"Speaker should have stayed out of session a little longer," according to a conservative strategist who said Mike Johnson just "opened up a huge can of worms."
Johnson surprised political observers when he suggested that Trump was an "informant" for the FBI, providing information against Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted child sex abuser, and it led strategist Susan del Percio, who has a history of working with Republican candidates and in Rudy Giuliani's administration, to mock the congressman's claim.
"That is big news," she said, mocking the notion of Trump as an informant on Epstein. She also noted the power of the Epstein survivors now that they have all connected in the same room, and declared that Trump is not going to escape questions about the Epstein files.
"This is getting much much worse for Trump," del Percio said. "And it's not going away any time soon."
After Donald Trump's administration asked a judge to keep secret the names of individuals who had monetary transactions with disgraced financier and convicted child abuser Jeffrey Epstein, a legal expert highlighted the administration's about-face on the documents.
With the host saying the report "may have opened a can of worms," Greenberg notes that the filing at first glance appears to be like any other DOJ filing.
"Well, I think when you look at this filing, this is something that you would generally expect from DOJ to say, 'Hey, these are uncharged third parties. They have privacy interests. They object to their names being made public, so we are going to object this being disclosed. We want this to remain secret.' That's kind of standard," Greenberg said. "However, and there's a big however. The problem with that motion is, not too long ago, we got a very different motion from this Department of Justice where they asked for grand jury materials to be unsealed, and there is a precedent there. They're talking about the fact that they are committed to transparency."
She added, "You can't have it both ways."
"You cannot continue to speak about being transparent and stating that the public interest is great in these materials, and therefore materials need to be unsealed and then say, well, actually, not so much with respect to x, y, and z. It doesn't make sense," she said. "It's inconsistent. Their positions are very difficult to understand, and I expect that the judge will have some problems in terms of really understanding where is the coherent position."
World-renowned economist Paul Krugman sounded the alarm Saturday on President Donald Trump’s social media activity, calling many of the president’s online posts “horrifyingly irresponsible,” with many having led to real-world market dips.
“In the past, stagflation has been the result of external affects; war in the Middle East, things like that,” Krugman said, speaking on MSNBC with host Ali Velshi.
“Now, this is all self-generated, self-inflicted, ‘Trump-enomics’ has done this to us. I actually do, fairly often, look at Trump's Truth Social feed, and this is not a guy I would allow within three miles of making monetary policy. This is just horrifyingly irresponsible.”
Trump’s chaotic and unpredictable social media activity has had devastating real-world effects on markets.
As recently as Monday, Trump’s statement on social media that there was “virtually no inflation” led to a sharp drop in Australian markets down to a two-week low. His announcement via social media that he had fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics also tanked American markets, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropping by 1.2% that day, and the Nasdaq, declining by 2.2%.
Krugman, a winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, said that not only were Trump’s social media posts negatively impacting the economy, but that nearly all of the alarming economic signals could be traced directly back to Trump’s policy agenda.
“We're experiencing, at least, a mild case of stagflation; we don't know how mild it will stay, but for the moment, yeah, we're getting an inflationary impact from the tariffs, and also deportations,” Krugman said.
“People are really focused on tariffs and trade, but let's not forget that we're intimidating, scaring [and] arresting the people who pick a lot of our vegetables, the people who do a lot of our construction work, who do meat packing. All of this adds to this is not a good economy.”
Krugman anticipated that the Federal Reserve would, “for sure,” cut interest rates at its upcoming meeting this month, much to Trump’s wishes, but that slashing rates would not “fix the underlying problem,” and furthermore, would not “deliver the kind of wonderful economy that Trump claims we have.”
As part of a discussion about rumors of Donald Trump’s decline that flooded social media on Labor Day weekend, lawyer and podcaster Dean Obeidallah suggested there should be very real worries about the president's health after speaking with members of his family.
Appearing on MSNBC with host Ali Velshi, the commentator explained the most recent information about Trump’s health has come from Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX), whose medical license has expired and whose judgment has long been questioned.
