'Hell to pay': SCOTUS justices fear ruling against Trump, leading scholar says

Rightwing justices on the U.S. Supreme Court fear “hell to pay” if they oppose Donald Trump on key cases, because the president may refuse to follow their rulings, a leading constitutional scholar said.

Asked about recent decisions by the court’s rightwing majority to let controversial Trump policies stand, notably including allowing racial profiling by federal immigration enforcement agents, Cass Sunstein, a Harvard law professor, said: “I think there are a couple ways to understand it."

“One is that a majority of the court thinks that the legal arguments the lower courts have made for stopping the initiatives in question are not strong, and either they're wrong or we need to have a holding action until we can decide whether they're right.

“So that's kind of the view that they're being minimalist here. They're not deciding a whole lot. That's part of it.

“I suspect here's another part of it, which is both the Chief Justice [John Roberts] and the court are in an extremely difficult position, the hardest position at least since the 1930s and maybe the hardest position going back a lot longer than that.

“And I think this is part of it, where the justices are aware that the president might say, ‘We're not going to follow what you do.’ That [Trump might say], ‘You said it, I'm the president, I get to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, and the judiciary isn’t final.’”

Most observers think such a situation would pitch the U.S. into a constitutional crisis.

Sunstein was speaking to The Court of History, a podcast hosted by the Princeton history professor Sean Wilentz and Sidney Blumenthal, a Clinton aide turned biographer of Abraham Lincoln.

Sunstein has himself been close to the center of power: a White House official under Barack Obama, he is married to Samantha Power, also a Harvard professor, having served as UN ambassador under Obama and USAid administrator under Joe Biden.

Photographs of the pair’s wedding in Ireland in 2008, available online, show Elena Kagan among attendees. Then Obama's solicitor general, she is now one of three liberal justices outnumbered by six conservatives on the Supreme Court.

Asked if his suggestion of justices' attempts to avoid confrontation with Trump came from knowledge of justices’ thoughts, Sunstein indicated having a source or sources close to the court.

“I don't know this from any of the justices,” he said, “not from them, but I think what I'm saying is … it's not merely speculation. [It’s] authoritative.”

Blumenthal then asked: “How do you feel about them factoring in the idea that as JD Vance, the Vice President, has said, the President should ignore Supreme Court decisions if he does not like them?”

Sunstein said: “Well, I feel of two minds.”

Though he was “very concerned by” the racial profiling case, “and concern is probably too weak,”, Sunstein added: “I haven't studied the briefs or anything, so I’m being a little cautious here [about] legal arguments.

“The tariffs case I have studied a bit.”

An appeals court recently said Trump lacked constitutional authority to levy tariffs on foreign trade, the centerpiece of his economic policy, saying the power is reserved for Congress.

The Supreme Court has said it will take up the case.

“I think the better argument is against the president,” Sunstein said. “I think I need to spend more time on it. But that’s I think what a neutral lawyer would be inclined to think. But the court is going to understand that there will be hell to pay if they go against the [president] on tariffs.”

The court has courted criticism among liberals by using the so-called “shadow docket” to let Trump policies stand, without definitive rulings.

Sunstein said: “I’m thinking that every month the court’s, let's say, caution about striking down things that are on balance unlawful looks less like a form of prudence and more like … I'm not sure what the right word is, well, it's not 'imprudent,' I don't think. I think the … easy words would be, like, 'cowardice.' But I think that's not precise enough.”

Sunstein then sounded a note of optimism about whether the court to which Trump appointed three right-wingers, and which last year ruled that as president he would have absolute legal immunity for official acts, might yet stand up to him all the same.

Of Roberts, Sunstein said: “I’m hopeful that the Chief Justice I admire — I’ve met him, but I don't really know him, still, I admire him, I think he's a person of integrity — and I'm hopeful that in very extreme cases, which we might well see sooner rather than later, he will be on the side of the law.”

'I see it in his eyes': Mary Trump links uncle’s bizarre behavior to grandpa’s Alzheimer’s

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.’"

"I see that in Donald's eyes sometimes.”

Watch the clip below or at this link.

‘Get the deal done’: GOP hardliner hails new Jan. 6 committee as Dems cry foul

WASHINGTON — This week House Republicans formally launched their long awaited new January 6 subcommittee. Unlike the first select committee, which investigated the attack on the Capitol Jan. 6, 2021, the new panel is tasked with investigating the investigators.

“I want to see all the documents and find out how many lies were told by the people that were sitting on that committee,” Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) said on Thursday. “That's what I want.”

The former chair of the far-right Freedom Caucus joined 211 of his fellow Republicans — with only Rep. Kevin Kiely (R-CA) voting present, as not a single Democrat joined the effort — in unveiling and then establishing a “Select Subcommittee to Investigate the Remaining Questions Surrounding January 6, 2021.”

It will be chaired by Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-GA). He’s been helping the GOP rewrite the record on J6 for years but now he’s got a formal if hyper-partisan mandate, along with subpoena power hailed by Biggs and others on the far-right.

“Now I think the structure is going to really be much more helpful for it,” Biggs said. “In other words, I think the structure is necessary. It's a good structural change.”

‘I’ve done that’

The panel will have eight members, including three Democrats appointed after consultations between Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY).

The subcommittee’s subpoena power is expected to be a gamechanger.

“I think so, yeah,” Biggs said: “In talking with Chairman Loudermilk about it, he's been doing some good work. I've watched what he's done. We've talked. I think he just needed a new structure, and I think it's gonna provide the structure necessary to get the deal done.”

The first January 6 committee was formed in 2021. It staged high-profile hearings in 2022 and issued its report in January 2023, shortly after Republicans re-took the House.

That committee consisted of seven Democrats and two anti-Trump Republicans — deputy chair Liz Cheney, then representing Wyoming, and Adam Kinzinger, then a congressman from Illinois.

Both no longer sit in Congress, Cheney having lost her seat, Kinzinger having retired.

On Wednesday, Kinzinger posted a meme of the actor Will Ferrell beckoning a confrontation and said: “The fact that the so-called moderates in the House voted for this, is especially corrupt. But bring it on, happy to remind America how you guys attempted a coup.”

The next day, a Democrat who sat with Kinzinger on the original committee, Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-CA), told Raw Story the new panel was another instance of the GOP “trying to rewrite history.

“That's just kind of clearly what they've done since January 6,” he said. “This all fits the narrative.

“And it's dangerous. We'll see where they take the committee but it's dangerous behavior.”

Still, Aguilar has no desire to sit on another J6 panel.

“No. I’ve done that,” Aguilar said.

‘Distraction, deflection’

Loudermilk’s previous efforts to investigate the January 6 investigation and investigators were carried out from his perch on the House Appropriations Committee.

Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-PA) told Raw Story she was “so infuriated” by Loudermilk’s new effort.

“It’s distraction, deflection,” Dean said.

“And I have said that the president pardoning insurrectionists, pardoning criminals, violent criminals, was a whitewashing, an attempt to rewrite history, and most importantly, he was pardoning himself. This is a continuation of that.”

On returning to power this year, Donald Trump pardoned around 1,500 offenders convicted over their actions on Jan. 6 2021, as part of the mob that listened to Trump speak then stormed Congress, in an attempt to block certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 election win.

Dean also lamented what she called “the stupid, the insane fight over the plaque” — a memorial to police who defended Congress which Republicans have refused to display.

“I actually went to the archives, to the basement, to see the actual plaque,” Dean said. “They have it. It's there. Oh, it's been there for months. It's done.”

“I don't know at what point the fever breaks,” Dean added of a Republican party in Trump’s grip.

“At what point do they say, ‘No, this is too much?’ Do you think Epstein might do it?”

