubio added that Machado was “one of the bravest people in the world.” Rumble, *Triggered*, [4/8/25]

- :{:{In July, former GOP congressman and current One America News host Matt Gaetz interviewed right-wing activist Roderick Navarro, who has long supported the overthrow of Maduro and now said that “it is necessary that María Corina Machado, which is the leader of the opposition, the true opposition, can be aligned with the Secretary of State Marco Rubio, to end this situation as soon as possible.” Navarro’s statement came in response to a question from Gaetz about how change could come to Venezuela following the disputed election the previous year. One America News,:(style="background-color:#ffff00ff"):}: *The Matt Gaetz Show*, [7/20/25; The Guardian, 12/14/18]}:

- In August, Trump Jr. interviewed Deputy Secretary of State Chris Landau, who said Machado is “somebody that I admire tremendously, and clearly she won the election last year.” Landau continued: “I very much look forward to a day, very soon, when we have constitutional order restored in Venezuela.” Earlier in the interview, Landau cautioned against U.S.-led regime change. Rumble, *Triggered*, [8/11/25]

- The same month, Campos-Duffy interviewed Machado, giving her an opportunity to persuade Americans who support Trump “taking on Nicolás Maduro” but worry that “this kind of smells like regime change.” Machado responded: “This has nothing to do with regime change for two reasons. First, because the change of the regime was already mandated by the presidential election we won by a landslide. And secondly, because this is about dismantling a criminal terrorist enterprise that has taken the power of Venezuela by force.” She added: “We are ready to take power — the legitimate government, elected. Venezuela will move orderly and peacefully to the transition.” Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [8/13/25]

- Two days after Trump’s initial boat strike on September 2, Machado said in an interview with Campos-Duffy that Maduro “is understanding, finally, that the time of impunity is over and it is in his best interest to accept the will of the people that voted against him. It’s time to go.” Campos-Duffy replied, “The pressure is mounting and he is feeling more and more like a caged animal.” Fox News, *Fox & Friends*, [9/4/25; The New York Times, 9/2/25]

- On September 6, Campos-Duffy argued that “Latin American social media” was proof of “cries from the entire hemisphere of, yes, do it, we need to get rid of these cartels, we need to have our countries back, liberate us President Trump” because “they know it can only happen with him.” During her appearance on Fox & Friends Weekend, which replayed her Machado interview, Fox’s Brian Brenberg added, “Machado is one of the most impressive leaders around the globe, and your interview with her was awesome. Following that story is like following the story of liberty, and I hope it has a very successful ending.” Fox News, *Fox & Friends Weekend*, [9/6/25]

- On September 30, Campos-Duffy again interviewed Machado, who said outright that “Maduro is not the president.” Machado added, “Maduro is illegitimate, as the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has repeated so many times,” and said that “regime change was demanded last year with the vote of the Venezuelans.” Fox Deportes, *Fox Noticias*, [9/30/25]

- :{:{In October, Fox News host Sean Hannity said Machado “sounds like a pretty good leader to me for the people of Venezuela and the end of narco terrorism.” Fox News:(style="background-color:#ffbb16ff"):}:, *Hannity*, [10/20/25]}:

- A few days later, Campos-Duffy hinted that the Rubio-led campaign against Venezuela could expand to other Latin American countries. “A lot of people saying, we’ve heard María Corina Machado say it on our show as well, if Venezuela returns to the people who won the election last July, to the opposition party, and the Marxist, you know, socialist government of Maduro goes down, so will Cuba and so will Nicaragua. It will essentially get all of the communists out of our hemisphere,” Campos-Duffy said. Fox News, *Fox & Friends Weekend*, [10/25/25]

- OnSunday Night In America with Trey Gowdy, after Rep. Maria Salazar (R-FL) mentioned that Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Machado is planning to “open the oil rigs” to U.S. companies, host Trey Gowdy mentioned that “she may be leading that country here in the not-too-distant future.” Fox News, *Sunday Night in America with Trey Gowdy*, [10/26/25]

- On November 19, Campos-Duffy teased an upcoming interview with Machado, arguing that “unlike other countries where you’ve seen regime change and the U.S. has been in some way involved, Brian, this is a country that doesn't need to be stood up economically.” Earlier in the segment, host Brian Kilmeade asked: “Rachel, it looks like she’s preparing to take over. Does she know something that we don’t?” Fox News, *Fox & Friends*, [11/19/25]

- The interview aired a few days later on November 22, with Machado predicting that Venezuela “will see an orderly and peaceful transition … that will happen very soon.” During a separate segment of the interview, Machado argued that “regime change was already mandated by the Venezuelan people by a landslide.” She said “Maduro started this war; President Trump is ending this war,” adding that “we are solving and dismantling a criminal structure that has produced great pain and turn our country, our nation, into the best ally of the United States — a security shield for the Americas and a huge opportunity for energy security.” Fox News, *Fox & Friends Weekend*, [11/22/25, 11/22/25]

Machado’s rise has also given election deniers an opportunity to revive the long debunked conspiracy theory that Venezuela interfered in the 2020 U.S. election against Trump. Machado — who had recently been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize — repeated that false claim during an October 31 interview on a Bloomberg podcast. “I have no doubt that Nicolás Maduro, Jorge Rodríguez, and many others are, you know, the masterminds of a system that has rigged elections in many countries, including in the U.S.,” Machado said. “I have no doubt about that.”

Former Overstock CEO and "prominent election denier" Patrick Byrne mocked a post criticizing Machado’s interview on his Telegram channel, writing that people who say the 2020 U.S. was fair “doth protest too much.” In August, Byrne claimed that Smartmatic, which provides electronic voting systems, is “a spinoff of the Venezuelan government” and that the company “has been rigging elections for people around the world.” In October, Bryne said the United States had to “overthrow the governments of Venezuela and Cuba" because they “overthrew our republic.”

In November, Trump promoted a right-wing show on social media during which a guest said “there are at least a dozen people in Venezuela that have more money and power” than the CIA, adding: “This is the largest transnational criminal organization in the world that no one knew about, or no one wanted to talk about, until they stole our election in 2020."

### What comes next

For all of the right-wing media claims that Maduro interfered in the 2020 election, it’s worth underscoring that in 2002 the United States at least tacitly supported a failed coup against then-President of Venezuela Hugo Chavez. During Trump’s first term, his administration engineered an unsuccessful campaign to oust Maduro and install opposition figure Juan Guaidó.

:{Despite those failures, conservative media have embraced Machado in a way that’s reminiscent of earlier episodes in U.S. foreign policy, when media and government officials celebrated opposition figures in the early years of the invasions and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq.

As The New York Times notes, Machado has been a “darling” of Washington for decades, and her people are in constant contact with Secretary Rubio, the Trump administration figure leading the charge to topple Maduro. One possible reason Washington has been enthralled with her for so long is that, according to Bloomberg, she “favors privatizing all industries in Venezuela,” including the state-owned oil company, if the United States takes out Maduro. Ian Bremmer noted that U.S. action in Venezuela “in large part about the oil.”}:

Should Trump's plan move forward, Machado is the most likely candidate for his administration to rally behind. She’s already won over right-wing outlets — but as U.S. campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan showed, sometimes an opposition figure’s charm offensive is the easiest battle of the war.

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AN 11 25

Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and its Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) has referred former Jack Smith prosecutor Thomas Windom to Attorney General Pam Bondifor criminal investigation, reports MSNOW.

The House Judiciary Committee has formally accused Windom, a former senior assistant special counsel to Smith, of obstructing a congressional investigation by declining to answer questions, and has referred him to the Department of Justice (DOJ) for prosecution under 18 U.S.C. § 1505.

Jordan has been actively scrutinizing Smith and his team's handling of the prosecutions against President Donald Trump, demanding testimony and documents, and referring a former aide for criminal prosecution for allegedly obstructing a congressional investigation.

"I think it's very serious in what it signals about this administration's willingness to go after people associated with Jack Smith's investigation," says MSNOW senior legal reporter Lisa Rubin.

"Tom Windom, who's the subject of today's referral, was really the public face of thefederal election interference case brought against President Trump in D.C. He was the lead prosecutor that you saw in court every day, and they're accusing him of obstructing a congressional investigation by claiming privilege and otherwise not being responsive to their questions," Rubin continues.

"The idea that he could be prosecuted for that when he is really trying to protect himself and the prerogatives of the special counsel's office is really flabbgergasting to me," she adds.

MSNOW legal analyst Catherine Christian agrees, saying, "I agree. It's part of the retribution agenda."

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an 11 25

Far-right influencers are looking to Miami as a venue to pursue "long-promised charges of a 'grand conspiracy'" against President Donald Trump’s perceived adversaries, according to a New York Times report.

The influencers have even found a federal prosecutor there— Jason A. Reding Quiñones, Trump-appointed United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, who was sworn into office in August 2025 and is currently a central figure in a high-profile investigation into a 2017 intelligence community assessment regarding Russian election interference.

As for their alleged 'grand conspiracy,' the Times explains that its theory is "still unsupported by the evidence."

"A cabal of Democrats and 'deep-state' operatives, possibly led by former President Barack Obama, has worked to destroy Mr. Trump in a yearslong plot spanning the inquiry into his 2016 campaign to the charges he faced after leaving office," the Times explains.

Last week, however, Reding Quiñones issued over two dozen subpoenas, including to officials who took part in the inquiry into ties between Russia and Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, according to people with direct knowledge of the matter, the Times writes.

Among the recipients include familiar Trump foils: James R. Clapper Jr., the former director of national intelligence; Peter Strzok, a former F.B.I. counterintelligence agent who helped run the Russia investigation; and Lisa Page, a former lawyer at the bureau.

The Florida investigation currently focuses on a "January 2017 intelligence community assessment about Russian interference in the 2016 election, particularly the role played by John O. Brennan, the former C.I.A. director, in drafting the document," the Times says.

The Brennan investigation started "after criminal referrals to the Justice Department by top Trump intelligence officials," the Times writes, and was assigned to David Metcalf, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, "who was given special authority to scrutinize and possibly prosecute Mr. Brennan, according to four people with knowledge of his actions who requested anonymity to discuss an open matter."

Metcalf held senior Justice Department positions during the first Trump administration.

The Brennan case, however, was transfered from Metcalf to Reding Quiñones, "as part of a decision to greatly expand the scope of the Brennan investigation into other, unspecified activities, according to two people with knowledge of the situation," the Times explains.

The Florida subpoenas, the Times explains, "seek documents or communications related to the intelligence community assessment from July 1, 2016, through Feb. 28, 2017, according to people familiar with them. It commands the recipients to provide them to prosecutors in Miami by Nov. 20."

Despite the dubious nature of these investigations, the Times says, they do have one thing on its side.

"Reding Quiñones, a military veteran, has pursued his mandate to hunt down Mr. Trump’s foes with a gung-ho attitude that has endeared him to the president and the small but influential cadre of loyalists pushing hardest for prosecutions," notes the Times.

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MMA

Right-wing media outlets are claiming regime change in Venezuela would be easy. Evidence and history suggest otherwise.