“The reason that Ronny Jackson wrote the letter and not Trump's doctor? Because Trump's doctor didn't want to put his medical license on the line to lie to the public there,” he told the host. “So you have Ronny Jackson, who's not Trump's doctor, saying these things, that he's fine.”
“Look, Donald Trump is getting worse by the day,” he continued. “We see there's moments he's lucid and there's moments he's not. And as time goes on, the moments of incompetence and confusion will eclipse the moments of lucidity –– that's part of aging.”
“You know, I talked to Mary Trump and her brother as well, who both talked about in that family they have a history of dementia,” he elaborated. “Donald Trump's dad had it, his older sister had it and there's doctors I've spoken to like from Duty to Warn who talked about even Trump's gait has changed, which, while they haven't examined him, is consistent with a form of dementia. So this needs to be examined more.”
“We can't get to the point where Stephen Miller is handing Trump's documents and going, ‘If you sign this, we'll give you a cheeseburger and a Diet Coke,’ and he goes, ‘Okay, I'll sign whatever you want.’ We're the United States of America. We need to know who the president is and that they're functioning properly.”
One arena in which President Donald Trump's administration has been consistently stymied is the federal judiciary. And an attorney currently leading a prominent lawsuit against the White House is now giving new details on why his efforts have borne fruit.
During a Friday interview on MSNBC's "The Weeknight," Norm Eisen — who was U.S. Ambassador to the Czech Republic during former President Barack Obama's administration — expanded on his simple strategy of filing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests compelling the Trump administration to release documents pertaining to convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Eisen previously shed light on his successes in the judiciary with The Atlantic in an article entitled "The Anti-Trump Strategy That's Actually Working." The article reported on "a legal resistance led by a patchwork coalition of lawyers, public-interest groups, Democratic state attorneys general, and unions has frustrated Trump’s ambitions."
"Hundreds of attorneys and plaintiffs have stood up to [Trump], feeding a steady assembly line of setbacks and judicial reprimands for a president who has systematically sought to break down limits on his own power," the report read. "Of the 384 cases filed through August 28 against the Trump administration, 130 have led to orders blocking at least part of the president’s efforts, and 148 cases await a ruling, according to a review by Just Security. Dozens of those rulings are the final word, with no appeal by the government, and others have been stayed on appeal, including by the Supreme Court."
"The tenacity and the ability to sort of go at these things really is coming into focus," MSNBC host Michael Steele said of Eisen's efforts. "... The Trump-Epstein story is the story of the Trump administration's corruption benefiting his rich and powerful cronies at the expense of vulnerable people. You explained it that way. That's the nub of this, and it's now coming home to roost, if you will."
"This is one — as I explained to The Atlantic — that has really broken through. And it's not just because it's salacious," Eisen responded. "What I think the American people are getting is a theme of the Trump administration too close to the rich and powerful, and as a result, who gets hurt? The most vulnerable people in our society."
The Atlantic reported that while FOIA requests are "normally a weak tool for unlocking investigative records gathered for criminal investigations," Eisen saw an opening based on an argument Attorney General Pam Bondi's Department of Justice made in a legal filing. He believed that because the DOJ claimed that extraordinary public interest in the Epstein controversy necessitated the release of grand jury transcripts, Eisen used that same rationale to force the administration's hand through the FOIA process.
"We've done 11 FOIAs. We're in court litigating. We're keeping the pressure on ... how did [Epstein accomplice] Ghislaine Maxwell get moved from a prison where she deserved for her involvement in these terrible crimes against young women, to a country club prison? We're going to get that information out there."
CNN anchor Erin Burnett was left aghast by new investigative reporting that unearthed a trove of sexually degrading attacks and bigoted remarks.
Burnett brought KFILE reporter Andrew Kaczynski on her show, "OutFront," on Friday evening to discuss his new reporting on E.J. Antoni, Trump's pick to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics after the president ousted the agency's longtime chief because he didn’t like the jobs numbers.
"This person has a digital trail that suggested Kamala Harris got to where she got, advanced her career, through sexual favors. He engaged in conspiracy theories about the 2020 election and COVID as well. Tip of the iceberg, apparently," Burnett told viewers.
Burnett noted that KFILE uncovered a 2019 tweet from Antoni in which he attacked then-Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) with a tweet, "You can't run a race on your knees."