Even through emotional and high-profile appearances on Capitol Hill from survivors of Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse, House GOP leaders are refusing to release files relating to the late financier and sex offender who was long close to Trump.

Groceries, rents, tariffs

On the other side of the Capitol on Thursday, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) told Raw Story Republicans should focus on kitchen table issues, not rehashing old wars over January 6.

“Maybe they should be focused on the price of groceries,” Klobuchar said. “That might be better.

“Maybe they should focus on the tariffs and what's happening to people, not just their grocery bills, but their health care and their rent. So that would be a much more useful thing.”

There seems little chance of that.

Raw Story caught up with Rep. James Comer (R-KY), a leading Trump ally and chair of the powerful House Oversight Committee. Asked about the new Jan. 6 panel, he deflected.

“Trying to just keep up with my own portfolio,” Comer told Raw Story before lauding the new committee he expects “to investigate the investigators, to see if they were truthful in what they put in that final report. That’s what I understand.”

Biographer claims Epstein and Bannon joked about Trump: 'Both thought he was a moron'

The U.S. House Oversight Committee should subpoena Steve Bannon for testimony about extensive interviews with Jeffrey Epstein in which both men made clear “they both thought that [Donald] Trump was a moron, and neither could ultimately believe that Trump had become president of the United States,” Trump biographer Michael Wolff said.

Wolff was speaking on the Court of History podcast, hosted by Clinton aide turned Lincoln biographer Sidney Blumenthal and Princeton historian Sean Wilentz.

Bill and Hillary Clinton were among names subpoenaed before the summer recess, as the House committee seeks information about the so-called Epstein files, records on the deceased financier and sex offender the Trump administration first said it would release, then said it would not.

That decision has led to weeks of speculation about Trump’s relationship with Epstein, with whom he was friends for years.

Amid spiraling scandal, Trump vehemently denies wrongdoing.

Epstein was arrested in 2006 and sentenced in 2008 for offenses related to sexual exploitation of underage girls. He was again arrested in 2019, amid scandal over his lenient treatment by Florida authorities. In August 2019, Epstein killed himself in custody in New York.

Ghislaine Maxwell, his sometime partner, was convicted on sex trafficking charges in 2021. Maxwell's interview with Deputy Attorney General and former Trump lawyer Todd Blanche, and transfer to a less onerous jail, has this month generated significant controversy amid speculation Trump may hand her a pardon.

Blumenthal asked Wolff: “Who should be subpoenaed, who might have information, by this committee? Because the people they've subpoenaed almost certainly know nothing.”

Wolff said: “Well, Steve Bannon for starters.”

Bannon was Trump’s campaign chair in 2016 and White House strategist in 2017. After leaving that role he remained an influential far-right voice and Trump ally.

Bannon is known to have conducted hours of interviews with Epstein, which he says will form the basis of a documentary.

Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA), the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, has said he wants Bannon to be subpoenaed.

Wolff said Bannon “was extremely close to to Epstein for the better part of two years before he died, they were brought together because … they both had had a close relationship with Donald Trump, and they both had significant animosity toward Donald Trump, and they spend hours and hours, countless hours, talking about Donald Trump.

“So if there is anyone who knows about that [Trump-Epstein] relationship from the horse's mouth, it certainly would be Steve Bannon.”

Trump and close aides have attacked Wolff repeatedly, since his first Trump bestseller, Fire and Fury, was released in 2018, charging that he is at best an unreliable narrator. Wolff has written three more Trump books, most recently All or Nothing, about the 2024 election.

Wolff has said he has seen photos of Trump with Epstein and young women, and has hours of tapes of his own interviews with Epstein — excerpts having been published, though Wolff says major publishers regard them as “too hot to handle.”

“I know literally everything,” about Bannon and Epstein’s conversations “because I was there,” Wolff told Blumenthal and Wilentz. “And I have tapes of Bannon tapes … Bannon maintains, of course, that he was making a documentary … this is entirely 100% not true. Bannon was coaching … Epstein for a theoretical mea culpa media appearance.

“I mean, this was at a moment in time when, when forces were closing in on Epstein, where the public perception of what he had done could not have been worse. And the proposition was that Epstein should go on a national news show, 60 Minutes, something like that, and bare his chest.

“And Bannon took it upon himself to train Epstein in how to do this. And there were three separate sessions in which Bannon worked on coaching Epstein.”

Saying Bannon “believed that Epstein was not an unsympathetic narrator of his own life story, and that this might play to his benefit,” Wolff said that judgment was “frankly … pretty dicey stuff.”

Wolff also said Bannon acted as a “hostile” questioner, in an attempt to prepare Epstein for an interview on national TV.

Blumenthal asked: “Did Bannon prepare him to discuss the Trump relationship?”

Wolff said: “Somewhat, but … that was not a key part of these tapes. But you know, it … certainly was touched on and was a factor in terms of who might be called before Congress. Certainly, as I say, Bannon was well versed in all aspects of Epstein's relationship with Trump.”

Wolff added that it was “interesting that at that point in … 2019, in the several months before Epstein was re-arrested, the Trump-Epstein relationship was certainly in the media, and … that was not looked at as a major part of the Epstein story … the media was reluctant to take an interest. This key aspect of the significance of Jeffrey Epstein was overlooked or denied.”

Blumenthal asked: “What did Epstein tell Bannon about his relationship with Trump?”

Wolff said: “They compared notes … they had a lot of enjoyment doing this because they both thought that Trump was a moron, and neither could ultimately believe that Trump had become the president of the United States. So it was a back-and-forth sharing of anecdotes about the deficiencies, let's call them, of Donald Trump as a manager, as a politician and most of all as a human being.”

Blumenthal asked: “Did Epstein talk about [Trump’s] deficiencies … with his relations with women and how he approached them?”

Wolff said: “He did at great length, and that was one of the things that one can find somewhat chilling in hindsight, is that Jeffrey Epstein deeply disapproved of Trump's treatment of women.

“I think he found him, well, as he said to me, ‘Donald has no scruples.’ And he went on at some length, which in part was amusing length, about Trump's efforts to sleep with the wives of his friends that Epstein billed as one of Trump's compulsions.”

'Terrorized' Republicans fume to Dem about 'stupid damage' done by Trump

WASHINGTON — A senior Democratic senator slammed President Donald Trump as trying to realize the "wet dream of the dirtiest players in the fossil fuel industry."

The vivid comment was made to Raw Story after Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency chief announced the scrapping of a key control on greenhouse gas emissions.

Speaking at the U.S. Capitol, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) fumed to Raw Story that EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, the former New York Republican congressman and 2022 gubernatorial candidate, was doing “the bidding of the fossil fuel industry, which paid good money for this kind of corruption."

“The endangerment finding is what brings carbon pollution under the Clean Air Act,” Whitehouse added of the measure Zeldin promised to scrap this week.

Issued in 2009, the endangerment finding also imposes emissions standards on cars, trucks and buses.

Announcing its demise, Zeldin claimed “the Obama and Biden EPAs twisted the law, ignored precedent and warped science to achieve their preferred ends and stick American families with hundreds of billions of dollars in hidden taxes every single year.”

The move is being hailed within the administration as “a monumental step toward returning to commonsense policies that expand access to affordable, reliable, secure energy and improve quality of life for all Americans,” as Energy Secretary Chris Wright claimed.

But Whitehouse charged the Trump administration with simply rewarding polluters who are also big money donors, by pursuing “the deletion of all regulation of carbon emissions, which is obviously the wet dream of the dirtiest players in the fossil fuel industry and the result of a lot of dark money spending by the industry to buy an administration that will do its dirty bidding.”

Zeldin’s move has prompted outcry among climate crisis activists but it is not a done deal, as lawyers on both sides gear up for what promises to be a drawn-out legal battle.