Conservative pundits are promising a small US footprint and an easy transition should the Trump administration topple Maduro, but the reality would likely be much more complicated

Written by John Knefel

Research contributions from Sophie Lawton

Published 10/29/25

Right-wing media outlets have spent months telling their audiences that a U.S. military campaign to topple the Venezuelan government would be simple and straightforward, requiring a minimal military footprint or lasting commitments to the country. In some cases, these outlets have suggested that the transition to a new government, following the toppling of President Nicolás Maduro, would be easy and organic.

Even if the United States were able to defeat the Venezuelan military fairly quickly in a conventional war, many experts warn that regime collapse would likely lead to an extended, bloody conflict that could have lasting ramifications throughout Venezuela, the surrounding region, and potentially the entire hemisphere. To date, the United States has carried out 13 known strikes on boats the Trump administration has alleged, without evidence, were engaged in the drug trade, killing at least 57 people, and has amassed the largest show of force in the region since the Cuban missile crisis.

Right-wing media suggest U.S.-supported “indigenous regime change” in Venezuela would be simple

According to numerous media outlets, Secretary of State Marco Rubio is leading the Trump administration’s campaign to topple the Maduro government, a long-running obsession of his. Rubio nominated opposition leader María Corina Machado for the Nobel Peace Prize, which she won this year, and praised her in Time magazine’s 2025 list of 100 most influential people in the world. Machado, in turn, has been a rallying point for U.S. interests seeking Maduro’s ouster.

Right-wing media figures have frequently cited Machado’s standing as evidence that Maduro could be overthrown and replaced with few complications.

In March, Erik Prince, arguably the United States’ most prominent mercenary, appeared on Donald Trump Jr.’s Triggered podcast to make that argument. Prince said the Maduro government is “going to have to be pushed out.”

“And it doesn’t require U.S. military,” he continued. “It can be covert action from the intelligence community or covert action from Venezuelan patriots helped by outsiders.” It’s not hard to imagine Prince considering himself or his allies as the “outsiders” in question, given his reported ties to anti-Maduro forces.

“María Corina Machado is a brave woman and deserving of our help and our support,” Prince said earlier in the interview.

Video

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From the March 17, 2025, edition of Triggered

In August, as conservative outlets began beating the drums of war, Fox News’ Rachel Campos-Duffy — a vocal opponent of Maduro — conducted an interview with Machado. Campos-Duffy asked her to persuade Americans who support Trump “taking on Nicolás Maduro” but worry that “this kind of smells like regime change.”

“This has nothing to do with regime change … because the change of the regime was already mandated by the presidential election,” Machado replied. She added: “We are ready to take power — the legitimate government, elected. Venezuela will move orderly and peacefully to the transition.”

Video

Citation

From the August 13, 2025, edition of Fox News' Jesse Watters Primetime

The same month, The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh pushed to escalate in Venezuela based on what he referred to as “American chauvinism."

“They're a small, weak, pathetic, puny, poor country, and so they just have to do what we say,” Walsh said. “A war with Venezuela would last about four minutes.”

On September 10, following the Trump administration’s initial boat strike, Campos-Duffy appeared in a breezy segment with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth aboard a U.S. naval ship in the region.

“I was literally in awe of what I saw. And it's not just the military equipment,” Campos-Duffy said.

“It's the soldiers. It's how well-trained they are. How fit they are,” she continued. “How well-fed they are, which I say ‘well-fed’ because Maduro, of course, is threatening with his own militia, which we know is starving over there — they don't have anything that even comes a fraction of close to what we saw here on the USS Iwo Jima.”

The more recent U.S. invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan should serve as cautionary tales of American hubris

As Trump’s extrajudicial killing spree escalated in mid-September, The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board argued that “disgruntled military who want to liberate their country are living under the repressive arm of Mr. Maduro’s military counter-intelligence.”

In October, Fox News host Jesse Watters predicted that “there is going to be major action against Maduro pretty soon.” Even as he acknowledged it could go “sideways,” he stressed that it could be a “layup” to depose Maduro. Watters went on to pun on the Monroe Doctrine — referring to the “Don-roe Doctrine” — to argue that the United States has the right to interfere in Latin American countries’ internal affairs virtually at will.

On October 20, Fox News host Sean Hannity made that case directly, arguing that Machado “sounds like a pretty good leader for the people of Venezuela and the end of narco terrorism.”

A week later, The Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro argued that a “full-scale ground invasion of Venezuela” would not “be a good policy for the United States.” But, he countered, “if some sort of covert CIA action were to topple the regime in Venezuela, that would be a good thing.”

Shapiro argued there is a “bizarre idea that the best available scenario is always to leave the worst dictator in power because: Saddam Hussein,” but that that analysis “is benighted.” He added: “Sometimes the analogies work and sometimes they just don’t.”

Video

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From the October 27, 2025, edition of The Daily Wire's The Ben Shapiro Show

The same day, former Trump Deputy National Security Adviser KT McFarland said in an interview on Newsmax that she gets “really nervous” when “people start talking about regime change and implying that it's going to be the American Marines who do it.” She then reassured viewers that Trump has “always been very, very hesitant about American military force, American Marines’ boots on the ground.”

“Now, he's been very much in favor of regime change,” McFarland continued. “But how does that come about? That comes about because of the people of every country want a regime change.”

“It's an indigenous regime change,” she said.

McFarland escalated her rhetoric just two days later on Fox News. “Behind Maduro, there’s a very strong opposition leader, who, if — and that’s not with the U.S. Marines — but if there was a regime change in that country, there’s a very credible, powerful, potential Trump ally waiting in the wings as the new leader.”

What Venezuela regime collapse could look like

At a baseline level, the U.S. military could likely overwhelm the Venezuelan army in a conventional war fairly quickly, though Venezuela’s air and missile defenses are robust and could pose a threat to U.S. fighters, bombers, and ships in the area.

Even if the Trump administration opted for a “shock and awe”-style bombing campaign that decimated Maduro’s government, what comes after that is anybody’s guess. Reporting from The Guardian suggests that U.S. or aligned forces would not only come up against Venezuela’s official military, but could also face substantial informal resistance.

The history of Latin America is rife with examples of U.S. intervention leading to extended periods of civil war and brutal crackdowns on civilians

If Maduro were assassinated or forced to flee, factions within his government and outside armed forces would likely attempt to assert power over parts of the country. The history of Latin America is rife with examples of U.S. intervention leading to extended periods of civil war and brutal crackdowns on civilians. The more recent U.S. invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan should serve as cautionary tales of American hubris; in both cases elites were convinced that an opposition leader could simply be installed with few complications — assumptions that proved to be catastrophically wrong.

And while pro-war conservative pundits point to Venezuela’s 2024 election, which failed to meet free and fair standards, as proof of mass support for the opposition, those dynamics could shift if Caracas’ new government were installed on the back of U.S. tanks or as a result of a CIA-backed coup. The United States gave tacit approval, at least, for a coup attempt in 2002 that briefly removed Hugo Chavez from power, and in Trump’s first term he tried to install then-opposition leader Juan Guaidó into office in a pressure campaign. Both efforts ultimately failed.

The Monroe Doctrine and a Fox pundit’s dream of a right-wing Latin America

MAGA media figures have pushed to reinvigorate their version of the Monroe Doctrine, which conceives of the Western Hemisphere as the rightful dominion of the United States, for years. The escalation against Venezuela is a key part of this ideology, as is right-wing media’s support for Argentine President Javier Milei and its defense of former President of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro, both MAGA favorites. At the same time, Trump has waged a pressure campaign against President Gustavo Petro of Colombia, a leftist, by imposing sanctions on him and his family for alleged involvement in the drug trade. Trump has additionally threatened Colombia with increased tariffs and cutting off aid.

A recent comment from Fox’s Campos-Duffy suggests that the Rubio-led campaign against Venezuela is in fact even larger in scope than is currently appreciated.

“A lot of people saying, we’ve heard María Corina Machado say it on our show as well, if Venezuela returns to the people who won the election last July, to the opposition party, and the Marxist, you know, socialist government of Maduro goes down, so will Cuba and so will Nicaragua. It will essentially get all of the communists out of our hemisphere,” Campos-Duffy said. (Some observers believe Rubio’s campaign to remove Maduro is a precursor to his goal of overthrowing Cuba’s communist government.)

Video

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From the October 25, 2025, edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends Weekend

Campos-Duffy’s scheme, if put into practice, would not represent the first time the United States has tried to crush left-wing governments and social movements in Latin America. As journalist Vincent Bevins details in The Jakarta Method, which examines the history of U.S.-supported anticommunist efforts around the world, forces backed by the U.S. military and CIA have been responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people suspected of leftist sympathies across Central and South America.

That bloody history doesn’t fit neatly within the current right-wing media fantasy of a quick and easy operation in Venezuela. So, like the many victims of U.S.-backed regimes in Latin America, that context simply gets disappeared.

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GAI’s Seamus Bruner Reveals Left-Wing Funders Such as Roy Singham Behind Antifa Riots

PIX PEACE SIGN Elizabeth Weibel9 Oct 2025

Seamus Bruner, the Director of Research at the Government Accountability Institute (GAI) revealed that left-wing funders such as billionaire Neville Roy Singham were behind left-wing Antifa riots and protests.

During a roundtable event on Antifa with President Donald Trump, Bruner explained that he, GAI President Peter Schweizer, and their team “followed” a trail of money and “followed it to the top of what” they called the Protest Industrial Complex, or Riot Inc. Bruner explained that the so-called “Riot Inc.” was made up of many different divisions, and that “dozens of radical organizations” have received millions of dollars from Riot Inc.

“We found a network of NGOs, it’s not just the Soros network, the Open Society Network. It’s other funding networks, the Arabella Funding Network, the Tides Funding Network, Neville Roy Singham and his network, foreign cash,” Bruner explained. “And, it’s also big left-wing funders — some of them are not citizens of this country.”

Bruner continued to note that these left-wing funders were “pouring money into this entire ecosystem.”

Bruner continued to share “three money facts” about Riot Inc., explaining that there were “many divisions” such as “PR divisions, marketing divisions” and even a “well-funded legal division.”

“Number two, we have identified dozens of radical organizations, not just the decentralized Antifa organizations, but dozens of radical organizations that have received more than one hundred million dollars from the Riot Inc. investors,” Bruner added. “These would be the lawyer groups, these would be the groups that advocate for calling good, honest Americans fascists.”

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“And then, three, I think the most shocking thing is that we have found that more than one hundred million dollars in U.S. taxpayer funding has flowed into these funding networks, including at least four million dollars to these very groups themselves,” Bruner added.

Bruner’s mention of Singham comes after an investigation by the Breitbart News Foundation reported that while “records from the United Kingdom confirm” that Singham resigned from Thoughtworks, Inc., which he founded in 1993, “Chinese government records suggest otherwise.”

After founding Thoughtworks, Inc. in 1993 and building the company into a software consulting powerhouse, Singham helped orchestrate its sale in October 2017, for approximately $785 million to a group of funds managed by London-based private equity firm Apax Partners. Corporate records from the United Kingdom confirm Singham’s resignation from Thoughtworks the same month, and his own LinkedIn profile says he has been retired since 2017. Thoughtworks’ English-language website relegates him to its “alumni” section, reinforcing the image of a clean break.