Kaczynski said his team found "highly disturbing posts."
"Sexually graphic, degrading, misogynistic comments about Kamala Harris. We found anti-gay slurs. We also found that he spread a lot of conspiracy theories about COVID, about the 2020 election," said Kaczynski.
He warned Antoni is now in a position that is "vital" to the U.S. economy, and requires someone trustworthy — not "highly partisan."
Antoni, he said, shared the Harris tweet five separate times. He also mocked Christine Blasey Ford, who accused then-Supreme Court justice nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault.
"You can see right there he called her 'Miss Piggy,' commenting on her appearance," Kaczynski said, sharing Antoni's tweet.
In February 2020, Antoni shared advice for women to meet a "great guy," including being in shape, growing out their hair, learning to cook and not being "annoying."
In August 2018, Antoni posted that he "like[s] a senator who doesn't die," a reference to Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and Trump's attack that he likes "people who weren't captured."
"But there was a lot of this type of content that we found, both under his real name and under a pseudonym that he used," said Kaczynski, later adding, "It was a lot of stuff."
Burnett called the trove of tweets "hateful" and "stunning stuff."
"Very hateful things," Burnett said, remarking that Antoni was replying to vulgar posts. "The image that he was responding to of Kamala Harris was absolutely disgusting. We can’t even show it. I would think that would be — it’d be a bad thing. It was beyond pornographic. It was disgusting."
“President Trump has nominated Dr. E.J. Antoni to fix the issues of the BLS and restore trust in the jobs reports. Dr. Antoni has experience and credentials needed to restore solutions-oriented leadership at the BLS — solutions that will prioritize increasing survey response rates and modernizing data collection methods to improve the BLS’s accuracy.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) defended President Donald Trump's conduct throughout the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking case files controversy, going so far as to claim with no evidence that Trump was an "FBI informant" against Epstein, and saying that he banished Epstein from Mar-a-Lago upon realizing his abuse of young girls — which is contradicted by the public timeline.
"He's not saying that what Epstein did was a hoax, it's a terrible, unspeakable evil. He believes that himself. When he first heard the rumor, he kicked him out of Mar-a-Lago. He was an FBI informant to try to take this stuff down. The president knows, and has great sympathy for the women who suffered these unspeakable harms. It's detestable to him. He and I have spoken about this as recently as 24 hours ago."
But former Rep. Denver Riggleman (R-VA), who previously assisted the House January 6 Committee investigation, cut through Johnson's obfuscations in a lengthy post to X.
"Ok. I’ve had enough," wrote Riggleman. "RELEASE THE SIGNED EPSTEIN FBI INFORMANT AND WITNESS DOCUMENTS. If our POTUS was an FBI informant or witness, then why did he call for the release of the Epstein list and run his campaign on it… and then block it?"
"Wouldn’t he know the contents and those that were 'innocent' or guilty?" Riggleman continued. "Why did he say democrats were in it and not have names he can prove? Did he know the 'globalists and deep state' participants? Was he a primary witness? Did he watch or participate in rape and then get immunity? Why didn’t he say that he was an FBI informant about Epstein in his first term or the first 8 months of this term? Why would he threaten GOP House members saying it was 'hostile' act if they voted for the Massie bill? Has he always been an FBI informant? Did he inform on the mob in NY? Were his casinos FBI fronts? When did he become an FBI informant? Are there documents available to release? Did he conspire with Ghislaine? Was he always aware of Epstein?"
"Facts and data," he added. "All of us need to be a million pound s---hammer of facts and data. I am. The media should be able to destroy this narrative and cook this liar."
Johnson bragged earlier this week that he had the votes to stop a bipartisan discharge petition compelling Congress to seek the release of all outstanding files on the Epstein case — even as it became clear he didn't.
"South Park" episodes mocking the Trump administration are doing more than enraging the president and his allies, former GOP strategist Tim Miller told MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace on "Deadline: White House" Friday — it's making the broader pop culture, even individuals with more right-leaning inclinations, permission to make Trump the butt of the joke in a way he hasn't been since being re-elected.