“I think it has … legal problems,” Whitehouse said, “because there really isn't a factual basis for what they are doing, outside of the boardrooms of Big Oil and creepy front groups who pretend climate change isn't real.”

Raw Story asked Whitehouse if he had any hope that the MAGA-infused GOP of Trump and Zeldin might resist efforts to cripple the fight against climate change. He said he did.

“You could actually see fairly significant efforts within the Republican Senate Caucus to try to repair some of the stupid damage that Trumpsters were trying to do,” Whitehouse said.

“We continue to have ongoing, healthy conversations about carbon water tariffs, about interesting solar investments, we had a very good conversation last night with a Republican member about the threat to the real estate markets arising out of the uninsurability and hence unmortgageability of so much American real estate.

“I think there's a lot of genuine and underlying concern, but Trump’s political strategy is to try to terrorize Republicans in the Senate, and he's done a pretty good job of it, and most of their money comes from fossil fuels, so they are also having that problem.

“But facts don't go away. As [President John] Adams said [in 1770], facts are stubborn things, and so I have not given up.

“It may take a real kick in the head, like a collapse of Florida's insurance and real estate market, to get them to focus on this as a today issue and not a someday issue.”

'I didn't see it'

At least one Republican from that climate-vulnerable state seemed unlikely, at first glance, to heed Whitehouse’s words.

Catching up with Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) as he walked through the Capitol, Raw Story asked: “Have you been able to look at the EPA announcement this week on climate change?”

“I didn't see it,” Scott said, of the widely publicized, reported and debated announcement.

Another Republican, from a state historically dominated by the coal industry, was giddy when discussing the dismantling of the EPA.

“What do you make of what Zeldin is doing at EPA, his announcement this week?” Raw Story asked Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, (R-WV). “Do you think it’s a game changer?”

“It's a huge announcement,” Capito said. “I think it just shows [it’s about] getting rid of the over-regulation [of fossil fuel industries]. So I'm gonna support it.”

Many Democrats are retooling their message and focusing on public health, rather than rising temperatures and seas.

“What Lee Zeldin announced was the greatest crime against nature ever committed in American and world history,” Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) fumed to Raw Story.

“What Zeldin announced was a complete capitulation to the oil, gas and coal industry, and giving them a permission slip to continue to pollute and endanger the planet and the health of all Americans.

“There is now going to be a dramatic increase in the number of cancers, asthmas and other diseases in the United States of America, and it's going to hit kids and it's going to hit pregnant women disproportionately.

“So what Zeldin just did was to fulfill the payoff that Trump is providing to the oil, gas and coal industry for their contributions by the hundreds of millions to his re-election campaign, but the price is going to be paid by American families.”

No matter what Zeldin and Trump’s EPA are up to, Democrats say the GOP and their funders can’t just wave a wad of cash and reverse the globe’s changing climate.

“It's very bad for the climate,” Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) told Raw Story, of Zeldin’s move. “The best thing we can do is help people to understand that all these increasing natural disasters are being made worse because of Republican policies.”

‘Maybe he saw things’: Expert floats overlooked big name as key to unlocking Epstein case

If President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice wants to talk to someone in prison for sexual offenses who may have information about Jeffrey Epstein and his links to well-known men, it should talk to Harvey Weinstein, according to the reporter whose work led to Epstein’s final arrest.

“Why don't they talk to Harvey?” Julie K. Brown said. “Harvey might know something, too.”

Brown was speaking to The Court of History podcast, as controversy continued to rage over a jailhouse interview between Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, formerly Trump’s personal lawyer, and Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s sometime girlfriend, who was convicted in 2021 of offenses including sex trafficking of underage girls.

Epstein, a financier and convicted sex offender, killed himself in federal custody in 2019.

His links to Trump are at the center of an ongoing scandal, ignited last month when Trump’s Justice Department said it would not fulfill his campaign promise to release the so-called Epstein files, lists of prominent men believed to have been closely connected to Epstein.

That announcement triggered fury among Trump’s supporters and a torrent of reporting and speculation about why Trump would block the files’ release.

Trump vehemently denies all wrongdoing, but the Wall Street Journal and other outlets have reported on his long friendship with Epstein.

The Journal also revealed that Pam Bondi, the attorney general, told Trump his name was in the Epstein files in May, before the administration decided not to release them.

In a highly unusual and controversial move, Blanche interviewed Maxwell at a jail in Florida last week.

This week, Maxwell was moved from a Florida jail to a lower-security facility in Texas amid reports she seeks a pardon or clemency in return for helping the Trump administration.

Brown’s work for the Miami Herald led to Epstein’s 2019 arrest on charges of sex-trafficking minors, after Brown exposed how, in the mid-2000s, Epstein gained a sweetheart deal from Florida prosecutors regarding similar charges.

Brown’s reporting led to the resignation of Alex Acosta, Trump’s first labor secretary, who gave Epstein the deal. Such work won awards, and in 2021 Brown published Perversion of Justice, a book about the Epstein case.

Speaking to Court of History hosts Sidney Blumenthal, a Clinton aide turned Lincoln biographer, and Princeton historian Sean Wilentz, Brown discussed links between Epstein and Weinstein, the Hollywood mogul convicted of sexual assault and now in jail in New York.

Weinstein “was also on the message pads the Palm Beach Police Department [took from Epstein’s] home at the time … he was first arrested,” Brown said. “These were the old-fashioned pink message pads, where somebody called, you write their name and why they're calling … you tear it off, but there was a copy right underneath. So they got these books of message pads.

"Harvey Weinstein was one of those people that called [Epstein]. Trump called him. There were a lot of names of people who would call him. Now, of course, it didn't say what they wanted. Just said, you know, ‘Trump called’ or ‘Harvey called.’

“That raises another question. Why don't they talk to Harvey? Harvey might know something too.”

Blumenthal asked Brown: “Do you think Harvey Weinstein should be called as a witness … or approached by Todd Blanche and the Justice Department?”

Referring to doubts over the veracity or value of interviews with Maxwell, who has also been subpoenaed by Congress, Brown said: “I mean, [Weinstein is] a sex predator himself. So again, [it would be] the same laundry, involving someone who, are they talking because they're really being honest or because they want some kind of a deal?

“So I think you have the same credibility issue [as with Maxwell] with him, although I feel like … he might be able to provide information from a different vantage point, because he might not have been part of this Epstein sex trafficking operation, but maybe saw things.”

That said, Brown added, “I just don't think that anyone wants those names to get out, of the men who were very powerful and wealthy who … participated in sex with these girls and young women … I think they're very powerful people, and I don't think that even Trump wants those names to get out.”

Brazil's only astronaut begs for help as Trump tariffs threaten to cripple country: Dem

WASHINGTON — Farmers, bankers and international policymakers find themselves in the same camp as President Donald Trump’s international trade war gathers pace: confused, freaked out and lobbying for clarity — if not a carve out.

Just this week, after Trump signed an executive order introducing 50 percent tariffs on most goods from Brazil, a leading Democratic senator met with a handful of concerned Brazilian counterparts, among them a friend from the senator's literally stellar contact book.

“I've met with eight Brazilian senators in my office, and one of them is a guy I’ve known for 30 years, who was the only Brazilian astronaut,” Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ), a former U.S. astronaut himself, told Raw Story at the Capitol.

“I worked with him for over a decade. So he brought a bunch of people, because we have a [trade] surplus with Brazil and [yet] … they were told 50%.

“They don't know what to do. Because usually, [tariffs are imposed on] a country where you’ve got a trade deficit. This is the opposite.”

Kelly was a U.S. Navy aviator and flew combat missions in the first Gulf War before becoming a NASA astronaut and taking part in four space missions.