But Chinese government records suggest otherwise. These records list Singham as a corporate officer of Thoughtworks’ Chinese subsidiary, Thoughtworks Beijing, as recently as June 17, 2025, and for at least as far back as 2022. These records are from the National Enterprise Credit Reporting System (NECIPS), China’s corporate registry. Other documents, including trade show profile and “help-wanted” ads, listed Singham as Thoughtworks Beijing’s official contact in 2021.

The New York Post reported in June that Singham was set to be called to testify before a congressional committee regarding him funding “radical anti-Israel and Marxist groups” behind the Los Angeles riots.

In an article written by Bruner in June, Bruner detailed how the GAI had uncovered how the “official partners” behind the “No Kings” protests “bagged $114.8 million since 2019 from the Arabella Avisors dark money network an how professional protest organizations use tax dollars as a force multiplier.”

Bruner reported:

The expected worldwide mobilization of protests against President Donald Trump this weekend will hardly be a spontaneous eruption. On the contrary, the tumult is a carefully plotted production organized by The Indivisible Project and financed by the progress dark money network managed/advised by Arabella Advisors, which has perfected the mounting of made-to-order protests. Since 2019, the Arabella network has dumped more than $100 million into the coffers of the official “No Kings” protest partners—including the creator of the official protest song book.

This “grassroots” “nationwide days of defiance” targets Trump and his “billionaire allies,” according to organizers. The Arabella network’s biggest benefactors are the left’s own billionaire heroes, including George Soros, Bill Gates, Hansjorg Wyss, Mark Zuckerberg, and Reid Hoffman.

During the roundtable event, Bruner vowed to “keep following the money,” and expressed that he appreciated “everything” Trump was doing.

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THREAT JAIL PRITZGER CHIC MAYOR JACKSON?

AN 10 25

'Wannabe dictator': Governor dares 'unhinged' Trump to carry out threat to jail him

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an 9 25

Elections attorney and Democracy Docket founder Marc Elias is sounding the alarm on President Donald Trump's administration, saying in an interview with The Guardianthat the U.S. is at a breaking point.

Elias is best known for leading election-related litigation against the president, with he and his team winning 64 of the 65 cases they worked on in response to Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

His efforts have obviously struck a nerve with Trump, who, in a presidential memo, named Elias as a threat to him for his involvement in the Christopher Steele dossier, intelligence memos compiled during the 2016 presidential election that alleged a conspiracy between Trump's campaign and the Russian government.

In a March Department of Justice press conference,Trump called Elias a “radical” who was trying to “turn America into a corrupt, communist and third-world country," and in 2018, he called him the “best Election stealing lawyer” after Elias went to work on a close Senate election in Florida in 2018.

Elias says he can't afford to back down.

IFrame Content

"We are in the break-glass moment of American history when it comes to free and fair elections and democracy and so, no, I don’t have any hesitation about litigating everything that we possibly can to protect elections,” he said.

Trump and his administration dismiss Elias with name-calling and lies.

Davis Ingle, a spokesman for the White House, said Elias “is a crooked hack who was deeply involved in creating a false ‘dossier’ against President Trump on behalf of his crooked client Hillary Clinton, in order to sway the 2016 election in her favor. Marc Elias is a disgraceful swamp creature and President Trump is draining that swamp.”

Elias says that it's a mistake to ignore Trump's vindictivenessand that not taking him seriously and literally is "one of the great failings" of how people react to his presidency.

“Every day we wake up and we see another vindictive act by this administration against its political opponents, whether they be in elective office or be in the private sector,” he told theGuardian.“I think anyone who uses their voice to speak up against Donald Trump needs to be realistic about the nature of this administration and the threats it poses.”

As for those threats, Elias is on the receiving end of antisemitic slurs, he told The Guardian, and while he ignores most as "trolling," he takes all of them very seriously. But, thebiggest threat he sees is Trump.

“Anyone who tells you that Donald Trump targets them and they don’t care, I think they’re just lying to you,” he said. “I think anyone who says they’re not afraid is either a psychopath or a liar. Of course, you’re afraid. Literally, the president of the United States, who ran for election on a campaign of vengeance and revenge, is talking about you. Of course you’re worried.”

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an 9 25

Florida Attorney GeneralJames Uthmeier (R) has announced the launch of a new tool for members of the public to report “acts or threats of political violence" as well as social media posts of public school teachers, according to the Tampa Bay Times.

Uthmeier, chairman of the ironically named far-right "Florida Freedom Fund" political action committee associated with Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL), has the backing of Florida Education Commissioner Anastasios Kamoutsas, who, recently sent a letter to public school superintendents threatening teachers who publicly express negative opinions about deceased far-right activist Charlie Kirk.

In a statement attached to Uthmeier's announcement, Kamoutsas said that “any educator who makes vile, despicable comments celebrating and encouraging violence in schools will be investigated and held accountable.”

According to The Tallahassee Democrat, Uthmeier said that "while the First Amendment will be upheld, threats of violence won’t be tolerated."

In the wake of Kirk's death, several Florida public school teachers have lost their jobs and status or been put on leave, including Karen Leader, an associate art history professor at Florida Atlantic University, placed on leave for posting about the right-wing podcaster's history of hate speech.

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A retired University of Florida professor lost his honorary title after posting about Kirk, “I did not want him to die. I reserve that wish for Trump," and other professors' posts are under investigation by the state along with teachers at several K-12 schools throughout the state.

“I didn’t say anything or do anything that encouraged violence at all,” Leader told Hyperallergic.“I did not say or do anything that celebrated his death, that said he deserved it, that in any way, shape or form, condoned violence.”

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AN 9 25

The Los Angeles Times has reviewed a previously unreleased 28-page letter from the Trump administration to UCLA demanding an overhaul to adhere to a more conservative agenda and it's littered with grammatical and factual errors.

These demands, which include $1.2 billion fine over allegations of antisemitism and civil rights violations, also calls on the California university "to make public declarations that it has agreed to significant elements of President Trump’s vision of higher education."

The president, who has previously said he "loves the poorly educated," doubled down on that sentiment Sunday, saying, "smart people don't like me."

Adding fuel to that fire is the UCLA document, which, the LAT reports, "shows signs of being hastily put together."

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Some of the more egregious errors besides the grammatical ones in which "nouns and verbs occasionally do not match in tense," are more factual, or, rather, lack thereof.

"There are references to the “president” of UCLA, but the top campus administrator, Julio Frenk, is a “chancellor," the LAT notes.

"A sentence about medical facilities references the “Feinberg School of Medicine,” which is at Northwestern University", not UCLA.

This isn't the first time the administration has shown why grammar and fact-checking matter.

In letters posted to his Truth Social account in July demanding world leaders sign on to his tariffs, Trump made an embarrassing error, according to the Daily Beast.

" Despite correctly referring to Željka Cvijanović, the Chairwoman of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina as “Her Excellency,” the letter to her begins with “Dear Mr President.”

In another Truth Social post in which he thanked the B-2 pilots who took part in the attack on Iran, Trump, in all caps, misspelled his own name as, " “DONAKD J. TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES!”

More concerning that garden variety typos, however, is what The Guardiancalls "governing by mistake."

"Have we ever seen a more error-prone, incompetent and fumbling presidency? In their rush to implement a barely concealed authoritarian agenda, this administration is producing a litany of blunders, gaffes and slip-ups. At times, they’ll seek to hide those mistakes by projecting a shield of authoritarianism. At other times, they’ll claim the mistake as a method of walking back an unpopular authoritarian agenda item. Either way, it’s a unique style of rule, one that I call “rule by error," says The Guardian'sMoustafa Bayoumi.

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MMA

The Gateway Pundit's Joe Hoft calls for the National Guard to remove judges and “throw them behind bars”

Hoft: “You cannot have the rulings that these judges have and and be of a sound mind. And you're a criminal. And same with Jerome Powell.”

Written by Media Matters Staff

Published 09/05/25

Jim Hoft's website, The Gateway Pundit,“is one of the worst purveyors of false information on the internet.” The website — to which Hoft's brother, Joe, is a contributor — reportedly became “a favorite news source” of President Donald Trump after it “pushed false claims of a stolen election“ for years following the presidential election of 2020.

During Trump's second term, the website has enjoyed access to the administration. In August, Jim Hoft interviewed Vice President JD Vance, during which Vance said the far-right website was “so important,” and a Media Matters review found that White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt called on The Gateway Pundit 5 times at press briefings during the first three months of Trump's second term, more than The Washington Post (4) or The Associated Press (3).

On September 3, Joe Hoft appeared on For the Love of Freedom with Danielle Walker and said that judges, who he alleges are “sabotaging our legal system,” and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell are “criminal” and need to be held accountable.

Video

Citation

From the September 3, 2025, edition of For the Love of Freedom with Danielle Walker, streamed on Rumble

JOE HOFT (THE GATEWAY PUNDIT): We have to deal with our judges. We have to get rid of these corrupt judges. We have to remove them from office. If it means, in my opinion, and I don't care what people say, if it means we need to send the National Guard in to remove these people from their office and throw them behind bars, then we have to. These people are not working for the country. They are sabotaging our legal system, destroying it by making these judgments that are grabbed out of nowhere because the judge just is a radical, radical, nonethical, disgusting human being. I think the same thing with Jerome Powell.

...

The judges need to be removed from office, and I think it charged. They need to be, we need to hold them accountable. You cannot have the rulings that these judges have and and be of a sound mind. And you're a criminal. And same with Jerome Powell. He's costing this country a trillion dollars a year by not lowering these rates.

Trillion dollars to every, you know, split amongst all Americans. Trillion dollars because he won't lower those rates, which should be lowered significantly to the point that we'd save a trillion. And that would really help the economy. It helped the housing industry and all this. I don't know why real estate agents aren't screaming for this guy to lower the rates.

And he won't because he's a vile, disgusting human being. He did the same thing with Trump his first term, raised the rates, kept raising them, and just crashed the, almost crashed the economy himself. And so these kind of people, we just cannot allow them to continue. They're too damaging and the damage is too severe.

20-Plus Times Jim Hoft And The Gateway Pundit Were Absurdly Wrong

01/25/17

### Former Trump aide: “Gateway Pundit was one reliable place he knew he could go for validation, and maybe even some new ideas”

01/03/24 12:58 PM EST

### By the numbers: As Trump snubs legacy media, data shows his press briefings elevate right-wing outlets

04/25/25

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SEE PRESS SUPPR 1ST AMEND SULLIVAN

an 7 25

former Rep. Devin Nunes (R-California) hasn't been shy about filing defamation lawsuits that many legal experts considered frivolous according to the standards outlined in U.S. Supreme Court's landmark 1964 ruling in New York Times v. Sullivan. In April 2023, U.S. District Court Judge C.J. Williams threw out a Nunes lawsuit against Esquire. And in 2020, Judge John Marshall ruled that Nunes couldn't sue two parody accounts on X, formerly Twitter (one of which was named Devin Nunes' Cow and mocked him from the perspective of a fictional cow).

