MAGA influencer Steve Bannon on Monday claimed that the charges for former FBI Director James Comey were "just an appetizer" of what's to come following recent reports that calls were tracked for several GOP lawmakers during the investigation into Jan. 6, 2021.
"It's going to be a big deal. I would have always thought it would have been North Korea, or China, or Russia, not our own government. And Joe Biden was tapping the phones, through the FBI, of senators in this country. That's a damn shame," Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) said on Bannon's show "The War Room."
"Unbelievable," Bannon said.
"The level of depravity you're going to see in this FBI... on Thursday, I think Comey's going to be arraigned... remember it's just an appetizer what Comey's getting for lying to Congress and obstruction to justice. That's just an appetizer. So much more to come."
According to multiple reports, several offices have found no evidence of Comey making false statements or obstruction. Legal analysts have referred to the charges against him as "structurally unsound."
Jon Favreau, the former speechwriting director for President Barack Obama, issued a stark warning on Monday about what President Donald Trump revealed during his speech at the Navy's 250th anniversary on Sunday.
During the speech, Trump made several other curious statements about his physical health and a debunked claim that he warned the world about Osama Bin Laden in a 2000 book. Favreau described Trump's speech as "crazy pants."
But it was the line where Trump called Democrats "gnats" that caught Favreau's ear.
Favreau discussed the speech during a new episode of "Pod Save America" on Monday.
"In order to, uh, swat away the gnats, what they want is a reaction from Democrats," Favreau said. "They want more violence in the streets."
"They were hoping to have more violent protests by now so that they could send in troops to actually put down violent protests," Favreau said. "Instead, in many cities, they've just been sending in troops to go pick up trash and stand around and take pictures with tourists."
"Pod Save America" co-host Jon Lovett, a former Obama speechwriter, described Trump's speech as "divisive."
President Donald Trump's peace plan to end the Israeli occupation of Gaza got a mostly scathing review from The Guardian's editorial board on Monday.
The plan, featuring 20 points and concocted in partnership with Israel, was developed without direct input from Palestinians. Ultimately, however, Hamas, the terrorist group that has ruled over Gaza for decades and whose invasion of Israel triggered the war, tentatively agreed to at least some parts of the plan last week, and agreed to release all remaining Israeli hostages, after Trump threatened "annihilation" if they did not.
The problem with the deal, they noted, is that neither side is fully committed to following it.
"For [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu, perpetual war in Gaza and beyond extends his political survival. His far-right coalition partners want to expel Palestinians and settle Gaza," wrote the board. Meanwhile, "Hamas has no desire to sign itself out of existence, and handing back the last hostages would remove any leverage it retains. It has seen much of its leadership destroyed, as well as life in Gaza – but has also watched international public opinion shift unprecedentedly towards support for Palestinians, pulling governments in its wake. It can recruit from a huge pool of angry and traumatised young men."
Ultimately, this deal is far better than Trump's widely unpopular ideas of rebuilding Gaza as a luxury tourist riviera, noted the board, but that doesn't mean what he's crafted is a deal built to last.
The fundamental problem, the board continued, is that any sort of Palestinian state remains an idea for the far future at best under this plan: "Palestinians would remain, but would be sidelined, as they were in drawing up the plan. The 'board of peace' overseeing Gaza appears to be a colonial administration headed by Mr Trump himself and, disturbingly given his history in the region, Tony Blair."
It pays "lip service" to eventual Palestinian self-determination, the board noted, but doesn't establish this as a fundamental right, and Netanyahu has vowed never to allow that.
"Something better may emerge from this path, if – a huge if – Mr Trump and others apply heavy, sustained pressure to Mr Netanyahu and forge a deal that Arab nations can fully support, ensuring pressure on Hamas," the board concluded. "But lasting peace should not and cannot be built upon an abandonment of basic Palestinian rights."
There's another Signal scandal in President Donald Trump's administration, and it's almost as if it is a story out of the satirical site "The Onion," said MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace on Monday afternoon.
"Another day, another Signal scandal for Pete Hegseth. Screenshots from another text chat suggest administration officials wanted to deploy an elite military division onto the streets of American cities. And they put that in writing, and someone saw it. This is not 'The Onion,'" said Wallace, teasing the segment.
It is the third time Hegseth has been part of a Signal scandal. The first involved his discussion with Cabinet officials over secret war plans. The Signal chat included a reporter, however. The second was the revelation that Hegseth also revealed the classified intelligence to his family on a Signal chat. This makes it the third time Hegseth's Signal chats have been reported publicly.
Wallace said that it's arguably not the most significant part of the story, but there's another Signalgate.