His Brazilian astronaut friend, 62-year-old former air force pilot Marcos Pontes, completed a mission to the International Space Station in 2006.

In 2019, Pontes became Brazil’s Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation. In 2022, he was elected as a federal senator for São Paulo.

Trump announced punitive tariffs against Brazil July 9. On Wednesday he put his order into effect. Some Brazilian products were exempted — including orange juice, some aircraft, wood pulp and energy products.

But a U.S. government fact sheet explicitly linked the tariffs to what it called “the Government of Brazil’s politically motivated persecution, intimidation, harassment, censorship, and prosecution of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and thousands of his supporters.”

Bolsonaro and seven associates are on trial regarding his attempt to stay in power in 2022, which opponents call an attempted coup similar to the deadly Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol that Trump incited in an attempt to overturn his 2020 defeat by Joe Biden.

In his fact sheet on Wednesday, Trump claimed the current Brazilian government, under President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, known simply as Lula, was guilty of “serious human rights abuses that have undermined the rule of law in Brazil.”

Kelly gave that short shrift.

“There's this whole political component that has to do with Bolsonaro and this prosecution, trying Bolsonaro, but they [Brazilian politicians] can’t interfere with their judicial process,” the senator said.

“They can't interfere. Lula's not going to interfere with their judiciary.

“That's just something that we do. This administration.”

Raw Story asked: “So [your Brazilian friends are] kind of freaked out” by Trump’s tariffs?

Kelly said: “Yeah, they're like, ‘Hey, have you got any advice?’ So I reached out to the Secretary of Commerce [Howard Lutnick] on this because they’d like an extension to try to figure [this] out, so this doesn't get put in at all. And they’re good trading partners.

“If these tariffs go into effect, prices are gonna go up on a lot of things. Depends on the country. Using Brazil as an example, I think something like a third of the coffee in the United States comes from Brazil, so you're gonna see higher coffee prices.”

Raw Story asked: “Are we gonna see now individual nations do like Brazil, ask for a carve out?”

Kelly said: “I think everybody's gonna try to ask for something. And I think some of these might benefit us, but the big picture is incredibly chaotic and haphazard, and not the way you're supposed to run trade policy, and the American people are going to be on the losing end of this.

“But I was trying to, you know, help out my friend of 30 years.”

‘Clearly afraid’: Warren and Cruz trade barbs over Texas redistricting scheme

WASHINGTON — Texas Republicans are “clearly afraid” of their own voters, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) told Raw Story after Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) compared the Lone Star State’s mid-decade redistricting effort to “gerrymandering” in Democratic strongholds like Massachusetts.

Under pressure from President Donald Trump, Gov. Greg Abbott called the Texas legislature into a special session in an effort to ram through a controversial redistricting plan designed to net as many as five extra GOP seats in next year’s midterm elections.

That’s had Democratic leaders and rank-and-file members calling foul, but Cruz told Raw Story blue state progressives are being hypocrites.

“The Democrats have long used gerrymandering to subvert democracy and expand their congressional delegation,” Texas’s junior senator said.

“For example, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a liberal state. There are Republicans in Massachusetts. Indeed, they've elected multiple Republican governors, and yet, of the entire Massachusetts congressional delegation, there are zero Republicans.

“They have drawn the lines in Massachusetts so that only Democrats need apply. [It’s] not surprising that the state of Texas is deciding to redraw the lines to elect more Republicans who reflect views of the vast majority of the state.”

When Raw Story presented Cruz’s argument to Sen. Warren, she laughed.

“Massachusetts is not afraid of our voters, and we don't need to engage in gerrymandering in order to elect our representatives in the state house or in Congress,” Warren said.

“Texas Republicans are clearly afraid that if the good people in Texas are given a chance to vote for who they want, that those Republicans are going to lose power.”

Polling gives President Trump and congressional Republicans reason to believe their unpopular “Big Beautiful Bill” tax cut and spending cut package and the deepening Jeffrey Epstein scandal will severely damage their electoral prospects.

The proposed Texas redistricting is a break with the customary 10-year cycle that lines up with the nation’s census, in an attempt to give the GOP an edge before any votes are cast.

“What do you think about [the Texas redistricting effort] being directed from the White House?” Raw Story asked Warren.

“It’s one more indication that Donald Trump leads the charge when it comes to undercutting democracy, for the Republicans,” the senator said.

‘Everybody's happy at the White House’

Texas Republicans are facing constant questions about the redistricting plan, leading to many representatives running from reporters or offering a dismissive “no comment.”

“I know from a bunch of you Texas members, y'all don't want this,” Raw Story pressed veteran Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX).

McCaul smiled broadly.

“A lot of y'all are freaked out by it,” Raw Story added.

“Everybody's happy at the White House, now they're looking at an opportunity to get some seats and they talked to the state legislature, and it's their prerogative,” McCaul said.

“So that's kind of where it stands.”

“Maybe put forward policies people like and you can combat that midterm boom the other party always gets?” Raw Story suggested.

“A lot of times it's a game of numbers too. But anyway, this is actually sort of like the White House,” McCaul said. “So, that's about all I can say.”

Gerrymandering — the practice of drawing district lines to favor your own electoral prospects — is named after Elbridge Gerry, a founder, Massachusetts congressman, and U.S. vice president in 1813-14. The practice has always been part of U.S. politics, openly discussed by politicians and advisers.

“The objective is to get Republican seats,” House Budget Committee Chair Jody Arrington, another powerful Texas Republican, told Raw Story.

“But we don't get to draw the maps.”

That was a reference to state authorities set to carry out redistricting. Arrington dismissed suggestions his own seat could disappear, adding: “I think every Republican member from Texas wants to expand our number of seats if we can. I think there's a way to do it.”

Prominent Democrats are urging California governor Gavin Newsom to initiate aggressive redistricting in response to Texas, to reduce the number of Republicans from his overwhelmingly blue state.

Republicans like Arrington dismiss that as dirty politics.

“I think it would be problematic,” Arrington said, adding: “I don't think they can do what we can do because of the system for redistricting … there's not as much behind that threat than there is a realistic opportunity to have more seats in Texas.

“How many, I don't know, but there's definitely more there.”

‘How ugly’

Redistricting is easier in Texas than in California.

“Well, Texas can do what it wants but Newsom doing so would be in direct face of the voter initiative that puts [redistricting] in the hands of an independent commission which I supported as a legislator and as a private citizen back in the day,” Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-CA) told Raw Story.

“That would have a really very bad look. And the way Newsom is bragging about how, ‘Well we got a three-to-one majority, we could just force this thing through’ … that's a bad look. The people directly said they wanted [redistricting] to be independent of politics and politicians.”

California “voters wanted [redistricting] in the hands of an independent commission,” LaMalfa added.

“I've watched personally, before I was in office, how ugly the process turned when politicians on both sides were drawing the lines in order to benefit their political vendettas and things like that.”

Asked about Texas, LaMalfa repeated that it could do what it wanted.

Another California Republican, Rep. Darrell Issa, was more cynical about the independent commission.

“They already gerrymandered my state,” Issa told Raw Story. “[Democrats] just think they can do a little better. California is already highly gerrymandered. You look at it, we [Republicans] have eight seats. And you look at the [last] election … we should have more than double that.”

“The independent commission is a farce,” Issa added, alleging “gerrymandering, clearly by a commission to create safe seats for Democrats.”

‘It’s racial’

Rep. Al Green (D-TX) is a Capitol Hill institution in himself, a fiery orator and leading figure in the Congressional Black Caucus.

He told Raw Story the Texas redistricting plan was “targeted for minority districts.”