Nunes also sued NBC/Universal in response to comments from top-rated host Rachel Maddow. But on Friday, August 1, U.S. District Judge Kevin Castel dismissed that lawsuit, ruling that Nunes failed to show actual malice.

In New York Times v. Sullivan, the Warren Court ruled that libel has to involve actual malice — a ruling that, 61 years ago, countless journalists and legal experts hailed as a major victory for the First Amendment and freedom of the press.

Castel's ruling is generating a lot of comments on X, formerly Twitter.

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Reuters Jonathan Landay noted that Nunes' lawsuit involved "a comment by Rachel Maddow about his dealings with a suspected Russian agent."

X user EJW commented, "Perpetual Loser Nunes — loses again."

Another X user, Sadie NYC, wrote, "Sucks to be you dude. Trump Media CEO Nunes loses defamation lawsuit over Rachel Maddow show."

Politico's Josh Gerstein observed, "BREAKING: Judge tosses fmr Rep. Nunes' libel suit re MSNBC report on handling of package from Russia-linked legislator. Maddow & producer said they relied on POLITICO report suggesting Nunes sat on package, didn't see later 1 saying he gave it to FBI."

X user Bill Thatcher wrote, "@DevinNunes Such an insecure little weenie. Did she hurt your little feelings?! Devin, the continuing poster boy for thin-skin, low IQ, politically deaf white boys."

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SEE TRAITOR BS 7 25

NY Times reported John Durham found the “Clinton Plan” emails were likely created by Russian spies. Right-wing media are running with them as legitimate.

Figures have suggested Clinton should be “behind bars,” argued the debunked scandal will “make Watergate look like a jaywalking ticket,” and likened it to a “soft coup attempt” and “treason”

Written by Noah Dowe, Pete Tsipis & Lis Power

:{Published 08/01/25

The right-wing media ecosystem has exploded with false claims about a newly-declassified annex to special counsel John Durham’s report on Russian collusion with Trump’s 2016 campaign. Right-wing media are claiming that the annex provides evidence of a “plot” by the Clinton campaign to undermine then-candidate Donald Trump. However, the newly-declassified assessment found that the documents in question were “not credible” and “likely made by Russian spies.”

Conservative media figures have ignored this assessment, instead calling for Hillary Clinton to be put “behind bars” for coordinating a “soft coup attempt.” And although they previously heralded Durham’s efforts, some in right-wing media are now arguing he “failed the American people.”

## Despite right-wing media claims, the declassified Durham annex found that the “Clinton Plan” emails “were likely made by Russian spies”

- On Thursday, the New York Post falsely claimed that newly declassified documents showed Clinton approved a plan to “smear” Trump with the Russia collusion narrative. The Post pointed to what it claimed are “explosive intelligence files declassified” this week, that purportedly show a “plot” in emails between Clinton’s campaign and allies to smear Trump with Russian collusion narratives. The evidence allegedly comes from Durham’s probe. New York Post, [7/31/25]

- In reality, the declassified documents show the opposite: the report’s conclusion was that the supposedly scandalous emails “were likely made by Russian spies.” Reporting from the New York Times noted that Durham’s assessment was that “a key piece of supposed evidence for the claim that Mrs. Clinton approved a plan to tie Mr. Trump to Russia is not credible” and was “probably manufactured.” Furthermore, Durham’s assessment was that the purported emails “were ultimately a composite of several emails that were obtained through Russian intelligence hacking of the U.S.-based think tanks.” New York Times, [7/31/25]

- The disclosure — which the Times called “the latest in a series of disclosures about the Russia inquiry, as the Trump team seeks to distract from the Jeffrey Epstein files” — follows weeks of outrage from some right-wing media over the administration’s handling of Epstein’s case. While some outlets have aided the administration’s attempt to deflect attention from Epstein, others, especially the hosts of online shows, have called the disclosures a “distraction” meant to make supporters “stop paying attention to Epstein.” Media Matters, [7/9/25, 7/23/25, 7/28/25, 7/30/25; New York Times, 7/31/25]

## Right-wing media are pushing debunked claims about the declassified annex

- Right-wing podcast host Megyn Kelly argued “Hillary Clinton should be behind bars, and so should the people who work for her who did this.” Referring to the alleged bombshell news, Kelly continued, “She wanted to distract from her email scandal. She cooked up a plan to accuse Trump of being a Russian agent in order to distract from her own legitimate scandal.” SiriusXM, *The Megyn Kelly Show*, [7/31/25]

- Right-wing influencer Benny Johnson suggested the annex “confirms Hillary Clinton personally approved the plot to frame Donald Trump with fake Russia collusion—despite intel proving it was false.” He added, “This was a coordinated criminal cover-up to protect Clinton and take down Trump. Christopher Wray must be investigated immediately.” Twitter/X, [7/31/25]

- Johnson: “It would hurt the feelings of this audience if nobody did anything on this.”YouTube, *The Benny Show*, [8/1/25]

- Fox contributor Byron York said the documents prove the “Clinton campaign played an important role in creating the whole Trump-Russia narrative” and suggested, “All those Republicans who think Soros is a big villain, well, they’ll be confirmed in this one.” Fox News, *Special Report with Bret Baier*, [7/31/25]

- Fox host Jesse Watters claimed “George Soros’ people worked with the DNC to roll out the hoax and the FBI was in on it the whole time.”Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [7/31/25]

Citation

Fox News

- Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo claimed that the documents point “right, straight to Hillary Clinton as she was the key voice signing off on the entire Russiagate scheme” and pushed for punishment, saying, “The statute of limitations does not apply when it comes to conspiracies.” Fox Business Network, *Mornings with Maria*, [8/1/25]

Citation

Fox Business

- New York Post: “Read the documents that prove Hillary Clinton OK’d plan to ‘smear’ Trump with Russia collusion.”New York Post, [7/31/25]

- Fox legal analyst Gregg Jarrett said the documents “further implicate Barack Obama as deeply embedded in the hoax.”Fox News, *Hannity*, [7/31/25]

- OnThe Will Cain Show, OutKick’s Buck Sexton said the annex proved a “soft coup attempt.”Cain replied, “I don't think there's any words that would rise to the level of hyperbole. You couldn’t outdo yourself if you said soft coup or treason.” Fox News, *The Will Cain Show*, [7/31/25]

- Fox host Sean Hannity: “I've been saying that this is going to make Watergate look like a jaywalking ticket in the end, and I believe this smoking gun out today proves that comment to be correct.” On his radio show, Hannity continued, “What I believe we are looking at is probably what Chuck Grassley classified as the biggest political scandal in American history.” Premiere Radio Networks, *The Sean Hannity Show*, [7/31/25]

- National Review news writer James Lynch claimed Clinton “approved a plan devised by her campaign to falsely smear Donald Trump with claims of Russian collusion.” National Review, [7/31/25]

- Gateway Pundit: “Declassified Durham Appendix Shows Hillary Clinton PERSONALLY Approved Trump-Russia Hoax.” The Gateway Pundit, [7/31/25]

- The Federalist wrote, “Hillary Clinton approved the Russia collusion hoax but then lied to the FBI about her knowledge of the plot.”The Federalist, [7/31/25]

- Washington Examiner: “Declassified Durham annex reveals FBI ignored evidence of a Clinton plan to create Russia hoax.”The Washington Examiner, [7/31/25]

- Former Trump White House press secretary Sean Spicer claimed, “The Clinton campaign in coordination with Team Soros weaponized US government law and intel agencies to manufacture a lie and media was complicit.” Twitter/X, [8/1/25]

- Fox & Friendsco-host Brian Kilmeade said the documents “appear to show that Hillary Clinton approved a plan to smear Trump in that summer prior to the RNC with the Russia collusion documents and brought Vladimir Putin along with her.”Fox News, *Fox & Friends*, [8/1/25]

Citation

Fox News

- Infowars author Sean Miller claimed the annex revealed “a conspiracy between the Democrat National Committee [DNC], Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, billionaire George Soros’ Open Society Foundation and the Barack Obama administration to formulate a fraudulent claim that then-candidate Donald Trump was a Russian asset.” Infowars, [7/31/25]

## Some in right-wing media attacked Durham, arguing he “failed the American people” with his initial report

- Blaze Media host Liz Wheeler: “How did John Durham miss all this evidence? Did he intentionally ‘miss’ it?” Twitter/X, [7/21/25]

- Right-wing commentator Bill Mitchell called Durham “the most useless special prosecutor in the history of Earth” and argued he intended to “kick the can down the road until they could install Biden and run this beyond the SOL.” Twitter/X, [7/27/25]

- Newsmax host Greg Kelly said Durham “failed the American people” because he was loyal to “the swamp.” Newsmax, *Greg Kelly Reports*, [7/31/25]

- Former Trump lawyer Sidney Powell said “Durham clearly did not do justice” to the case. Twitter/X, [7/31/25]

### Fox News has mentioned Obama over 3 times more than Epstein since Tulsi Gabbard released her report

07/23/25 4:07 PM EDT

### Fox News since Monday: 85 minutes talking about Sydney Sweeney, 3 minutes talking about Epstein

07/31/25 2:12 PM EDT

### Fox News has aired 168 segments about Tulsi Gabbard's revisionist claims regarding Russia, Obama, and the 2016 election

07/30/25

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MMA

### Charlie Kirk accuses Rep. Jasmine Crockett of being part of an “attempt to eliminate the white population in this country”

08/04/25

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AN 7 25

The Trump regime’s battle with Harvard University will be aired in court today when a federal judge hears arguments in Harvard’s lawsuit challenging Trump’s attack on it.

At stake is not just $2.2 billion in grants for scientific research, but the larger question of whether Trump can impose his agenda on independent universities in America — forcing them to bring their admissions, disciplinary procedures, academic hiring, and curricula in line with his priorities.

With the Trump regime ramping up its attacks on colleges and universities across America — using the pretexts of “DEI,” antisemitism, and transgender athletes to undermine academic freedom — it would seem more important than ever for universities to join together to stop him.

There is strength in solidarity. If each college and university seeks only to protect itself, the dictator-in-chief can pick off one after another — as he’s trying to do with law firms, the media, judges, and every other institution of civil society.

Which brings me to Dartmouth College.

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I graduated from Dartmouth in 1968. It gave me a wonderful education. I was also a Dartmouth trustee in the 1980s when its president, James O. Freedman, who was Jewish, endured the antisemitic barbs of an ascendant right-wing student group that included such people as Laura Ingraham, Dinesh D’Souza, and Harmeet Dhillon.

Now, Dartmouth is headed by Sian Beilock, who has turned Dartmouth into a Trumpy academic outpost.

Beilock declined to join more than 600 other academic institutions —including all of Dartmouth’s Ivy League peers — in signing a letter in defense of Harvard, which proclaimed “one voice against the unprecedented government overreach and political interference now endangering American higher education.”