"Does any of it matter politically?" said Wallace.
"Well, I think there are two parts to this," said Miller, a frequent critic of the president. "One is can it give other people the backbone to get to speak out? And that's like the most frustrating part about all this, is you would think that 'South Park' would be showing the way, that there's not the risk here that all these people say there is that you can speak out against Trump, especially if you come from a place of power and privilege."
This, he said, is "the most frustrating thing about watching all these tech execs go there and slobber over him yesterday as if, you know, the richest people in the history of the world could not survive and keep their dignity intact at the same time. But hopefully, I don't — I'm not, you know, counting our chickens on that."
However, Miller added, there is one way in which "South Park's" war on Trump is breaking through the culture.
"You're seeing this trickle down into other more kind of comedians that appeal more to people on the MAGA right, particularly the kind of manosphere-type comedians," said Miller. "I'm thinking of Tim Dillon in particular, and Andrew Schulz. I don't — your viewers might not be familiar with them or they might, but I've been watching a lot of their shows lately and they are pretty — they're starting to get pretty skeptical of this administration and they want to be outsiders, they don't — you know, comedians don't want to be talking heads and mouthpieces for the administration like a Charlie Kirk might. They, you know, they want to be contrarian."
In that regard, he said, "Trump's given a lot to work with, whether it be, you know, the military stuff or whether it be, there's a lot of funny material out there about JD Vance I've been watching and how how and Peter Thiel and his four speeches on the Antichrist he's giving recent coming up and, and how maybe we should be a little bit concerned if one of the most influential people in MAGA is giving four speeches on the Antichrist in the next in the next month."
"So, I think that, like, the 'South Park' and the Tim Dillons, you know, starting to poke fun at these guys, I think could have a real political impact because it might pop the bubble of invincibility that Trump has had with some part of his base."
Carlson and senior political commentator Van Jones joined CNN's "OutFront" with host Erin Burnett on Friday afternoon to talk about he latest jobs report, which showed Black unemployment climbing to 7.5%, up from 7.2% last month, and is now at its highest level since October 2021, mid-pandemic.
Furthermore, the young adult unemployment rate soared to 10.5%, up from 10.0% the previous month.
Jones told the panel that Trump's "devastating" Department of Government Efficiency cuts helped propel the number for Black Americans.
"Smashing the backbone of the Black middle class. All those women who did the right thing, who paid their taxes, who went to school, who worked hard every day, getting wiped out. That is a big chunk here," he said.
"This is a real problem now," he added.
When asked if there could be political consequences to thrusting Americans out of work, Carlson delivered a stark warning.
"If you're asking if it's going to be a political problem, could be," Carlson replied. "Because Trump's biggest strength was the economy. I mean, that's how he got so many independents to vote for him the first time and the last time."
She warned people "aren't fond" of Trump's massive DOGE cuts, his so-called "One Big Beautiful Bill," his tariff increases, and the way his immigration crackdown has unfolded.
"You add in that they might not be happy with the economy? You have a big problem politically," she concluded, noting a Gallup survey that came out before the brutal jobs numbers found just 37 percent of Americans support Trump on the economy. That number was just 27 percent for independents.
Donald Trump’s niece, the clinical psychologist and bestselling author Mary Trump, sees “similarities” between the 79-year-old president’s increasingly erratic behavior, which has stoked questions about his physical and mental health, and that of his father, the New York property magnate Fred Trump, who suffered from Alzheimer’s before dying in 1999 at the age of 93.
"I think the most important thing to know about Donald's health is that this is a person who has had very serious, severe psychiatric disorders that have gone undiagnosed and they have worsened because they've never been treated," Mary Trump said. "So much of what we're seeing is the result of those undiagnosed, untreated psychiatric disorders. On top of that … there are clearly some physical health issues, and often it seems that … it's not just that he's forgetting things. He doesn't seem to be oriented to space and time or place and time.
"And I'm not a neuropsychologist or neurologist of any kind. I used to do neuropsychological testing, but that aside, I think the best frame of reference is, as you said, my experience with my grandfather and I do see similarities again. That occasional confusion, ‘where am I, who's around me,’ the forgetting of people who were right in front of him.