Al Green Rep. Al Green (D-TX) is a fiery presence on Capitol Hill. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein

“When you target people like that, you have to say what it is. This is racial gerrymandering … to eliminate minority voices in the process,” Green said.

“And there is a fear in this country of using the word ‘racial’ or ‘racism.’ There's a fear.

“We hear ‘antisemitism’ on a daily basis, and we should … but when there is this racial thing occurring, and that's what's happening in Texas, we're not hearing the voices, and that's what it is.”

Green also accused Republicans of “changing the rules in the middle of the game,” with a “mid-decade redistricting without the proper empirical evidence necessary to make judicious decisions.

“This is comparable to saying at a basketball game, ‘We're going to take out two of your players because you may outscore us in the next half,’” Green said. “So at halftime, we decide two of your five won't play. So you're gonna have to play with three, not five. We'll continue to play with five.

“We may even have six. Let's have six for our side and you have three on your side. Oh, we supposed to have 10 on the court? That's right. Okay. Well, look, we'll have seven and you have three.

“That's what this is all about, changing the numbers so that the President can maintain his authoritarian rule.”

Epstein believed Trump was the 'rat' who snitched on him to FBI: biographer

The late financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein believed Donald Trump was the “rat” who informed on him to the FBI, leading to his 2006 arrest and sentencing for offenses involving underage girls, the Trump biographer Michael Wolff said.

“Trump was aware of what was going on in Epstein's house for a very long time … and … he then used that against Epstein,” Wolff said.

Wolff made the startling claim on Wednesday — the same day that, in the latest in a series of bombshell revelations, the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump has been told his name appears in the so-called Epstein files that recorded investigations into the financier’s conduct.

Trump’s links to Epstein have billowed into the public consciousness in the past month after a Department of Justice attempt to shut down calls from Trump supporters for the release of Epstein’s supposed “client list” spectacularly backfired.

Since then, repeated attempts by Trump and allies to distract from the scandal have failed; House Republican leadership has adjourned early for the summer, to avoid a vote on releasing the Epstein files; and Trump’s own DOJ has said it wants to interview Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s former girlfriend who was imprisoned after being convicted of sex trafficking charges.

Epstein and Trump are known to have been close friends for some time, with new photos of their socializing released this week by CNN.

But Wolff, who was speaking to The Court of History, a podcast hosted by the former Clinton aide turned Lincoln biographer Sidney Blumenthal and Sean Wilentz, a Princeton history professor, said that in 2004 the two men fell out over what Epstein alleged to be a money laundering scheme involving a Florida property, Trump, and a Russian oligarch.

“And at that point,” Wolff said, “the investigation of Epstein began, and Epstein … believed that it began because Trump notified the police about what was going on at Epstein's house, which Trump was fully aware of, because he was a frequent visitor to the house.”

Epstein was arrested but ultimately received a lenient deal from Florida authorities, pleading guilty to state charges of soliciting prostitution and soliciting prostitution from someone under the age of 18, and being sentenced to 18 months in a low-security jail.

His avoidance of federal charges became an issue in 2019, when he was arrested again, while Trump was first in the White House. In August that year, Epstein died in federal custody in New York. Authorities said he killed himself.

Trump has said his friendship with Epstein ended because Epstein was a “creep.”

On Wednesday, Blumenthal asked: “So Epstein believed that Donald Trump was an informant, or in Trump's own words, a rat.”

Wolff said yes, and confirmed that Epstein told him so personally.

Wolff has frequently detailed his extensive interviews with Epstein, sometimes sharing excerpts. Many were carried out during research for Wolff’s first book on Trump’s entry to politics, Fire and Fury, which was a huge bestseller in 2018.

Three more Wolff Trump books followed, two on his first term and 2020 defeat by Joe Biden, then last year All or Nothing, about how Trump returned to power despite criminal convictions, multimillion-dollar civil penalties and undecided criminal cases involving the retention of classified information and his incitement of the January 6th insurrection.

Trump and his aides have regularly abused and derided Wolff. The author has frequently spoken to Blumenthal and Wilentz about his relationship with Epstein and the tapes of their conversations, including recently saying a series of major publishers called the tapes “too hot to handle.”

On Wednesday, Wolff repeated his description of compromising photographs of Trump and Epstein with young girls, which he says Epstein showed him and which Wolff says would presumably have been confiscated by the FBI in 2019.

Trump vehemently denies wrongdoing relating to Epstein and has angrily demanded his supporters focus on other issues – without success, Trump and key allies having long stoked the notion that Epstein is key to various rightwing conspiracy theories.

Being labeled a “rat” by a former close friend would likely sting Trump, who has used the word to deride people who co-operate with law enforcement.

In 2018, for example, Trump used the word rat to describe Michael Cohen, his former attorney and fixer who ended up going to jail despite co-operating with investigations of Trump.

Yet Trump is widely reported to have been close to the FBI himself. In 2016, the Washington Post reported on Trump’s links to an informant, Daniel Sullivan, during his time in the casino business.

Trump denies such links. In 2019, asked if he would tell the FBI if a foreign government offered him dirt on a political opponent, he told ABC: "I'll tell you what, I've seen a lot of things over my life. I don't think in my whole life I've ever called the FBI. In my whole life.

“You don't call the FBI. You throw somebody out of your office, you do whatever you do."

On Wednesday, Blumenthal asked Wolff: “What was [Epstein’s] view of Trump for serving as the snitch?”

Wolff said: “Epstein believed that Trump dropped a dime on him, and that began his legal difficulties. And that's, I think, a significant window into Donald Trump.

“But the perhaps broader point is that Trump was aware of what was going on in Epstein's house for a very long time before this and because of that awareness, which he had not previously disclosed, he then used that against Epstein.”

Blumenthal said: “But he'd also been a participant, as Epstein showed through the photographs he displayed to you.”

Wolff said: “Yes. That is all I know, is that Donald Trump knew what was going on at Jeffrey Epstein's house. There was a set of photographs in which he was with girls of indeterminate age around Epstein's pool.

“I mean, let me not go further than that. That's what I know.”

‘All kinds of questions’: Gabbard's Obama attack may give Dems Epstein opening

WASHINGTON — Republican House Judiciary chair Jim Jordan expects Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel to appear in front of his committee when the House returns in September, even though their appearance will allow Democrats to grill the pair about the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his close links to Donald Trump.

“‘They're going to get asked all kinds of questions,” Jordan said.

Jordan, from Ohio, wants to ask Bondi and Patel about documents released on Wednesday by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, as part of attempts to portray President Barack Obama and other top officials acting to undermine Trump after his victory in the 2016 election.

The newly released documents concern investigations of Russian election interference on Trump’s behalf and were drafted by House Republicans in 2017, when Trump was first in office.

Gabbard’s gambit was widely seen as an attempt to shift the spotlight from the swirling Epstein scandal.

Earlier this week, House Speaker Mike Johnson brought forward the August recess, as a way to block bipartisan calls for the release of files on Epstein, who died in federal custody in 2019.

At the Capitol on Wednesday, Raw Story asked Jordan: “Had you been in talks with ODNI about [the document release], or did you just learn of this today?”

Jordan said: “No, no, no … I did not know Tulsi was going to release this and what she did on Friday.”

Then, Gabbard released a report on investigations of how Russia interfered in the 2016 election in support of Trump, and their handling by Obama, former FBI Director James Comey, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and other top officials.

That prompted Trump to call for the arrest of Obama, which would be an act without precedent, and Obama to issue a rebuke in turn.

Jordan said: “We knew, based on the intelligence committee chairman … that he thought something was coming, that product they had worked on years ago, which is released today.

“We're going to see, I do know we're going to have Attorney General Bondi and Director Patel in front of our committee real soon.”