"All right, so let this sink in somehow," Wallace began. "It is arguably the second most egregious part of this new reporting that high-level officials in the Trump administration still appear to be sharing sensitive information in cavalier fashion on the messaging app called Signal.
"Just wait until you hear what they were saying and messaging on Signal," Wallace continued.
She cited a conversation between Deputy Homeland Security Advisor Anthony Salisbury, Trump's deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, and Patrick Weaver, senior advisor to Secretary of Defense Hegseth.
It "happened in a crowded space. So crowded and so public, in fact, that someone was able to take pictures of their conversation and catch their exchange and then share them with a reporter at the Minnesota Star Tribune so we could all see them contained therein. Among dozens of messages, a discussion about the deployment of the Army's vaunted 82nd Airborne, an elite infantry division, a deployment not to a faraway combat zone, but to the streets of - wait for it - Portland to crack down on."
She noted it shows the lengths that Hegseth is willing to go to in the ongoing takeover of American cities.
Republicans on Monday decried "political weaponization" after accusations that former Special Counsel Jack Smith tracked private communications and calls from nearly a dozen Republican senators during an investigation into Jan. 6, 2021.
"The document, recently discovered by FBI Director Kash Patel and exclusively obtained by Fox News Digital, is titled "CAST Assistance" and dated Sept. 27, 2023. "CAST" refers to the FBI’s cellular analysis survey team," according to the Fox News report.
Fox alleges that Smith and his team, called "Arctic Frost," reportedly tracked GOP lawmakers, including Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Ron Johnson (R-WI), Josh Hawley (R-MI), Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), Bill Hagerty (R-TN), Dan Sullivan (R-AL), and Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), as well as Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA).
Smith made a rare public appearance last month, warning students at George Mason University that the Trump administration would weaponize the Department of Justice under the Trump administration.
Republicans reacted immediately to the news.
"It should shock every American," said Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), calling it "major corruption."
" Jack Smith tracked my private communications and those of my colleagues during his witch hunt to investigate @POTUS. This is exactly the type of political weaponization of the federal government under Presidents Obama and Biden that Republicans and President Trump have been calling out for years. We will get to the bottom of this, but every American should be shocked to see what happened here," Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN) said.
"This document shows the Biden FBI spied on 8 of my Republican Senate colleagues during its Arctic Frost investigation into "election conspiracy" Arctic Frost later became Jack Smith's elector case against Trump BIDEN FBI WEAPONIZATION = WORSE THAN WATERGATE," Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) wrote on X.
MAGA pastor Brian Sauvé called for "rebellious" Black men to be executed according to biblical standards during a recent podcast interview, according to a new report.
Right Wing Watch reported Monday that Sauvé suggested state authorities should kill Black men, according to the law prescribed in Deuteronomy 21 of the Christian Bible. The passage says parents should take a rebellious child to the center of town and have the community elders stone them to death for being "a glutton and a drunkard."
Sauvé made the comments on a recent episode of "The King's Hall" podcast, which he co-hosts with Christian nationalist preacher Eric Conn. Sauvé and Conn both preach at Refuge Church in Utah, according to the report.
"When we make this generalization, one of the purposes of it is for policymakers to make the kind of political movements in terms of law and order that would usher in the change over time of that culture," Sauvé said during the podcast episode. "One of them would be something like ... the law of Moses in Deuteronomy 21 concerning a rebellious child."
"If you take that and then you took a law like Deuteronomy 21, which is a just law that got enacted through Moses; the law was that if you had a rebellious son, you have a child who's coming up into their manhood and they're rebellious, they don't listen—he lists some characteristics—and even though they're disciplined, they will not turn, he says the father is to bring them out into the town square, this is a rebellious son, and then they stone him to death," he continued. "They kill him."
Conn said that an "armed robber" would seemingly fall into that category.
"Armed robber, all the ghetto culture; basically, take ghetto culture, it would describe this to a T," Sauvé said. "If you did that over three generations, how much violent crime would you have in the third and fourth generation? Much, much less."
President Donald Trump's Justice Department appeared to assert Monday that a gang member committed an "act of war" against the rule of law.
Trump's former personal lawyer, Todd Blanche, who now serves as U.S. Deputy Attorney General under Pam Bondi, wrote on X that gangs have gone too far.
"Placing a bounty on a federal officer’s head is cowardly and an act of war on the rule of law. This case shows what Take Back America means: reclaiming our neighborhoods from violent thugs and criminal gangs," Blanche said. "We will hunt anyone who targets those who protect our borders, streets, and communities. Rest assured - threaten law enforcement and the full weight of the U.S. government will come for you."