This March, as Trump escalated his threats against universities, Beilock hired the former top lawyer at the Republican National Committee, Matt Raymer, as the college’s general counsel. (Raymer is a Dartmouth alumnus who, as recently as January, argued in a conservative online publication called The Federalist that Trump was right about birthright citizenship.)

Around the time Beilock declined to sign the letter defending Harvard, Beilock met with Harmeet Dhillon, Trump’s recently confirmed assistant attorney general for civil rights, who posted on X after their meeting: “I was so impressed to learn how Dartmouth (my alma mater) is getting it right, after all these years. Kudos to Dartmouth!”

In 1988, as editor of The Dartmouth Review, Dhillon became momentarily notorious for publishing a column depicting Dartmouth’s then president Freedman as Adolf Hitler under the headline “Ein Reich, Ein Volk, Ein Freedmann” — a play on a Nazi slogan, “One Empire, One People, One Leader,” but substituting and misspelling Freedman’s name for “Fuhrer.”

Using the analogy of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust, the column satirically described how “Der Freedmann” and his associates rid the campus of conservatives. The column referred to the “‘Final Solution’ of the Conservative Problem” and to “survivors” of the Dartmouth “holocaust” and described Dartmouth conservatives being “deported in cattle cars in the night.”

A drawing on the cover of the following issue, on October 26, also depicted Freedman, who had been critical of The Review, as Hitler.

As I said, I was a trustee of Dartmouth at the time. I saw up close how much Dhillon’s publication hurt Freedman. The student newspaper The Dartmouthtook The Reviewto task: “The column is anti-Semitic; its impact rings through this community today and will remain long after its publishers have completed their stints in Hanover.”

Several faculty members wrote to outside advisers of The Review, asking them to reconsider allowing their names to be associated with the publication. The regional office of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, in Boston, condemned the column.

Now, twenty-seven years later, as assistant attorney general for civil rights, Dhillon is investigating most of the Ivy League for antisemitism. Notably, she is not investigating Dartmouth.

Dartmouth has so far avoided the sort of threats Trump has leveled against Harvard, which are being litigated today. In fact, Dartmouth is the only Ivy aside from Yale to escape targeted attacks to its funding.

Presumably that’s because Beilock has appeased Trump, at least for now.

This week’s New Yorker contains a piece by Rob Wolfe titled “How Dartmouth Became the Ivy League’s Switzerland.” I don’t think the analogy holds. Dartmouth isn’t like Switzerland, which stayed neutral in World War II. It’s more like Neville Chamberlain’s Great Britain just before the war, which sought to appease the tyrant.

As the world painfully learned, tyrants can’t be appeased. Tyrants view appeasement as weakness, and always want more.

Were it not for FDR’s United States and Winston Churchill’s Britain, Hitler might have won, and both Dartmouth and Harvard might now be teaching Nazi versions of history, science, and everything else.

Which is why Sian Beilock gets this week’s Neville Chamberlain award.

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nbc?

:{July 9, 2025

By Ken Dilanian, Ryan J. Reilly and Dan De Luce

The Trump administration has put two repeated targets of President Donald Trump under criminal investigation, although details of what exactly they are being investigated for or how far the Justice Department intends on taking the probes are unclear.

The two targets are former CIA Director John Brennan and former FBI Director James Comey, whom Trump fired in his first term, according to a statement that a Justice Department spokesperson provided to reporters.

The statement followed a Fox News article on Tuesday evening reporting on the existence of the investigations. After referring to Comey and Brennan, the spokesperson said the Justice Department does "not comment on ongoing investigations.”

A lawyer for Comey had no comment. Brennan, who is a paid contributor to NBC News and MSNBC, said he has not been contacted by the Justice Department or the CIA about the reported investigation. The FBI declined to comment.

The Fox News article was published as both FBI Director Kash Patel and Attorney General Pam Bondi are facing significant blowback from conservative media and influencers over their handling of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation and material related to it. This week, the Justice Department and the FBI put out a memo restating what prior investigations had already found: that Epstein, a convicted sex offender and financier, killed himself in his jail cell in 2019 and that there was no incriminating evidence against uncharged third parties.

Patel, before joining the government, engaged with conspiracy theories about Epstein, while a statement from Bondi that an Epstein "client list" was sitting on her desk fueled more speculation on the right. Bondi later said she was speaking about documents related to Epstein, not an actual list.

U.S. news Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin says his family was rescued in Texas floods

As for Brennan, a source briefed on the matter said CIA Director John Ratcliffe had made a criminal referral of Brennan to the Justice Department. Exactly what prompted the Comey investigation is unclear.

Ratcliffe last week released an internal CIA review that criticized Brennan’s handling of a 2017 intelligence assessment concluding that Russian President Vladimir Putin wanted to help Trump defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election.

Any conduct that took place during that campaign or even in most of Trump’s first term is now outside the typical five-year statute of limitations for federal crimes. The Fox News article mentions testimony that Brennan gave to the House Judiciary Committee in May 2023 about the so-called Steele Dossier that was an issue during the 2016 campaign. It cites no specific conduct from Comey during the past five years.

A special counsel appointed by then-Attorney General William Barr spent years investigating how the 2017 intelligence assessment was put together, requiring many CIA officials to hire lawyers. That special counsel, John Durham, also used a grand jury to scrutinize the actions of Brennan, Comey and many who worked for them over how the FBI and CIA handled investigations into Russia’s effort to interfere in the 2016 election. But Durham did not charge the two former leaders or accuse them of wrongdoing. His sole charge against a public official came against a low-level FBI lawyer who had lied on a warrant application.

The Trump administration has been taking action against people involved in investigations of the president and his supporters. The Justice Department has a "Weaponization Working Group" that is examining those investigations, and many who worked on them and were still in the department have been fired. And on his first day in office, Trump pardoned his supporters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

ED FUCKING MARTIN JARED WISE EX FBI

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no lnx

List: Who Trump Has Targeted for Retribution

By Michael S. Schmidt, Matthew Cullen and Lazaro Gamio April 7, 2025

Share full article

Since returning to office, President Trump’s campaign to exact revenge against his foes has turned out to be far more expansive, creative, efficient — and less reliant on the justice system — than anticipated. Here's a breakdown of what he's done.

Read: In Trump’s Second Term, Retribution Comes in Many Forms

Biden administration members and other Democrats

Mr. Trump revoked the security clearances of former President Joseph R. Biden Jr., as well as a number of members of his administration and other prominent Democrats.

Joseph R. Biden Jr.

Kamala

Harris

Antony

Blinken

Jake

Sullivan

Lisa

Monaco

Hillary

Clinton

Norman

Eisen

Mr. Trump revoked Secret Service protection for Mr. Biden’s son Hunter and his daughter Ashley.

Hunter

Biden

Ashley

Biden

Members of the first Trump administration

Mr. Trump revoked security protection for several former members of his first administration, despite warnings from the Biden administration that some faced ongoing threats from Iran because of actions they took on Mr. Trump’s behalf.

In addition to revoking his security clearance, the Pentagon removed Gen. Mark A. Milley’s security detail, ordered an inspector general inquiry into his record and took down his portrait from the hallways of the Pentagon.

Mr. Trump terminated the security protection for Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top government official charged with the response to the pandemic.

John

Bolton

Mike

Pompeo

Brian

Hook

Mark

Esper

Gen. Mark A. Milley

Anthony

Fauci

People involved in criminal or impeachment cases against Mr. Trump

Mr. Trump revoked the security clearances of a number of officials, former officials and lawyers involved in impeachment cases against him.

Letitia

James

Alvin

Bragg

Fiona

Hill

Alexander

Vindman

Liz

Cheney

Adam

Kinzinger

Mark

Zaid

Andrew

Weissmann

Department of Justice, F.B.I. and other government officials

Special counsel team

The Trump administration fired more than a dozen prosecutors who worked for the special counsel Jack Smith on two criminal investigations into Mr. Trump.

Senior F.B.I. officials

Several senior employees at the bureau were told to resign.

Senior Justice Department officials

The Trump administration forced out veteran career lawyers who managed pardon work, bankruptcy litigation and other legal issues in the latest wave of forced departures.

The Trump administration also began an investigation into federal prosecutors and agents who investigated cases against pro-Trump rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Mr. Trump has also said he intends to strip the security clearances of prosecutors who investigated him and lawyers who played a role in his two impeachments.

The Department of Justice’s pardon attorney was dismissed a day after she refused to recommend that the actor Mel Gibson, a prominent supporter of Mr. Trump, should have his gun rights restored.

Southern District of New York

A top Department of Justice official appointed by Mr. Trump said the department would investigate prosecutors who refused to dismiss corruption charges against Mayor Eric Adams of New York.

Crossfire Hurricane

The president said he would also declassify documents from the F.B.I.’s investigation into ties between Mr. Trump and Russia, known as Crossfire Hurricane, which began in 2016.

Inspectors general

Mr. Trump fired at least 12 inspectors general, purging the government of several independent watchdogs whom Congress had charged with rooting out abuse and illegality within federal agencies.

Immigration court and watchdogs

The acting head of the U.S. immigration court system and three other top officials were fired. The Trump administration also shut down three watchdog agencies, gutting the offices responsible for conducting oversight of Mr. Trump’s immigration crackdown.

51 former intelligence officials

Mr. Trump revoked the security clearances of 51 people who signed a letter suggesting that the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop could be Russian disinformation.

Law firms

Mr. Trump targeted a number of law firms with executive orders that would strip their lawyers of security clearances, a move that would cripple the firms’ business. Some of the targeted firms employ lawyers who have worked on investigations into Mr. Trump or on causes that his supporters object to. Many of the firms have reached agreements with the Trump administration to avert the order, and top partners have closed ranks in support of the agreements.

Covington

& Burling

Perkins

Coie

Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison

Jenner

& Block

Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom

Willkie Farr & Gallagher

Milbank

WilmerHale

Other firms and lawyers

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sent letters to 20 law firms requesting information about their diversity, equity and inclusion-related employment practices. The letters suggested that the firms may have discriminated against white candidates and violated civil rights laws.

Mr. Trump issued an order directing the Justice and Homeland Security Departments to “seek sanctions against attorneys and law firms who engage in frivolous, unreasonable and vexatious litigation against the United States.”

Universities

The Trump administration has targeted multiple universities by reducing or pausing federal funding. The government’s rationales for its actions range from accusations of endemic antisemitism on campuses to the participation of a transgender woman on a swim team.

Columbia

University

University of Pennsylvania

Harvard

University

Princeton

University

Brown

University

News organizations

Associated Press

The White House blocked A.P. reporters from the Oval Office and Air Force One because the wire service is using the name Gulf of Mexico, rather than Mr. Trump’s preferred term, Gulf of America.

PBS

Mr. Trump’s Federal Communications Commission chair ordered investigations into sponsorships at PBS.

NPR

Mr. Trump’s F.C.C. chair ordered investigations into sponsorships at NPR.

CBS News

Mr. Trump’s F.C.C. chair opened an inquiry into CBS News focused on a “news distortion” complaint.

KCBS

Mr. Trump’s F.C.C. chair announced an investigation into the San Francisco radio station KCBS for its coverage of Mr. Trump’s immigration enforcement actions.