Raw Story asked: “On Epstein or on this?”

“On everything,” Jordan replied. “They're coming in for their normal visit. So they're going to get asked all kinds of questions.”

Raw Story said: “You know, Dems are going to want to just focus on Epstein.”

Jordan said: “Democrats, they ask whatever question they want, and Republicans ask whatever question they want. That's what happens when they come in.

“We’ve been working on getting Pam and Kash … in front of the committee weeks ago.”

‘I don’t think it’s gonna work’

Rep. Ami Bera (D-CA), a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and Intelligence Subcommittee, branded the Republican moves as “ridiculous.”

“Well, again, it's their MO, which is they know they're hiding stuff on the Epstein files, and they're afraid of it, so they want to change the story,” Bera said.

“I don't think it's gonna work.”

Raw Story asked: “How good have [the GOP] become at normalizing the use of government to spread misinformation?”

Bera said: “That's important, right? Because you want people to pressure the federal government when they give you information … that's the sad part of what this place is becoming.”

Bera also had harsh words for Gabbard, a former Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020. Before leaving Congress, she drifted right and eventually entered Trump’s cabinet.

“Tulsi and I came into Congress together,” Bera said. “To see what she's become, it’s just ridiculous … at this juncture, there’s no backbone or spine.”

'Oh my God!' Dems prepare for 'A-bomb' to hit market after Trump threat

WASHINGTON – A California Republican admitted to not being a “super-duper financial expert” — then said he understood President Donald Trump’s urge to break with political convention and fire Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.

That move, many financial experts and Democrats have said, will mean disaster for the U.S. economy.

“I don't get the feeling [Powell] is very responsive to the cues of the economy like you should be,” Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-CA) told Raw Story at the U.S. Capitol, as Washington fixated on whether Trump will fire Powell, as he is reportedly preparing to do.

“That's where the frustration comes in here, it seems to me,” LaMalfa said. “Like [I’m] not a super-duper financial expert on it but they could be more responsive to what we see happening here. I would like to see interest rates adjusted.

“Maybe he’ll just go away on his own.”

Trump has raged publicly about Powell, on Wednesday telling reporters: “He’s a terrible Fed chair. I was surprised he was appointed.”

Countless sources pointed out that Trump nominated Powell in 2017 and oversaw his appointment the following year.

Trump added that he “was surprised that [President Joe] Biden put him in, extended him”, and said that though he was not “planning on doing anything” and a firing was “highly unlikely,” he was “very very concerned.”

Powell was actually appointed by Trump during his first term.

The New York Times first reported that Trump has prepared a letter with which to fire Powell. Aides to the president have said he is looking into whether he has the authority to do so.

Rep. LaMalfa told Raw Story Powell’s firing “would probably be handy” for Republicans, but added: “I don't know if the protocol allows for just being able to kick the guy out.”

Then he asked: “You know what his term is?”

Fed Chairs typically serve four-year terms, operating independently of the presidents who appoint them. Powell’s second term ends next year. But in Trump’s own second term, the White House has shown scant regard for convention.

LaMalfa said: “I understand the frustration, but there does have to be some sense of, you know, continuity that is about the political thing too.

“I just hope they come to the realization on their own that we need to … align interest rates with how good the economy is, instead of just … interest rates are going to be bad for managing our debt around here, so we all want to see them low for a lot of reasons.”

Like every other House Republican but one, LaMalfa recently voted for Trump’s “big beautiful bill” of tax cuts and spending cuts, which is projected to add $4 trillion to the national debt.

‘Very dangerous’

Democrats do not think Trump should fire Powell.

“I think [it would be] very dangerous,” Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA) told Raw Story.

“Oh, my God, yeah. There's a great essay in the New York Times … about you want 35% inflation, make the Fed not independent.

“If [the Fed Chair is] serving at the pleasure of the president, then they're gonna do short-term stuff all the time. You need long-term thinking, which Powell’s been great at and virtually everyone” says it.

Raw Story asked: “So you think meddling is bad?”

Citing an economist hero of free-market Republicans, Beyer said: “You all go back to Milton Friedman. They're all big fans of Milton Friedman. He said don't adjust it at all. You know, figure out what the rate of increase of the population is, and let the money supply increase that much and just stay out of it.”

Raw Story asked: “You think if [Trump] did it” and fired Powell, would it “hit like an A-bomb” on Wall Street?

Beyer said: “Oh my God! I just don't know how he could. You know, Trump cares about the stock market. And the tariffs [on international trade] have been bad for the stock market, and then we pull them back up, but this would be pretty interesting, pretty fast. And inflation is slowly ticking up. And most of the tariffs, three-quarters haven't even hit yet.

“It could get a lot worse, and you have no Jay Powell, you put a lap dog in there who's saying, ‘Mr. President, what should I do now?’ Like our speaker?”

That was a shot at Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA), who apart from advocating for the release of the Epstein files has been a remarkably compliant speaker when it comes to Trump’s priorities.

‘Absolutely needs to go’

On the other side of the Capitol, in the U.S. Senate, one Republican firebrand was in no doubt that Trump should fire Powell and would be within his rights to do so, according to precedent as well as politics.

Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH) cited widely reported “cost overruns” relating to a renovation of the Federal Reserve building as part of Powell’s alleged “mismanagement of the Fed [including] losing hundreds of billions of dollars in the private sector.”

Experts say President Trump likely does not have sufficient cause to fire Powell. Moreno rejects such experts.

“Jerome Powell absolutely needs to go,” Moreno told reporters. “He's costing his country hundreds of billions of dollars and [is] just completely inept. Would you be able to lose $300 billion? OK.”

'They're gonna regret': GOP warned disaster looms as Senate drama boils

WASHINGTON — On Wednesday, the U.S. Senate kicked off a “vote-a-rama” — a lengthy process where senators from both parties get to offer amendments, political or otherwise, on budget measures — as Republicans rushed to appease President Donald Trump by clawing back funding for foreign aid and public broadcasting.

Whenever the party in control of the White House changes, lawmakers seek to undo the previous administration’s agenda. Only this time, the Senate’s debating a $9 billion package shipped to Capitol Hill by former Trump ally Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency.

It’s an effort to enshrine otherwise illegal government-wide cuts — because, constitutionally-speaking, Congress is supposed to hold the nation’s purse strings, not the White House, agencies and un-elected DOGE team members.

Trump has demanded Republicans send him the measure by week’s end — even as veteran Democrats on Capitol Hill predict the political equivalent of nuclear fallout should the GOP pass the measure, thereby upending decades of bipartisanship on such matters in one fell swoop.

“We won't have the resources and capacity to respond to disasters,” Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) told Raw Story of likely effects in the realm of foreign policy should the recissions package pass.

“We'll retreat from fighting pandemics and investing in public health. Dozens of countries that have relied on us as trustworthy partners for decades are left abruptly questioning whether they can count on us at all. So across the world, there will be specific and concrete harms to people: clinics that close, classrooms that shutter, folks who don't get help.”

Three Republican senators tried to block the measure by opposing it in committee, but Vice President JD Vance cast the tiebreaking vote, setting up Wednesday’s amendments marathon.

Among the GOP rebels, Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) raised alarms over the measure's proposed $400 million cut to PEPFAR, a Bush-era program to combat AIDS and HIV in developing countries that’s credited with saving millions of lives.

The White House conceded the point, and agreed to exempt PEPFAR. But the measure’s still promising deep cuts to formerly bipartisan foreign aid programs.

Those cuts will “really hurt our position in the world,” Coons said.

“Isn't China just waiting in the wings?” Raw Story asked of Beijing’s efforts to take America’s place in the developing world.

“They're not waiting here,” Coons said. “They're filling the gap.”