The Trump administration has deployed National Guard soldiers to Chicago and Portland, Oregon; however, a federal judge appointed by Trump stopped the deployment in the latter for now.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem claimed in a Sunday interview with Fox & Friends Weekend that federal agents have been targeted across the United States by having bounties placed on them by "gangs, cartel members and known terrorist organizations," Newsweek quoted.
According to a court filing, gang leader Juan Espinoza Martinez, 37, allegedly offered a $10,000 bounty for the death of the ICE agent who shot a Chicago woman over the weekend, the Chicago Tribune reported.
Espinoza Martinez was arrested on Monday morning, and the court filing was revealed, showing a Snapchat message they say is soliciting the murder of the ICE official.
A New York Times reporter Monday called Kristi Noem's Department of Homeland Security feed "very worrying" and an "egregious overstep" by the agency.
"Has anyone looked at the Department of Homeland Security's X feed?" New York Times reporter and CNN contributor Lulu Garcia-Navarro asked during a live panel with CNN anchor Kasie Hunt.
The department shared several shocking videos and images, including one reshared from Immigration and Customs Enforcement by DHS that says, "PORTLAND — Refuse to walk? We'll give you a ride." The video features a person in custody lying on their stomach and handcuffed, set to the 2005 Chamillionaire song "Ridin'."
"I would urge people to go and have a look at that because I think it undercuts the message that this is about either fighting crime or immigration enforcement," Garcia-Navarro said. "I mean, there is a very worrying political message being sent with that feed, basically saying 'America is for Americans,' people's fists in the air. It's resonant of darker periods in history that I think is troubling.
She also argued that this message shows what the Trump administration is really most focused on.
"And I also think the bigger question around this is, what is the administration really after here? Because you can look at this and say, 'Why is the administration at war with American cities? Why are they focused so much on sending military into cities that have not asked for it?' While they are not perhaps occupied with other things internationally, or the cost of living at home, or many other things that are important, they are very focused on these culture war issues," Garcia-Navarro added. "They are very focused on picking fights with Democratic cities. And I think that there is a larger question here about what it is that they actually want."
Some of the footage DHS is sharing is stunning — and in many ways — can tug on people's heartstrings, she said. It also puts ICE's moves in question.
"Because there's a question, even Trump said it himself, like, 'Maybe we shouldn't send those people back who've been here working so hard. Right?' And then he got a lot of pushback on that," Garcia-Navarro said.
"I'm quoting here from my publication, The New York Times," she said. "In Chicago, agents have deployed tear gas with no warning, raided apartments and zip-tied residents for hours in the middle of the night, handcuffed a city council member at a hospital after she asked to see an arrest warrant for a detainee. These are serious, you know, sort of egregious overstep of what ICE should be doing. And so the question becomes, are you going to just allow that to happen? Or or is there a mechanism in place to say that's not."
President Donald Trump said he would "take a look" at a pardon for convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell after the Supreme Courtrejected her appeal.
CNN's Kaitlan Collins asked Trump about the possibility of a pardon for Maxwell at an Oval Office event on Monday.
"I haven't heard the name in so long," the president responded. "I can say this, that I'd have to take a look at it. I would have to take a look."
"I will speak to the DOJ," he added. "I wouldn't consider it or not consider it."
"But she was convicted of child sex trafficking," Collins noted.
"Yeah, I mean, I'm going to have to take a look at it," Trump replied. "I have to ask DOJ."
The South Carolina state judge whose house burned to the ground under suspicious circumstances was an explicit target of hate and threats by President Donald Trump's supporters in the days before, The Daily Beast reported on Monday.
Judge Diane Goodstein, who sits on a state circuit court, had temporarily blocked South Carolina from handing over voter information to the Trump administration, prompting an outcry from Justice Department officials. Harmeet Dhillon, Trump's civil rights division chief, posted to X that the Justice Department "will not stand for a state court judge’s hasty nullification of our federal voting laws."
That's when the fury started coming in from other accounts.
One account boasting over 11,000 followers proclaimed, “Rain Holy hell fire onto these judges who interfere with the Executive branch.” Per the Beast, another stated, “Diane S. Goodstein, may all your evil wishes and evil deeds directed towards Trump and the MAGA boomerang back and stick to you and yours a thousandfold. Shmsm. Amen.”
Goodstein's home burst into flames over the weekend, with her family still inside it. Three people, including her husband, had to be rushed to the hospital with severe injuries.
State law enforcement is investigating the matter as possible arson. A final determination wasn't immediately known publicly about the cause, nor whether foul play was involved. No suspects or motives have been announced.
That hasn't stopped some politicians from speculating that Trump and his allies' attacks on judges could have been an inciting factor, with Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) specifically trading barbs with Stephen Miller on X about the issue.
President Donald Trump claimed to be in "negotiations" with Democrats that he said could lead to "very good things" amid a government shutdown over health care subsidies.