NBC News

Mr. Trump’s F.C.C. chair ordered an investigation into the diversity, equity and inclusion programs at Comcast, the parent company of NBC News.

Trump admin regulators launch investigation into Media Matters, adding to pattern

If it seems as if there have been a lot of new federal investigations into Democrats and their allies lately, it’s not your imagination.

May 23, 2025,

By Steve Benen

Donald Trump has an odd habit of demanding investigations into all kinds of people and entities whom he perceives as political foes, indifferent to whether his targets have actually done anything wrong. Often, the presidential calls amount to meaningless chest-thumping and go ignored.

But it’s important to remember that many of the White House’s political antagonists are, in fact, facing the kind of investigations that Trump has in mind. The New York Times reported:

The Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday opened an investigation into Media Matters, a liberal advocacy organization that has published research on hateful and antisemitic content on X, according to two people familiar with the inquiry. The regulator said in a letter sent to the organization that it was investigating the group, which is aligned with Democrats, over whether it illegally colluded with advertisers, according to the people.

It’s worth emphasizing for context that Trump’s top campaign donor and White House adviser, Elon Musk, sued the progressive media watchdog a couple of years ago, raising similar allegations, and as the Times’ article noted, the FTC’s regulators “also asked Media Matters to turn over all the documents it had produced or received from X in that litigation.”

Media Matters’ president, Angelo Carusone, said in a statement, “Right-wing media figures holding key posts and abusing government power to target critics are two hallmarks of the Trump administration. Threats won’t work, our mission continues.” (The commission, meanwhile, did not comment.)

Time will tell what, if anything, comes of the investigation, but if you’re thinking it seems as if there have been a lot of these kinds of probes lately, it’s not your imagination.

The public has learned in recent weeks that the administration — led by a president whose second-term “revenge tour” has been unsubtle — is also investigating and/or prosecuting a variety of Democratic officials and candidates, including Rep. LaMonica McIver of New Jersey, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, New York Attorney General Letitia James and New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy.

This dovetails with the president directing the Justice Department to go after Christopher Krebs, who led the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency; which came on the heels of Trump pressing the Department of Homeland Security to investigate Miles Taylor, a former high-ranking DHS official.

The president did this not because there’s evidence of Krebs or Taylor having done anything wrong, but because they defied him several years ago. They went on his enemies list, and now he’s exacting revenge.

Around the same time, Trump also directed the Justice Department to investigate ActBlue, the Democratic Party’s most important fundraising platform.

Maddowblog Why Trump’s radical offensive against Harvard won’t affect just the university

And did I mention the investigation into former FBI director James Comey? Because that's underway, too.

The Times also recently highlighted the broader pattern:

Mr. Trump and his allies are aggressively attacking the players and machinery that power the left, taking a series of highly partisan official actions that, if successful, will threaten to hobble Democrats’ ability to compete in elections for years to come.

Trump and his team are also going after law firms, universities and news organizations they consider political foes of the White House.

What’s more, given Ed Martin’s new responsibilities at the Justice Department, this overtly and abusive partisan pattern is likely to intensify.

My conservative readers will likely see this and say, “Well, during the Biden administration, Donald Trump was subjected to investigations, so what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.”

But that talking point remains absurd. Trump faced federal criminal investigations, not because of a retaliatory agenda, but because of voluminous evidence that he committed a variety of alleged felonies.

Axios recently noted, “In the final days of the 2024 campaign, Axios identified a list of perceived adversaries who fit what Trump ominously described as ‘the enemies from within.’ As president, he has taken steps to retaliate against virtually all of them.”

That was two months ago. The problem is vastly worse now, and there’s no reason to believe conditions will improve anytime soon.

*This post updates ourrelated earlier coverage

Steve Benen

Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MSNBC political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."

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an 5 25

President Donald Trump called for an investigation into NBC News and the CEO of its parent company after one of the network’s top reporters pressed him on the Pentagon’s Wednesday afternoon acceptance of a $400 million luxury airliner from Qatar—a gift some legal scholars warn may violate the Constitution without congressional approval.

“The secretary of defense has accepted a Boeing 747 from Qatar in accordance with all federal rules and regulations,” Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement on Wednesday, as The New York Times reported. “The Department of Defense will work to ensure proper security measures and functional-mission requirements are considered for an aircraft used to transport the president of the United States.”

Estimates range as high as one billion dollars for work that would be required to make the luxury jetliner capable of acting as a mission center to not only transport the President but protect them and other top officials in the event of crisis or war.

Experts “said that accepting the 13-year-old jet would likely cost U.S. taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars over time, noting that refurbishing the commercial plane would exceed its current value of $400 million,” NBC News reported last week. “The project might also not be completed by the end of Trump’s term in 2029, at which time the plane is expected to be handed over to Trump’s presidential library foundation.”

IFrame Content

But when confronted with a question about the jet, President Trump appeared combative and visibly angered.

“What are you talking about?” Trump asked NBC News Chief White House Correspondent Peter Alexander during an Oval Office meeting with the President of South Africa. “You know, you ought to get out of here.”

“What does this have to do with the Qatar jet? They’re giving the United States Air Force a jet, okay? And it’s a great thing. We’re talking about a lot of other things. It’s NBC trying to get off the subject of what you just saw. You are a real — You know, you’re a terrible reporter,” Trump charged.

“Number one, you don’t have what it takes to be a reporter. You’re not smart enough, but for you to go into a subject about a jet that was given to the United States Air Force, which is a very nice thing, they also gave $5.1 trillion worth of investment in addition to the jet. Go back, you ought to go back to your studio at NBC because [Comcast CEO] Brian Roberts and the people that run that place, they ought to be investigated.”

“They are so terrible, the way you run that that. And you’re a disgrace. No more questions from you.”

Moments later, the President of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa, jokingly remarked, “I’m sorry I don’t have a plane to give you.”

“I wish you did,” Trump replied, also saying he would accept it.

HuffPost White House correspondent S.V. Dáte remarked: “And there you have it. If Palestinians want their own state, they need to come up with a half billion dollar luxury jet to give Trump. Same with Zelenskyy, if he wants US help.”

Before the announcement that the U.S. has formally accepted the jet, U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), a former constitutional law professor, wrote: “I’ve introduced an amendment to block Trump from accepting his $400 million Bribe Force One from Qatar, a jumbo global scandal. It’s unconstitutional to take a foreign present ‘of any kind whatever’ from a foreign state, but House Republicans won’t even give me a vote. They don’t give a flying Emolument.”

Critics blasted and mocked the President.

“Someone’s getting testy about his Flying Bribery Palace,” wrote civil liberties and national security journalist Marcy Wheeler.

“Donald Trump has put a ‘for sale’ sign on the White House,” charged U.S. Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA). “He’s accepting a $400 million jet from Qatar – rubber stamped by AG Pam Bondi, a registered foreign agent for Qatar. He’s accepting $300 million from a company tied to the PRC and TikTok. This is corruption, plain and simple.”

[Bondi is a former registered foreign agent for Qatar.]

Watch the video below or at this link.

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rww David Badash @ The New Civil Rights Movement: Trump’s Latest Target: The Watchdog That Keeps Suing Him

From the outset of his 2024 presidential campaign, Donald Trump signaled that a central focus of his presidency would be targeting and exacting retribution against his critics.

ref

From the outset of his 2024 presidential campaign, Donald Trump signaled that a central focus of his presidency would be targeting and exacting retribution against his critics.

“In 2016, I declared, ‘I am your voice,’” Trump told attendees at CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference in March 2023. “Today, I add: I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution.”

In keeping his retribution vow, Trump in just three months—often with the use of the power of his executive orders—has targeted for retribution numerous top law firms, revoked the security clearances of dozens of top national security experts, former government officials, and former political opponents. He has targeted top universities, threaten to defund millions of dollars or more in critical research grants, and declared top news outlets CNN and MSNBC “corrupt” and “illegal.”

Just days after the 2024 election, NPR reported that during the campaign, “Trump made more than 100 threats to investigate, prosecute, imprison or otherwise punish his perceived enemies, including political opponents and private citizens.”

On Thursday, Trump threatened to go after one of his top legal critics: CREW, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a nonprofit legal and ethics watchdog that has been working for years to hold him (and others) to account, often by suing.

Asked by a reporter what group he would like to see have their tax exempt status removed, Trump replied, “Well, we’ll be making some statements, but it’s a big deal.”

“They’re so rich and so strong, and then they go so bad, they’ve earned so much by being a member of this country, you know, a member of this group, this beautiful group of people in this country, and then they go and they abuse their power like that,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office Thursday afternoon. “I think it’s, you know, I think it’s very sad.”

“I have a group named CREW,” he continued. “CREW. You ever hear of it? I think it’s CREW, and they have a guy that heads CREW. It’s supposed to be a charitable organization. The only charity they had is going after Donald Trump. So we’re looking at that.”

“We’re looking at a lot of things, but if you take a look at CREW, what they’ve done, and I think it was a very big abuse, but we’re going to be finding out pretty soon.”

During Trump’s first and second terms, CREW sued Trump or his administration for alleged emoluments clause violations, alleged Presidential Records Act noncompliance, and challenged some of his executive orders. It also represented voters in a lawsuit attempting to use the 14th Amendment to remove him from the ballot, claiming his role in the January 6, 2021 insurrection was constitutionally disqualifying.

In January, CREW was part of a lawsuit suing to “block Trump’s illegal plan to fire government workers,” and in February, CREW sued the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) “to compel transparency.”

CREW, in a statement to NCRM, vowed to continue its work.

“For more than 20 years, CREW has exposed government corruption from politicians of both parties who violate the public trust and has worked to promote an ethical, transparent government,” CREW Vice President of Communications Jordan Libowitz said. “Good governance groups are the heart of a healthy democracy. We will continue to do our work to ensure Americans have an ethical and accountable government.”

Legal experts are blasting Trump’s threat.

“It is literally a federal crime punishable by up to five years in prison for the President, VP, or any senior White House employee, to ‘request, directly or indirectly, any officer or employee of the IRS to conduct … an audit or other investigation of any particular taxpayer,'” wrote attorney Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council.

“The Trump administration has gone after law firms, they’ve gone after universities, and they’re now going after civil society, including groups like @CREWcrew. They want to silence any opposition to their extreme agenda,” added the National Women’s Law Center.

“President Trump is now threatening to weaponize the IRS against nonprofit organizations like @CREWcrew,” wrote Public Citizen. “He is attacking our most basic right: to say what we believe without fear of government prosecution. We proudly stand in solidarity with our friends at CREW.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

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FUCKERY

an 4 25

A federal judge ruled today that the Trump administration, including U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, violated his court order to unfreeze Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) relief to at least 19 states. The judge says the administration appears to be making a “covert” effort to punish states who oppose Trump’s oppressive immigration practices.

The New Republic reports U.S. District Judge John McConnell issued an injunction in March on behalf of 23 states suing the White House after the administration moved to pause FEMA aid to states. The Obama era judge ruled the hold-up “fundamentally undermines the distinct constitutional roles of each branch of our government.”