"And that was one very interesting experience with my grandfather. The least important people in his life were the people he forgot first. So you could sort of gauge your importance to him by how quickly he forgot you or how long it took for him to forget you.
“He ended up forgetting my grandmother. He never forgot Donald. So that was always fascinating to me, and he’d been married for over 60 years.”
Mary Trump was speaking to the Court of History podcast, hosted by the Clinton aide turned Lincoln biographer Sidney Blumenthal and the Princeton historian Sean Wilentz.
An author herself, Mary Trump has published three books since her uncle became president: "Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man" (2020), "The Reckoning: Our Nation's Trauma and Finding a Way to Heal" (2021), and "Who Could Ever Love You: A Family Memoir" (2024). All achieved bestseller status.
Continuing to ponder her uncle and his father — her grandfather — Mary Trump said: “I think that there are a few differences."
“My grandfather was a sociopath. He was a born sociopath. He was not made one. And Donald’s psychology is much more complex, and a lot of what we're seeing now isn't new. It's actually just previous conditions that are worsening and just becoming more obvious to people who haven't been paying attention.
“So I think that sort of complicates our sense of, ‘Is this the psychiatric disorders? Is this some kind of dementia? Does he have Alzheimer's?' Is it some physical ailment that is having an impact on his memory, etc, and we don't know, and I think it's likely we never will.
“I sort of believe that we're at the point it doesn't matter. We know it's very, very bad. It's only going to get worse, as everything does with him, whether it's his outrageous cruelty, incompetence, vindictiveness.
“What I say about Donald, and I think this is true whether we're talking about his psychological, emotional, physical health or his behavior, there's no such thing as worst. He will always get worse.”
Trump is the oldest man ever to take the presidential oath — in succession to the previous record holder, Joe Biden. As Biden was plagued by questions over his fitness for office, before withdrawing from last year’s election, so Trump’s rambling public pronouncements and erratic behavior stoked questions even before he recently exhibited signs of physical deterioration and spent a rare week out of public view.
The White House vehemently denies that anything is wrong with Trump, and he reappeared this week to dismiss social media speculation that he might be dead or dying.
In one appearance, Trump angrily dismissed questions about the Jeffrey Epstein scandal even as victims of the late financier and sex offender, a longtime Trump friend, spoke on Capitol Hill.
Mary Trump told the Court of History: “He's always been an angry person, or maybe I should put it this way: he's always been somebody who uses threats and performative rage to get his way.
“So how do you distinguish between what is performative and what is a sincere reaction to his inability to control the narrative, which is clearly what we're seeing, certainly in regards to the Epstein files most prominently right now?”
The United States, Mary Trump added, is “at a particularly dangerous inflection point” regarding the president’s health.
“Because the more he understands who he is, what's happening to him, the more scared he gets, and the more cruel he's going to become, the more desperate he's going to become.
“As with anybody, people who start having dementia, Alzheimer's, there are moments of insight. They recognize what's going on, and it's actually one of the cruelest things about that disease ….
“Like my grandfather, for example, he was fine. Once he stopped remembering who people were, and he thought that he was still running the world, he was fine. But it's those early-on moments of insight into what's happening to you, that really have a negative impact. And this is starting to happen to Donald with increasing frequency, and it is freaking him out.”
Asked if she saw signs of anger and lashing out, as exhibited by her grandfather, in her uncle, Mary Trump said: “It's so hard to say because Donald has always been paranoid and vindictive and angry.
“… There are looks of confusion on his face at times, which are very reminiscent of when we would be out in public with my grandfather, for example … and he would get this startled like a deer in the headlights look. Like, 'Where am I? Who are these people? I don't want to be here.’"
This week, President Donald Trump announced that he had killed 11 alleged drug cartel members in foreign waters, and one senator thinks the strike was just the beginning — and will serve as a justification for action on U.S. soil.
Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), who achieved the rank of lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army, fears that the next step is authorizing the use of military force against people in the United States.
When MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace asked if the bombing was legal, Duckworth said, "No."