Closer to home, the GOP cuts would hammer public broadcasting, an area long decried by conservative talking heads as biased and costly, even as more moderate Republicans and Democrats have championed public broadcasting as vital for under-served communities.

Rural communities will suffer harmful cuts if Trump gets his wish, said Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ), particularly among Native American communities throughout the U.S.

“For some people, that's their only access to local news,” Kelly told Raw Story while hopping an elevator up to the Senate floor as the “vote-a-rama” kicked off. “For kids, you know, being able to watch Sesame Street and just other shows, and emergency alerts.

“I think people are going to be shocked as some of these stations, whether it's public radio or public broadcasting stations, start to shut down. The public radio thing for the Navajo is really big.”

Asked if he thought Republicans would pay an electoral price for such cuts, the swing state senator predicted backlash for the MAGA-tinged GOP.

“There is a lot of stuff that they're gonna regret,” Kelly said.

He also pointed to the passage earlier this month of President Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” — a mixture of deep health-care cuts, funding boosts for immigration enforcement, and tax cuts — which polls badly with the American people.

“They’re going to regret $4 trillion added to the debt, that they now own,” Kelly said. .

“I think they're going to regret kicking millions of people off their health care, because those people still get sick, and it's going to cost more. Ultimately, it's going to cost somebody more.”

Tapes of Epstein talking about Trump labeled 'too hot': president's biographer

The author Michael Wolff is “still waiting for the right context to tell” the story of Jeffrey Epstein’s long friendship with Donald Trump, because the “hours and hours and hours and hours and hours” of tapes Wolff has of the late sex offender discussing the current president have proved “too hot to handle” for a series of publishers.

“I have had discussion after discussion after discussion with media outlets about these tapes,” Wolff said, “and it always comes to, you know, ‘Life is too short and this is too hot to handle.’ And these are … a list of major media organizations.”

Wolff was talking to Clinton aide turned Lincoln biographer Sidney Blumenthal and Princeton historian Sean Wilentz on their podcast, The Court of History, as the scandal over Trump’s links with Epstein continued to build.

This week, Attorney General Pam Bondi enraged Trump supporters when she said there was no Epstein “client list” of famous men connected to Epstein’s exploitation of young girls, and that the disgraced financier killed himself in a New York jail in 2019, rather than having been murdered. Bondi previously said the list was on her desk, being readied for release.

Trump supporters — prominently including Kash Patel and Dan Bongino, now director and deputy director of the FBI — have long advanced Epstein conspiracy theories and campaigned for files to be released, claiming to do so will expose top Democrats and other establishment figures.

Trump’s extensively documented friendship with Epstein makes this dangerous territory for the president and his administration.

On Saturday, Trump raged: "I don’t like what’s happening. We have a PERFECT Administration, THE TALK OF THE WORLD, and 'selfish people' are trying to hurt it, all over a guy who never dies, Jeffrey Epstein.

"For years, it’s Epstein, over and over again. Why are we giving publicity to Files written by Obama, Crooked Hillary, Comey, Brennan, and the Losers and Criminals of the Biden Administration, who conned the World with the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, 51 'Intelligence' Agents, 'THE LAPTOP FROM HELL,' and more?"

Critics said Trump’s claim that the Epstein files were concocted by his enemies, as he claims various first-term scandals were, appeared to indicate worry that his name is in the files, whatever form they take.

Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and a former Trump aide, has said Trump’s name is in the Epstein files.

Elsewhere on Saturday, a former Florida State Attorney for Palm Beach County told MSNBC some sort of files existed.

"In 2019, there was a raid of Jeffrey Epstein's New York mansion, and there was a safe, and they had to use a saw to get in the safe,” Dave Aronberg said. “And there were hard drives or thumb drives in there.

“What's on the thumb drives? We really still don't know. So I think there's a lot of images. I think there are ties to individuals. And perhaps the DOJ thinks there's not enough evidence to file a lawsuit."

On The Court of History, Wolff repeated previous descriptions of compromising photos of Trump with Epstein and young girls, which he said he had seen and presumed were in Epstein’s safe and thus now with the FBI.

Wolff said he made his tapes with Epstein while using him as a source, including for bestselling books about Trump.

He did not discuss how last year, shortly before the presidential election, he shared a taped conversation with The Daily Beast. Its headline read: “Listen To The Jeffrey Epstein Tapes: ‘I Was Donald Trump’s Closest Friend’.”

“Epstein painted a complicated portrait of Trump,” the Beast reported. “He called him ‘charming,’ and ‘always fun,’ capable of extraordinary salesmanship … but he alleged Trump was a serial cheat in his marriages and loved to ‘f--- the wives of his best friends.’

“He also claimed that while Trump has friends, he was at heart a friendless man incapable of kindness.

“… Asked by Wolff, ‘How do you know all this?’ Epstein replied, ‘I was Donald’s closest friend.”

A Trump spokesman said Wolff “waited until days before the election to make outlandish false smears all in an effort to engage in blatant election interference on behalf of Kamala Harris. He’s a failed journalist that is resorting to lying for attention.”

Trump beat Harris. Six months into his second term, Wolff said his tapes included Trump and Epstein discussing girls and real estate.

Wolff added: “There was one moment where Epstein says, ‘Donald Trump has no scruples.’ So I just went to that, that the man who represents, you know, evil incarnate, can stand back and say, ‘Donald Trump has … no scruples.”

Saying Epstein had “a very comprehensive deep-dive view of Trump, of what he could do, what he couldn't do,” Wolff said the financier “always pointed out … that Trump was innumerate. He couldn't read a balance sheet … [and] in terms of a larger sense of administration and management and executive function, … was utterly hopeless.”

Such tapes, Wolff said, have convinced him Trump and Epstein’s long friendship is “a central story of our time,” making his failure to agree a deal to publish work based on his tapes all the more frustrating.

“I can't believe that people would not want it told, even from a commercial perspective,” Wolff said.

“I mean, I keep saying to people, you know, have you been on the internet? This is what the internet is about … one of its pillars is Jeffrey Epstein.

“But there is an incredible reluctance to take on this story now. Maybe now, it feels like something is changing. The Wall Street Journal … did quite a comprehensive review of all of the known connections Trump and Epstein had. And I thought that was pretty notable.

“This is, of course, against the backdrop of Trump always saying, ‘I barely knew the guy, you know, we once passed in the hall,’ or something like that.

“So I … wait for the right context in which to tell this story.”

'I'm looking forward': GOP senators won't even say embattled Hegseth's name

WASHINGTON — Republican senators may have confirmed Pete Hegseth as the nation’s 29th defense secretary, but as Pentagon scandals keep stacking up, powerful U.S. senators are refusing to even discuss the embattled military leader.

In March, congressional Republicans rolled their eyes, joked or laughed nervously after Hegseth added the editor in chief of The Atlantic to a private Signal group chat where war plans were discussed.

Now, many in the GOP now seem dismayed by news Hegseth blocked military aid to Ukraine without telling his boss, President Donald Trump.

“What do you make of the news out of the Pentagon this week about the Ukraine funding?” Raw Story pressed the chair of the powerful Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday. “Is the media making too much out of this? Or is there something to be worried about [in] people in the Pentagon undercutting the president?”

“I just wouldn’t be able to comment,” Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS) said as he hopped the nearest Capitol elevator.

Wicker wasn’t alone. The chair of the formidable Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Jim Risch (R-ID), also dodged discussing Hegseth.

“Your thoughts on what happened with this Ukraine funding?” Raw Story asked.

“I know where you're going with this,” Risch said, while riding an elevator with Raw Story.

Like Wicker, Risch refused to even utter the defense secretary’s name.

“Talking about the …” Risch stammered. “I don't know anything about that, and I'm looking forward. I know you guys are looking backward. I'm looking forward. Okay?”