During an Oval Office event on Monday, Trump said that "the American people are unable to get good health care."
"Obamacare has been a a wreck as you know," he argued, "and to do that we have to keep it propped up and keep and do the best you can with it it's a mess but things are — a lot of things are going on in that, you know, we talk about Hamas then we talk about negotiations that we have going on right now. We have a negotiation going on right now with the Democrats that could lead to very good things, and I'm talking about good things with regard to health care."
"We are speaking with the Democrats, and some very good things could happen with respect to health care," he said.
"Would you make a deal with them on the ACA subsidies?" one reporter asked.
"If we made the right deal, I'd make a deal," Trump remarked. "You have a problem with Obamacare. The subsidies are so much. It's billions and billions of dollars is being wasted. And we can have a much better health care that we have right now."
The president's statement appeared at odds with those of White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, who made remarks earlier in the day.
"There's nothing to negotiate," she told reporters.
A high-profile Supreme Court watcher excoriated the court on Monday because of its efforts to play "handmaiden" to President Donald Trump's "regime."
Elie Mystal, a columnist for The Nation, argued in a new op-ed that the Supreme Court can no longer be considered an ally of liberal causes such as abortion rights or recognizing transgender individuals. He added that Democrats appear to be willing to let the court get away with becoming an "antidemocratic enforcement mechanism of the Republican political agenda."
"The Supreme Court is not our friend. And I don’t know how often this court has to kick us in the face to get people to realize that," Mystal wrote. "But the answer, for at least another term, appears to be 'more.'"
The Supreme Court justices returned from their summer break on Oct. 6. Mystal estimated that "those who value human decency will lose the highest-profile cases" during the upcoming session because of the court's rightward turn.
"This term, the court will continue to prop up the Trump regime," Mystal argued, citing the court's use of the shadow docket and efforts to curb nationwide injunctions from lower courts. "They’ll use every procedural trick in the book, and when that’s not good enough, they’ll either rule for Trump outright or create opportunities for him to get second and third and fourth bites of the same apple until his unhinged administration tweaks its arguments to the court’s satisfaction."
"When the court isn’t playing handmaiden to Trump’s particular brand of authoritarianism, it will do what it’s generally been trying to do for the past 20-plus years under John Roberts’s leadership: continue to suck the life out of the democratic process and crush the rights of anybody who doesn’t happen to be a cishetero white man," he added.
"While Democrats patiently wait for the magical day when the Supreme Court tells Trump no, the six Republicans will bully trans kids and poison the environment for all kids lucky enough to survive the next school shooting," the op-ed reads in part.
The U.S. Supreme Court has critics pointing to how the high court has "utterly failed" and presented "disastrous consequences" for Americans with its right-wing supermajority handing President Donald Trump a series of wins and "acquiescing in and accommodating the president’s lawlessness."
In an opinion piece for The Guardian, journalist Steven Greenhouse outlines how the last 24 decisions from the SCOTUS emergency docket have favored Trump and his policies, which have often been granted without the high court giving any reasons.
"With the court’s new term beginning on Monday, many Americans are dismayed that the conservative justices have been so submissive to Trump, the most authoritarian-minded president in US history. Notwithstanding the US’s celebrated system of checks and balances, the justices have utterly failed to provide the checks on Trump that many legal scholars had expected," Greenhouse writes.
The high court has ceded to Trump and allowed him to roll out cuts to the Department of Education, remove temporary protected status for thousands of immigrants, and fire Federal Trade Commission and National Labor Relations Board members. It also let him stop $4 billion in foreign aid, lay off thousands of federal workers (some who had contractual protections) and deport people to countries where they have never lived.
Chief Justice John Roberts, in particular, has been called out by legal experts.
“The chief justice is presiding over the end of the rule of law in America,” J Michael Luttig said. Luttig is a highly conservative former federal appellate judge.
“The Supreme Court has pulled the rug out from under the lower federal courts, and it has done so deliberately and knowingly,” Luttig said, explaining that the court is “acquiescing in and accommodating the president’s lawlessness.”
Steven Levitsky, co-author of "How Democracies Die" and a political science professor at Harvard, says it's bewildering. It could also be a sign of these majority justices embracing the unitary executive theory.
“If they really believed that Trump was a threat to democracy, they wouldn’t be giving him so much power,” Levitsky said.
He argues that the justices are “scared out of their minds that they will have to play chicken with Trump,” Levitsky said. “The worst thing for them is if the government ignores them and they don’t have any authority. They’re just terrified that Trump will trample on them and undermine their authority. Trump is not someone you want to play chicken with. They’re terrified of a big, high-profile fight with Trump.”