"I also think that this is just the first step towards him potentially setting the groundwork to do something within U.S. territory," she warned. "So, he's doing it in international waters now. But, you know, what's next? An American in our territorial waters on U.S. soil? What exactly is next?"
She noted that the ongoing discussion about Trump is that he's making small steps that will ultimately justify unconstitutional actions.
"This president is setting the conditions so that he can actually unilaterally occupy the streets of our cities and interfere in the next election, do what he wants," she said.
Duckworth then shamed her GOP colleagues, who continue to do nothing to hold Trump accountable, while also confirming the likes of Pete Hegseth and Robert Kennedy Jr.
President Donald Trump triggered outrage on Friday during a signing of his executive order to rebrand the Department of Defense to the "Department of War," when he suggested the United States only loses wars due to "woke" cultural values.
"We should have won every war," said Trump. "We could have won every war, but we really chose to be a very politically correct—wokey. We never wanted to win."
Commenters on social media tore into the president, with many noting that he used a questionable medical diagnosis to get out of serving in Vietnam, one of the wars America did actually lose.
"This is, even for him, amazingly stupid and an insult to the thousands who died in Korea and Vietnam and the other conflicts we were too 'wokey' to win," wrote retired Naval War College professor Tom Nichols. "But then, can't expect any better from a man who thinks American war dead are 'suckers' and 'losers.'"
"Remember when he dodged the draft because of ... bone spurs?" wrote former MSNBC host and Zeteo News founder Mehdi Hasan.
"Yeah, Vietnam, a war famously lost because we were Too Woke," wrote American Immigration Council senior fellow Aaron Reichlin-Melnick.
"President who avoided combat because of 'bone spurs' and calls those who served suckers and losers has thoughts about war," wrote Huffington Post political correspondent S.V. Dáte.
"He would have called ending slavery woke," wrote Bridgeport, Pennsylvania, city councilman Tony Heyl.
"Not only is this an asinine thing to say, it’s also insulting. Nothing like an armchair quarterback, eh?" wrote the official account for The Seneca Project.
"I would love to hear what was 'wokey' to Trump about the loss in the Vietnam War. Too few bone spurs?" wrote University of North Georgia rhetoric professor Matthew Boedy.
Former Fox News commentator Geraldo Rivera told CNN's Kate Bolduan on Friday he doesn't think President Donald Trump's push to bury the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking files controversy, most recently calling it a "hoax" manufactured by Democrats, is going to move the needle much.
"It's a valid question to be asked as to why the Democrats didn't push more for any of this during President Biden's term or after, after Epstein's death," said Bolduan. "That being said, the president continues to try to tamp this down. Do you think that this sort of thing, calling it a hoax by the Democrats, is enough to tamp down the calls for transparency from within his own party on this issue?"
"Well, there is no doubt that Trump is done with Epstein; the question is whether Epstein is done with Trump," said Rivera. The issue for Trump, he continued, is "there is an intransigence among certain members of Congress, particularly Republican women, where they say, 'Hey, listen, we need to have justice for these victims, we need to find out all that happened.'"
"President Trump is right when he says — I love the quote, 'Democrats did nothing while he was alive except befriend him' — that is, Epstein — 'socialized with him, traveled to his island and take his money,'" said Rivera. "So I think they have, you know, the Democrats are relishing this moment. It's setting the president off his agenda. You know, it's — it's hard to get rid of. It's kind of a sticky thing you can't get off your fingers
"It's ... one of those impasses where I think the conspiracy theory industry will keep this alive," Rivera continued, likening it to the theories around the Kennedy assassination. "It's one of those things that will be enduring. It will stay forever. It will, the conspiracy theorists will bring it up a century from now, it seems to me. Epstein's island, who took his money, what did they do, who were the victims, what did, you know, people in power do to these poor young girls? You know, it's one of those things where as long as there is a driver in the House of Representatives, like Nancy Mace, for instance, of South Carolina, you're going to have this issue around."
"I think it's going to haunt Republicans," he added. "It's something that the president will be increasingly frustrated by, not that he can get much more frustrated than he is already. But it's, it's an issue that, you know — he calls it a hoax, the women in Congress say, 'Hey, yeah, let's — let's see who's involved, if anyone.'"