“Do you think my colleagues are paying too much attention to this?” Raw Story asked.

“Absolutely, yeah, absolutely,” Risch said, walking on. “There's nothing to be gained by looking backward. There's everything to be gained by looking forward.”

“But you’re not worried about people at the Pentagon trying to undercut the president?”

“Not at all,” Risch replied. “No I'm not. Listen, he knows how to do this stuff.”

Nonetheless, speculation over how President Trump will choose to handle Hegseth is mounting, given the Ukraine aid fiasco is only the latest public misstep from the former Fox News host.

Observers sense change afoot after Trump publicly attacked Russian president Vladimir Putin while greenlighting the Ukraine military package over protests from the MAGA wing of the GOP.

On Capitol Hill, for many on the far-right of the GOP, efforts to block Ukraine military aid are in the rearview mirror.

For years, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) was one of the loudest voices of resistance to funding Ukraine. Not anymore.The former Homeland Security Committee chair says it’s a proverbial new day.

“Curious for your thoughts on the seemingly new Ukraine policy?” Raw Story asked.

“It's kind of recognizing reality,” Johnson said. “I mean, the aggressor here is Putin … President Trump's given him every opportunity like he gave the ayatollahs [in Iran] to come at the table. You know, 'End this war, end your nuclear program.' He's trying to do the same thing.”

What then does Sen. Johnson make of Hegseth cutting military aid without clearing it with the White House?

“I’m not even aware of it,” Johnson said. “So I have no comment on that.”

Other more MAGA-tinged Republicans are also singing a new tune.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), a member of the Homeland Security Committee and a committed America First populist, joined Johnson in vigorously opposing President Joe Biden's efforts to assist Kyiv.

“What is this?” Hawley asked. “I've been asked a lot of Hegseth questions recently.”

Raw Story helped him out: “Is the media making too much of this? It kind of seems like President Trump might have been undercut on Ukraine policy.”

“Well, I mean, listen, I mean, everybody … he [Hegseth] serves at the pleasure of the President. Like, the President wants him gone, he'll be gone,” Hawley said, before entering the Senate chamber.

“But I think he seems to be doing a good job. I don't know. Again, I don't get caught up in cabinet drama.”

“No buyer’s remorse?” Raw Story pressed.

“Well, I mean, I didn’t buy him,” Hawley said. “He’s the president's choice.”

“That’s a nice way to wash your hands of every nominee,” Raw Story said.

“I thought he was qualified to do the job,” Hawley said. “Beyond that, he's the President's choice, which is why I also won't have a meltdown if it's like … ‘Well, the President's gonna change him.’ He can do whatever he wants with his cabinet.”

‘Watch your step’

Democrats — most of whom support funding Ukraine in its war against Russian invaders — are worried over the national security implications of Hegseth’s latest error, even as many sense the president losing faith in his Pentagon chief.

“Well, you better watch your step,” Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) — the Senate minority whip — told Raw Story. “Doesn't take much to get this president to decide that you're finished.”

Democrats who opposed Hegseth's confirmation are hoping this episode will at least go some way to restrain him.

“If Secretary Hegseth has not figured it out now or figured it out yet, he works for someone,” Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) told Raw Story.

“It appears that this Secretary just wants to be in charge, [to] be the president himself. And you know, I appreciate the President standing up to him and supporting Ukraine in this case.

“But it's very concerning that the Secretary of Defense is making arbitrary decisions without those that he has to work with and report to, namely, Secretary [of State Marco] Rubio as well as the President of the United States.”

As for powerful GOP senators like Wicker and Risch avoiding Hegseth like the plague?

“Turning a blind eye to all of this is not good for our national security, especially when we have responsibilities of oversight. This should be very concerning, and there should be briefings and hearings and gifts or whatever required to be able to get to the bottom of this,” Sen. Luján said.

“Someone needs to have answers.”

'Technically world war': UK's ex-foreign secretary gives ominous Trump warning

A third world war could soon “technically” come to pass if Donald Trump’s presence in the White House encourages China to attack Taiwan, a former UK Foreign Secretary said.

“To me, there is a very dangerous scenario in which [Russian President Vladimir] Putin gets something he can describe as a win in Ukraine and China thinks that they will have a crack at Taiwan while Trump is still president, because they don't think in a month of Sundays he would actually send American troops to defend Taiwan,” Jeremy Hunt said.

“If that happened, it would potentially be technically a world war, because you could have conflict in Europe and in Asia at the same time, with a whole set of alliances behind Ukraine and Taiwan and another set of alliances behind China and Russia.”

Trump has long opposed US aid to Ukraine in its fight against Russian invaders. Amid widespread speculation about the US president’s apparent closeness to Putin, Trump has also failed to deliver on campaign trail promises to swiftly end the war.

Trump's commitment to Taiwan, long close to the U.S., has long been questioned. U.S. intelligence reportedly believes Chinese president Xi Jinping has told generals to be ready to invade the self-governing island by 2027.

Hunt was speaking to the One Decision podcast, hosted by Kate McCann, a reporter, and Sir Richard Dearlove, a former head of the British intelligence service MI6.

Hunt, a Conservative, was foreign secretary from July 2018 to July 2019, while Trump was first in the White House. From October 2022 to July 2024, Hunt was chancellor of the exchequer. Though his party is now out of power, he remains an MP.

On One Decision, Dearlove described Trump’s “achievement” in “bully[ing] the Europeans, particularly Germany” to “up their defense spending” in the face of Russia’s growing threat.

Though Hunt agreed with Dearlove that Trump was “a problem solver” on issues such as immigration, he said he “profoundly disagree[d] with [Trump on] Ukraine.”

Describing a liking for playing “fantasy politics,” about what he would do were he still in office, Hunt said: “It's very clear that Trump doesn't want to defend Europe, and doesn't doesn't believe it's his job to defend Europe, but we know that we cannot defend ourselves because we're totally dependent on the US military presence in Europe and Ukraine is completely dependent on US military support.

“So therefore the most important thing is to play for time, because what would be catastrophic is an immediate American withdrawal of support. We could perhaps cope if they withdrew it in five or 10 years time, while we ramp up our own defensive capabilities.

“But the most important thing is, therefore, not to do anything that provokes an immediate withdrawal. And I just wonder if that's the reason why, when Trump started his 'Liberation Day' trade war, the EU was uncharacteristically emollient to America compared to China, which immediately slapped on retaliatory tariffs.”

Hunt also described a “cloak and dagger meeting” he had while foreign secretary with the late Oleg Gordievski, who he called “probably the greatest spy of the Cold War.”

“He was briefly KGB station chief in London,” Hunt said, “and he was spying for us during that period, and I went to meet him, and the thing he said to me which really stuck in my mind, was this thing that the only thing that Putin respects is strength.

“So I think from our point of view, we absolutely do need to show that we're serious about our military capabilities, and we don't tempt him to think, ‘Maybe I could make a play for Estonia while NATO is in chaos.’”

Hunt also described consultations with Henry Kissinger, in which the late US Secretary of State and National Security Adviser warned of a scenario very like the one Hunt said could lead to “technical” world war.

“Kissinger said to me that when Ukraine was invaded, some very senior people in the Communist Party leadership in China thought the West was trying to provoke an invasion of Taiwan,” Hunt said, “… because they thought we wanted to sanction China like we were sanctioning Russia.”

That, Hunt said, was “absolute nonsense.”

“But Russia is the worst for conspiracy theories. I mean, Putin, I think there is a side to him that thinks that … the West is out to get him, and attack is the best form of defense. And so I think you have to balance ramping up your strength with enough dialogue to make sure you don't have misunderstandings that lead to war.”

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