The federal reluctance applies only to states with Democratic attorneys general, and McConnell found the Trump administration ignored his March court order, with at least 19 states submitting “undisputed evidence” they were not receiving FEMA funds appropriated by Congress. Hawaii reported that FEMA had yet to respond to its $6 million request and subsequent $500k reimbursement for climate-related wildfires. The state of Oregon, meanwhile, reported that FEMA had yet to respond to a request for $129.4 million in federal funds for wildfires, severe winter storms, flooding, and mudslides.

“The Court’s intervention is necessary,” states wrote in a filing, because they “have continued to experience significant obstacles to accessing federal funds” while the government “reviews” spending.

Federal foot-dragging is not a “pause or a withholding of grants,” they say, “but an internal control” that appears to be used as a brick wall, with FEMA implementing a “manual review process based, covertly, on the President’s Jan. 20, 2025, executive order “Protecting the American People Against Invasion” targeting so-called “sanctuary cities.” McConnell noticed the connection between FEMA’s manual review process and the Invasion EO and ordered FEMA to “immediately cease” the manual review process and comply with his original court March order.

States became suspicious of being targeted as immigrant sanctuaries in January, after the administration released and order describing “the use of federal resources to advance Marxist equity, transgenderism, and Green New Deal social engineering policies is a waste of taxpayer dollars that does not improve the day-to-day lives of those we serve.”

As of today, states have not sought to hold the Trump administration in contempt.

Click here to read the New Republic's article in full.

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mma

February 11, 2025, edition of The Benny Show, streamed on YouTube

BENNY JOHNSON (HOST): Ladies and gentlemen, I have good and glorious news for you, and it's the reason why our stream was a minute late this morning. We have broken news of the FEMA top official, chief financial officer Mary Comans, has been fired by President Trump.

The top official at FEMA breaking here first, ladies and gentlemen, directly from our sources at DHS. FEMA is being gutted by Donald Trump.

This is the person in charge of billions of dollars in funding for FEMA who defied — please put it up — who defied President Trump and sent $60 million to criminal aliens in New York for luxury hotels, fired. Here's her photo.

We heard that they would be gutting positions. We didn't know it'd be the number one person at FEMA. How sick is the rot inside of our federal government? Breaking news this morning. This is your front seat to the golden era. Expect a lot more of this. We're working on some very big and very breaking stories. We are a dog with a bone. We are not going to let up on these corrupt, sickening bureaucrats.

More on the chief financial officer of FEMA getting walked out of the building by security, which is what just happened in Washington DC.

### Trump is signaling he wants to shutter or gut FEMA — another Project 2025 scheme

01/29/25

Ben Shapiro on FEMA: “It is a bizarre thing that area-specific crises ought to be thrust on the federal government”

01/27/25

### Sean Hannity endorses Kristi Noem's call to shut down FEMA

02/10/25

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Trump’s DHS freezes FEMA grant money hours after judge orders funding to be distributed

AN 2 25

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MMA

Trump is trying to throttle the free press — and U.S. moguls are going along with it

Written by Matt Gertz

Published 02/04/25

President Donald Trump is wasting no time in carrying out his goal of throttling the free press. Over the first two weeks of Trump’s presidency, his appointees have wielded federal regulatory authority to punish outlets the president dislikes — and American media moguls are responding with submission.

Trump has turned standard conservative attacks on journalists into one of the hallmarks of his political agenda.

He takes as his model Hungary’s autocrat Viktor Orban, who has “effectively dismantled the news media in his country” as “a central pillar of Orban’s broader project to remake his country as an ‘illiberal democracy,’” as New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger noted in an extraordinary warning last year.

During his first term in office, Trump repeatedly tried to leverage state power against his despised “fake news,” and together with his Project 2025 allies has developed a playbook to attack, defund, and delegitimize news outlets in his second.

Major media companies began signaling before Trump took office that they were willing to play ball with his administration in order to preserve their business interests. But since Inauguration Day, as Trump’s appointees have begun showing their intentions, executives at several news outlets have gone into full retreat.

CBS News preps for a Trump settlement

In the final weeks of the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump denounced CBS News’ editing of a 60 Minutes interview with Vice President Kamala Harris as “the biggest scandal in broadcast history” and declared that CBS should be stripped of its broadcast license. But in addition to invective and threats, Trump also filed a lawsuit against the outlet for producing journalism which displeased him.

The suit, which alleged that CBS airing different portions of Harris’ answer to a question in different venues constituted “partisan and unlawful acts of election and voter interference,” drew derision from First Amendment attorneys, who described its legal theory to CNN as “ridiculous junk” and “a frivolous and dangerous attempt by a politician to control the news media.”

But over the past few weeks, reports have indicated that CBS News’ parent company, Paramount, may be preparing to settle the suit with Trump. Such a settlement would be “an extraordinary concession by a major U.S. media company to a sitting president, especially in a case in which there is no evidence that the network got facts wrong or damaged the plaintiff’s reputation,” as The New York Times put it.

But Paramount needs federal approval for its proposed merger with Skydance Media, the production company founded by filmmaker David Ellison, and apparently sees giving the president a payoff as a valid way to smooth the path. Pressure for the settlement is coming from top Paramount shareholder Shari Redstone, the Times reported, who “stands to clear billions of dollars on the sale of Paramount.”

LA Times’ biotech industry owner goes all-in for RFK Jr.}:

Billionaire doctor Patrick Soon-Shiong once drew plaudits for using a small fraction of the vast fortune he made in the biotech industry to purchase and sustain his hometown newspaper, the Los Angeles Times.

But Soon-Shiong’s involvement in the paper’s operations has become more heavy-handed since the final months of the presidential campaign, with the owner repeatedly weighing in on Trump’s behalf. Over the past few weeks, Soon-Shiong, whose medical patents are subject to federal oversight, has begun cheerleading for the confirmation of the anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as secretary of health and human services.

“‘I truly believe [Kennedy] has the American public's best interests at heart,’ Soon-Shiong tweeted Tuesday in a post he pinned to the top of his account on X, formerly Twitter, for much of last week,” NPR reported. “It was one of 18 messages promoting Kennedy that Soon-Shiong — a billionaire surgeon and medical inventor — posted over the course of four days, which included Kennedy's confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill.”

Soon-Shiong’s support for Kennedy appears to have bled into his paper’s operations as well. On Friday, an op-ed contributor accused the paper of deceptively editing the piece he submitted in order to remove his criticisms of Kennedy’s nomination.

### CNN tries to move on

Journalists at CNN regularly drew vicious attacks from Trump and his supporters during the president’s first term. During a tone-setting press conference shortly before he took office, Trump lashed out at then-White House correspondent Jim Acosta as “fake news” and “terrible.” And Trump’s salvos at the network went beyond just words — his Justice Department tried to block a merger involving CNN’s then-parent company..

This time, CNN’s corporate leadership appears less willing to leave the network vulnerable to Trumpian retribution. Network chief Mark Thompson led an editorial meeting the day before Inauguration Day in which he instructed CNN talent “to be forward-thinking and to avoid pre-judging Trump” and to avoid “expressing any outrage of their own” or “relitigat[ing] the past,” former CNN reporter Oliver Darcy reported in his Status newsletter.

As for Acosta, he left CNN last week rather than accept Thompson’s offer to anchor the network’s coverage from midnight to 2 a.m. ET.

### Trump’s FCC targets ABC, CBS, NBC, NPR, and PBS

The tip of the president’s anti-press spear is Brendan Carr, a Republican member of the Federal Communications Commission whom Trump elevated to chair. Carr authored Project 2025’s chapter on the FCC and has notably refused to reject Trump’s repeated calls for the commission to yank the licenses of broadcast networks whose reporting he dislikes.

Following his promotion, Carr sent a letter to Bob Iger, the CEO of ABC parent company Disney, in which he denounced the network for having “contributed” to the “erosion in public trust” and pointedly referenced the FCC’s regulatory power.

Carr also restored a right-wing group’s bias complaints targeting NBC, CBS, and ABC for purportedly biased coverage of the presidential campaign, which his predecessor had dismissed. In response to the CBS complaint, the FCC demanded that CBS News provide the unedited transcript and tapes of Harris’ 60 Minutes interview, adding government pressure to the benefit of Trump’s private lawsuit. The network ultimately submitted to what one legal expert described as a “highly partisan intervention” with “no historical antecedent.”

And on Wednesday, Carr announced a new FCC probe of underwriting announcements produced by NPR and PBS, “with an eye toward unraveling federal funding for all public broadcasting.”

### Defense Department retaliates against news outlets

The Pentagon announced Friday night that the defense correspondents at NBC News, The New York Times, Politico, and National Public Radio are all required to vacate their dedicated workspaces. Their spots will instead go to the right-wing One America News Network, New York Post, and Breitbart — and theoretically to the progressive HuffPost, which does not have a Pentagon reporter and did not request space.

The move came a week after the Senate confirmed former Fox News host Pete Hegseth as defense secretary.

Take Trumpist threats to jail journalists seriously

:{09/23/24

Donald Trump’s authoritarian playbook to crush the free press in a second term}:

:{10/29/24

“Fake News Networks”: Trump and Project 2025’s goal to attack, defund, and delegitimize the press}:

10/16/24

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mojo

Late Friday, newly sworn-in Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent gave access to the agency’s payments system to representatives of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, created by President Donald Trump and headed by Elon Musk. A strike force of Musk lackeys appears to be pursuing a takeover of key background systems of the US government—from human resources to physical buildings to software systems to, now, what is essentially the country’s central bank account. At this point, Musk’s people reportedly cannot control payments, only view them, but how long that arrangement will last is unclear.

Treasury’s payment system processes more than $5 trillion annually, paying the country’s bills. This includes Social Security checks and tax refunds, which means the system includes sensitive personal information on tens of millions of Americans. A Sunday headline from New York Magazine, “Elon Musk May Have Your Social Security Number,” is not an exaggeration.

When Musk, the world’s richest man, took over Twitter, he cut costs by simply refusing to make payments. From rent for the company’s headquarter offices in San Francisco to janitorial services, Musk’s approach was to simply stop paying the bills and see what happens. (Employees were forced to use bathrooms in other buildings.)

A similar approach to the United States government, however, promises to be catastrophic. One scenario is that shutting off payments to federal grantees and nonprofits could cause rapid harm. And this could come at the whims of extremist ideological allies of Trump. For example, his former national security adviser Michael Flynn, a Christian nationalist and purveyor of misinformation (who lied to the FBI and was later pardoned by Trump), posted on X information about federal payments to Lutheran Family Services, which along with its affiliates provides a wide range of services, including counseling. Musk retweeted Flynn’s post promising “The @DOGE team is rapidly shutting down these illegal payments.” The illegal actions would in fact appear to be Musk’s own—Congress appropriates federal funds, but Musk is acting as if the law will never catch up to him.

Disgraced General Michael Flynn Has Made a New Movie—About Himself – Mother Jones

Musk’s tweet may be getting ahead of the reality of what he and his team are doing at the moment. But imagine if the US government were to stop paying bills because a billionaire saw a social media post from a conspiracy theorist urging him to do so.

“Fitch and everyone else should downgrade US credit,” Dean Baker, and economist at the progressive Center for Economy and Policy Research, posted on Bluesky. “If a bill gets paid only if Elon Musk or Donald Trump feels like it, then the US is not very creditworthy.”

Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, issued a similar warning. “To put it bluntly, these payment systems simply cannot fail, and any politically motivated meddling in them risks severe damage to our country and the economy,” he said in a statement late Friday. “The federal government is in a financially precarious position, currently utilizing accounting maneuvers to continue paying its bills since it reached the debt limit at the beginning of the year. I am concerned that mismanagement of these payment systems could threaten the full faith and credit of the United States.”

Economists have long warned that should the United States miss a debt payment, it would send shockwaves through the world economy. On the domestic front, the Trump administration this past week attempted to withhold billions in federal aid through an Office of Management and Budget memo instructing agencies to temporarily halt payments. The attempt was “wildly illegal,” according to experts, and two federal judges have halted much of that effort. Now, it may be possible for Musk and his underlings themselves to simply withhold payments they disagree with. Theoretically, rather than asking agencies to cut spending, Musk could move to cut off the funds from Treasury.

“I am deeply concerned that following the federal grant and loan freeze earlier this week, these officials associated with Musk may have intended to access these payment systems to illegally withhold payments to any number of programs,” Wyden said in statement.

According to reporting in Politico, the Doge team doesn’t have the capability to withhold or change payments—at least not yet. Instead, access by Doge’s Treasury representative, software executive Tom Krause, is “read-only.” But warning signs of a hostile takeover have been flashing. For example, Musk’s team literally took over Office of Personnel Management computer systems this past week, locking OPM officials out of them. They have been taking down entire government websites and datasets, causing public-facing information and research to disappear before Americans’ eyes in Orwellian fashion. And over the weekend, Doge representatives demanded classified information from USAID that they lacked clearances for, according to CNN, despite that the executive order creating Doge explicitly exempts classified information from its efforts. When USAID security officials refused to comply, they were put on leave.

US Government Websites Are Disappearing in Real Time | WIRED

The power that comes with controlling US government payments is vast. How Musk and Trump might try to leverage that against political or legal opponents—say, against states that file lawsuits they don’t like—is sobering to consider. So far, the GOP-controlled Congress seems willing to let them do whatever they want.

US Government Websites Are Disappearing in Real Time | WIRED

Several government websites have been taken down, including the USAID.gov, ForeignAssistance.gov, NeglectedDiseases.gov, and ChildrenInAdversity.gov. A WIRED analysis of more than 1,000 federal .gov websites found that at least seven sites linked to a USAID server went offline in a two-hour span on Saturday afternoon.

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1 25

zuck moves content team to texas// musk?

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gov n no magic spigot; CA sends 5x what we get from feds

1 25 mma

### Jesse Watters says California should be punished for “destroying western civilization” by withholding disaster relief

01/14/25

January 14, 2025, edition of Fox News' The Five

JESSE WATTERS (HOST): Are we just going to keep destroying western civilization and then paying to rebuild it over and over again? No. There has to be strings attached to this money because we're not going to go bankrupt because California's stupid. They have lost $24 billion on the homeless, $50 billion on COVID jobless claims. They lost, what, $23 billion on a train that doesn't even go anywhere. So they completely fail every leadership test in California from natural disasters to COVID to the riots and we can't let it happen again.

Sean Hannity says federal aid for wildfire victims should be conditional: “Why are we bothering to pour good money after bad?”

01/14/25

https://www.mediamatters.org/sean-hannity/fox-news-newt-gingrich-attacks-democrats-not-using-goats-prevent-california-wildfires

Fox News' Jeanine Pirro questions whether or not California deserves federal disaster relief money

01/13/25

https://www.mediamatters.org/five/fox-news-jeanine-pirro-questions-whether-or-not-california-deserves-federal-disaster-relief)

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MMA

Steve Bannon endorses cutting food stamp benefits

12/18/24

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an 12 24 yikes

On Saturday, December 14, CNN and other media outlets reported that ABC News had reached a settlement in President-elect Donald Trump's defamation lawsuit against the network and "This Week" host George Stephanopoulos. ABC News agreed to pay $15 million to a "presidential foundation and museum" and pay $1 million for Trump's attorney's fees.

This comes at a time when far-right conspiracy theorist Kash Patel, Trump's nominee for FBI director, is drawing a great deal of scrutiny for threatening legal action — either criminal or civil — against journalists.

Patel, during a 2023 appearance on Steve Bannon's "War Room" vodcast, threatened to "come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections."

Patel has also threatened anti-Trump Republican Olivia Troye, who served as a national security aide to former Vice President Mike Pence, with a defamation lawsuit.

The New York Times' David Enrich, in an article published on December 15, stresses that ABC News isn't the only media outlet that Trump and his allies have threatened with legal action.

"The legal threats have arrived in various forms," Enrich explains. "One aired on CNN. Another came over the phone. More arrived in letters or e-mails. All of them appeared aimed at intimidating news outlets and others who have criticized or questioned President-elect Donald J. Trump and his nominees to run the Pentagon and FBI. The small flurry of threatened defamation lawsuits is the latest sign that the incoming Trump Administration appears poised to do what it can to crack down on unfavorable media coverage."

Enrich adds, "Before and after the election, Mr. Trump and his allies have discussed subpoenaing news organizations, prosecuting journalists and their sources, revoking networks’ broadcast licenses and eliminating funding for public radio and television. Actual or threatened libel lawsuits are another weapon at their disposal — and they are being deployed even before Mr. Trump moves back into the White House."

Media attorney Elizabeth McNamara, who represented ABC News and Stephanopoulos in the defamation case, didn't discuss the specifics of that case with the Times but did make a general comment.

McNamara warned, "There's been a pattern and practice for the past couple of years of using defamation litigation as a tactic to harass or test the boundary of case law."

Meanwhile, Trump's incoming administration — according to the Washington Post reporters Isaac Arnsdorf and Jeff Stein — is expecting to be the target of lawsuits in 2025 in response to his executive orders.

"Officials in the incoming Trump Administration have an answer for anyone questioning the validity of several policies they plan to implement immediately and unilaterally: Go ahead and sue," Arnsdorf and Stein report in an article published on December 14. "President-elect Donald Trump has long promised to take executive action to withhold birthright citizenship from people born in the United States to parents who are undocumented immigrants, but his advisers now see a court fight as a goal of that effort, rather than an obstacle."

The journalists add, "Similarly, incoming budget officials have said they want to openly defy a 1974 law by refusing to spend money that Congress has authorized, forcing a lawsuit to test the Watergate-era statute's constitutionality. And aides involved in the transition said they'll plow ahead with reviving a policy from late in Trump's first term making it easier to fire tens of thousands of civil servants despite a Biden Administration policy meant to bolster their protections, leaving individual federal workers to fight their own appeals."

Trump's incoming administration, according to Arnsdorf and Stein, "is betting that Democratic lawyers, environmental groups and civil libertarians have less money and appetite for drawn-out court fights than during the earlier days of the anti-Trump 'resistance.'"

But Lee Gelernt, an immigration attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), expects the second Trump Administration to face more than few lawsuits.

Gelernt told the Post, "I suspect they understand they’re going to get sued for just about everything. There are going to be some initial quick fights, but it’s ultimately going to be a marathon."

*Read the New York Times' full article at this link (subscription required) and the Washington Post's full article here (subscription required).

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an 12 24

Throughout the course of his third bid for the White House, President-elect Donald Trump repeatedly promised to use the full powers of the federal government to prosecute his political enemies. Now, President Joe Biden appears to be taking those threats seriously.

According to a Wednesday report by Politico's Jonathan Martin, Biden is now weighing preemptive pardons for several people Trump has directly targeted, including Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) — who won California's U.S. Senate race in November — and former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), who was vice chair of the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack.

Martin wrote that Biden was "deeply concerned" about the fate of the people Trump has singled out, particularly after the president-elect nominated Kash Patel to be the next potential FBI director. According to the Hill, Patel has referred to Schiff — who led Trump's first impeachment effort — as a "government gangster," and has accused Cheney of being "the main architect of this disinformation campaign."

"[Cheney] and her band of miscreants suppressed evidence that completely exonerates the Jan. 6 defendants from their ginned-up charge of insurrection," Patel wrote in a May email.

Biden is also reportedly weighing a pardon for Dr. Anthony Fauci, who is the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Martin didn't name any other potential recipients of a preemptive pardon, but Patel is reportedly eyeing both Democrats and Republicans alike for prosecution, including former Attorney General Bill Barr, former National Security Advisor John Bolton, former Defense Secretary Mark Esper and other former Trump White House staffers who later opposed him publicly, like Sarah Isgur Flores, Alyssa Farah Griffin and Stephanie Grisham.

"If it’s clear by January 19 that [revenge] is his intention, then I would recommend to President Biden that he provide those preemptive pardons to people, because that’s really what our country is going to need next year," Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) told WGBH.

Journalist Eleanor Clift recently called on Biden to issue preemptive pardons for Cheney and Schiff, along with former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), who also publicly opposed Trump during the 2024 election cycle. Former Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley and former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly — who both called Trump a "fascist" — have also been recommended for pardons.

Click here to read Martin's full article for Politico in full.

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On Thursday, December 4, conservative Republican Olivia Troye — a former national security aide to ex-Vice President Mike Pence who supported Kamala Harris in the 2024 election — reported, on X, that she had received a letter from Kash Patel's attorney threatening her with legal action and demanding that she retract her "comments on MSNBC about his unfitness to serve as FBI director." But Troye declared, "I stand by my statements."

Patel is among the Trump allies journalist Ross Rosenfeld discusses in an article published by The New Republic the following day. From Patel to "War Room" host Steve Bannon to anti-vaxxer Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Rosenfeld warns, President-elect Donald Trump's second term will have little or no tolerance for dissent.

"Trumpworld stands ready to stamp out dissent," Rosenfeld argues. "Not just the dissent itself, but the dissenters: those heretics who refute the Gospel of Trump and insist that his second coming, and his second administration, stands to deliver nothing but ill to the United States. Those with differing opinions are set to run afoul of those coming to power."

Rosenfeld quotes Patel's own words, noting that during an appearance on Bannon's "War Room," he threatened, "We will go out and find the conspirators, not just in government but in the media. Yes, we're going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections."

But Patel, Rosenfeld stresses, is hardly the only Trump ally who has no tolerance for criticism of "King Donald."

Trump has nominated RFK Jr. to head the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

"Robert Kennedy Jr. fits snugly within this movement," according to Rosenfeld. "Like Patel, RFK Jr. has promised to clean house when approved for his new position as secretary of health and human services. He's said he'd likely fire around 600 employees at the National Institutes of Health who don't see his vision."

Rosenfeld adds, "He's also promised to fire, on Day One, 'every nutritional scientist at (the Food and Drug Administration) because all of them are corrupt — all of them are complicit in the poisoning of our children."

*Ross Rosenfeld's full article for The New Republic is available at this link.

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